Hey, I warned you I was running out of alphabet ideas.
After our whirlwind tour of Wrangell-St. Elias, we headed to Seward for the last five days of our stay. Here is a sign I couldn't get enough of:
It was a nice drive, and along the way we stopped at the Matanuska glacier (another goddamn glacier!) and hiked out to it. This one was really cool, though, because as you walked over it, you saw how it went from dirt to ice.
How you get there:
Where the hike starts:
And where it ended for us:
Although if you know your way around glaciers, you could go much further:
After the mountains comes the sea. I am pretty sure we saw some Beluga whales swimming near shore. You tell me:
We finally got to Seward, and stayed at the nicest lodge suite you can imagine. The Windsong lodge wasn't really "lodge-y" -- there was almost never anyone in the common area, the fireplace was only lit once in the week we were there, etc. But omigod, the rooms! DVD player and porch facing the mountains. It had a separate bar area where we made the kid sleep. He was all jazzed at the idea of a trundle bed and insisted on pulling it out every night so he could "fall" out of his real bed. Though we could have just had him sleep in the bathtub, as he fit quite nicely:
There isn't much to do in Seward proper, it's very small-town in nature. We spent five days there, but mostly it served as a base for other things. We did take two days to sort of goof off, do laundry, lounge around -- oh, and hike.
... Including to Exit Glacier, which was a really interesting hike because they have marked off where the glacier was in various years past. So, you could see that in 1976, you'd have been standing on the glacier at X spot, but today you have to hike another half-mile or so to get to it. It was very interesting. No photos, you've got the idea on glaciers and I have other stuff to show you.
The main event was a Fox Island Resurrection Bay lunch cruise, with many sightings of water critters. Lunch was at another cute lodge on ... duh ... Fox Island, and if I hadn't loved our lodge so much I would have been sorry not to be staying at this place. Quiet, secluded, an island! We saw a flit of a whale -- and I got a photo that looks pretty much like the same photo I took when we went whale-watching in Hawaii. But it's not, I swear. Different, and MUCH colder, water!
We also saw otters. Very cute otters.
And steller (not a typo) sea lions. They are a lot like lower 48 sea lions, only bigger and grumpier.
I told the Young Prince I was going to turn this one into a poster and put the words, "BUT MOTHERRR!" at the bottom.
The other major animal event was puffins. Regular:
And tufted:
And, the YP completed his second junior ranger badge (the first one was at Denali, did I mention this?) and got sworn in on the boat.
The last big Thing we had planned was a raft trip down Kenia River with AK Rivers Company. I was a little surprised, I figured on a river where you weren't making a bunch of car or hiking noise there'd be more animals visible, especially what with them needing a drink and all. But we really didn't see anything. Oh, except eagles.
After that amazingly peaceful, but astonishingly nippy run down the river, we still had an afternoon to kill, so we went to Kenai. First major astonishment: the kid ate four tacos for lunch. This, up from his usual of one. Guess that fresh air had an effect.
And then, because it was close by and we figured the kid could use a run, we went to the beach. Why not? It's Alaska. What better place to shed your britches and jump in the water? It's only 40 degrees!
After all that, we had another lazy day of souvenir purchasing. Thomas got his hair cut just in time for school, and we capped it all off with another 2-hour hike and dinner at a place by the harbor.
Next day we got on the road back up to Anchorage, stopping on the way to look at one last glacier (the Portage glacier this time.) We got to town much too early to just go to the airport, so we had lunch at a place called Humpy's (also on Joan's recommendation! Thanks again, Joan!) and then killed a few hours at the children's museum/Imaginarium, which was probably more fun for NYAB and myself, though the kid seemed to have a good time.
Turned in the rental car, headed back to the airport, the adventure was over. Well, except when the TSA infuriated my 7-year-old by insisting he not only remove his sweatshirt to go through the metal detector but also confiscated his half-to-3/4-empty jar of peanut butter that was going to serve his noshing purposes on our 16-hour trip home. "BUT THAT LADY IN DULLES WAS ALL COVERED UP IN THAT BLACK THING AND YOU COULDN'T EVEN SEE HER EYES! WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY SWEATSHIRT?" And then, "WHY DO THEY THINK I AM A TERRORIST? I AM SEVEN! SEVEN! YEARS! OLD!" I am only slightly ashamed to say that we parental units were exasperated enough with the proceedings that we did not tone him down in the slightest. In fact, NYAB told him to send a letter to Janet Napolitano.
Know what? He did. It went out in the post this week. I rather think we will hear nothing in return, but I was amused as hell. A transcript:
Dear Secretary Napolitano
You have to stop taking peanut butter away from kids. We are not terrorists. We just want to eat a sandwich on an airplane. I was taking a long long flight from Alaska back to my home, and the airport security people took away my jar of peanut butter. So I had no sandwiches to eat on the plane and the food the airplane people gave out was not any good. If I was a terrorist, you could have my peanut butter and put me in jail. But I'm not. I'm 7 years old and want to eat a peanut butter sandwich. OK?
Sincerely (but firmly),
[The Young Prince]
Oh, apples and trees. What ya gonna do? Fortunately for all of us, there was a McDonald's on the correct side of the security kabuki theater, and the boy was placated. After turning his nose up at the airplane food, he pretty much conked out and stayed asleep through our four-hour layover in Houston and much of the flight to Washington.
And then we got home, and it was time for laundry and unpacking and getting back to normal life.
I would love-love-love to go back.
An amazing trip with great photos!
Posted by: Cosmiccamper | September 17, 2010 at 05:53 PM