USA

Despite hearing raindrops on our roof again this morning, we decide that we want to stay at least one more day at Seward. We really enjoyed Seward’s Municipal campground in town along the inlet, where we stayed for one night before coming to Stoney Creek. So we pack up and empty our tanks. While Jere is doing the smelly tank emptying, I take the trash and notice lots of eagles in the sky. I count 8 bald eagles circling around the sky above us, but another woman who is watching them says there are 10! What a beautiful sight—I love to watch eagles soar.

When we drive over to the Seward campground, we find a front row spot open. So we back in our trailer and have a terrific view of the inlet.

After lunch Joe and Jere decide they want to hike up to the top of Mt Marathon. It’s a very steep trail up to the top of the mountain behind Seward. It’s ‘claim to fame’ is the famous Mt Marathon 4th of July race, where runners race up and down the mountain. It’s dreary out with a possibility of rain and I have no desire to hike up the very steep trail, so I stay at the trailer. I catch up on some chores and watch a sea otter playing in the water near our trailer.

Jere and Joe return from their hike covered in dirt. Apparently on parts of the trail it is too steep to climb down the mountain so they slid in the dirt.

They also admit that they didn’t make it to the top of the mountain -- Jere was concerned about their safety when it started to rain and decided, much to Joe’s dismay, to not go the whole way. He says that anyone who climbs that mountain to the top is either foolish or fearless. He took some pictures to try to show the steepness, but he says the pictures can’t really show the steepness.

Jere took this photo of our campground from halfway up the mountain:

While Jere and Joe build a campfire beside the water, I make dinner. After dinner Jere and I spend the rest of the evening by the campfire. Well, actually we stay outside til the cold and dampness chase us inside. Joe elects to stay inside on his computer—he doesn’t even come out for s’mores. I’m not sure how it’s possible, but Joe does NOT like s’mores. Who doesn’t like s’mores?!

Today is the day we take the Kenai Fjords 8-hour wildlife and glacier cruise -- we’re very excited. The cruise doesn’t leave til close to Noon, so we watch a church service on TV and have a big breakfast. The church service is televised from the Anchorage Baptist Temple and they have a good musical program to start off the service for the 4th of July week. Very patriotic and a salute to our troops. As the minister said, “Some of us may not support this war, but all of us support our troops.” The sermon is about freedom and the many freedoms that we have in this country that are supported with bible verses. I was raised in a Baptist church and find it interesting to watch a Baptist service – they’re still focused on the devil and they still think young people’s music is the work of the devil. I remember how rock music and dancing were not allowed in our church when I was a teenager. Anyway, I enjoy watching the service.

We arrive at the boat dock an hour before sailing, as instructed, and then sit around and read the booklet that they gave us about wildlife that we’ll see.

We get on the boat and find our assigned seat, stash our backpacks and head outside to stand on the deck. During the day we will spend about half of our time on the outside deck and about half downstairs at our warm table. Although the day starts out as partly sunny, it quickly turns overcast and cold – the captain tells us that it is 52 degrees, but with the windchill it feels like 32 degrees –it is really windy. I have a winter jacket on, with hats & gloves, and my hood up; but after about 2 hours on deck, I am frozen and have a hard time warming up.

The reason to take the 8-hour cruise vs the 3-hr cruise is for the chance to see more wildlife. We do see 4 humpback whales, but they stay pretty much under the water. No breaching whales today.

The bottom line is that we don’t really see much wildlife, and then when the boat arrives at the tidewater glacier (Holgate Glacier in Kenai Fjords NP) our table is called to get dinner. We are starving at that point (it’s served an hour late) and need to get our food, so for the 30 minutes that the boat is stationed at the bottom of the glacier -- we’re inside eating. However, the glacier never really calves any large pieces while we’re there anyway, so I guess we don’t miss much, but I would have liked to have been outside when we were so close to the glacier. I did get up in the middle of the meal to take a picture outside.

It is a little frustrating to not see much wildlife and then when there is something to see on the outside of the boat (Holgate Glacier), we need to sit inside to eat (which is not next to the window). The meal was good though– salmon and prime rib. Also, I do get outside to take pictures on the way into and out of the Holgate inlet.

The pictures don’t really show the size of the glacier. In the photo above there is another tour boat at the base of the glacier—the tour boat is at least 50 feet long.

After stopping at Holgate glacier the boat takes us to two different small islands. One is filled with Stellar sea lions

and the other is filled with birds, mostly kittiwakes, but also many tufted puffins and a few common murres.

So I am a little disappointed in the cruise, but at least it’s not raining. In hindsight we wish we would have taken the shorter cruise.

I had taken medicine for seasickness this morning which eventually makes me very, very sleepy, so we drive back to the trailer and I fall asleep as soon as we get back.

We spend the morning and early afternoon walking around Seward and relaxing at the campsite.

Then we pack up and head over to the Stoney Creek RV Park, where we have reservations. We really like the municipal campground that we're at, but we made reservations at Stoney since we weren't sure if we would like the Seward Municipal Campground. Well, it turns out that we like the municipal campground more than the more expensive Stoney Creek....oh well.

We arrive at Stoney Brook RV to find that they just lost electric power. That would not be a big deal for us, except their computers need electric and are not working. So without the computers, they don't know which site we're assigned and they refuse to put us in a site til their computers are working--I think they need a back-up system in case their computers aren't working. Anyway, we eat our very late lunch, move the trailer to our assigned site, and then head out to Exit Glacier.

We hike up to the end of the glacier and take some pictures. After seeing the massive Portage Glacier a few days ago, this glacier isn't very impressive. But it is a nice hike and we do get a close-up view of a glacier.

We head back to the RV park and Joe heads out behind the trailer to build a bridge across the creek. Normally, he builds a dam, but today he decides to build a bridge. There are 3 bald eagles flying above the creek that we watch while Joe builds his bridge.

Wonderful blue skies when we wake up! Today is the first day in quite some time that we have NO RAIN. I forgot how beautiful Alaska is with blue skies.

We pack up (again), leave Ninilchik, and drive to Seward; about 130 miles. We make a few stops, including a stop at Uncle Lloyds to pick up my early birthday present, a wood-carved bear. No wildlife for today's drive, but very pretty scenery on the Sterling and Seward highway.

Whoops--how could I forget the large moose that we saw crossing a very large creek--it was really different to see a moose in a large, flowing creek. No place to stop the truck to take a picture, but we did see some wildlife.

We couldn't get campground reservations for tonight, so we are going to try our luck at the Seward Municipal Campground. We pass dozens and dozens of RVs as we travel to Seward, so we're hoping everyone is leaving Seward, but when we arrive the campground is almost full, even the tent areas. The key word being 'almost'. They have 2-3 sites left so we take one and set up.

The view from the campsite is incredible. The campground is on the shores of the inlet, so we have a view of the water with snow-capped mountains in the background.

As soon as we're set up we head to the downtown to reserve a boat tour to see Kenai Fjords National Park. Our first choice of tours is full for the next two days, but we find another tour company that has 5 seats left for Sunday's full-day tour. We buy our tickets ($400 for the 3 of us for an 8 hour cruise, including food/beverages--I think we're going to be overbudget this week) and then head back to the campground.

After an early dinner we spend the rest of the evening walking along the water. Joe skips stones on the water as Jere and I walk near him.

Walking back to the campground we're suprised to see a sea otter floating on its' back about 20 feet from shore. Very cute. Soon after that we spot a seal swimming in the water. However, by far the most prevalent creature we see is the seagull. We see hundreds of gulls.

We get back to the campsite around 9pm and debate about a campfire, but decide to have popcorn and hot chocolate inside the warm trailer by the back picture window instead. We have great views from our side window and our back picture window. Jere and I pull chairs and sit by the back window (Joe's bedroom). We're missing the smell of the campfire and the tasty s'mores, but with this beautiful scenery we don't care. And yes, it's still very light out at 10pm when this picture of our back window view is taken.

We wake up to the sound of raindrops again, so we are slow to get going. We eventually get ready and decide to drive to Kenai, despite the weather. The drive to Kenai is cloudy, but no rain; but also no wildlife nor interesting scenery. We stop at the Kenai Visitor's Center and Museum and find out that they are not showing their Alaska movies today because they lent all of their chairs in the theatre to someone -- only in Alaska :-) So we decide to skip the museum and have some lunch.

By the time we're done with lunch, it's raining steady outside. So no walk on the Kenai beach or around old Kenai; instead we decide to do our laundry. By the time our laundry is done, the rain has slowed somewhat so we visit the old Russian Orthodox church in Kenai. There is a retired priest there that gives a talk about the church and the Russian orthodox religion. So our trip to Kenai is not a complete waste.

Rainy drive back to the RV park. We have dinner and the rain finally stops, so Jere and I head down to the Ninilchik Beach.

We're looking for eagles again, but instead we end up watching the commercial fishing boats unload their catch. The Ninilchik harbor is a small harbor and the fishing boats are all small, private boats. We watch about a dozen boats unload before walking back to the RV park.

There are boats lined up in the bay waiting their turn to come into the harbor and unload their fish.

I always pictured commercial fishing boats as large trollers with lots of men with large nets--so tonight is a learning experience for me. The captains and their helpers have such a different lifestyle from me -- I can't even imagine having a job as an independant Alaskan fisherman.

On the way back to the RV park we see a couple of eagles. This eagle is sitting by the Ninilchik pond near the dock area: