Seward

View of Resurrection Bay from our hotel:

Otter that lives by the rocks at the south end of town:

We headed down to the Kenai Peninsula on Tuesday morning. The drive alone the highway was beautiful, Seward (on the eastern side) is surrounded by mountains so the town kinda hangs on a small area of land. There is a great aquarium with native species and sea otters that live in the rocks right off the parking areas.

Di and Michael on the "Alaskan Explorer"

Wednesday we took another boat tour out into Resurrection Bay. This was a bigger boat (about 94'). We did get close to one of the Glaciers but it was a totally different experience then the last trip we took. The waters were colder and so there wasn't as much ice in the water. The glacier was active and there was quiet a bit of calving going on.
We saw a tremendous amount of sea birds nesting...at points there would be so many birds on the rock face it looked like a hive of bees. Both Ben and I loved the puffins...ungainly little fat things that only looked graceful when they were in the water.
We saw Sea lion rookeries, Orca and Humpback whales. We stopped to watch a Mom and baby humpback and when the Mom would dive down the baby would stay up top and play. He would roll over, stick his fins out and swoosh water with his tail and try and breach but with his fins up instead of this head. He wasn't very coordinated but I guess that's how they learn.
We stopped for a Salmon dinner on an island on the way back. The dinner was good and the beach had perfect flat, round stones that the boys spent the majority of their time trying to skip.

The "Alaskan Explorer" docked at Fox Island for dinner:

Thursday we went to Exit Glacier National Park where we could actually walk up and touch a glacier. One of the guide books that if you spend enough time in Alaska you get tired of seeing glaciers but not me. It's kinda like the Eagles that are all over and most people here take them for granted. Mike says the natives in Juneau don't really like the Eagles since they are scavengers and are a nuisance.

Family by Exit Glacier:

Kittywakes nesting:

Sea Lion rookery:

Humpback whale breaching:

Puffins nesting:

Denali National Park

We arrived in Denali about 1:00 (5 hours from Anchorage). We arrived just in time to hit the visitors center and shuttle over to the dog kennels. My biggest surprise was the size of the dogs...they were very leggy and about 100 lbs. The dogs were friendly but were set up in a way that they could seek attention from the public or retreat to their dog houses if they didn't want the attention.

One of the only ways into the park is by park operated shuttle buses. They are basically green and white school buses which were actually pretty comfortable. We had to be at the shuttle stop at 6am Sunday morning but getting their early got us first in line which gave us great viewing seats on the bus. We saw moose within the first 2 miles and then shoe shoe hares (billions of them), fox, ptarmigan, caribou, Dall sheep and a Canadian lynx. Our bus driver was very knowledgeable and entertaining which helped as the ride was 3 hours each way. The day started out sunny and clear and we were able to get a view of Mt.McKinley which is fairly rare. Our bus driver has been driving his route since mid-may and he has only see the peak 2 times.

Mt. McKinley:

Sign that local bear have been eating. This is the third sign the park service has put up and the bears come and rub against the nails at the bottom of the sign.

Bull moose:

We did end up going back into the park (you can drive the first 14 miles) in the evening to try and see more wildlife. We didn't end up seeing much of anything except more rabbits.

Monday morning we headed back to Anchorage. We saw 2 more moose out in the wetlands but it was rainy and overcast so we couldn't see the mountains. The area around Denali was different and interesting but dominated by black spruce which really weren't very attractive trees. Anchorage is a typical city and not very attractive but the mountains that surround the town are spectacular. The remind me of Denver except these rise up much higher and there really aren't any foothills. Of course, the mountains are on the east/north and I find myself turned around and directionally confused most of the time.

Rock Ptarmagin:

Snow Shoe hare:

Douglas Island

Abandoned lookout building at low tide with Alaska's 2 types of birds: Eagles & Sea planes

Another trip over to Douglas Island yesterday. We went to the south end by "dog beach". Yes, dog beach since everyone goes there to let their dogs run. At least I was able to get my dog fix while I was here. This area also was the location of an old gold mine that operated until 1917 when it collapsed and flooded. The kids thought the area looked like a movie set from an Indiana Jones set but they wouldn't go in it as it was "creepy".

Since Juneau is a popular port of call for the cruise ships they are always coming and going. The kids wait to see which ships are new each morning when we drop Mike off for work. There always seem to be 4 in dock and with 8,000 passengers on each ship the town can get pretty congested.

Douglas Island

A walk in the forest

Another rainy day here in Juneau....did I mention that is rains here a lot? And if it's not raining it's cloudy and grey? Well, rain clouds and all the boys drove over the bridge to Douglas Island. It's a 42 mile, narrow island that lies across the channel from Juneau. We hiked through a very pretty temperate rain forest type climate. The boys were concerned about mosquitoes when they got out of the car and say one so I had to break out their bug netting. I did try and convinced them that there weren't any bugs down by the water (there weren't!) but the bug netting didn't come off. Lot's of nice pictures of kids covered in netting. We could hear Eagles in the trees behind the beach but only saw one flying around. It's pretty funny....the eagles are everywhere...you can always find a few off the road hanging out in the tidal river areas.

Boys on "Barnacle Island"

View of Mendenhall Glacier from across the channel

Collector of shells On his path into the sea

What do you do with all those old skis?

Tracy Arm Fjord

Sawyer Glacier:

Ice Flows around the Glaciers:

Sunday we took a day trip by boat (about 40'?) about 3 hours one way through the inside passage to a very long and narrow fjord. It rained off and on but we had jackets and did well. Michael spent almost the ENTIRE trip up at the front of the bow watching what was coming. Ben sat up in the wheel house with the captain most of the trip. We big icebergs floating out of the fjord which were just amazing. The blue color of the iceberg is when the iceberg is new, after time it turns white with sun exposure.

There are 2 glaciers at the end of the Fjord and both of them have been "calfiing" where big chunks of the ice fall. It was a little unnerving for this little boat to work it's way into the ice flow but he did manage to get us pretty close. there were tons of harbor seals hanging out on the ice, it's is their summer birthing place.

We spent several hours in the area of the glaciers watching them calf (which was like hearing a cannon). There were a ton of Eagles in the area. There were a bunch hanging out on a big iceberg and then another group that was fishing as the diving ducks were stirring up the fish.

We did see one humpback whale on the way home. It didn't stay long. Our guide says that if there are Orca whale pods in the area then the humpbacks go elsewhere. They saw a huge pod of the Orcas yesterday.

Sunday morning

Waiting to head over to our boat trip to Tracy Arm Fjord and Glacier. We'll be on the boat all day today so hopefully we see lots for the boys to watch.
Yesterday we spent some time walking around Juneau. There was a Native American Festival going on as well as 2 different cruise ships in dock. The boys and were spent by about 1:00 we went back to the room and we all napped for about 2 hours. Refreshed, we headed over to the Menden Hall Glacier which is only about 15 minutes out of town. Unfortunately I realized I had left the camera back at the hotel so the boys and I will probably go back sometime this week. It was pretty neat area. The boys were dive bombed by the nesting Arctic Turns and we could see several mountain goats traveling way up the side of this huge mountain face. We walked down to the waterfall base that is the closest you can Get to the Glacier. It was loud, cold and wet but pretty amazing. There was a photographer there who was taking pictures for a book so he took some of our family and will hopefully email them to us.
We ate dinner around 8:00pm at a local pizza place by the hotel and the kids were down and out by 9:15.
It's still light here when we got to bed. It was still relatively light when we got settled in at the hotel at 11:00 the other night. They say that it is light again at 3:30 am but we haven't really noticed since we seem to be sleeping through it.

Arrival in Juneau

Our flights were relatively uneventful. Of course, it was cloudy in Seattle and cloudy in Juneau so we had a bit of turbulence landing in both cities. At one point while we were landing in Seattle we hit a pretty good pocket of turbulence and Ben takes out his barf bag and just passes it over to me. Gee, I guess I'm pretty predictable when it come to flying.
We landed in Juneau at 10:30 Alaska time which is 2 hours behind Denver. We were booked into a hotel near the airport (I mean...literally about 500' from the airport) only to arrive at be told that they don't have the double room available that we booked and their room rate is 50% higher then what we were quoted when we booked on line. It seems that Mike's company travel agency screwed up. I guess we looked pretty done in (the kids were curled up on the lobby couch) so it we could make do the first night she would find us a suite for the rest of the week, cut the normal rate by 25% and comp us the last night. Sounded really good to us late last night!
We're just waiting for a room to open up this morning and we can head off to explore Juneau.