Trip to Valdez

On Saturday, 9 of the temporary works/interns took a trip to Valdez (which is along the coast, about 2 hrs south of where I am staying) just to pick up some supplies from the slightly less expensive grocery store and walk around a bit. On the way down we saw a bear; I have no idea if it was a brown bear or just a blond black bear we noticed it too late. Upon getting to Valdez the group broke up a bit and walked around the town. Myself along with two other people headed off to one of the thrift stores. I bought a small food processor, yay to making homemade hummus, seriously food is expensive.

After looking at that store and a few others we headed to a nearby hotel, which has a bar/restaurant attached to it, to get some food and a drink. We sat at the bar and had an interesting conversation with the bar tender, who turned out to be the owner of the bar. After a while he comes over shaking a drink and sets up three shots (we didn't ask for them). We asked what it was and I joking said I was a little scared but he told us to try them. After asking what it was he told us the name (it was Russian no idea what is was). After drinking it he goes “this is a $100 bottle of vodka.” I must say it was pretty good, but I was a little scared for a second I wasn't about to pay $20 for a shot or whatever it would have equated to. In the end we were about to leave and after having 5 beers plus the shots between the three of us he hands us a $10 total bill, saying it was the family price. We gave him a good tip because that was definitely worth a lot more than $10. That was a nice little surprise for trip. Don’t worry anyone none of us were on driving duty…thank god because that vodka was REALLY good ; )

A little later in the day the group met up and we headed to the store for the supplies. Then we went across the bay to see the fish hatchery. When we got to the other side we stopped to look around and got to see some sea otters. This was the perfect time to scan the water with my binoculars (Thank you Marc for 

loaning them to me, I have found them handy many times already…and to everyone else, no I am not using them to creep on people). I was able to locate several sea gulls, a few arctic terns, a raven getting attacked by some pretty annoyed crows, and I heard a bald eagle, I couldn't find it though (sad days). During my searching I kept seeing these darker birds, but they were just too far away for me to see them properly. After at least 15min of me following these birds

willing them to land closer, three of the birds landed close enough in the water for me to get a halfway decent look and a picture. With a little investigation I found out they were harlequin ducks, they are pretty sweet looking

After taking some pictures around the hatchery we all headed back, stopping along the way to catch some cool pictures. Then we hit a little snag, there was a tree on the road. So all 9 of us got out along with some other drivers and started trying to move this tree. A tow truck just happened to be going along the road so we were able to hook up a strap

Harlequin duck

to the tree and he pulled it off of the road.

I would say that was probably the most interesting day I have had here yet.