Driving home from Valdez

in #life6 years ago

We seen a glacier, a cave, rusty red mountains and a long dead volcano. Then a surprise at the end.

This is a three part trip:
Part one
Part two

This post is part three.

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”Railroad tunnel of 1906”, “The Iron Trail” by Rex Beach. Describes these events and this area. This tunnel was hand cut into the solid rock of Keaystone Canyon and is all this is left of the “railroad era”. When nine companies fought to take advantage of the short route from the coast to the Copper Mines at Kennecott. However a feud interrupted progress, a gun battle was fought and the tunnel was never finished.”

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This is the main opening, you can see at the far end there is another opening.

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Here is the far end opening.

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More from the far end opening.

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The kids playing in the giant puddle on the floor, they hopped from one rock to another. Plus is made for some really cool photos. 😊

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Proof of cave/tunnel


We traveled a bit further down the road and found another road sign, this one is easier to read. 😊
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Then back onto the road again, towards the glacier.
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*If you are curious as to what the person in the lower right is doing I got a close up.😊”

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This dude gets mega props for his cot in the back of this car, he was cooking breakfast on a propane stove 👌

First stop is the bathroom.
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Yeah they make sure no one can steal TP. Such a strange thing to worry about. What kinda world do we live in that we have to worry about toilet paper thiefs.

Anyways back to the point, the glacier.
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We have these gazebos set up to have information posters. I tried to make put them together without loosing all the info, but it didn’t work. 😕
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Now we are walking down the bath to the viewing area

We walked around the railing, it had a warning sign that said we ‘enter at our own risk, and to watch for falling rocks’.
We walked up to the glacial pool.
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After playing with the silt and ice we started the hike up to the glacier.
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We walked higher...
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...and higher
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After being unable to touch the glacier because of unstable rocks, we headed down.
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This is looking back up at it
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These are the streams that are produced by the run off.
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Then back on the road.
We drove aways and seen another gazebo.

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The se read this one...
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Say what!!?? I have been driving by a volcano and didn’t even know it!

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We got backnon the road and headed towards the valcano.
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After that we just kept driving, had more heated discussions and awkward silences.
We went to bed.
Then at 0509 the next morning I got a moose road kill call.
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By the time I got there is had been sitting to long.
The actual log from the troopers said it was hit at 0420, but they called us 45 mins later( close enough anyways).

Then I had to call them and say it was to far gone to take. It was a calf. The kids and I tried to load it, a kid on each leg. The guts ruptured bad. It was not useable 😢
So the troopers told me to drag it to the tree line. So the kids and I dragged it through thick sticky fresh construction stuff, about 100 feet.
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• All photos and content are our own. Please do not use any part of this post without our expressed permission. Thanks for not being a dick •

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Wow. What an amazing trip!!!!!!!!!! Thank you for taking pictures of all the information so we can all read it. Wow. Just wow. The pictures with the low laying clouds are breathtaking too. Did I say Wow yet? I am envious! You saved the best for last.

Poor little calf! I hate it when the young ones die for nothing.

Me too, I tried. 😔 It was to far gone. I mean if I had tried to spill the guts it would have ruptured out of the hole. It was like pushing on an over inflated ballon. When they are that bad there is no saving the meat.
We had one last year that was the same way. We salvaged a quarter off of it, that’s it. The rest was tainted from bile, or way beyond just blood shot. It was also a calf.

Hey, I commend you for trying. ❤️

The tunnel serves as a good reminder of how tough and rugged times were... Someone, somewhere dug that tunnel out... Pretty hardcore.
Some nice RV's there! (Is that guy living out of his truck permanently)?
Padlocks on toilet rolls?
Shame about the calf....

Yeah it was hard core work for sure!
I’m not sure if the guy is or not. His plates were from California, could be just traveling.
Yeah I guess there is a major problem with people stealing TP here because all out houses at rest stops have them locked up. Even the stores have them locked in a plastic shell dispenser.
It was turely sucky about the calf.

Great post @alaskahippie

I've never been to Alaska but looking forward to that day. Still have Hawaii and Peurto Rico to hit as well though. Getting ready to head back out soon though and not really caring where I end up as long as I get there with an adventure behind me :0)

Thanks for the story!

Never been to Hawaii or PR. Maybe one day.

Your welcome 😊

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