Seward Alaska – Too Much Love Boat?

Today marks our eighth day in Seward, and we have seen four cruise boats now.  Today it was the Norwegian Sun, operated by Norwegian Cruise Line.    This boat can also carry over 2,000 passengers, and nearly 1,000 crew members.  One thing about when these large cruise ships come into port…our Internet through Verizon is shot to heck because the passengers and crew use up the cell towers on us.

For the second time I found a young couple embracing as the cruise ship goes by…perhaps they were reminiscing about when they once were on a cruise ship, perhaps dreaming about a time they want to be on a cruise ship, or perhaps they just saw too many episodes of the “Love Boat”.  (If you don’t know what the Love Boat is, click here) 

My fascination with them is strictly photogenic…they make for a great picture.  Finding the right shot as it passes in front of the scenic landscape…and this boat by far is the most colorful, and reflected in the waters more than the others.

This ship also snuck in early in the morning, backing into the harbor.  Why some back in, while others go face first and back out is anyone’s guess.  With this one, the schedule said it was to dock at 7 am, but when the sun is up at 4 am, and it is light all night long, 7 am feels like it does all night…no darkness equals less sleep, so you get up when you decide to get up. 

 

A bit of perspective…got this little boat passing the big boat.  It is like a mosquito in size.

By 9:30 it was down at the entry to Resurrection Bay.  Looks like it is headed for that mountain shore, but it is staying in the deep channel of the bay, slowly turning to the right and headed out to the Pacific Ocean.

Previously showed a picture of Mount Marathon where the Mount Marathon Race will be held on July 4th, bringing around 30,000 people to this small community.  (We will be long gone, over in Homer by then.)  Well, thought I would bring a bit of perspective to this too. 

The hikers are up where the green just starts to disappear along the trail on the left side of the mountain.  One heck of a mountain...and the record is like 44 minutes!

At precisely midnight, the start of the longest day of the year, the moon starts to peek its full head over the mountain top.

Welcome to the first day of summer…what a way to start our summer.

Sometimes timing is everything…yes, that is a small boat between the moon and the moon’s reflection.

Just sitting in the motorhome, enjoying the view, waiting for my laptop to charge up so that I could finish the blog.  I look up and see this white reflection in the water and think, “Where is this coming from???”  Then, “Oh Marcia, look at what we get!!!”   I grab the camera and run out.  Came in to show Marcia the first batch of shots, got Skruffy and we went out for the latter bunch, getting the picture of boat crossing the reflection.  All of the previous nights we had put the cover over the front window by 11:30.  Not tonight…thank goodness.

Who'll Stop The Rain – Seward Alaska

The rain got a bit heavy last night, and lasted well into this afternoon.  Around 4 pm it stopped, there were patches of blue skies, and the rain stopped, and the ground dried up.  Around 3 pm I headed over to the library to download some more movies to our kindles.  Without power, we don’t have TV, and have been watching a few movies on our kindles.  Watched “My Cousin Vinny”, which we had to rent (not on Amazon Prime) while we had the generator on, otherwise, we watched everything else on one of our two kindles.  Without solar power due to clouds, we had the generator on for about 6+ hours today, instead of 2+.  (We always have it on in the morning for coffee, for about 30 minutes, then about 90 minutes in the evening.) 

Got a picture of the Cruise Ship that came in Sunday morning sometime…did not hear it over the rain.  This one “backed in” to the harbor…now that is different.  I guess it wants to make a quick get-a-way later in the evening.   This is an eleven deck, 2,000 passenger cruise ship MS Noordam of the Holland America Line.   Noordam is named for the northern compass point, and the other ships like it are the Oosterdam, Westerdam, and Zuiderdam.

Around 8:30 I heard a whistle blow, and the ship had left the harbor and started down Resurrection Bay toward the Pacific Ocean.   Kind of like it when it has to turn around, but sure did not want to get up that early to watch it back into harbor at who knows what time this morning, especially in the rain.

Not very much to take pictures of today due to the rain, and frankly, it was fairly cool until the wind stopped about the time the ship pulled out.   Tomorrow should be a bit better, and much better starting on Tuesday.  Not sure when we are headed over to Homer, might hang around for the warm weather coming in on Tuesday for a few days.  Nice not having a set schedule…

Now I know what it is like when the bluest sky of the day is at 10 pm at night.   Wish I knew how to stop the rain that falls on my daughter…  She went into the ER today with pains in her right side.  After a number of hours and a number of test, they released her without knowing what causes the pain.  It “could” be the appendix, but the test have not confirmed a bad appendix.  Sometimes it rains and pours, and you just can’t stop it…no matter how much you want things to change…

Exit Glacier – Seward Alaska

Taken exactly 11 pm, June 16th, Seward Alaska.  Kids still walking up and down the sidewalk, though the noise they were making at 10 pm was long gone…although Maxine said that she could hear the “girls” talking in the tent set up outside between her little trailer and the camper talking till after midnight.   Imagine this…we see this camper, the type that sits on top of the bed of a truck, pull in yesterday around noon.  To our astonishment, there were four kids, ranging from 8-13, two adults, both teachers and the parents of two of the four kids, and a dog…not a small dog, a good size dog.  Wondered how they all were going to sleep in that thing, but they set up a tent for the girls, not sure about the boys, perhaps they slept in the truck!  Anyway, they pulled out this morning, though I saw the camper up at Exit Glacier later in the day.

I took this picture last night around 10 pm…the sun just keeps people out late.  There is enough of a breeze that we have had zero mosquito problems while here.  One or two in the motorhome when we got here, but we think they hitched a ride from the Portage Glacier area.

    

Another cruise ship in the harbor today…heard this one come in at 6 am.  It is the Millennium, the flagship of the Millennium-class cruise ships, operated by Celebrity Cruises line, part of the Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd.  It has eleven passenger decks, and can carry over 2,100 passengers.  Not sure how full it is, but there are a lot more people here than yesterday when the Silver Shadow was in dock…it holds less than 400 passengers because it is a “luxury liner”…where as the Millennium is a “crowded liner”.   

Today Marcia and Skruffy and I hiked up to Exit Glacier, what is considered the “end” of the Harding Icefield.  The Icefield measures in at over 1,100 square miles, and spawns up to 40 glaciers, including Exit Glacier...we see less than 2% of the entire Icefield by seeing Exit Glacier.  This Glacier has retreated, on average, about 35-40 feet each year since 1815 when it first started to be measured.  It largest loss was from 1914 to 1917 with a whopping 302 feet per year.  The average rate of retreat for the glacier from 1973 to 2013 was just over 30 feet per year, although it had another major loss in 2014 of 187 feet.  It seems that every few decades, there is a huge loss, proceeded by little to no loss before and/or after. 

The two girls led the way along the path.  I had talked with a Ranger and she said that the GoGo should make it fine, and as a Service Dog, Skruffy could go too, just keep her close.  I inquired about bears, and she said that with this crowd (cruise ship crowd), the bears are long gone by now.  It is about a half mile in to the viewpoint, which means it is a half mile back out.  Skruffy walked about 1/4 of it, which was good for her.  I walked it all, well, crawled a little at the end might be more like it.  The GoGo did real well.

This is my favorite view of the glacier…only because I am sitting down on the bench.  

We always like the find the many waterfalls running off of the snow/ice laden mountains.  There were many of them today.

On the way back to the car I let them get a good head start … didn’t want her to feel rushed by my heavy breathing down her neck…very heavy breathing, must be the high elevation (about 600 feet).   

     

All kidding aside, it was a nice hike, and nice views.  On our way down we stopped to get a few pictures of Resurrection River coming down off the mountain, it runs through Seward and into Resurrection Bay. 

Here is the river as it comes into Seward.  These glacial rivers are full of rocks, very wide, and frankly, not as pretty as other rivers…but they are what they are.

    

It was an overcast morning, then partly cloudy during the early afternoon, and by 5 it started to cover up again.

    

By 6:30 the people were all buttoned up inside somewhere.  Normally there are many folks eating their dinner enjoying the warm sun, cool breeze and the boats coming back into the harbor.

Then the guy who cuts fish every evening set up his table, started to cut the fish, and he really drew a crowd.  It went from hardly a bird in the sky, to a flock of birds all around him.  This picture only shows about half the birds he attracted. 

    

The Cruise Ship started backing out at 8 pm.  At first I could find no one on its decks…only one crew person.  Then there was an announcement from the Captain, time for a life boat drill, and hundreds of people come out on deck.

    

With that, it finished its turn, and sailed out of the bay shrouded in foggy clouds. 

A young couple hug in the bottom right as they watch their dream ship sail off…

That’s it from Seward today, other than to say thanks for all the well wishes for Skruffy, who is getting better each day.  Today she ate and entire bowl of food, over half of it dry food, with some water added, and a half of a container of Little Caesar dog food…and these are small containers, so she mainly had her normal food with this stuff added as an incentive.   That then creates another problem…Bubba stuck his nose up in the air to his dry dog food for 24 hours…so I added just a bit of beef broth to his as we went out the door to visit Exit Glacier.  When we got back, it was gone…but we had a mess of torn paper towels and Kleenex that were between the front seats, which he left all over the floor in the driver / passenger area of motorhome.   And here all along we thought Skruffy was doing this… BUBBA is MISSING ARNY!   As for us, looks like we are in for rain on Saturday, Sunday and Monday...not necessarily all day, but it could be all day.

Seward Alaska, a Relaxing and Refreshing Time

I had meant to publish pictures of the RV park in my last post, had them ready to put into the blog, but got distracted I guess.   Here we are facing the Kania Mountains  and Resurrection Bay that I showed in yesterday’s post.  I knew there were two ADA spots right in this part of the park, and we lucked out with one of the two being open…the other being occupied by our new friend Maxine who is from Ontario Canada.  After staying here through the 4th of July, she is moving on to Dawson City, a famous Yukon Gold Rush town in the northern part of the Yukon.  Her daughter is a Canadian Parks Tour Guide there, owns her own home, but during the cold winter months, rents her house out and then she goes off house and pet sitting for people in other parts of the world.  Works for her, and glad her mom, who told me she celebrated her 75th birthday a few years ago, can still camp and go visiting like this all by herself.

     

Here are our neighbors to the left and to the right of us.  The pathway leads all the way to the docks on the left, and to the Alaska SeaLife Center to the right.  (We will visit the SeaLife Center later, probably on a rainy day.) 

 

The Waterfront Park Campgrounds is run by the Seward Parks and Recreation Department.  The map (click on it for a larger online version) shows the numerous camping opportunities along the water, starting at the far left where there are ten camping sites (including the host site), the middle area where there are 33 non-hookup sites and 20 hookup sites along the water, and two to three times that number of sites in the second, third and fourth rows off the water, and then even more sites off to the right of the map.  Overall there are 99 electric and water sites, at $40 per night, and around 150 non-utilities camping, along with an area for tent camping.  No reservations, first come, first serve, except that caravans can and do reserve some of the hookup sites, which are then marked as such.  Self registration at a pay machine is easy, put in your RV’s license plate, the site you are staying in, and the number of nights.  It will take exact cash, or Visa/Mastercard, and give you a receipt.  If you wish to stay longer, you may do so, and you may move to another site if you wish of equal value.  There is a dump station, $5 a shot for all, and it has the same automated system, but is simply a $5 charge, no other info needed.

You do need to realize that there are kids here, and there is this wonderful play area for them…they did not make play areas like this when I was a kid, that’s for sure.  There is also a skateboard area near this playground…and many kids skate by or ride their bikes along the pathway…but they seem to be good kids.

Seward is located on both sides of Resurrection Bay, although the main part of the city is on the left portion of the map, which is where we are also located.   The city’s population is estimated at 2,500 people, many of whom reside in the housing area on the right side of the lake.  There is a very active fishing port, and is noted as the ninth most lucrative fisheries port in the United States based on the monetary value of fish taken from the port.  The Alaskan Train has a end line here, and it is used by the Cruise Ships to transport people up to Anchorage and to Denali…although cruise ships just started to stop in Anchorage now. 

The city is named after former Secretary of State William H. Seward, under Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson, who was very instrumental in buying Alaska from the Russians.  Mile zero of the Iditarod Trail, a thousand-plus mile trail system in Alaska, is in Seward. 

It is also known for the yearly Mount Marathon Race, run on the 4th of July, which had its founding in the very early 1900’s.  There is a Men’s, Women’s and Junior category, and they race up to the top of the mountain (the Juniors race only part way up), and back down again.  It is one of the oldest foot races in the nation, some say it is the second oldest only surpassed by the Boston Marathon.   The record time is just under 42 minutes for the men, and just under 48 minutes for the women.  It is not uncommon for racers to cross the finish line bruised and bleeding.  In 2012 an Anchorage man disappeared while running the race, the first fatality of the years of racing.  Apparently the man was so slow, they had shut down the checkpoint before he arrived (the men’s race is always the last race), and speculation is that he went over the other side of the mountain, never to be seen again.  Remember, this is Grizzly Country…  That is the mountain in the distance above…our motorhome is to the right, Maxine’s little trailer is to the left.  She will be staying for the race…not us.

Last night around 9 pm I went to Lowell Point (see map above, it is on it) and got this shot of the other end of Resurrection Bay.  The guy with that little boat was cleaning fish, and if you look at the shadow, you can see my silhouette.  (No, I don’t have the camera over my head, it is the angle of the sun this late at night…two hours BEFORE sunset.)

On the way back I got another look across the bay, a little different look than what we have, but the same mountain range.

And this shot here looking back at Seward.  That land going out into the bay is the start of the park, and there is space for 10 RVs there with a nice view of the entire bay.  We “might” move over there sometime before we leave the area.

A Bald Eagle showed up last night and hung around for over an hour.  A couple had been cleaning fish earlier, and tossing remains out to the 30 gulls which had gathered.  By the time the eagle showed up, the party was over…but the gulls hung around too…which might have attracted the eagle to the area.

Boy, that Salmon sure looks good!

One good looking eagle, that’s for sure.

Speaking of the eagle showing up last night, as we were finishing up our dinner, fellow blogger ZippyPinHead, who has made comments on our Alaska trip these past few weeks, dropped by with his wife to say hello.  They live here in Alaska, and like to “travel where the sun shines” as he says…and knowing that Seward was having good weather, they came on by to say hello.  You can go to his blog by clicking on the header picture above, or look for him in the "blogs we follow" on the far right side of our blog page.  Thanks for dropping by Zippy.

On fabulous view of the bay and mountains before the day was done…