Unfortunately, I am not able to post photos of our trip from Anchorage to Seward because of a snail-internet connection. However, I will try to find a location later this week to get photos up.
Perhaps it is just as well there are no photos, as during our trip, through the deep gouges in Alaska's mountain ranges, and along it's ever-changing Turnagain Arm water basin, I kept telling Ira that no photo could possibly show what we saw in our journey. A photo cannot show turn upon turn, upon turn of highways providing vistas of mountains that go on and on and on and seem to fall right onto the road. Mountains so high, initially the clouds hid them from us, but as we got closer to the Kenai Peninsula, they were revealed in all their glory. "Stop Ira, please" was the quote of the day! "Yes, Cindy, at the next pull off" was his patient reply. Through, as he drove he craned his neck to look every which way and another at the vistas we were blessed with.
As mentioned, we started on a cloudy day. At one turn off, we noticed the northern mountains far in the distance were getting some sun. A van stopped where we were and the obvious tour guide told us, and his "tourees," that the mountains in the far, far, far distance was Denali (McKinley) and its associated sister mountains. We took some photos, albeit extremely distant, as we were afraid that might be the only view of Denali we would get all this trip. We really want to view it and actually got a cabin in Talkeena for our next leg of our journey, with a view of McKinley, but the future weather does not look promising. We'll just have to see.
Then, at another stop, we started watching the low-tide on Tunagain Arm, just north of the Whittier Junction, and we heard a sound of rushing water. The binoculars revealed that there was actually a wave (small - maybe 6 inches) traveling north to south. In front of the wave were all the silty waterbars which we revealed at low tide, but the wave was covering them and forcing water south. Luckily, other tourists showed up where we were who had lived in Alaska for a year. They said that sometimes the rise of water with the inflow of the tide, sometimes of the year allowed folks in wetsuits to surf on the waves. They explained that high tide was about 2 hours from the time we were standing there so the high tide was coming in, hence the wave. Ira had been reading about the dramatic changes in water levels in Turnagain Arm. And how you absolutely cannot step foot on the sand, left from low tide, as it would actually consume you and is like quick sand. No worries, I was not going out on it!
Our next major stop and lunch break was at the Alaska Wildlife Nature Conservancy. The Conservancy is establishing new herds of native elk population and the native wood bison. Along with those, the conservancy also has muskox, moose, black and brown bear, lynx and other creatures. So, we saw our first brown bear (grizzly), though as often with animals in large pens (and this was a large grizzly enclosure---really large), they did not behave as they would in the wild. They were more lethargic and just not happy looking. Who could blame them. They looked incredibly well kept and quite lovely, but just not in the wild. So, technically, I feel a grizzly is still on my bucket list and will have to wait for Denali National Park - hopefully I won't see one on a hiking trail. We ate our picnic lunch at the conservancy and continued our journey to Seward.
The road narrowed the closer we got to Seward, the mountains seemingly got higher (perhaps it's because they were closing in on us) and there were the most incredible mountain lakes (big ones) on the side of the road. What a paradise to be in! Eventually, the mountains on our left started to pull away from the road while the mountains on the right remained close. This was where the head of Resurrection Bay starts which leads into the ocean. Seward sits at the very (I do mean very) base of a western line of mountains and Resurrection Bay sits between Seward the the next ridge of mountains (which, by the way, we see beautifully from our balcony of our lodging and also I'm sitting here looking at them as I write this). I've never seen a body of water, so completely surrounded by such mammoth mountains. It can bring one to tears.
We have decided to take a long fjord cruise tomorrow. We will be in the face of 3 major glaciers in the Kenai National Forest. They have been seeing whales here "every day" so we thought we should jump on the day as we have heard it may be fairly good. The next several days look rather poor, so we want to see as much of the peninsula as possible tomorrow before we get clouded in. Let's hope the weather gurus change their mind.
Tomorrow will be a no-BLOG day. Our cruise is 9 hours long and when we get back, we are grabbing dinner out. So, don't be looking for a new post until Friday.
I'm sorry we couldn't post photos today. I'll try to find a wifi location that works better on Friday. I'm fearful that much of Alaska is this way as it took me hours to upload yesterday's images and that was in Anchorage - the city! Out here, I may simply may not be able to.
Chat with you all on Friday!
Ira and Cindy