Seward!

On our giant list of "things to do when we get back to town", one of the things I was most excited about was theroad trip to Seward, to visit the Sealife Center. So Friday morning we jumped in the car and drove the 2 hours or so to Seward.

The sun through the trees on the drive there

When we arrived in town, we got really excited to go see Exit Glacier, since I have yet to see a glacier and I've been in Alaska for 3 months. Once again, our plans were dashed because it, like a lot of things in winter, was closed. Booooo.

However, the town itself was very pretty, very small, and right next to the water. Apparently in the summer, Seward is where all the cruise ships come to dock, and when they do the town is filled with tourists. I tried to imagine mom and I running around seeing the sights as quickly as we could, like we did on our cruise. Oliver got excited thinking about driving the boat there one day, and making a trip of it. I got excited because we found the Sealife Center!

Oliver at the Sealife Center!

The first thing we did was run in and grab some tickets. They were $20! Holy cow, this place must be awesome. But then the girl at the front desk asked us if we qualified for any of the discounts, and Oliver went into the story of how he is really kind of a resident, only he has been out in the bush for so long he rorgot to get his new license... blah blah sob story. So she shrugged and gave us both the resident and student discounts! It ended up only being $28 for both of us. Score!

So here are some pictures of the place, I sadly didn't take too many because I was distracted by all the animals. You understand. Also ignore the horrible lighting/flash as, once again.... distracted by animals!

Shrimps hanging out on some rope


Oliver and I are amazing puzzle makers


This duck was so friendly, I think he was looking for a handout

Amongst all the neat things they had, the coolest by far was the diving bird tank. It is a deep tank, full of fish and birds. The cool part is going under and watching the birds dive down looking for food. I took a video, and will try to post it later. The deepest diving duck can go 200 ft under, and the deepest diving bird can go 600ft! It was crazy to see them swim underwater admist all the fish.

We also saw sea lions and seals, tons of fish and crabs etc. We talked to a really nice older man all about eiders (a type of duck) and their conservation program. We also talked about their volunteer opportunities and got me pretty excited... too bad Seward is so far from Soldotna.

After we toured the whole place we found a really nice restuarant to have dinner: huge hamburgers! Then we drove around until we found....... the buey tree! Sarah had told us to look for it, and you should have heard me scream when we drove past.

We found it Sarah! The Buey Tree of Seward!

Finally it was getting late and, after calling my pop to wish him a happy birthday, we started the drive home. As the sun went down, we could just glimpse it turning the top of the mountains pink, and after many half taken shots, we were able to pull over and take a better picture.

The last bit of sunlight on the mountains

All in all, a very good day! If any of you are ever in the the neighborhood, (haha) it is certainly worth the drive to Seward. Take my word for it!

`Danielle

Homer

The 31st of October is our anniversary, so Oliver and I decided to head down to the Homer spit and have some fun. Plus, I had a surprise to show him at the Salty Dog Saloon (this may be spelled, Salty Dawg). The weather was great, with bright sun on the water and a balmy 37 degrees.

Sadly, Homer being a tourist town, and tourists mainly exisiting in Alaska in the summer, everything, even the bar, was closed down. Two things were open, a bead shop and the visitors center. So we went to the bead shop and talked to the lady there for quite some time, who was very nice. She recommended the FREE visitors center, which has just been redone.

So off to the visitor's center we went. It was really neat and we had a fun time until we realized we were going to be late for Halloween shinanigans and got back on the road to Soldotna.

Oliver playing kissy face with a seal

You can't tell from the photo, but the grey screens in the background were live videos of seals on the beach! It was a really cool idea.

Me with some seagulls

A gorgeous painting

So, despite Homer being shut down, we had a lovely day and a great roadtrip. Happy one year anniversary to us!

`Danielle