The next morning, we woke up bright and early (meaning it was slightly brighter than at night). The hotel provided free breakfast, so we were expecting toast and cereal, but it was the nicest free breakfast I've ever seen, so I took some horrible pictures (people were around and I felt like a total creeper).
First, we've got assorted cereals, bagels, toast, fruit and not pictured is a refrigerator with cream cheese, spreads, milk and yogurts.
Over here we've got sausage, eggs and biscuits and gravy.
Waffle maker!!! Yes, please!
Also not pictured: a variety of juices. Yum! Let's eat!
Here's my breakfast:
Aaron's:
I must say, very impressive free breakfast! We even took some bagels, fruit and yogurt for later snacks. Yes, I just invented the term "later snacks." Deal. With. It.
Now that we've had a play by play of our breakfast situation (super crucial, I know), we hopped into Reggie and headed out. Bye Kenai! It's been real!
We're headed to Seward:
Ignore that Aaron misspelled it in his GPS because it still got us there.
Aaron has a friend from Kenai who recommended a boat tour to see some glaciers that departs from Seward. Aaron booked it and I didn't know what to expect because I had nothing to do with it, but I was ready!
Pics on the way to Seward:
The weather was perfect! Super sunny with a slight chill in the air, but it was basically T-shirt weather. I just run cold, so I wore a sweater.
When we got to Seward, we checked into The Taroka Inn, where Aaron had booked us a room.
We set our stuff down in our giant room (it was basically an apartment with a full kitchen a separate bedroom and entrances in the front and the back!) and drove down the road to catch our boat. Essentially the entire town of Seward is just one mile-long road:
Here's our tour:
We're the yellow route. It's called the Kenai Fjords National Park Tour (It's called Kenai because the entire coast down here is called The Kenai Peninsula, even though the town of Kenai is tiny). The tour is 6 hours, as it takes 3 hours to get to Aialik Glacier and 3 hours to get back.
I am pumped!!
We parked, took a shuttle to the harbor area, got our tickets and found our boat:
Man I need to get my nails done for once.
Full disclosure: this wasn't our boat:
But I was able to snap a really good shot of it AND it's identical to our boat, so just go with it.
Here's our boat:
Okay, so it's not identical at all. They're both white, I guess? Total fail. Moving on.
We met our crew and they let us board.
Bottom level:
Top level:
Top level outside:
Yup, we'll take it!
Aaron getting all ready to go:
It's seriously beautiful here!
Let's hit the road! I mean sea! Let's hit the sea! Whatever.
Another disclaimer: we saw so much wildlife, it was crazy! It was so much fun to spot wildlife IN THE WILD! They're just doing their thing and we got to see it and it was incredible. However, my pictures didn't even come close to capturing how cool it was. I suck, I'm sorry.
Our first sighting: otters!
They were just lounging together, making sure they stayed close to each other. Super adorable and so photogenic! I took like 20 pictures and they all came out good. So, yay me on this one!
Keep going:
Some people actually live out here!
Old Army bunker:
Pollen:
This was Fox Island. There's another version of this tour where you have a steak and salmon dinner on Fox Island after the glacier tour (there's a restaurant on the other side). Unfortunately, they hadn't started doing that tour yet (we were a week early), but I enjoyed our tour just fine without it.
Can you see the water starting all the way at the top?
Rocky Mountain goats!!
So cool!
Here's their mountain zoomed out:
Our tour guides were expert spotters because who would have noticed mountain goats from here?
Our next majestic find? A bald fricken eagle!
I got some great shots of this guy, so yay me again!
Here's his nest:
Wow, I had never seen a bald eagle before, but after that we saw a bunch more throughout the week. It was super exciting every time.
More Rocky Mountain goat:
Can you see him?? Here's the close-up:
Check these guys out:
OMG Puffins!!
YAY! I'd been dying to see a Puffin!
These signs are posted everywhere in Alaska:
Okay, so now we get to the part where I suck hard. So, we saw a momma and baby Humpback whale, but I was too slow to get the shot EVERY TIME! It's hard because you don't know when or where they're gonna pop up and you're trying to be ready, but by the time they come up you aren't looking in the right spot and you miss it. I'm happy to say I didn't miss it with my eyes, just my camera. Here's what I got:
Okay, so not the worst, but pretty bad. That could be a garbage bag for all you know, but take my word for it! It's a baby Humpback whale!! I'd never seen a whale before because I never wanted to go on one of those whale-watching tours. They just seem so boring, like you just sit there for hours looking for whales. At least this way, we saw whales and still got to see a glacier. Win! Win!
Keep going:
Check out all these birds sitting in a row:
Seagull Mountain:
I made that name up, so don't go Google Seagull Mountain.
Sea lions:
Check out the big guy:
This is put up by the National Park to monitor them:
At our hotel we noticed an entire channel dedicated to real-time video footage of the sea lions.
More:
Another Puffin taking off:
This was a good shot (Yay me again!).
We also ran into an Orca Killer Whale and another Humpback whale, but those pictures were even worse, so I'm sparing you. Coolest thing ever though.
Then we got to the glacier. It was freezing! The temperature immediately dropped like 30 degrees!
We could see and hear pieces crashing into the water. It was so loud, it sounded like thunder! The crew brought a giant piece of glacier on-board and cracked it into pieces, so we could all taste some glacier. They said we were eating 400 year old ice. Not bad for 400 years old.
We sat inside on the way back and got fresh from the oven chocolate chip cookies!
It was the perfect ending to a perfect trip!
This was the best tour ever! We were on Cloud 9!
It was around 5:30pm when we got back to Reggie, and Aaron's friend recommended another glacier in Seward, so we decided to check it out. We drove about 30 minutes away from Seward to get to Exit Glacier.
This is still part of the National Park:
We parked and walked about a mile to get to Exit Glacier.
This was at the beginning and throughout the walk we saw all these signs with numbers on them and didn't realize until later that these depicted how much the glacier has receded in the last 100 years. So in 100 years, Exit Glacier has receded 1 mile. This is where it stood in 1917.
Halfway there!
There it is!
The cool thing about Exit Glacier wasn't just that you got to visualize the depletion, but also that you could get way up close to it.
Atop this steep cliff was where it stood in 2010, and this was the closest we could get:
Time to walk back!
Saw this at the entrance:
A John Muir quote all the way up in Alaska! Awesome!
We drove back through Seward, looking for a place to eat:
We settled on The Seward Brewing Co.
They had a selection of beers they made in-house, so we tried the Pinbone IPA and the Inked Out Stout:
They were decent, but what we really wanted was food, so Aaron got the reindeer dog (loaded dog on the menu) and I got the seafood chowder (chowdah):
Wa wa wee wa! Both were fantastic! Food is really expensive in Alaska, but at least the quality is top notch!
Then it was time for bed!
Don't touch that dial! Denali is coming your way soon!
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