June 12 - More Anchorage and rest

Thursday morning we got up after a long night's rest, took our time getting ready and then headed back downtown to explore more of the Coastal Trail. We walked from the Captain Cook Memorial to the Westchester Lagoon, enjoying another day of clear weather. On the way back, I began feeling lightheaded and my tummy was off.

Westchester Lagoon

Leon's energy level was still low, so we made our way back to our car to find lunch. We went to a local institution, Lucky Wishbone. Their specialty is pan-fried chicken, so we split a 4-piece basket. We also ordered a brownie sundae - I had 2 bites then realized eating more was a bad idea. Leon happily chowed down on it.

We both felt like we needed to rest, so we headed back to our apartment. I napped on the couch and Leon rested in the bed for about 4 hours. After resting, we both felt better. We headed out to dinner at a Japanese place, both enjoying a bento box. Leon wanted to do a little hike after dinner, but I was reluctant. We spent the rest of evening enjoying quiet time at home.

June 11 - Exploring Anchorage

Wednesday morning we slept in (for us) - until after 8am, which is really something considering it had been light for about 4 hours by that time. We got ourselves together, the weather was perfectly clear, which is a first for this trip to Alaska.

We both wanted to explore Earthquake Park, which is on the waterfront. It details the 2nd largest earthquake in recorded history on the North American continent. It happened Good Friday 1964, lasted for 4 minutes and was 9.2 on the Richter scale. It really reshaped Southeast Alaska - parts of Anchorage fell up to 12 feet in a very short amount of time. The ensuing tsunamis it triggered were even more damaging that the earthquake. Alaska is at the meeting of 2 tectonic plates: the Pacific and the North American. As a result, there is a lot of seismic activity all of the time here, most of which is not perceptible by humans. However, in 1964, the friction between the 2 plates (the Pacific is being forced under the North American) suddenly and dramatically gave way, triggering all kinds of effects. We read that the effects were even worse in Seward (where we were on Monday), because the industrial waterfront caught fire from all of the spilling of fuel, setting the ocean on fire. As a result, the tsunamis that engulfed the town were literally on fire.

Earthquake Park is on the Coastal Trail, which is a paved path running 20 miles along the coast (very much like the Greenway in Wake County). We decided to enjoy a walk on that trail and enjoy the views. Our effort was paid off by a distant view of Denali, which is normally obscured by clouds. The other mountains around were also gorgeous. It was a lovely day to be outside and enjoy the sunshine.

That's Denali like a ghost hovering over the land. She stands over 20,000 feet; we are about 130 miles from it here.

Cook's Inlet in the foreground, the Sleeping Lady behind (aka Mount Susitna)

The Alaska Range - from here it looks like the snow goes to the waterline.

Leon was still recovering from his very bad cold, so we walked about 2.5 miles before returning to our car to find lunch. We opted for pizza at a nearby place, then decided we would visit the Anchorage Museum. We were surprised at the fee of $25 to visit (which make us appreciate the wonderful FREE museums we have in NC), but it was well reviewed so we decided to go anyway.

I have to say that it was interesting - it was part Alaskan and native history, ecology, science and art museums under one roof. We close to 4 hours there. I really enjoyed seeing the Native Alaskan tribe pieces that were displayed and had good explanations with them about what they were made from and their significance. There were large displays for all 5 of the major tribal groups. Extremely interesting to see how the design of clothing and hunting/fishing articles were different depending on the tribe's location/what they were able to harvest from the land. The handiwork on the ceremonial pieces was impeccable and the design of the animal and plant motifs were just beautiful.

I loved this painting of a native woman juxtaposed with the iconography of the Madonna.

Tidal pool they had on display. The starfish were huge! It was look, don't touch.

I loved the whimsical polar bears doing yoga.

A romantic, large painting of Denali, which apparently every artist that comes to Alaska is obliged to paint.

This waterproof tunic was crafted from the intestines of seals and other animals. Ingenious!

We were pretty tired after all of that touring, so we headed back to our place. We were lucky to have leftovers, so we were able to have a quiet night. Leon went to bed as usual. I stayed up until 11:30 and there was still plenty of daylight.

June 10 - A quiet day of rest

On Tuesday, with Leon still ailing with his cold and a pile of laundry to catch up, we stayed in our temporary home all day. Leon ventured out to the grocery store early to get us breakfast and some non-drowsy medicine, which turned out to have the counter effect on him. After 3 loads of laundry and leftovers for lunch, Leon slept most of the afternoon while I played on the computer and enjoyed being still for a while.

We finally ventured out around 5 to get dinner nearby, landing on a Mexican place. Their portions were large, so we brought home more leftovers for a meal on Wednesday. 

Leon went to bed early again and I stayed up. As I was getting ready to head to bed, I noticed the beautiful colors that the sunset (at 11:25pm!) were making and snapped a few pictures.

Chugach Mountains in the distance on the right.

June 9 - Kenai Fjords National Park Tour by Boat

Our tour of Kenai Fjords began at 8am, but we were instructed to be there by 7:15. The Ny-Quil worked well for Leon, so he got a good 10 hours of sleep. We arrived at the marina, checked in and loaded onto the boat. We were a bit far back in the line for boarding and ended up with a rear facing seat. This was worse than expected for viewing so we didn't spend much time in the seats. We tried to spend time outside, but temps were hovering around 38 degrees when the boat was moving.

We headed out at around 25 knots to get to the best parts of the park. At one point we were in open ocean, so it was a bit rough. The nice folks sitting across from us gave me a non-drowsy form of Dramamine, so I was able to stay awake this time.

The captain did a great job getting us to all the best viewing areas and of course of the area as a whole. Our wildlife sightings were huge, with lots of sea birds including puffins and bald eagles, mountain goats, harbor seals, sea otters (including two holding babies), Steller's sea lions, Dall's porpoises, two humpback whales, and one female orca who surfaced four times before we moved on.

View of the marina from our boat

Heading out of the marina and into the park

Sea lions resting on the rocks - this is birthing season

Aialik Glacier from a distance

The dark spot are harbor seals resting on the sea ice.

Sea otter with a baby on her belly

The 2 blurry spots at the top of the picture are a mountain goat and its baby. They were really, really high up.

Sea lions

A female transient orca - it was thrilling to see it!

We also spent a good 45 minutes at Aialik Glacier. It was calving heavily and we were so pleased to be able to experience this from just 1/3 mile from the face. 

The drive back to Anchorage was cool and rainy but Leon was lucky enough to see a moose and two bison next to a river. We had dinner at South, a nice restaurant in south Anchorage. The portions were large enough to get us dinner the next day. We shared a tapas appetizer, Gambas al Ajillo (garlic shrimp in olive oil seasoned heavily with paprika - delicious!). I had a seafood pasta dish, pappardelle with halibut, shrimp and scallops in an herbaceous tomato cream sauce. MMmmm!

We found our VRBO but had a few issues including getting in the door (who knew being 5 minutes early would lock us out) and the heat not working. They don't expect to use the heat in June but it was 47 outside and 62 in the house. We got all our stuff moved in, settled in, and Leon was in bed before 9:00 after the long day. This time of year we have not seen any real darkness in Alaska. Here, it is probably dark just 2-3 hours per night. When I turned in close to midnight, there was still plenty of light even though the sun had gone down at 11:40.

June 8 - Disembarking in Whittier and onto Seward

Sunday morning we were up a bit before the alarm that was set for 6:45 am and finished getting ourselves ready to go. Leon didn't sleep well again due to all his congestion, so we were looking forward to finding some medicine to help with his symptoms. We headed to the dining room for our first dining room breakfast this trip at 7am.  It was good, and once we finished our breakfast it was time to go. We were off the ship by 7:30.

We had no trouble getting off the ship, finding our bags, and getting in line to get on our bus. We sat on the bus about an hour before we got going, and headed through the tunnel and on to Anchorage. Wildlife sightings were limited to a few bald eagles, but Leon did catch a quick glimpse of a moose near the airport.

The bus dropped us off at the airport and we called a Lyft to get to our Turo car. Once we had our wheels, we headed to lunch was at Judy's Cafe in south Anchorage; it was still morning, but we were ready for lunch. This was definitely a locals' place, only accepted cash and was no frills. The food was well prepared and the portions were large. I had club sandwich on sourdough and Leon had a Reuben. We ate half of our sandwiches and took the leftovers for a snack later. 

We headed south for our trip to Seward, a 2+ hour drive. The day was still cold, in the 40's all day. We reached Seward around 2:30 and headed to the Kenai Fjords National Park visitor's center. We enjoyed the center and the film on the park. We also got basic information for our boat tour that we had booked for the following day. 

We headed to Exit glacier about 20 minutes away and did a hike there to the glacier viewing point. The hike was cool and included a chance to walk across part of the river in the valley. It was nice to get out on a hike, even an easy, flat one. No real wildlife sightings on the hike. 

From there we headed to our AirBNB for the night. It was as expected and we got settled in before we went out to dinner. We decided on a soup place, but arrived to realize it was a food truck and it was too cold to eat outside. Nearby was Tidewater Taphouse so we went there. Dinner was great! We did our usual thing of splitting an appetizer and entree: crab dip and Miso black cod with fried rice and veggies. The black cod was amazing - likely the best fish I have ever had in my life! If you haven't tried black cod (also known as sablefish), you should definitely try it,

We picked up a few things at the grocery store (including Ny-Quil) and headed back to the AirBNB for the night. Leon enjoyed a hot bath and went to bed early with the Ny-Quil on board. It was still very much light at 10pm when I headed to bed. 

June 7 - Gulf of Alaska and College Fjord

Sinus issues kept Leon from sleeping well but after being in bed for 11 hours he got up and we got ready for the day. Breakfast in the Lido was light but good. 

The seas were really rough with gale force winds starting overnight and continuing through the morning. At this point we were in the Gulf of Alaska, which is open water and subject to being much rougher than the protected waters we had been sailing in up to that point. The ship had a 5-10% list all morning as the wind was blowing directly on one side. I wasn't feeling well, being prone to motion sickness, so I took Dramamine to keep the seasickness at bay. Downside is that it made me really sleepy. Our room was on Deck 10 and pretty far forward on the ship, so it got a lot more movement than lower decks, especially midship. So while Leon went to the spa, I found a quiet spot on deck 2, midship. As I got more drowsy, I decided to find an even quieter spot inside the Rock 'n Roll Lounge. There were large semicircular booths with high backs, so no one even would know I was there, plus it is really dark, being a nightclub with no windows. I ended up laying down and went to sleep, even with music playing over the sound system! I felt much less movement here and the meds started working, so I didn't feel sick anymore. Eventually, I went back up to our room and continued to nap there the rest of the morning.

After I finished my nap and Leon was back from the spa, we decided to try the Alaskan brunch in the dining room (the Lido buffet is crazy busy on sea days, so we wanted to avoid that madness). I had smoked salmon chowder in a sourdough bread bowl which was tasty but very small (probably only about a 1/2 cup of soup), Leon had salmon and crabcakes which were more sizable. That was followed by dessert in the Lido where they were having "Cake Day", where they had at least 10 kinds of cake to choose from, some we had never heard of before. We each got two pieces, one for now and one for later. The Lido was truly packed, so we had to share a table with another couple.

After lunch Leon did another spa cycle. We were in calmer waters now, since we were now in Prince William Sound. I decided to attend the presentation on whales. Leon joined me for the HAL history presentation. 

I packed before dinner while Leon did a final spa cycle. Leon thoroughly enjoyed the spa all week and is already looking forward to the spa on the return cruise (though I attribute the terrible cold he has to being in the steam room so much - opening up all of your passages in a warm wet environment makes it easier for other peoples' germs to get in your body, at least that's my theory why he is sick and I am perfectly healthy!)

While were at dinner, we were cruising in College Fjord, which has a number of tidewater glaciers named for Ivy League schools. They were really impressive, and we had a great viewing spot from the dining room on Deck 3. 

We had a nice final dinner in the dining room, saw another musical show and then went back to the room to finish packing. We got our bags ready and out in the hallway just before 11pm as instructed and headed to bed.