Yesterday, August 18th, was full of pleasant surprises. Besides knowing where we were spending the night in Seward, we didn’t have any other concrete plans. We left Anchorage in the morning and headed south to Seward. In Anchorage, we were somewhat unimpressed with the scenery, but the drive to Seward was spectacular. We weren’t disappointed with the many picturesque mountain views and even a mama moose and her baby. For those of you who told us to take lots of pictures, you certainly won’t be disappointed. After downloading them we discoverd we took over 300 pictures yesterday alone. Of course we’ll whittle them down. 🙂
We arrived in Seward around 1:00p.m., so it was too early to check-in to our hotel. Not having any plans we headed to the tour centers and visitor center to see what we should do. One of the employees mentioned a Helicopter and Dog Sled tour. Tom jumped on that right away. I was a little more leery (mostly due to cost). In the end we just went for it. What an experience!!!
It was my first time in a helicopter (I have to say it is a much different feeling than flying in a plane). After a short trip up to the top of a mountain we were dropped off on top of a glacier to the base camp. Here during the summer (late May to late August), two guides live with their 57 dogs. It was pretty chilly and reminded us of what is right around the corner in Wisconsin :(. Mushing the dogs and being able to ride on the sled was pretty awesome. It felt like a true Alaskan experience. Riding behind the sled felt a lot like water skiing. After our experience with the dogs we waited for the helicopter to come back and get us. The weather was starting to turn windier, colder, and rainier. I was starting to get a little nervous that the helicopter might not be able to come back and get us and we would be spending the night on a glacier. Luckily this did not happen. Our ride back on the helicopter was amazing.
You would think this would be enough fun for one day, but after we were done with the tour we went on to explore Exit Glacier. This was a very nice hike and up close view of the foot of a glacier. That was about it for our sight seeing for the day. After a nice dinner we came back to view the videos and zillion pictures we took. Tom was so excited by the pictures that he was falling asleep as we were looking at them . . . hopefully the same doesn’t happen when we get home and show you!!!
Today we are planning to take a full day cruise of the Gulf of Alaska to see more glaciers and wildlife. The weather might be bad and the trip might not go, so who knows, we could be in for more surprises today!
