Seward, Alaska

This is us starting out to go the Seward.  I got out to take a picture of the wildflowers and left John and Boone in the truck.  Can you see them?

Can you imagine driving 5 hours with constant views like this?  That is what Alaska looks like most of the time.  Every time we go around a new mountain there will be a lake or a river or a glacier.  The water is so pure and clean and different shades of blue.

Speaking of glaciers, John and I got  to meet one up close and personal.  This glacier is Exit Glacier at the Exit Glacier National Park in Seward, Alaska.  It was about a mile hike to get to this position which near the bottom of the glacier.  After the hike up it was nice to experience the cool temperature from the ice.  We look like we are close to it but we are not.  This thing was huge.

We met the Bauer family at Exit Glacier Park in the parking lot.  Frank, the father was taken back with the fact we drove all the way from South Carolina. He saw our license plate.  One thing lead to another and we all became quite acquainted with one another by the end of the hike.  In the picture is Frank, Ruth, Danae, me, Seth, Boone and Ryan.  The Bauer's have a dairy farm in Wisconsin.  We enjoyed the day together so much they came to our camp in the evening and we did smores on the fire.  It is actually about 10 o'clock in evening and not dark.  Danae is a photographer and she shared her website with me.  Her work is beautiful.  She does amazing pictures of the cows on the farm.  Ryan gave Boone a good run.  Seth roasted the marshmallows.  As I said before, we have been so blessed to have met such wonderful people on this trip.

In the campsite next to us was a military family stationed in Alaska.  They were from Sumter, SC and had been there 7 years.  They had three wonderful teen aged daughters.  We enjoyed getting to know them.

A man associated with the Stoney Creek Campground was in the business of taking individuals salmon fishing.  So during our stay in Seward John caught a silver salmon.  It is in the freezer.

Above are pictures of the Seward port.  The top picture is a celebrity cruse ship.  The boat from the Deadliest Catch was working out of this harbor too.

This body of water is a very large fjord with mountains on both sides and is named Resurrection Bay.

We took one of the Kenai Fjords Cruise excursions of Resurrection Bay.  We picked the most perfect day, the weather could have not been better.

John immediately met a young man wearing a Gamecock visor.  He was from Aiken, SC and was in Alaska for his brother's wedding.  We later met a lady wearing a Georgia Tech tee-shirt.  The boat holds about 150 people so those meetings are not so common.  We also met some men from Bardstown, KY at the Exit Glacier that knew the Wheatly's, our Daughter-In-Laws family.  It's so much fun to have these interactions so far from home.

 Bear Glacier was on our schedule for viewing.  The glacier comes all the way down to the water.  The bottom picture shows the chunks of ice that gets pushed down by the glacier and breaks off.

The cruise included a salmon and prime rib meal on Fox Island.  We spent about an hour on the island. The meal was really good.

If you look at the top of this 650 ft rock mountain you can see some tiny army bunkers.  This small mountain is surrounded by water.  Soldiers were stationed there to watch for the Japanese enemy.  The cold conditions they survived must have been horrible.

There is two sea lions on these rocks.  You have to look real close.

We all know that I am no photographer.  But I didn't take these pictures of the humpback whale.  Actually there are two whale out there.  In John's defense, the boat was rocking and swaying back and forth.  He now has a new camera.

We also saw sea otters, orca's and dolphins.  Not to mentions many types of birds and bald eagles.

Needless to say I enjoyed everything about Seward, Alaska.  The views are unbelievable.  The next stop is Valdez.

More from Homer, Alaska

 Homer was awesome..  The pictures above were taken on the Spit.  It is a strip of land 5 miles long that extends off Homer and is just wide enough for a row of restaurant's and shops on each side of the road.  There is a campground and fishing charters and marinas too. You would think high tide would wash it away it is so narrow.  It was very unique.  The last picture is the Spit as we were looking down at it from on top a mountain.

John went deep sea fishing for Halibut.  The sea was too rough, so the trip was cut short and only two fish were caught on his charter.  No boats went out the rest of the time we were there.

We became good friends with the couple from Missouri, John and Sue. They were camping beside us.  They were working as volunteers for the season at the Marine and Wildlife Science Center.  Not only did we enjoy their company and use the good information they shared with us, they shared some halibut and salmon with us.  We have been blessed to have met so many wonderful people on this trip.

This was taken on the tip of the Spit.  At one that was all iced over.  When the ice melted it created a Fjord.   A fjord is formed when a glacier cuts a U-shaped valley by ice segregation and abrasion of the surrounding bedrock. Glacial melting is accompanied by rebound, which is this water between the mountains.  All I have to say about that is the beauty is amazing.

This is taken from our campground in Homer.  The snow in between the mountains is a glacier.  During our nine days there the glaciers melted significantly.  It has been unusually warm this summer in Alaska.  I call it perfect weather, in the 60's and 70's.  We have had beautiful weather except in Denali.

This is a hiking trail through wild flowers.  It was high above Homer and you can see the glaciers behind Boone.  We were getting up there with them if you know what I mean. You wouldn't believe some of the roads we had drive to get to these places.

We learned that the white flowers, Northern Yarrows, in the background can burn and cause very painful blisters if you come in contact with their sap.  They use to be used for medicine during wars.

By the way, if you click on the pictures you can enlarge them.

The next stop was Soldotna for the sole purpose of catching Salmon.  Soldotna is on the Kenai Peninsula and the Kenai River runs through there.  It is the salmon fishing mecca of Alaska.  My problem with the idea of John salmon fishing was that the river was wide, deep, cold and very swift.  One missed step and you are gone.   But he put on his waders and went three different times.  I am sorry to say John did not catch a salmon but other fishermen didn't either.  Commerical fishermen had been up steam and cleaned them out, they said.  And it seems that salmon run at different times.

We didn't get any pictures in Soldotna.  We didn't need any reminders.  Ha.

John wanted a picture if a volcanic mountain.  It was near Arrow Point which was about 25 miles from Homer.  We saw it on our way to Seward.

The Firewood wildflower is everywhere.  They are all along the highways.  The flower blooms all summer.  The Alaskans say when the die snow is coming.

Homer, Alaska

We have arrived in Homer, Alaska and this is our first day of nine.  This is the view from our 5th Wheel, snow covered mountains dropping down into the ocean.  Today is beautiful.

John makes up things to do around our camp.  The man cannot just do nothing.  I have no problem doing nothing.

Boone has no a problem doing nothing too.

Wouldn't you know it, the first thing we did was go to a winery and do some wine tasting.  It was called Bear Creek Winery.  We only purchased two bottles.  Everything here is high just like the mountains.  The young lady that waited own us, Elise Smith, was from Easley, SC.  It was cool to talk to her.  She had been in Alaska a year.  She came with her husband who works on a fishing boat.  He wanted to experience Alaska and so they agreed to stay no longer than 5 years.  She said there were not many jobs in the winter.  What they made during the summer kept them up during the winter too.  And it was getting harder.  Fifty percent of the Homer businesses shut down for the winter.

Here I am at the winery.  Check out the view from the front of the winery.  That is a glacier on the left side of the picture.  It is easy to see why people love Homer.

Travel to Homer, Alaska - July 12, 2013

The drive from Anchorage to Homer was spectacular.  Snow covered mountains dropped down into the pacific ocean. I never expected to see such sights.  They were prettier than any picture.  I wish my little camera could do the scenery justice. The drive with the ocean and mountains touching each other  lasted at least 20 miles.

After we left the ocean there was endless, beautiful mountain views.  We went through a place called Cooper.  It was a fishing village on the Russian River.  The river was a shade of blue that I have never seen before. This village was in the middle of no where but there lots of people fly fishing and people rafting.  It is hard to grasp how we could drive a hundred miles through wilderness and then all of a sudden come up on a very active small village.  But that just about sums up Alaska.