Valdez to Seward, the end of this vacation

After we left the Wrangell-St Elias mountains we had plans to spend a few days around Valdez, camping and hiking and exploring the area, and then heading over to the tiny little fishing town of Cordova for a bit.  But...after only having sun two of the first five days of our trip and seeing that the forecast called for another four days of low clouds and rain, we rethought our plan. 

We decided to spend one more night in the area, see the sites and then pack up and started the drive back to central Alaska, where it was supposed to be sunnier! We spent a day fishing and playing at Blueberry Lake and then made the gorgeous drive over a pass and through a fabulous canyon to the little town of Valdez.  On the drive we stopped to view a few more glaciers and to watch a black bear run across the hills. 

Ethan and Malley were pretty amazed with the fish Aaron caught at Blueberry Lake.

Ethan helping Daddy cook breakfast.  Nothing better than banana pancakes while camping!!

Ethan exploring the area around the cabin before we left.

We took our time on the drive home to explore more things on the way back to town.  We lunched at an awesome Thai food truck in the tiny little town of Glennallen and discovered Ethan LOVES pad thai.  He ate it up and wasn't sharing!

Ethan slept most of the drive back and when he did wake up we made a stop at Matanuska Glacier State Park for a while so he could get out and play for a bit.  We saw some great views of another fantastic glacier coving most of a large valley. 

Ethan burned off his Thai lunch by walking most of a mile trail through the woods in the park.  Pretty impressive on those little legs.  You can see in the picture that E is at the end of another growth spurt - he's gotten taller and leaner in the last few weeks...and is looking like such a big boy.

We got back to Anchorage on Thursday afternoon to sun and warmth and SOAKED IT UP!  After drying out our gear and doing a few loads of laundry, we packed our little family back into the car on Friday, hooked up the boat and headed down to Seward to spend the rest of our vacation week out on the boat in Resurrection Bay.  

We fished the waters and caught some impressive fish,

explored more of the Bay and saw the beautiful sites,

and camped in our favorite little cove - all by ourselves except for the birds and fish. 

It was a fantastic end to a fun trip exploring our state.  Aaron and I were pretty happy that we decided to leave the eastern side of the state and all their cold, low laying clouds.  We had a fantastic time being out on our boat and warming up a bit.  (even though it was cloudy in Seward, they were high in the sky and not cold!)

This is our boat floating in Thumb Cove.  She's not much of a looker, but she takes us to some beautiful places.