Alaska2018

The fog was extremely thick this morning until close to noon, then it burned off for a beautiful day.  The wind has been as strong as the sun, however and several of us are sporting sunburns.   Ken and the children hiked Mt. Marathon.  Only Ken and Zeke made the summit.  The rest stopped and waited near "the bowl".   Mt. Marathon from our campsite. I stayed behind and accomplished much with regard to reorganizing, repacking, and cleaning the camper.  It needs a good reorganization about once a week in order to keep everything in its place. This was especially important since we switched from hiking to boating to hiking and thus all the backpack "stuff" had been dumped out and repacked a couple times.  Thanks to my parents solar set up and careful water conservation, I also got in a load of laundry.  The portable washing machine has been a good investment.  At $9/load or more, for the size of our family, the washing machine has earned its keep...

The fog lifted with perfect timing.  Today, we took a discovery tour with Kenai Fjords Tours into the northwest glacier area of Kenai Fjords National Park.  It was a beautiful day for a 9 hour tour.  The seas were calm and none of our family struggled with any nausea or sea sickness, thankfully! We saw incredible scenery - waterfalls, alpine and sea glaciers, a bald eagle, seals, sea lions, otters, Dall sheep, Dall porpoises, puffins, and humpback whales.  We saw the baleen of one humpback up close - it had accidentally tried to swallow a bird, and as it released the bird from itself, we got quite the show of humpback oral anatomy!  The crew all cam to see as they had never seen anything like it.  Yes, there will be photos at a later date. At the northwest glacier, the captain anchored us for about 30 minutes,mourned off the engine and we experienced all the sights and -sounds- of an actively calving glacier!  Amazing! My parents, our son, and their ca...

Our overnight stay along the Parks Highway was beautiful, but a bit loud and very buggy.  Somehow we ended up with 50+ mosquitoes in the camper.  Not pleasant.  Mom and Dad fared better in their hard sided Imagine.  But, we made it to Anchorage and got the needed auto maintenance done.  Then, onward to Seward along the  Seward  Highway.  The view was breathtaking.  It was cool and cloudy with low clouds and hit and miss rain.  Blue mountain glaciers and the low tide of the bay were a sight to behold.   Mountain glacier hiding in the clouds. Each of the children had a particular animal they wanted to see.  Isaac wanted to see an otter.  Well, he has been able to watch the sea otters play from our campsite at South Resurrection RV Park.   Two otters playing in the bay. The spaces are tight and the campground is "sardines", but the view is memorable, Isaac has enjoyed his otters, and we will fall asleep to the sounds of ...