Departing the Royal Princess on early Saturday morning was bittersweet. We had had a great time aboard our cruise ship and hated to go, especially leaving all that food! But we also knew that we had another exciting leg of our trip to look forward to - the interior Alaska land portion. We had booked a tour called "Off The Beaten Path" because we wanted to see a few less-visited sites that went beyond Denali. With the closure of the park, it's a good thing we did.
We ate breakfast and went to our tour's meeting place for our 7:30 a.m. check-in. We were then directed to exit the ship and then leave the main group and go through a crack in the fence to board another vessel, a catamaran called the Chugach Express which would take us on a four hour ride to Valdez. The Chugach Express looked a lot like this:
The Chugach Express took good care of us. "Chugach" is a reference to a mountain range in southern Alaska. We made a stop at the Beloit Glacier for a close-up look.
We continued on for the remainder of our scenic journey through Prince William Sound in our journey from Whittier to Valdez. Once we got there, we loaded up onto our motor coach with our driver/guide Wendy who would be with us for a few days. Before we got too far, we stopped in the town of Valdez for lunch. Debbie and I chose to go with Wendy's recommendation to eat at the Fat Mermaid.
After lunch, we made a quick pit stop at the Safeway grocery store and loaded up on some food since our meals were NOT included on the land portion of the tour. We bought tea, pretzels, M&Ms, mint Oreo's - you know, the essentials.
Back on the bus, we started our three-hour journey to the Princess Copper River Wilderness Lodge. Along the way, Wendy pulled over for a couple of stops, including this stunning waterfall:
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