TheLaska...Part Two

Back to our Alaskan Adventure....if you didn't read the post yesterday you may find yourself a tad lost, so get on it.

5/14/2006

Where to start?! The past two days are days I hope I NEVER forget. We got up Thursday morning, ate a little breakfast, and drove about an hour and half to Talkeetna. It was this tiny little town with no more than five or six streets. We went to Talkeetna Air Travel (or something close) and they told us we could go ahead and go on up. So Brad, Stephanie, Scott, myself, and another couple get in this seven passenger plane with our pilot, Bill. We finally take off and the first part of the flight we were flying over Musket (I think) and we could spot a few houses. There were three rivers that came down from the glacier we were headed towards. There were just enough clouds out so we could just barely make out Mount McKinley but other than that it was gorgeous!

When we arrived at the base of the mountain the snow was pure white and every so often we could see glacial pools that were electric blue. They didn't even look real! I didn't really grasp how big this glacier was and how high we were until Bill pointed out these climbers who were camping out in the middle of the glacier. They looked like ants, no - smaller. The crevices that looked like divets in the snow were actually one hundred or more feet deep!

We landed on the glacier and were able to get out and walk around. I still can't comprehend the magnitude of this thing. What looked like one mile away was actually five. We took some pictures and got back in our plane. I sat in the back on the way home so I could see out both sides. Just stunning.

The plane got stuck in the snow

After our plane ride, we found a local pizza place, ate dinner and headed on back. Scott, Brad's uncle, ended up having to work at the hospital so we just came back and crashed (which was good since I woke up at 5:45 am the next morning).

Our third day was again, incredible. The four of us (Brad, Stephanie, Scott, and myself) drove to Seward, which was about a two hour drive through the most beautiful scenery I've ever seen! Mountains covered in snow, lakes that looked like mirrors; it truly looked like something out of a movie. When we got to Seward, the first thing we did was visit The Alaskan Sea Life Center. We saw sea lions, fish, giant crabs, puffin birds, and a lot of other interesting creatures.

After The Sea Life Center, we headed over to the Kenai Fjords Tours to check in and look at all of the boats. The town had about 3,000 people; it just seemed like this perfect little fishing village. We started out our trip sitting on the top deck at the back of the boat. It didn't take long for us to get inside to thaw out. The first part of the trip was relatively uneventful. The scenery was incredible but all we really saw were a few mountain goats. The boat dropped everyone off for lunch at a cabin on Fox Island. We had a really great salmon meal then walked around the beach.

After getting back on the boat, things got exciting! We joked all day about wanting to see whales not thinking it would actually happen. From what we were told, it was too early in the season for that. First we saw several doll porpoises but that was nothing compared to the pod of orca we saw swimming in a cove. The captain stopped the boat and we watched the pod for a while. A few minutes later two humpback whales came along, too! We had whales to the left, right AND in front of us. Then one of the humpbacks jumps out of the water like he knew we were there and he wanted to put on a show. It was unbelievable! Something you'd only see on the Discovery Channel.

A little later we saw a large group of sea lions all laying out on a big rock. They didn't even seem real. We saw two or three big groups of sea lions throughout the ride. On the way back to Seward, there were a few more mountain goats, several bald eagles, and a couple glaciers. When we were pulling into the harbor, a large sea lion that had a big fish in its mouth was taunting all of the seagulls. He'd jump out of the water and fling the fish around while the seagulls were dive bombing him to get a piece. It was the perfect ending to the perfect day.

Oh! I completely forgot what kicked the whole day off! We woke up to a moose wandering around the backyard! It was awesome! I'm out there in my pajamas, a towel on my head at 6:15 in the morning taking pictures of a moose. He ended up jumping the fence and went strolling down the middle of the street. We knew it was going to be the best day after that and it was.

Unfortunately, Scott got called back into work so after dinner we went to the hospital to take him some spaghetti. He let us sit in the helicopter he flies which was amazing. By the end of the evening, we were spent. We went back to the house and crashed...again.