TWO PEAS AND THE POD: 💯DAYS in AK💚WE'RE SEASIDE IN SEWARD💚

WEDNESDAY

ALASKAN STOP #29

WATERFRONT PARK

SEWARD, AK

We have now officially finished with our visit to the western side of the Kenai Peninsula as we stopped at the wildlife viewing area at Tern Lake. It's not the geographic center of the peninsula, it's just where the only road in forks and you have to literally pick a side, east or west!

Turn right (west) and you'll end up at the end of the road in Homer, like we did first. Turn left (east) and you'll once again end up at the end of the road, this time in Seward.

It was a great place to stop and take in the views and wildlife sightings as seen in the photo and videos below.

Tern Lake on the Kenai Peninsula on our way to Seward, AK.

Trumpeter Swans on Tern Lake

A family of ducks enjoying a sunny day on Tern Lake

We got back on the road for the final 36-miles to our next stop at the Waterfront Park in Seward, AK. We weren't but a few miles down the road when there was a pullout with a short hiking trail through the woods that leads to a viewing platform over Moose Creek.

Our short walk down this trail in the woods lead to Moose Creek.

From the viewing platform we were directly overhead of a dozen or so large salmon. They were in a continuous game of Tag-You're-It as we observed them from above. Every once in a while one would skitter across a shallow sandbar in the creek that was only an inch or two deep and their entire body would rise above the water to show us their brilliant red color.

These are just a few of the dozen salmon visible from the platform.

We arrived a short time later at the Waterfront Park in Seward and quickly realized we already knew some of our neighbors. Winston and VerJean have been here since yesterday and are camped just 10 spots down from us, also on the waterfront.

This view is very similiar to what we had back in Valdez. Was that really two months ago?

How's that for an office view? We may just have to open up the rear hatch this week.

Of course we do have to share the view with a few neighbors, like Winston and VerJean.

THURSDAY - Today we are headed out for another wildlife and glacier tour similiar to what we did in Valdez. This 7-½ hour tour will take us out into Resurrection Bay and then the Gulf of Alaska to see both the Aialik Glacier and the Holgate Glacier up close. Both glaciers are located inside of the Kenai Fjords National Park.

Winston and VerJean have decided to join us on this tour and we each saved $40 on our ticket using the Alaska Tour Saver app on my phone.

This $70 app has already saved us nearly $400 on our sightseeing adventures, with some of our biggest savings still to come. Plus, now it has saved Winston and VerJean $80 too!

The tour company offers free shuttle bus pickup and delivery to most of the popular accomodations found in Seward, including our campground. You do have to call and reserve a spot on the bus, but that was easy enough to do.

We'll need to be hanging around outside of the Shower Building at 8:30AM if we don't want to miss our ride to the tour office located just 1-½ miles down the waterfront.

MAJOR MARINE'S 7-½ HOUR TOUR

We've been waiting for our ship to come in, at it's finally arrived, the Spirit of Adventure.

We instantly got a sea view of THE POD as we headed out into Ressurection Bay.

It wasn't long before we're passing by the massive Bear Glacier.

This Harbor Seal gave us a look that said, "What's everybody looking at?"

We woke this Steller Sea Lion from his morning nap. He rewarded us with a big fat yawn.

I just liked the contrast between the rock and the vegetation is this photo.

Just around the corner were these spire like formations.

This group of Common Murre's were all checking us out.

Another group of napping Sea Lions. Tough life isn't it?

Aren't they so cute when they're sleeping?

I believe this trio are called Puffins.

This is the first of two glaciers we'll get to see up close today. This one is the Holgate Glacier.

Another Harbor Seal, this one was napping on an iceberg that calved off the glacier.

I'm not sure where this group paddled from, but we are in the middle of nowhere out here.

We were surprised when this young bear cub strolled out onto the beach.

There were plenty of sea otters all around today.

This is our second glacier for the day, Aialik Glacier is much more active when it comes to calving ice. You'll witness that in the following video.

We also spotted a few humpback whales way off in the distance.

This bald eagle was standing guard over his nearby mate and nest.

We even spotted this lone mountain goat far up in a clearing.

Tricia just missed filming the largest calving we've ever seen. The resulting wave caused a small alarm among some of the cruise passengers. You can hear the Captain reassurring them everything was going to be just fine.

FRIDAY - Today we are going on another sightseeing adventure. This time to the Alaska Sealife Center which is located just 3 blocks from our campsite.

If it was a nice weather day today we could have walked over to the Sealife Center, but this is what we found at 8:00AM when we woke up and looked out the rear window of THE POD.

Low hanging clouds (fog) obscured our view of across the bay.

By 9:00AM we were outside of the Alaska Sealife Center.

There are 100's of saltwater aquariums here displaying all kinds of sealife found in Alaska.

I think Tricia really enjoyed the "touch tanks" with the rest of the kids.

The Harbor Seals were really fun to watch, possibly our favorite!

The 10:00AM view from the second floor observation deck, still somewhat foggy out.

Moon Jellyfish just gliding around in the soft currents of the tank.

Back outside now we have finished our first look at what there is to see here.

Before we left we made sure to get our lapel stickers so we could reenter the Center after we go have lunch. After driving all over town and checking Google restaurant reviews we selected the Highliner Restaurant for our "One Big Meal Out" in Seward. We've adopted the idea of having just one meal in a restaurant at each location we visit as a way of curbing our food expenses.

In June and July we spent more than double the $800 a month food budget we allow ourselves. Most of that is due to the higher prices in Alaska, but also to put it simply, we've been eating out a lot in order to enjoy all this fresh seafood.

We went all out on today's lunch! We both had a $7 cup of creamy Clam Chowder and shared a $29 portion of three delicious Crab Cakes. And those were just the appetizers!

We both selected the $31 Grilled Seafood Special of Fresh Salmon. I ordered mine blackened and doubled the mashed potatoes instead of the grilled vegetables. In order to corral the price of the meal just a little we both ordered water to drink.

Still, by the time you add it all up with tax and tip our lunch tab was $137.00, OUCH!

We did have a little bit of salmon and potatoes left over to take home for a future snack. After getting our left overs into the fridge we took a short timeout before returning to the Sealife Center.

As luck would have it we arrived back inside of the Sealife Center just in time to watch the 2:30PM feeding of the Steller Sea Lions. It was quite entertaining as you'll see in the video.

The "feeding show" is not just for our viewing pleasure. It also serves as a daily physical and wellness checkup on each of the large animals without being to invasive.

The Harbor Seals are constantly swimming around the tank
and possibly even showing off a little for the cameras.

My favorite were the Puffins diving well below the surface for their chance at a free lunch.
They make it seem so effortless to stay submerged for such a long time.
I couldn't hold my breath for as long as they did, I tried and I was just sitting still.

It's now 4:30PM and the clouds have finally lifted and return us our blue skies.

This is a monument commemorating the starting point of the 1925 Serum Run
which in 1973 morphed into the Iditarod Race.

Still a few clouds hanging out behind our campsite at 5:00PM.

SATURDAY - This morning we find ourselves in a bit of a funk.

It was just this past Monday we left our friends Katherine and John behind as we left Homer. We will probably not see them again in Alaska this year as our paths do not look like they will cross again. We were sad to leave them behind, but it just wasn't the same feeling as what we are experiencing today.

Today we sadly said goodbye to Winston and VerJean. We've been traveling with them on and off since we arrived in Watson Lake back on May 20th in the Yukon Territory of Canada.

Their plans are to transport their van by ferry boat down to Juneau and explore the southeastern Alaska regions. They need to make their way over to Whittier for an early morning departure on Monday so this morning we waved goodbye to them for probably the last time here in Alaska.

Sure the ferry is large enough to accommodate ROVER and THE POD but it's just so expensive to do so. If you transport anything over 24-feet long the fares start to go through the roof. ROVER and THE POD are 50-feet long when hooked up together and quite frankly we can't justify spending that kind of money when there is still so much of Alaska we haven't seen yet that doesn't require boarding a ferry.

This is Winston and VerJean's third trip up to Alaska with their van and we understand why they would like to explore somewhere new each time they visit.

So for the first time while here in Alaska we are totally on our own, just like we have been for most of the last four years. To break out of our funk we challenged ourselves to get out of THE POD and walk around town and locate all 29 different locations in Seward where they have placed murals of the sides of buildings.

We actually started on this scavenger hunt yesterday afternoon and located all the ones that weren't within walking distance of the campground. We did this on the way back from visiting the Kenai Fjords Nature Center on the outskirts of town. The Nature Center is the trailhead for hiking up onto Exit Glacier, we settled for just photographing it from the roadside.

Exit Glacier as seen from the road leading to the Nature Center.

On the drive in to the Nature Center we had a moose sighting just as we were getting ready to pass the National Park sign. I pulled off the road, well back so as to not scare the moose back into the bushes and just before he came out from behind the sign (which would have made an awesome photo) another car coming out of the park from the opposite direction made a u-turn right in front of us and photobombed our perfect shot.

Beware of this Alaskan photobomber! I hope she got HER shot, because we sure didn't!

I got my National Parks Passport Book stamped at the Nature Center and combined with our cruise out into Kenai Fjords National Park to view wildlife and two glaciers we're officially counting this park as visited. Most of the park is very remote and there just isn't much to do without taking a flight deep into the park, so we'll have to settle for just seeing the edges of this wonderful place.