An underwater petting zoo.

This morning we caught our train to Seward. This four-hour train ride was WAY better than the trains to Denali and Fairbanks. We rode between sheer cliff faces, parallel to both the shoreline and a river, over river gorges with sheer drops from the sides of our train and surrounded by snow-capped mountain peaks. There were even several glaciers visible spilling down the valleys, and the melt from the glaciers carved its way down the mountains in streams and waterfalls. We also saw a bald eagle hanging out in the trees very close to the train.

Sunrise reflections on the Alaska Railroad.

Buildup of glacial silt, visible when the tide is out. It becomes very dangerous as the tide comes back in, turning into something like quicksand!

The beautiful views kept me awake on this ride, despite the early hour!

Getting closer to the mountains...

Reflections on the glassy water.

The Trail Glacier, named because it has the black trail of silt in the middle where two glaciers crashed together to make one glacier.

Back of our train.

Another glacier - the closest one to the railroad at only a half mile away!

We arrived in Seward to lovely, warm, sunny weather. We hopped on the free shuttle to see the sights of Seward and also see if we could get a bit closer to our bed and breakfast, but the shuttle took us downtown, which was actually AWAY from our bed and breakfast. After making the full loop of the shuttle's route, we got back off at the train station where we had started, then dragged our bags more than a half mile uphill to the Bear Ridge Bed and Breakfast. I was sweating for the first time on our entire trip. :)

We settled in to our room at Bear Ridge B&B, which was a bedroom right off the owner's kitchen with a bathroom beside it; it felt a little like staying at our grandparents' house since the owners were right next to us. The owners were kind enough to leave homemade buttermilk doughnuts in our room - yummy! After settling in, we walked back down to the train station and caught the shuttle downtown for lunch. We stopped at a little place called Nellie's that boasted fresh fish and chips, and that sounded pretty good to me! Gavin and I shared fish and chips (where the "chips" were onion rings - yum!) and were REALLY surprised at our bill of over $25; I guess we should stop being sticker shocked by the prices in Alaska as we have already been here almost two weeks, but the high prices never cease to amaze...

After lunch we walked to the Sea Life Center, Seward's aquarium. It had lots of nice little displays of Alaska sea life, and had an underwater "petting zoo" where I touched various sea creatures like starfish, a sea cucumber, anemones, etc. (though I avoided touching the available shrimp and crabs - too much like bugs... :) ) They had a sea lion and her REALLY cute calf. They fed the adult sea lion and had it do various tricks. The baby (still nursing, so not being fed) followed its mom around and tried to attempt a few of the tricks itself, like jumping/crawling on the rocks. When we went downstairs to see into the bottom of the mammal tanks, one of the workers held a red ball in her hand and a cute seal followed it around for a bit. We also got to see the swimming birds diving into the water. I learned that the vibrant pink salmon I had seen a few days ago near the Mendenhall Glacier were only bright pink for spawning; other than spawning time they are silver!

After the Sea Life Center, we walked a path along the shoreline all the way back to the bed and breakfast. This route lined with dozens of tents, campers and RVs parked there to spend the night. We scoped out places along the dock to have dinner with a good view, and we also found a place on the dock where fishermen were cleaning their fresh catches. I got my first look at my new favorite white fish "in the flesh" - halibut are HUGE fish and almost square in shape. We took a little nap in the bed and breakfast, then headed out for dinner.

The Seward harbor, filled with hundreds of boats!

We once again walked the more than half mile back to the dock and went to eat at Ray's, which had a nice view over the docks. I once again had some tasty halibut while Gavin mawed down a big plate of ribs. We saw people taking pictures off the dock outside the restaurant window, so we headed down to see what they were looking at - a cute sea otter was frolicking and eating in the water less that ten feet from the dock! After getting a few unfortunately blurry photos, we went back to our B&B to turn in - tomorrow, our last day in Alaska, is another long day of travel!

 

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