we have a knack for moving on really crappy days and so it's very windy out very rainy
but it's also a good day to move because we didn't have any excursions or anything planned
well we decided to not go to Whittier today we're staying at the willawaw national forest
campground I love national forest campgrounds but the national forest website sucks as far
as campground information and I wasn't really sure we'd be able to get a spot here just
because it looks like there's only a couple of spots that are first come first serve online
oh my gosh talking to the campground host and there's 60 sites here only 17 are reservable
he said yeah it's not really clear online at all how many sites are first come first
serve there's tons of them this campground supposedly has great views but the weather
is really bad today and you see us getting all geared up in our heavier rain gear boggs
visitor center is about a mile and a half so we're gonna go do a walk up to that direction
here's a problem with uh filming and um rain makes a little more more difficult that's
why we're talking inside here that way because the rain drops hit the mic and it makes it
sound really staticky and crackly so that's a bit of a problem sometimes but we'll we'll
try to capture what we can in the rain we'll just take the mic off the gopro and we're
good if you're curious what it sounds like go check out some of our Scotland videos no
kidding anyway let's go for a walk
we're actually on the trail of blue ice trail but it's also the one that goes to the visitor
center and but it's really pretty
out here but this is a cool trail
oh it is hard to walk
whoo that was an intense walk blowing wind driving rain and now we're back Ronda went
to the hand pump water thing at the forest service campground and is filling up one gallon
jug she's taking a couple and putting in the tank we've got some water going into our Berkey
so at least the water here is pumpable unlike the last place uh one of the issues we have
obviously is when our stuff is really wet one of the reasons we don't like to go out
the dumping rain we just don't have a place to dry our stuff but I've got my raincoat
and rain pants hanging up in the bathroom and then when Ronda gets back I'll hang hers
up in there too and hopefully they'll get somewhat dry but it is what it is and it was
nice getting out for some good exercise anyway trailer some boats to the right
22 for truck and trailer to go through the Whittier tunnel so this goes this way towards
Whittier from bear valley every hour on the half hour 8:30 9:30 10:30 blah blah blah and
then the other direction on the hour every hour and then that also allows for the occasional
train traffic to go through
so they do a really good job of making sure that everybody is properly spaced so they
have these sequencing lights as you leave so everybody gets a lane but once your lane
goes they also have a timing light
these cars are supposed to maintain 35 feet I think we are supposed to keep like 500
and then the trucks are 1500.
and here we go
that's a cool little tunnel entrance
do well we've arrived in Whittier we took our little trip from hope through the tunnel
and arrived in Whittier
all right well because of this driving rain it's not just a little drizzle it's been dumping
rain now we're on probably day three or four of just dumping rain a little hard to film
stuff and show you what the town looks like.
This town was kind of sprung from world war II when the japanese uh invaded the Aleutian
chain and this was kind of a good place for an army outpost basically and so there's one
condo here where all the residents live in the same building it's it's kind of a funky
little town but it's also a big cruise ship terminal so uh there's a huge lack without
cruise ships there's really not a lot of people here but there's a couple shops and you know
a couple charters a couple of fishing charters kayak you know spots and there's a little
tunnel that goes from the under the tracks over to here oh there you are what you doing
yeah we found the end of the tunnel and there are uh two campgrounds there's one on the
left as you come out of the the tunnel it's more of a parking lot and then there's this
this one here is called creekside uh campground and there's a creek right over there that's
probably part of what you're hearing and uh twenty dollars a night no hookups first come
first serve and uh yeah this is actually a pretty decent little little campground that
most of the spots are pretty unlevel uh we found a good one that we didn't have to unhook
because we didn't need to other than that it's a good good spot to stop for a night
or two if you're here and if you want to take the ferry across and this is one of the few
times where I would say that living in a really tiny space kind of sucks a little bit but
i'd rather to be dealing with this in the 100 degree heat in the pacific northwest so
you know pick your poison as far as as bad weather so you can see behind us got tons
of stuff hanging up so what is our issue the last two days not water not enough water and
too much water so we've got a lot of exterior water but we couldn't get any in our interior
water tank and that started in Hope anyway it's been uh non-stop rain the other thing
that we had happen was a cruise we were supposed to do yesterday so I signed us up for Prince
William Sound glacier cruise it was going to be about five and a half six hours and
we got on board and it was jam packed and no mask required so we both felt really uneasy
with that and we end up getting off the boat now every other boat we've been on or tour
we've been on has been mask required and as far as I can tell it's still a federal requirement
for a transportation and commercial vessel so not sure what was going on there but they
did refund our money so that was awesome but uh you know it kind of leads us to a question
for you please put those in the comments below as far as what's your comfort level with travel
right now we felt super uneasy with that many people I mean literally about the the the
boat was packed was probably 300 people in a really tight space and really bad weather
so most people weren't going to be outside I think most people were going to be inside
the boat all day the the catamaran that we were going to take this trip on was mostly
inside really and I mean it's locked pretty much locked down you can go outside but it's
uh kind of not something that you would do when you're actually traveling unlike a ferry
where people are going out on the back side yep and then uh our other issue is uh you
know we still like to try and get out in the rain the problem is once our stuff is wet
we can't get it dry again we had everything hanging up in the bathroom at one point and
it wasn't getting dry yeah we had we had to do that excuse me we had to do that because
we couldn't put the awning out and hang it out right so it's so windy at the last spot
yeah and then even though we have the awning out we have stuff hung out since yesterday
it's still not getting dry so I took some stuff to the laundry mat here at the uh the
one condo building that everybody in this town lives in they have a tiny two washer
two dryer little mini laundry mat so I dried our stuff and then we immediately went out
and got it all soaked all over again so I might end up going back just to get our our
stuff dry a second time because otherwise we just everything our jackets and even my
tech pants are just soaking wet still it's just nothing's getting dry here and that's
kind of a kind of hard to deal with stuff when you can't get it dry well it's almost
100 humidity I mean it's that wet but the good thing is I mean the bad thing is that
the ceiling here is really low so we can't really show you a lot of great footage of
the mountains here but on the plus side is because of all the rain then you have a ton
of waterfalls and all of these fingers of water coming down the mountain so we'll show
you that and how full the stream is I mean that part of it is just awesome when you think
about nature mother nature in that respect it's just that you're not going to get the
beautiful views we would have liked or shared and we're not going to have footage from the
glacier which probably would have also been overcast and maybe not all that hot and flat
we'll have more glaciers I think the weather's supposed to get better and we're heading to
Valdez so in just a couple hours we'll be getting on the ferry aurora and we're going
to be going from Whittier to Valdez across Prince William Sound so even though we didn't
get the tour boat yesterday we're taking the ferry across and that'll be fun and there's
tons of waterfalls and tons of glaciers that are probably more easily accessible from Valdez