The place I crushed for the few hours till the ferry would leave was in a small tent right at the ferry pier. At 3:00 AM I was woken by the arriving ferry and so I packed my belongings and went on the ferry. Two hours after arriving, the ferry left the fogy Valdez harbor.

We had a wonderful ferry journey, the nicest I had up here – this is probably mostly due to the sun we had after we left the inlet on witch Valdez is located. We saw killer whales and dolphins along the journey and the salmon was jumping out of the water everywhere – I do not know why they doing that. We cloud also see glaciers up in the mountains – like everywhere in Alaska – and some of them came even all the way to the sea. It was a very nice ferry ride and I stayed on deck for the most of the time

After about 10 hours we reached Seward and I liked the Place – this was probably also because of the wonderful sunny weather. I checked first the Hostel to see whether I could camp there but this was not possible. I ended up at the Waterfront Campground which is a nice place and cost just 8 dollars. After pitching the tent I had a look around town and also here – like in the most coastal towns in Alaska – fishing is the ‘”thing”. In the small boat harbor I observed the cleaning of the days catch and had to smile about the tourists having there picture taken with there BIG catch.

I had some wonderful sunny days in Seward and first I did everything that “needed” nice weather like a trip to the Harding Icefield, the biggest icefiled on the North American continent. To get there, I first had to cycle some 14 miles – not to mention – and then to walk for some hours up along the Exit-Glacier. The view was great up there and it was hard to imagine that the end I could see was just about the middle of the icefield. I stayed for some hours up there and enjoyed the sun – I did not know then that this would be the last sun for some days.

The weather turned bad once more and I got “staked” in Seward. Somehow I did not mind too much about being staked, since I had to do quite some administration. My daily routine for the next few rainy days was, to get up around 7:30 AM and go for a coffee in the Raven-Café. Along with the coffee I had either some cookies or a Muffin or whatever half-price-leftover from the day before was available. At 11:00 AM I moved to the library and stayed there till it closed at 8:00 PM – there I could use Internet, read magazines and News Papers and was sheltered from the rain. Then I had a walk into town for some slices of Pizza in the Apollo II restaurant. They closed at around 10:30 PM and so I went back to the tent for the night and get rested for the next Raven-Library-Apollo II day.

Was it in the beginning quite enjoyable to have an “ordered” life, I was really happy that after 5 days the sun came back. I packed my tent and went on towards Anchorage. By now the fall had arrived and the leaves of the trees were yellow and the bushes red. I had a wonderful ride over a small pass – up there the colors were even more intense – and on the way down I passed the road sign “Hope”. I remember how someone was cheering about this place and someone found it was not worthwhile to go there. I thought what the heck with it – it is just 16 miles to get there and then 16 miles back to the main road – so I went for it. There was really not a lot to do there – especially after the fishing season ended but I stayed for the night and had some beers in the bar with the locals – I’m glad I went there.

The next day I went back to the main road and continued my journey to Anchorage. After some miles on the main road I decided to make an other detour, this time along the Portage-Valley towards Whittier. I had been reading about Whittier and I was eager the see it by my own eyes. Unfortunately the road goes through a tunnel about 8 miles before Whittier and you are not allowed to cycle through it. Because nobody was willing to give me a lift, I did not reach Whittier. First I felt sad that I was turned back so close from my destination. Afterwards, as I saw some pictures of Whittier I did not mind that much anymore. The description of the place ‘…. the town is surrounded by sheer cliffs and the only access is by sea ….’ was not that accurate. On the pictures it looked more like normal mountains and not like the 1000 meter vertical drops in my head.

The last part was the 90 km to Anchorage and I got there at mid afternoon. The fact that I had to cycle for almost one hour through the rush-hour did not really help to like this city from the beginning – especially after the days and weeks I spent in the vast Alaskan Countryside. It did also not really improve my feelings towards Anchorage as I discovered that I had lost my jacked somewhere along the road from the city outskirt to the Hostel. I cycled – it was still rush-hour – all the way back but the jacked was gone – it took me some days of wandering around the city till I started to like Anchorage.