Seward

July 13


We landed in Seward 2 days ago for a 5 night stay.  We're in a park about 5 miles north of the actual town of Seward.  Like most of the RV parks in Alaska it's pretty much just an overpriced field with water and electric hookups.  This park does however have 50 amp service which was a bit of a surprise. The most popular campgrounds are right down on the water and just big parking lots. Important if all you want to do is fish but not for us.

There is plenty to do here and yesterday we spent the day at Exit Glacier in the Kenai Fjords National Park.  We had beautiful day of weather, hiked a lot.  The ranger told us at the entrance that because of the amount of water in the river we wouldn't be able to get right up to the "toe" of the glacier, so we just followed the trail up to the edge of it for photos.  As we were descending the trail we saw a group of people at the "toe" and figured we could get there too.  So, we found the trail to the outwash area and after stepping through the water on rocks and climbing through a bunch of bushes on a narrow trail along the river we made it out to the "toe" of the glacier.  We both decided that the effort was definitely worth it.  Got some really interesting views of the ice and were able to see the massive amount of water that melts off the glacier.  Amazing!!
 This glacier is just one of many off the Harding icefield, above the glacier and covering the mountain range. Many glaciers reach down to the ocean like tentacles and some you can drive to.

The glaciers that reach to the water are accessed best by boat and that's what we did.  On Sunday, we met up with friends from Tucson and joined them on a 7.5 hour boat tour around Kenai Fjordes National Park.  What a wonderful trip and we saw so many things.  We saw sea otters playing and swimming in the bay and Stellar Sea Lions lounging on the rocks and playing in the water.  We also saw 2 Humpback whales that the onboard NPS
ranger described as a mother and calf and what a show they put on for us.  They swam very close to the boat and a couple of times even breached for us, one time even coming completely out of the water.  WOW!!

The captain took the boat close to the tidewater glaciers and we heard them cracking and saw a couple of them calve off some ice.  Then some of the crew fished a big chunk of the glacial ice out of the water and made drinks with it.  So Gail and I shared a margarita made with ice that was older than us :)  Pretty tasty and the bartender was generous with the tequila.  Woo Hoo!!  We were also treated to a wonderful lunch of prime rib and fresh salmon on the boat.  Overall it was money well spent and a great way to spend the day!

Monday, we spent the day at the Alaskan Sea Life Center.  It's a non profit organization that teaches about the sealife of Alaska as well as rehabilitating injured or orphaned animals.  They have several Stellar Sea Lions, Harbor Seals, Birds, Fish, and even a couple of orphaned Sea Otters.  It was fun watching the staff interact with the animals, especially those little otters.  They get fed hourly, then play a while, then they get groomed to include getting their fur blow dried.  They're really cute little guys, who will eventually go to a zoo somewhere, because with the human interaction and missing the teachings of their natural mother they won't be able to hunt for themselves.  Another day well spent!