I'm not very good at pronouncing names which are new to me, so I asked for some help from the park ranger a Kenai Fjords National Park, which is at Seward, Alaska. Kenai is pronounced "key-nye" and Seward is pronounced "sue-ard". Now I'm happy.
Tank, Eeyore and I woke up to a warmer day, at 57 degrees. It was partly cloudy but the sun was working hard to make it a bright day. By the time we drove from Anchorage to Seward, it truly was a sunny day, with fewer clouds. A great day for taking a wildlife and glacier cruise on Resurrection Bay. More about that later.
I knew it was going to be a short drive from Anchorage to Seward, so I slept in a bit later. After breakfast at 7:00AM, we were on the road to Seward, due south of Anchorage about 125 miles. The first part of today's trip was on the same road I used to drive over to Homer, Alaska yesterday. I said that the highway was the most scenic I have been on since being in Alaska, and I second the motion today.
Once you leave metropolitan Anchorage, you travel on Highway 1 while viewing the very shallow water of Turnagain Bay. After passing Portage is where the highway gets scenic and it continues to the junction of Highway 1 and 9. Yesterday I stayed on Highway 1, going west and then south to Homer. Today, I left Highway 1 at Devils Pass and continued due south on Highway 9. A most scenic route.
While driving next to Turnagain Bay, I passed a Kenai Fjord Tour Train, not going to fast. It was a very clean train with a good paint job of blue and yellow. I drove up ahead and then pulled off in time to set up my tripod and video camera. I got some neat footage of the train rolling by.
A bit further down the highway, I drove by a most scenic area. I have to remind myself, that if I see something I enjoyed seeing, then stop, go back, and take a picture of it. Well, that's what I did for this scene, and it turned out to be doubly good. I took some pictures of trees, a pond, some flowers and such, and just about then, a female moose and her calf wandered by.
I walked after it, into the wood, until such time as it challenged me. I took the best picture I could, without pushing my luck, and then quickly retreated. I wasn't about to mess with a moose and her calf.
I ran into some highway construction, both going to Seward and on my return, but it didn't take away from the otherwise enjoyable drive. The pink/purple fireweed is just beautiful, especially in the bright sunlight and having a lush background of deep green foilage. I was reminded, however, that this is July, when I saw a twelve foot snow measuring stick along the roadside.
Before getting to Seward, I took the turnoff and drove on eight miles of dirt/gravel road to see 'Exit Glacier' (what a strange name for a glacier). I have to say it was the dirtiest looking glacier that I've seen. While there, I read some of the interpretive signs and learned that they estimate the movement of a huge glacier creates as much as one inch of silt and gravel to cover the valley floor each year. Now, how do they come up with such numbers?
Leaving Anchorage at 7:30AM gave me time to stop along the way, take pictures of trains and glaciers and whatever else I wanted to stop for, including a moose or two. But this was on the assumption that the wildlife and glacier tour boat left Seward at 1:00PM. I was a bit surprised but relieved at the same time, when I learned that it left at Noon. I was 'just in time'.
Not to worry about lunch, because included in the fare was an 'all you can eat' luncheon of salmon, salad, rice, drinks, dessert and such. The tour boat left at Noon, cruised out to Fox Island about an hour later and we had our lunch. I thought that was good planning, because in the event someone got 'seasick', we weren't that far from Seward and a small boat could take that person or persons back. Well, no one on our boat got sick, so we cruised for three more hours and had a good time seeing glaciers and looking for wildlife.
We saw some seals, sea lions, lots of birds (inluding puffins, bald eagles, loons, and terns. The guy who drove the tour boat (I guess his title is 'Captain') was really good at handling that diesel powered boat. He could bring the boat right up to large rocky mountains out in Resurrection Bay, without any damage to the boat.
The coastline in the Seward area is very, very rugged. We saw a number of glaciers, like Bear Glacier, bring its huge (three mile wide) flow right down to the water's edge. Other glaciers could be seen, east and west of Resurrection Bay. After five hours away from Seward, I think most passengers had enough of birds and seals and glaciers.
It was pure chance, but the tour boat was not filled to capacity. That made it easy to walk anywhere on the boat, topside or below decks. I spent most of my time topside near the stern of the boat. I dressed warm, with layered clothing and my denim jacket, so it really wasn't that cold.
There's much more that could be said about the day, but I'll trust to the 35mm pictures and video that I shot, to remind me of what I saw. Having had a full breakfast and the all-you-can-eat lunch, I skipped an evening meal, and spent time doing my laundry instead.
I called a booked a hotel for tomorrow night in Valdez. I'll see more mountainous scenery again tomorrow, but there are some things unique to Valdez such as the termination point for the Alaskan pipeline and Prince William Sound. I'm looking forward to the visit.