Cruisin'

Before I came to Alaska, I met this lady in Pickens, SC (of all places) who grew up in Palmer, AK (again, of all places). One of the things she told me I MUST do is to take a glacier cruise to Prince William Sound from Whittier. So before they shut the tours down for the winter (like they do most things), I decided to go for it despite the rainy forecast!

I drove down to Anchorage one Sat morning and boarded the 2-hour train ride to Whittier. Once again, I spent most of the train ride in the vestibule, absorbing in all the beauty in complete awe.

Hanging out in the vestibule

According to the tour guide ranger person, Whittier is a tiny port known as ‘the strangest town in Alaska.’ Supposedly only four hundred people live in Whittier, and all of them live in ONE big apartment building...that is strange! Whittier also has a 2.5-mile (longest in North America), one-lane tunnel that is shared by 2 ways of car traffic plus train traffic.

The train going thru the tunnel... can't you tell? :-)Cars waiting to go through the tunnel

A Princess cruise ship was sitting next to my little cruise ship

The cruise was a five-hour tour in the Prince William Sound, stopping along the way at a few of the major glaciers.

I love waterfalls! And I love it when you can see multiple waterfalls at the same time! It's pretty amazing!The water is extra blue because of the siltAll you can eat salmon and prime rib...oh yeah!! I think this was the Ripon Glacier - we didn't stop for this one
Northland Glacier - love the waterfall running down from it
The park ranger happened to be from Ashville, NC, with a very thick southern accent, which made me miss SC! Ironically, his name was Don Burnett (the name of my pastor from SC).Blackstone Glacier - it was massive! We "floated" for about 45 minutes here
We were waiting for that protruding chunk to calve off, but it never did...More waterfalls!
The last glacier we saw was the Beloit GlacierThere's also a really cool waterfall next to the Beloit

Instant hypothermia waiting to happen... The crew members did some ice fishing - fishing for ice, that is. The ice was later used to make 'glacier drinks' that were really pricy I'm sure...

Sadly...it was time to head back...

More waterfalls...they were EVERYWHERE!!On the way back, there was a random old shipwreck

And after seeing that, I'm sure it was comforting to know that I was driving the boat... ;-)

The lady in Pickens was right – this was undoubtedly one of the highlights of my time in AK so far, and perhaps ever!

Bear Who?

It has been an absolutely crazy week this week since it is my midterm...time flies!! I am very much behind with my blogging, but I will do my best to catch you up…

As I had written in a previous blog entry, my first hike was up Bear Mountain was unsuccessful, since I pretty much hyperventilated 3000 feet up in the air. Well, I had the opportunity to go back up again last week. And boy, did we pick a great day to go up…

It is officially autumn here in AK. It arrived about 2 weeks ago and probably won't last much longer. It's absolutely beautiful, but also rainy. It has been raining lightly but steadily, enough to make a trail extremely muddy and slippery! Mud and steep slopes should NEVER be friends!

So Jon, Carolyn, the dogs, and I decided to be brave and hike up the slippery Bear Mt, mainly because I wanted to conquer the ‘mound’ that got the better of me a few weeks ago. What made it even more challenging is that, with the amount of daylight decreasing, it was still completely dark at that time. Because we had to get to work, we had to start our hike in the dark while wearin headlamps!

The muddy trail was so slippery that for 60% of it, we had to create our own trail through the grassy patches around the actual trail for whatever ‘grip’ we could get (if any of that made sense at all). On the way up, there was a slippage of some sort at least every minute or two. It took much longer to get to the top, but I finally made it!!!

Interestingly, my fear of heights was almost completely gone when I was standing at the top. I guess ‘they’ were right (whoever ‘they’ are) when ‘they’ said the best way to overcome your fear is to face it. It was beautiful, as expected, especially with the snow starting to accumulate!

Me and Kavi at the top (and the sun came out)

On the way down, we didn't even think about running/bouncing/skipping...that’s how slippery it was. At several points, I thought I was surfing/skiing down the slope. Some of the rocky places were tricky, as any fall would have been very unpleasant on the tush. This was definitely another hiking experience like no other. I guess 'normal' hiking does not exist here.

Finally, this is for those of you who always make comments about how clean my shoes are... Little Red are officially retiring...it's a sad day! :-(

Seward

Another thing on my ‘to do list’ is to take the train somewhere…anywhere! Well, there weren't that many choises, so my friends and I decided to take the train south to Seward.

EARLY Sat morning, the four of us drove to Anchorage to catch the 4 hour train ride from Anchorage to Seward. The sky was still mostly dark, we were mostly awake…but we were definitely excited…

The dining car served breakfast, so we all took advantage of that, since none of us woke up earlier than necessary to eat breakfast. Although it was not the cheapest parfait I’ve had, the view certainly made up for it.

We arrived in Seward shortly after 11 am.

Seward is usually quiet (and rainy), except during the Salmon Derby in the summer.

Seward Harbor - and one of my FAVORITE pictures!! After walking around for a while, we were cold and hungry, so we stopped by Yoly's Bistro for lunch. Kristen and I both had the reindeer and shrimp gumbo. It was delish!!

After lunch, we hung out for a little bit at this cool old church turned coffee shop called 'Resurrect Art and Coffee'. (Mount Marathon in the background)

We boarded the 6pm train back to Anchorage - and spent a good amount of the time in the dome car playing "spoon" with plastic forks...

Although the air was numbingly cold, I loved standing out in the 'vestibule'

Floating icebergs (for Ashleigh B)

I was exhausted when I got home, but the day was totally awesome...and the beauty of God's creation continues to amaze me!