Alaska-Part II

After family and friends left, we packed up and moved down to Seward where we stayed at the Creekside Cabins. The cabins ere very rustic but they had a new building with an upstairs and downstairs apartment with all the amenities. It was fairly nice and in a very woodsy area. We were originally supposed to have the upstairs, but it wasn’t finished in time, so we were downstairs.

It was a nice place with good views (except for the fishing boat outside our window)

This was the view from the dining area window.

The area around the building was very lush with greenery!

We realized that the Kenai Fjords National Park and Exit Glacier were just up the road a bit. What’s interesting about the drive there is there are signs on the side of the road marking where the glacier was in years past starting in 1950. It was a few miles larger then than where it is today! Exit Glacier is one of several glaciers from the Kenai Peninsula ice field on top, which is 700 square miles!

The river you see here is melt off from the glacier. The grayish tint is from the silt of the glacier.

This is a close up (via my 300mm lens) showing the detail of the glacier including the hole in the middle that was created by once flowing water of the melting glacier.

We love boat tours and this one did not disappoint!

The combination of dark green foliage, snow and low hanging clouds is beautiful!

Minutes into our tour we spotted a few Orcas.

They were kind enough to put on a show for us too!

The shoreline was spectacular with lots of greenery and rugged rock cliffs.

When the captain spotted these guys he really got excited! He said it was the largest pod of Grey whales he’d ever seen! There were about 10!

There were also hundreds of gulls waiting for any scraps they might leave behind!

We passed this glacier in the distance along our tour. (Close up via my long lens)

Finally arriving at the captains destination, this beautiful glacier.

I couldn’t resist the shot of this passing gull.

This close up reveals the blue tint to this glacial ice.

Here are a couple of seals lounging on an ice flow to temporarily get out of the freezing water. It must be cold water if they consider lying on ice instead!

As we approached this chunk of ice “calved” off.

The captain had his crew retrieve a chunk of the ice and we all had a glacial cocktail!

Jan’s holding a piece here, it’s very clear ice!

Here are some sea otters playing in the ice field.

Two of the many waterfalls from the top of the glacial field.

Lots of summer foliage from the nutrient rich water and rock.

Farther down the coast we came upon these lounging seals.

This fellow must have had a rough day!

Notice the marking on the big fellow, it’s an identification marking for the rangers.

This one almost looks like a ground hog the way he’s posed!

How do those little pine trees grow up there?

We even saw a mountain goat!

This map shows where we went as well as a couple of other tours from this company. We were on the Northwestern Fjord Tour.

On the return trip I enjoyed a Puffin Pale Ale, pretty tasty!

One last shot from the boat as we returned to port.

These murals are scattered all over Seward on various buildings. It’s a day’s adventure to hunt them all down!

This one is on the local Seward Library and Museum, which is a beautiful building in it’s self as you can see below!

The views around Seward are beautiful as well.

The town itself is quaint and pretty cool!

This little restaurant was very nice. Good food and locally owned.

Seward had a 4th of July parade and street party.

On the 4th of July we decided to go check out Hope since we have a very good friend named Hope! This truck and water wheel grinding wheel were on the side of the road on the way there. Anybody have an axe to grind?!?

Shortly after we arrived in Hope and after Jan was able to buy a coffee cup for Hope from Hope, the proprietor of the shop ran out the door saying”The parade is starting, the parade is starting!”, We followed to see the action! One fire engine…

One pickup truck…

Couple of ATVs…..

One convertible loaded to the hilt…

And a family on their bicycles, that’s it!

Oh, and a walker! Short but fun to watch, I’m sure everybody in town was either in it or on the side of the street watching and cheering!

This sign was in front of the store we bought Hope’s coffee cup in, pretty funny and great advice!

We stopped at this little restaurant/bar on the way out of Hope. Cute place and good food.

But they did have wine! Jan said it was actually okay!

The scenery on the drive up and back was beautiful!

Whittier was a different kind of drive. The only way to get there is drive through this one way tunnel or by boat. we paid a roundtrip toll.

The tunnel is one way only, monitored by stop lights, AND shared by the railroad!

You can see the tracks in the tunnel here, they have that rubber plate they put between the rails at railroad crossings so you can drive on them. Before you freak out; they run the trains through at night and vehicles during the day!

The light at the end of the tunnel! Even though it’s one way traffic and trains only run at night, it’s still a little weird driving through it!

Oh, and when you exit the tunnel be sure to make that left jog or you’ll end up driving onto the tracks at the other end!

Once in Whittier there wasn’t much to see, it’s strictly a fishing port!

The drive there and back was pretty despite the drizzle.

After Seward we moved on to Homer where we stayed in this lovely B&B, Juneberry Lodge. The couple who ran it were wonderful hosts! We had the room on the right of the red door overlooking their beautiful property and the bay and mountains in the distance.

This was the view from our window; this picture was taken at 11:15PM!

This is a zoomed close-up of the glacier from the previous picture, one of the many glaciers on the Kenai peninsula.

Here are a couple of more shots from our drive around Homer. We spent some time down on the spit you see in this picture. It was cool, nothing picture worthy but fun to explore the various shops.

While in Homer, we did yet another boat tour, this time to a small town across the bay called Seldovia, population 265. There are no roads to this community, so the only way to get there is by boat.

This is one of the water taxis that goes there regularly.

Here is another familiar shot; another glacier!

Alaskan seagull taking a little nap.

Here’s an Alaskan seagull taking a little siesta!

From this angle the hole in this rock formation appears to be a heart!

I got a couple of shots, not the best, of a Bald Eagle landing on one of the channel markers.

Another Bald Eagle in the top of a pine tree.

Here is a Bald Eagle feasting on a piece of fish on the beach. We didn’t know until the guide told us that Bald Eagles are quite the scavengers!

Here you see a fixer-upper boat and beach house!

The locals call this “Frustration Point” or, our favorite, “Man Banging his Head on the Wall”.

And here is yet another Bald Eagle!

A family of Sea Otters enjoying a lazy float.

A female Sea Otter and her pup.

We’re approaching Seldovia.

We ate at this Boardwalk Pub & Grill; this was behind their bar!

There were some great wooden sculptures here.

The interesting thing about satellite TV in Alaska is all their dishes seem to point at the ground, but the receptor is low on the dish so it reflects the signal from the top of the dish. It actually makes sense since the satellites are near the equator of earth! In researching this I also read that satellite dishes near the equator point straight up versus to the south as they do here in the US!

The boardwalk

We didn’t take any pictures in Cooper Landing since it was pretty steady rain the entire 3 days. We had planned a float trip and wildlife center trip but canceled both due to the rain. We did make a trip out to Kenai and got a few natures photos along the way though.