Our roadtrip to Seward, AK
Trip Start
Aug 16, 2008
1
6
14
Trip End
Aug 29, 2008
Seward,
Alaska,
United States
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
We then made our way to the ferry terminal for our crossing on the Alaskan Marine Highway from Sewarad to Whittier. Of course we were early - with plenty of time to spare - but we were not first in line though. We drove the van on to the ferry, and then walked up to our comfortable accommodations above.
The ferry boat was really nice. We had a Alaskan Park Ranger on the boat who made continuous comments on the wild life and the natural environment, which was very interesting. We saw a few sea lions, and sea otters, and as always some seagulls. No whales, or porpoises. We saw some beautiful glaciers, and waterfalls. We all enjoyed this three hour trip very much. Somebody tried to steal my fanny pack, but I thwarted his efforts. (As an aside, we then saw him in our hotel following us, and then again in a gift shop - he was making me very nervous).
We then docked in Whittier, and made our way through the six mile Portage Glacier Tunnel.
Port at Valdez
This tunnel was initially built for the Army, and the train system. They just converted it into a vehicle tunnel as well. It's only opened for each side 15 minutes of an hour. We were in luck, and flew right through without having to wait. We then continued on our trip to Seward without any events - except Ron had a belly ache and we had to stop at one of those nasty latrines along the way - hint - no flusher! We saw a lot of beautiful scenery on the way, and made it to Seward in about two hours. We checked into our hotel, the Holiday Inn Express and then ran to Ray's Lighthouse Restaurant, where we had a 5:30 p.m. reservations. The food was quite delectable - I had the salmon on the plank (their house special ... enough of this trivial info). We then strolled down to the pier and watched all the fishermen bring in their daily catches. I have never witnessed such a sight. There was this guy with - no lie - a 200 lb halibut. All the fish were huge. We then watched as this group of fish filleters work cutting all the fish up for further packaging. This was quite a sight to see. We then did a little shopping in the small stores along this one street town. We encountered a very nice shop keeper, originally from North Dakota, recently transplanted to Seward last year. She is a high school teacher here in Seward for the past year. She said it snowed so deep last year that it was up to the street signs and her roof of her house. She said that the kids NEVER had snow days (are you listening Matt?)
We then took a short trip to Safeway (for all you unknowledgeable people) that's the local grocery store. Eggs are 18 for $6.00, grapes were $7.00 for a pound of grapes - you get the picture. Luckily they had candy and pop on sale, and we also got a 10% discount for seniors. She was looking at Ron when she asked that question.
After our supermarket excursion, we toured the downtown area of Seward. You will never guess what WILD life we saw in that area. Give up???? No - not bears, not moose, but rabbits. And there were tons and tons of rabbits. We asked a local woman (who by the way hated rabbits) where all the rabbits came from. She said someone dropped them off a while back, and they just multiplied and multiplied just like rabbits do. Take a look at all these pictures - WOW! LOL!
Now we're back in our room planning tomorrow's adventure. We have on our schedule a trip through the Kenai Fjords, but there is a 60% chance of rain. So... we'll wait until tomorrow to see what happens. It usually gets very ugly on boats here when it rains with the waves, if you know what I mean YUCK!!!!!!! If we can't go on our trip, theres this Sea Life Center down the way we may visit or just look for bears and more rabbits - but not salmon (we've seen and smelled enough of those).
Well good night from Seward, one of the oldest communities in Southcentral Alaska.
