Seward, Alaska

Seward is a very neat place to visit. We only stayed there two nights but we did quite a bit of stuff there! This is a very long post, so if you want to read it in order you might want to start at the bottom and make your way up here! I should have put these different outings in separate posts, but now that I have realized that I am too lazy to go back and change it. Anyway...we had a great time in Seward. These top two photos were taken on Seward's main street that had most of the shops and restaurants.

We also visited the Alaska Sea Life Center in Seward. The kids had a great time here pretending to be the captain of a crabbing boat, watching sea lions being fed and looking at king crabs, eels, fish, otters, seals and all kinds of other sea life. Seward also had this fantastic public playground for the kids to let out their energy. The playscape was awesome and right by the water with super mountain views all around. Nothing like that at home, that's for sure.

We stayed at the Seward Windsong Lodge and the kids really loved it because of all the walking paths throughout the property. It had a restaurant we could walk to - in the picture above you may be able to see some water across the street from the restaurant. Just a couple of hours after we took that photo, a mother bear and her cub were spotted fishing in that water. One of the guests took a photo of them and the hostess showed it to us. Now, I don't want to get too close to a bear, but I would have been thrilled to see it from the deck of the restaurant! Oh well - maybe next time!

After having lunch (halibut, of course) and checking into our lodge, we headed 6 miles away to Exit Glacier. This glacier has receded quite a bit in the last few years. There are signs along the walking path to the glacier that have the year that the glacier was at that point. We took a nice little paved walking path that ended quite a ways before you got to the actual glacier, so we had to walk across this big, rocky open space with streams of icy cold glacier melt water going across it. The trick was to make it across the streams without getting your feet soaking wet or falling over into the little streams! I made it all the way (but did get wet up to my ankles on the way back). Not a big deal, but I only brought one pair of shoes, so I had to dry them on the heater in the room that evening...

Anyway, we made it to the glacier and took cute pictures of the kids holding up bits of ice that were constantly falling off of it. AFTER we were done and on the way back to the car, we noticed the signs that said something to the effect of, "Danger! Do not go past these signs due to danger of chunks of ice landing on your head!" (Or something like that!) Anyway, we were not right under the big icy cliff, but on the sloping side so I think we were okay.


The next day, we checked out of our hotel in Anchorage and headed to Seward in our rented minivan. We had heard that this was a beautiful drive and it did not disappoint.

The first part of the drive mirrored the train route we had taken the day before (see the tracks behind Aaron). We stopped and took some scenic pictures of the mountains and some moose by the side of the road. Luckily, the few highways they have in Alaska are very well maintained and have lots of turnouts for taking pictures and to let slow moving vehicles get out of the way of the faster ones.