Seward

Tuesday-Wednesday, July 20-21.  Our first adventure this morning was a trip to Seward's "Alaska Sealife Center," Alaska's only public aquarium and ocean wildlife rescue center.  This center was built through funding from the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Settlement.  There was an awesome, 2000-lb stellar seal entertaining us, and various exhibits of other marine life.

There was also live video from an island 35 miles away of harbor seals basking in the sun.

When we left this Center, we ate lunch (halibut again) and Joe and David decided to get haircuts, so Mazie and I went off to hit the gift shops.

There was a huge waterfall just past the Center, pouring water into the bay, right behind the Sealife Center.  We had passed this yesterday afternoon when we toured the end of the Bay in the Lowell Point area, but I had forgotten the camera.  The Lowell Point area had signs posted as a Tsumani Evacuation Route, so David didn't want to go back into that dangerous territory again.

Then we drove around to the back side of the bay to see what trouble we could get into.  Joe likes to go on those roads that say "authorized personnel only."  He always thinks he is "authorized."  But Collins says, "you can buy those signs anywhere."  Anyhow, we found a boat repair area and some huge boats in drydock.  There was a "life" that moved these boats around on ground, and we watched them load a barge, which was very interesting.

Then we went out to Exit Glacier, which we had been able to actually walk on in 1998.  It has receded quite a bit since then and is no longer accessible to the public.  It was a mile hike each way, but with some rest stops along the way we made it.

It's pretty awesome to see the huge crevices and the beautiful blue colors.

Here is a sign showing where it was in 1998, so you can see how far it has receded.  This is happening with all the glaciers, which brings up the issue of global warming.

Finally, we reached our destination.

The walk back was a little easier, but it was still a mile.  Here's Joe resting against another "Brenda rock."

As we drove back into Seward, it was time for the charter boats to be coming back in, so we went down to the harbor and watched the guides cleaning the day's catch.

Someone got really lucky and landed a 160-lb halibut.  Bet he was exhausted when he got that one in the boat.

We had oceanside camping again, with just one row of vehicles in front of us.  There was a cruise ship in the harbor the next morning, so we thought it was probably time to leave.

 Mazie has seen on the morning news that there was a Coast Guard research vessel stopping in Seward today on its way to the Arctic Ocean for a 3-year research project on global warming, and we got to watch it come into the harbor. 

On my shopping trip, I picked up three new animals to add to our traveling zoo.  Our dash is getting pretty full.

Finally, we gassed up and hit the road for Hope, population 147.  We met up with the Brundiges here and it seemed like it had been forever since we were all together.  After we got set up and visited for a while, the girls went for a drive to check out the gold panning options.  When we got by the creek, we saw lots of people fishing so we called the guys to  let them know, then we drove back to a gold panning shop.  Well, Joe and Collins drove down to the creek looking for us, so Collins could fish, but we had his fishing pole and boots in the car we were in, so they had to call us and get us back down there.  Finally, Collins got his stuff together and walked out on the bank of Resurrection Creek to fish.  Although several people around him were catching some silvers and pinks, he didn't have any luck (and we forgot the camera).  But he went back the next day and caught 2, which Marilyn cooked up for dinner for all of us.

I forgot one of the tidbits of our time in Denali.  We went in to a restaurant for lunch, and Dave got carded when he ordered a beer.  That made his day, maybe his whole trip!  Of course, when they carded Joe as well, it took a little wind out of his sails.