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Alaska - Land of the Midnight Sun July 2011 - Page 2
Click on any photo to see a larger view
- After we left Talkeetna, we drove south to Seward on the Kenai Peninsula. Felicia and I had decided to stay in the Kenai Peninsula region
for most of our trip - Alaska is so big you can't possibly see much of it. Alaska is 2.5X larger than Texas is and has just 2000 miles of paved
roads and about 600,000 people, most of who live in Anchorage (This is the population of Fort Worth in a space 2.5X the size of Texas).
The Kenai Peninsula (pronounced keen - eye) is called Alaska's Playground because it has lots of sporting activities in the smallest area
- saltwater and freshwater fishing, long coasts, many mountains with many glaciers, a lot of wildlife, sea wildlife, hiking, biking, rafting, etc.
With only two weeks to see Alaska, we decided to focus there so we would spend the least time driving across the state. I will also say
that everywhere we went on the Kenai Peninsula we could see beautiful snow covered mountains, lakes, rivers and the sea. That is what
we went to Alaska to see
Seward and Whittier are also the two jumping off points for taking glacier tours by boat of the Kenai Fjords National Park and the Prince
William Sound to see glaciers coming from the high mountains down to the sea and to see the glaciers calving new icebergs into the sea.
We took two different day long trips and to see the glaciers and mountains, seals, sea lions, otters, eagles and other sea birds. Even saw two whales
- These pictures are of the Exit Glacier that is
about 6 miles from Seward. There are dozens
of glaciers in the Seward ares but Exit Glacier
is unique because you can drive to withing a
half mile of it and then hike to the glacier.
Local companies will provide you with helmets
and crampons and take you climbing on the
glacier for a small nominal fee. We went here
twice during our stay at Seward
- Seward is on the coast and we had rented a very nice house in town for 5 days to use as our base for seeing the Kenai Peninsula. Our
house had been remodeled in 2010 and had large windows on 4 sides that provided excellent views of the small town of Seward, mountains,
glaciers and the opening of Resurrection Bay.
Seward is a deep bay that is surrounded on three sides by snow and glacier covered mountains It is at the end of Resurrection Bay,
discovered by Russians in the 1700 on Easter Sunday. Large cruise ships and cargo ships can go right to the dock, most of the bay
is over 500 feet deep.
- The photos below were taken from inside or vary close to our house in Seward of the church next door, mountains behind the house and bay in
front of the house. It was tempting just to sit inside and look out the window all day - they don't need a TV there. Felicia found a park bench on
the water 2 blocks away and liked to go there early in the morning to look at the fishing boats go by and enjoy the cool and quiet. I would
recommend this place for anybody to stay there if you are ever in Seward
- Alaskan Amber is pretty
good beer, I may look for
some at the store. It made
the high cost of seafood on
the dock in Seward not seem
so bad. It costs less to eat
crab, salmon, halibut and
shrimp in Texas than it
does in Alaska
- We spent one morning learning all about dog sledding and the Iditarod at the Ididaride Sled Dog Tours outside of Seward. The owner had won
the famous Iditarod Race about 5 years ago. He has about 80 dogs that they train and run all summer and then he picks the best 16 dogs to pull
his to dog sled each March to compete in the 1000 mile long Iditarod race that goes from Anchorage to Nome. We rode in a cart pulled by 16
sled dogs, saw how they are trained and got to hold some baby pups. Kendra liked that part the best.
