The first couple of days were a tad wet. We panned for gold on Sunday and spent part of Monday driving in rain to the white water rafting location. Prior to getting to the rafting spot, we stopped off at the Reindeer Farm. What a fantastic morning. We were able to go right in the fields with reindeer and hand fed them. There was Bruce the pet moose and a tame sitka deer. Dolly the moody buffalo (she wasn't interested in attention) but Eddy the bull Elk was more than willing to be scratched between his ear and antler.
During the trip north to Chikaloon it cleared off and turned sunny. Thank goodness for dry suits because the water was a crisp 34 degrees. Devin is ready to do class 5 rapids now!!! Our guide was great and the Lion's Head rapids fast and deep. A good time was had by all.
The weather behaved the rest of the week- even into shorts by Thursday. We got good shots of the animals at the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center as the keepers had tossed all of the fresh branches right by the fence. Unfortunately, it was too hot for the black bears and they were in their house not wanting to play.
Sadly as we neared Seward, we came upon a wreck involving a motor home in which two people died in the crash and 3 others were taken to the hospital. It breaks my heart to think of someone's vacation ending like this.
The wreck blocked the road (south of our hotel) into Seward for the rest of the evening. Since it was still light (wait - maybe I should say early since the sun doesn't set until 11pm or so) we took the opportunity to go to Cooper Landing and decided to hike to the Russian River Falls to view the salmon jumping upstream. The hike was actually 6 miles though swarms of bug spray loving mosquitoes and we were ready for dinner when it was over!
Of course the Alaska Sealife Center was interesting as always but the day cruise was exceptional. There was a humpback whale lunging out of the water for food. At another spot there was a humpback momma and baby, Orcas (with a baby), sea lions, sea otters, puffins, murres, currants, eagles (chasing seagulls for lunch), seals and to cap it off, we saw Aialik Glacier calving in to the water (this is where Robert filled up the DVD with movies and I ran out of room on the still camera memory stick). They sound just like a good midwestern thunderstorm. It was amazing.
Before heading back north from Seward, we stopped by Bear Creek Weir to watch the salmon pile up in the stream waiting for their turn to jump up into the weir to be counted. (This is where the DVD batteries went dead. It takes a lot of juice to catch jumping salmon on film.) We also hiked to the Exit Glacier. (This 2 mile hike, while having many mosquitoes, wasn't near as grueling as the Russian River Trail.) Exit Glacier is a valley glacier which is much quieter than a tidewater glacier. We couldn't get close enough to touch ice but came within 20 feet of it for some great "man compared to glacier" shots.
As our trip was winding down, Robert and I took them to the Zoo and pointed out all of the cages we had been in working last week. (Lyu the Polar Bear performed nicely.) We sprinkled in some shopping here and there, a couple of Ship Creek runs to watch the fishermen and a tram ride to the top of Alyeska. We even managed to catch a clear view of Denali and Foraker.
But of course - as to be expected - the plane leaves in 8 hours and what have we not seen yet???
A moose. Our nephew was pretty sure there are no moose in the wild - only in zoos and they always lay down. This called for another hike! We went to the Glen Alps lot and hiked to Powerline Pass (a nice easy stroll) and there they were. All kinds of moose - from big bulls to frolicking yearlings irritating their mothers. (I am so glad we proved we do have moose in the wild that stand up.)
All in all I think we had a wonderful week. When they got on the plane, they were pretty darn tired but hopefully have some fantastic memories of what we call home.
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