So I heard you're planning a trip to Alaska and you don't
know if you should add Valdez to your itinerary. Need not
worry. We're going to let you in on those deets here real quick.
Let's go.
Hey, hon. I'm making some chai tea if you want some. Yes,
please. Oh, heck yeah. Thank you. Even got my dad joke one
going. Yeah, that's a good stuff. Perfect for a rainy day.
Hey, I also got my sweatpants on. Got my awesome little
slippers on. We're good to go. Let me just have a seat. My
favorite place in the RV. Ah. So, Valdez. I'm just going to
say it. Yes, you should plan a trip to Valdez if you're
going to be in Alaska. It's a big deal. Uh we're going to
tell you why you should visit Valdez and then we're also
going to give you some tips on visiting Valdez and what to
look out for. Oh well and I think we should also talk about
finances because that's always a plus like how much we spent
in RV parks, the excursions we took and that adds up quickly.
Let's just go along with all that as we proceed please.
Here's a fun fact right off the get go. Did you know that
Valdez is actually known as the snowiest town in Alaska. All
arguably in the United States of America but that depends on
what resource you're looking at it just gets a lot of snow okay
I don't make the rules no kidding well let's just kick it
off by saying we did it right from the beginning we were
going to haul our butts from Toke all the way to Valdez in
one day and though it looks doable on a map we decided to
split it up we actually stayed at Glen Allen and an RV park
there and this decided a two hour drive in the Valdez should
be fine a two hour drive in the Valdez turn into a hour drive
which includes stops, breaks, and all the construction. What
what what do you have to say about all the construction
babe? The construction, Alaska has plenty of it. No halt in
the construction whatsoever. No matter where you go. They're
always trying to improve the roads and I gotta give it to
them. Uh my heart goes out to them because it's just never
ending. When you get here with your RV, expect some rough
roads especially in these construction sites where they
have the road torn up to nothing. It's literally just
dirt patches and you're going down these gullies and back up.
You're maneuvering in very tight spaces. It just is all
part of the adventure. The coolest part though I have to
say is we were in a rush which is great and that's something
we want to encourage you guys as well if you're planning on
doing the drive to Valdez, Alaska. Do not rush. Enjoy the
journey. Enjoy the construction. Take the time to
just get out, stretch your legs, and look around because
it is beautiful. The drive itself is an attraction. I'm
telling you. So you're not going to want to feel rushed
that day. You're going to want to take your time. Pull
over when you feel like you want to pull over. Have your
cameras ready. Wear your contact lenses if you're blind
like me. It is like driving through Jurassic Park world. Is
that what it's called Jurassic Park World? Uh something like
that. The best part I feel like about the drive was you got to
see a free glacier along your way. Wasn't that called
Worthington Glacier I believe as we were driving about it was
about 30 miles outside of Alves. You got to see that on
your way out and the views were phenomenal. Not including a
surprise waterfall we pulled up to. What was that all about?
That snuck up on us quickly. I did read about it in the Mile
Postbook and I'm like there's supposedly a really cool
waterfall that we should maybe check out but we weren't
planning on stopping. We were saying let's drive to it from
Valdez because it's about 13 miles from Valdez itself and we
were like ah we'll see it another time. I was driving the
truck and like something made me pull over. I couldn't help
myself. I had to quick like get on the radio to tell Keith and
Rainey or pull it right now. You got the drone out and got
some really cool shots. I just stood there like, here's the
best part. Plenty of parking alongside the road there. So,
if you're driving a big fifth wheel, you'll have plenty of
room there. How many times you're out on the road and you
see something nice and there's no parking. You're like, well,
wish I could've stopped and saw that. Bridal Vale Falls, y'all
did it well. You did it right. With all the free parking is
able to whip the drone up. It was a 600-foot waterfall I
think, something incredible like that, definitely worth a
stop to see and of course, if you miss it, you could just
back from Valdez. It's only 13 miles away. Come on Carl. The
best part about the drive that day is that we had all
sunshine. All sunshine on the radar. You know who else is all
full of sunshine? Let me show you. Hi. You're full of
sunshine. Did you go to Valdes? Did you go to Valdez in Alaska?
Can I help you? By the way, I don't think I say this enough.
If you guys enjoy our content, make sure you hit the subscribe
button, it's free and also hit that notification bell right
next to the subscribe button because a lot of y'all are
reaching out like, do you even make videos more Hanks family.
If you hit the bell, it will make sure YouTube will share
every video with you. That's a warning. Okay, so the drive to
Valdes obviously is incredible but actually finding a spot in
Valdez. It wasn't as bad as you thought it would be. There's
plenty of RV parks. We stayed at Bearer Paw RV Park but the
coolest part was they had an adult-only section right on the
water. I'm not trying to brag but I'm trying to say you must
go there if you're in the area. Okay but I will share negative
no no has coming out and I will share the experience we had at
check in that that was odd. Um when we went to check both of
our RVs and now I made this reservation for Bearpaw two
back in April and everything was all good we paid a deposit
but when we got there the guy was like we don't have
anything. He was very confused about us being there. Low and
behold he had sights for us and they were waterfront at the
adult park but I'm just saying that was kind of a weird
experience there. So I'm not sure what advice to offer you
in that scenario but sometimes they don't have your
information I guess. But besides that our RV sites were
real nice. Backed up right into the harbor. Waterfront.
Seagulls galore. The seagulls.
And just in case you're wondering, we paid $60 a night,
we had full hookups, 50 amp back in sight. To set the
record straight, there's tons of RV parks, and Valdes so you
probably won't have a hard time finding a spot to stay. To set
the tone, however, what Valdes is like. Think of fisherman
town. Plenty of fishing, lots of boats, sea life. It's
incredible if that's what you're into. Being on the water
right on the water, we got to sit there and watch the boats
go back and forth which was really neat to see. Even
better, however, was the time we got to jump on a boat and
we're going to get to that in just a second. Actually, if you
want something amazing to do while visiting there, we'll get
into it right now.
Can I just say how I judge myself so hard for putting
those snippets together for you guys because it makes us look
like we have this amazing life this epic life but in reality
it's just a bunch of footage with some music. I try not to
judge myself too much because I want you guys there to
experience it for yourself. Nonetheless, I'm pretty happy
that I was able to capture all that with our own cameras. Nae
Nae really came in clutch there with some amazing what was it?
Dad jokes.
They act just like Dexter. Seals the deal. Do you think
they ever kind of like get tired and hit a ceiling? You
get it? Ceiling, you know, like hitting a hitting a wall,
hitting a scene. Okay, I'll I'll stop it. It's funny you
talk about that little montage with the music because I feel
like the music really does it. But what if we put this song to
it?
Or what about this song?
Or
go back to the original. Definitely hit up your local
glacier wildlife cruise that's in the area. We did the Lulu
Bell which is like well known. I heard something interesting
hon and somebody that I talked to that lives in Alaska said
that this maybe Fred's last year doing the Lulu Bell. Are
you serious? Captain Fred? He was the guy that made the whole
cruise what it is. The coolest part about Captain Fred is he's
so down to earth. He was a hundred and forty-five dollars
a person to get on this like glacier cruise and you think
Wow, that's a little pricey but if we were out there for nine
hours straight. No word of a lie and sometimes Kat and Fred
will keep people out there for like ten, 11 hours. We've seen
it personally. That's a long time and I don't feel like we
were prepared mentally to be on a boat for nine hours like we
didn't dress warm enough. The sun was out that day which was
a benefit that we got to see everything but we thought it
would be warmer than what it was. So, just dress in layers.
Bring plenty of cash because they serve food on the on the
ship. We had salmon chowder soup. We had muffins. There
were brownies in the evening. They had all sorts of snacks.
He did not stop talking by the way. We thought that he was on
like a recording because he was talking and giving so much
information. We were actually inside the captain's quarters
at one point and he's just holding the microphone. He's
just talking the whole time. He is amazing. Wealth of
knowledge. Give that guy a YouTube channel. Alright, so
what can you actually expect on the tour? When am favorite
things was the amount of sea life we were exposed to. Sea
otters, sea lions, humpback whales. The best part was
Captain Fred took you up close and personal to each and every
one of them. He did it in such a way. Well he just knows what
he's doing. He's been doing it for his whole life is what he
explained. And the craziest part was the amount of shots
and exposure you had to this wildlife was unlike other.
Unlike anything I've ever seen in my life. Now skipping
forward to the glacier itself this glacier was exposed to an
earthquake back in I think that late 80s or 90s it was like a
9. 2 magnitude earthquake I'm not 100% sure on the history
but it really took a toll on this glacier and we get out
there and Captain Fred was telling us about the whole how
it started here and then we proceeded in like I think it
was miles and over time this glacier's breaking off into the
ocean
There you go. Pretty big piece just fell. You could see it.
See that big spray. So he took us through these what it felt
like the Titanic. Legit. We are pushing through ice slowly. And
I think well we're close enough to the glacier right? No. Cat
and Fred's like let's keep going. He's like we might be
able to sneak a little bit closer. He just kept saying
that and saying that I think he knew he was going closer. He
just wanted to like egg us on. The best was when there was
like a legit little iceberg in front of us and people in the
boat are like you're you're hitting there's big clump ice
here and he just pushed it and broke it like out of the way.
No big deal, friends. Just pushing icebergs out of the
way. The chill you felt as you got close to the glacier was
just unreal and it definitely made a difference when you got
away from the glacier. So, that is just something cool to
experience like we were bundled up nice and warm and toasty and
it was end of June. Hopefully, the Lulu Belle is still
available for you guys to do in the future but if not, there's
tons of other tours in different areas that do glacier
and wildlife tours. It's definitely something you
want to add to your list while you're in Alaska. Were we
looking forward to going out and having some local cuisine?
Yes. My favorite place we went was the Nat Shack is a food
truck kind of centered in the middle of town but with Views
of the Harbor, other places we really enjoyed eating at was
the stampmill for pizza and beer and the legendary Fat
Mermaid. I'll tell you what though, every time we are
getting food, we always think to ourselves, we gotta film
this because we want to show you guys like how delicious
this meal looks and every time we don't because the food comes
out and we're just like but how about that weather all week in
Valdez you remember how can I forget okay Valdes is known as
being a really rainy place there's increased amounts of
rainfall luckily when we hit it on the first day there with the
Lulu Baltour it was crystal clear outside sunshine and it
was amazing views but the rest of the week, it was completely
overcast, cloudy, and all the mountains were hidden. So, it's
kind of bummed out about that but it gives us a great excuse
to go back and visit Valdez in the near future. Alright, I do
have a question for you. However, Nae Nae, was there
anything you disliked about Valdes? Well, that's a good
one. I would say it kind of felt like you were trapped on
an island in a way. Like once you're in Valdez, you're in it.
So, being there for a week was probably good enough. There's
enough resources get you through the week but I don't
know if I'd be able to like be in Valdez for a long period of
time. Now listen, there is a lot of people always asking,
how can we support you, Hanks? Well, here's a big thing. It's
always watching our videos and believe it or not, we have a
plethora of videos for you to catch up on. Imma throw a
playlist up here for you to watch. It will start you from
the beginning and get you caught up til now. We love you
guys. Thanks for your support and we'll see you next
Thursday. Bye guys.