SIGHTS AROUND SEWARD

Our first visit to Seward was when we got off a cruise ship in 1999.  We didn't stay in town very long, because we were anxious to get our rental car, and start exploring the Kenai Peninsula.  We spent 4 days on the Kenai, in a quest to do and see as much as possible before flying home from Anchorage. That was our first real taste of what Alaska had to offer, and we were hooked!
 

 Looking across Resurrection Bay at the town of Seward.

We drove around to the other side of Resurrection Bay, where there are some homes, and several boat/ship maintenance facilities.  The view across the bay, particularly the mountains behind Seward, was truly spectacular.  When trying to describe scenes in Alaska, there simply aren't enough superlatives that adequately paint a true picture.

The pyramid shaped mountain behind Seward is called Mount Marathon.  Each year on the 4th of July,  there is a foot race from the center of town, to the top of the 3,000 foot mountain, then back down.  I was looking at the contestant entry list, and approx. 1,000 folks have signed up for this years race.  The record time for the men is around 43 minutes.  This is a big deal for Seward, as the town of 2,500 typically grows to around 40,000. 

 The up trail on Mt. Marathon is on the left, and the down trail of the race is the curved one on the right.

 This 3 sided building if made out of approx. 40 shipping containers and a roof.

One of the Alaska Marine Hwy ships is "high & dry" while being worked on.

 

 A waterfall just south of the main center of town.

Leave it to me to find a burger in a most unusual place.  Actually, Nancy checked her Iphone on the Yelp App. and found that this collection of school buses had the best burgers in town.  We all had one, and agreed that we have had better, but, they were still pretty darned good.  The ambiance was definitely quite unique.

 Yep, we dined inside the yellow school bus that had been converted from seats, to seats and tables. 

 

We made a stop at the new Library and Museum before heading back to the motor homes.  One section of the museum was dedicated to the effects of the Good Friday earthquake of 1964.  Seward, like Valdez, Anchorage, and many other towns were devastated by the most powerful earthquake to ever strike North America.  Like Valdez, most of  Seward had to be rebuilt.

Just to the left of our motor home, a small creek runs into the bay, and it seems to be a popular spot for fisherman.  Patty and Nancy watched a guy catch a big Salmon (see Nancy's blog), and we all watched a single Sea Otter just off shore, as it was harvesting something good to eat from the bottom.

It's raining this morning, so I think we'll be looking for some indoor activities to occupy our time.  We'll be leaving tomorrow, and we never know if we'll have an Internet connection.  So far, we've found a way, but as we move to different places, we never know for sure.

Seward Waterfront RV Park - $15.00  Cumulative - $879.61

ANCHORAGE, AK TO SEWARD, AK

The big (for Alaska) city of Anchorage is great if you need to buy something, but, after 3 days, I think we were all glad to be heading for the smaller town of Seward.  We'll be spending the next week or two, on the Kenai Peninsula, where many of the Anchorage folks come to recreate.

The drive south on the Seward Hwy along Turnagin Arm is adjacent to the Alaska Railroad tracks, and whether you're driving, or riding the train, it's a pretty scenic route.  Past Turnagin Arm, which has one of the few "bore tides" in the world, the highway turns into the mountains, passing through the small town of Moose Pass, before dropping into Seward.

We stopped at Beluga Point on Turnagin Arm to watch the tide coming in.  No Beluga Whales, or bore tides (waves up to 6'), but it was obvious that the water was rushing toward the end of the bay.  We could see off in the distance that there were some serious rain clouds, which we drove into past Girdwood.  All of our good weather has turned more typical of Alaska in the summer, and it actually felt good to go from 80 degrees to the low 60's.

Brrrrr, where's the jackets?

 

There are several RV parks in Seward, but I think the majority of RV'ers try to find a spot at the city owned Waterfront Park.  It's really not much more than a dirt and gravel parking lot, but it is located right on the water.  Since we were last here in 2001, they've added about 100 electric & water hookups.  At this time of year, scoring one of those spots is a little more difficult, even though everything is first come, first serve.  We found a couple of dry camping spots near the north end, not too far from the boat harbor, and even though we're not right on the water, our windshields face the ocean.  It's a great view!  We watched the Celebrity Millennium cruise ship pull out at 8pm last night.
 

We drove out to Exit Glacier pictured below, but chose not to take the hike up to the foot of the glacier.   This particular chunk of ice is about 5 miles out of town, and is pretty spectacular.

Not quite sure if this sign is meant to peke the curiosity of folks, kind of like a dare to try the food.  Or, if  they really don't want any business?  Quirky signs like this are not hard to find in Alaska.

Seward City Waterfront RV Park - $15.00  Cumulative - $864.61
Miles traveled - 129  Cumulative - 5,060

MOSQUITOS, AIRCRAFT, CRITTERS, & ICE

Everyone knows that mosquito's can be a problem in Alaska during the summer.  So far, at least until yesterday, they haven't been a big nuisance.  Our first of several destinations was Earthquake Park near the airport.  Soon after starting down an interpretive path to where we thought there would be some displays, the Alaska state bird started to attack.  Stupid us, we have several cans of mosquito spray, but not one can was with us, not even in the Jeep.  We kept moving down the path, as the pesty insects kind of stayed away as long as we were moving.  When we got to where there were a bunch of signs, & pictures of the 1964 earthquake, all in the shade, we got attacked big time.  OK, enough of this, back down the walkway at a fast pace, and back to where we started, the safety of the Jeep.
  

Just down the road from the park, was a parking area at the end of the airport runway.  We stopped and watched a 747 air cargo plane take off, using up most of the runway.  It was probably midpoint in a flight either to, or from Asia.  One other aircraft which looked like a C130, took off while we were parked.

Next stop was Walgreen's for a can of bug spray before we started walking around the Alaska Zoo.  During our last visit to Anchorage in 2001, Patty and I visited this zoo, and the one animal exhibit I remember, was an orphan Grizzly Bear, and an orphan Polar Bear who were raised together from infancy.  They were both still at the zoo, but were separated in 2003.  Most of the animals are indigenous to the arctic, or sub arctic environment, but not all are found in Alaska.

 Polar Bears and Moose are both found in different parts of Alaska.

 This little Moose was only a few weeks old.

 No sightings so far of a Grizzly in the wild.  There were 3 of them at the zoo.

When we got to the Snow Leopard's habitat, we were fortunate to see it moving around, unlike a lot of the animals who were sound asleep.  This species is not found in North America, but does live in the colder, mountain climates of Asia.  Not a whole lot of these guys left in the wild, and they are indeed magnificent creatures.

By mid afternoon, we were all hungry, so we stopped at a Round Table Pizza inside this unique building.  The basement level was an ice skating rink, and the ground level contained a few eateries, along with several mall like shops.  The upper 4 or 5 levels were dedicated to office space.  If you look closely, or click on & enlarge the last picture, you'll see that the ice arena was named after Miss Patty.

This morning, it's adios to the big city, destination the Kenai Peninsula.  I think our first stop will be Seward, a place that we first explored in 1999, after getting off an Alaskan cruise ship.  That 1999 cruise is what got us hooked on Alaska, and in the subsequent 14 years, we've spent a good portion of 6 years in the "last frontier" state.

Ship Creep RV park - $44.10  Cumulative - $849.61

TRAINS & FLYING MACHINES

Our first of several stops around Anchorage yesterday, was the Alaska Railroad Depot & headquarters building.  Located just down the street from our RV park, I needed to check their schedules for a possible train ride in the days ahead,  and the RR gift shop had a few items that I couldn't live without.  So, I left with some free information, and some not so free merchandise.

 The Alaska Railroad headquarters building was constructed during WWII.

Construction of the 470 mile railroad through the wilderness was completed in 1923, just a few years after the Panama Canal was opened for business.  Like the canal project, the Alaska RR was built by the federal government, and in 1985, the state of Alaska purchased the railroad for 22 million. The main line of the railroad runs right past our RV park, and one of the passenger trains was passing by yesterday when I snapped these pictures.

 

Our next stop was the Lake Hood/Spenard seaplane base.  Located next to the international airport, this is the busiest seaplane airport in the world.  With an average of 190 takeoffs and landings every day, it's usually a great place to watch these small planes.  We only stayed for a short while, watching several planes take off, and only one land when we first arrived.

From Lake Hood, we headed to WalMart for a bunch of stuff, including groceries.   When you drive around Anchorage, the sights are the same as they are in any other medium sized U.S. city.  One of our other stops was at the Batteries Plus store, where they had a replacement battery for one of our cell phones. Returning to the motor homes (we had ice cream), I stayed put with a few chores to take care of, and the girls headed off in a never ending search for that perfect quilt/fabric shop.

It was warm yesterday, with temps close to 80.  Many of the RV parks up here are not designed for everyone running their air conditioners, and the voltage on this park was way down.  Our voltage dropped to just above 100, which is not good on things like TV's, computers, refrigerators, etc.  Nancy's Progressive Ind. electrical management system shut her down, and we had to turn everything off except the roof fans.  One more day here in Anchorage, then were headed for Seward on the Kenai Peninsula.

Ship Creek RV park - $44.10  Cumulative - $805.51

VALDEZ, AK TO ANCHORAGE, AK

I think we all agreed, staying in Valdez longer wouldn't have hurt any of our feelings.  By the time this trip is over, the list of places that we could have stayed longer, is going to be quite lengthy.  But, with only one summer to see, and do everything on our list, we left Valdez yesterday morning.

Our route took us back to Glennalen on the Richardson Hwy, then we turned left on the Glenn Hwy for Anchorage.  Having already stayed one night in Glennalen, we knew that there was about a mile of torn up Hwy through the center of town.  With clean motor homes and Jeeps, wouldn't you know it, that just when it was our turn to be escorted through the one way traffic construction zone, the water truck came out of hiding, spraying water right in front of us, turning much of the dirt into mud!   After spending hours cleaning the rigs, Nancy & I both had decided that future "mud zones" would be traversed by creeping motor homes.  With our tires rotating slower than they would during rush hour traffic in L.A., we kept the mud mostly on the ground.

The drive from Valdez to Anchorage is filled with picturesque scenes like the one above, and below of Mount Drum, elevation 12,010'.  

Nearing Anchorage, the Glenn Hwy narrowed, as it wound it's way though the mountains, necessitating a slower speed.  Other than a narrower road, and 35 mph curves for about 20 miles, the road was fine, and the scenery along the Matauska River was incredible!

The Alaska Pipeline is partly visible in the trees.

 

Between Palmer and Anchorage, the Hwy becomes Alaska's only freeway.  This picture shows a portion of the 6 lane, divided road as we approach Anchorage.  By the time we checked into Ship Creek RV park, it was time for some chow, as only a few snacks had been consumed during the drive.  We finished Patty's homemade halibut chowder (I had 2 bowls), and called it a day.

Ship Creek RV park, Anchorage - $44.10  Cumulative - $761.41
Diesel - Chugiak Chevron 62.4 gals @ $4.11 gal = $256.50 
Cumulative fuel cost - $2,737.12
MPG - 8.6  Cumulative average - 8.0
Miles traveled - 302  Cumulative miles - 4,931