From Mountains to Sea

Well, this will be the last post from Alaska. We are sad and happy to say we will be starting our trip home tomorrow (Friday), although it will take us until Saturday to get home! But the days have been glorious and the weather fabulous. Even the locals say it shouldn't be this nice. Funny - we know all the locals because although it is only 60 degrees - they are dressed in shorts and tank tops!!! Cracks us up!

So we left good ole Girdwood and moved on down the road. We stopped off at a Ski Resort called Alyeska and rode the ski tram to the top. This resort has the longest double black diamond ski slope in all of North America - it was frightening how steep it was! We planned our travel days with nothing else planned so we could find lovely unexpected destinations. This was no exception. We saw a sign for Portage Glacier so we made a u-ey and off we went. There before us was this amazing white with blue tinged glacier and lake, with the lake having huge and tiny chunks of glacial ice. It was brrrrrr cold and absolutely georgeous! We explored until we couldn't feel our fingers anymore!

Once in Seward, we checked into our lovely room that had oak floors and ceiling with an amazing view and two comfy glider chairs at the front windows to sit and watch the view.

The next day we went Sea Kayaking. It was an amazing experience. The weather was beautiful and the water was like glass and on the way back when we were nice and tired, we had a tail wind instead of the head wind the weather man predicted - God is very good to us. We saw sea lions, sea otters, harbor seals, eagles and a lonely jelly fish. Explored a bay called Thumb Cove and had lunch there sitting on the beach with our two (easy to look at) guides! After it was all said and done, we asked - so just how many miles do you think we paddled today? He replied - I'd say 11-12 miles. We about fell over, but our arms certainly confirmed that fact. We were surely happy we did not know how far we were going when we started!

Yesterday we did a Kenai Fjords Wildlife and Glacier Cruise and indeed we did see both. The highlights were seeing the Orca or Killer Whales surfacing and diving right next to our boat, the Humpback whales flipping thier tales out of the water and the Dall Porpoises flying through the water like they were on fire! The picture is of a few of the Orcas that we saw, and although it looks like we went to Sea World to take the picture, that really was the color of the ocean!

The Glacier we saw was one and a quarter miles across and it was calving - meaning it was shedding great big, huge chunks of ice that fall into the water and sound like a freight train or loud cracks of thunder.

Amazing! Then the final blessing was the fresh baked, still warm, chocolate chip cookie they served us on the way back into port! All in all it was an INCREDIBLE day!

Today, we did some shopping and after we finish here will hike to another Glacier called Exit Glacier where we will be so close we can reach out and touch it. Alaska days are amazing days and this trip has been one gift from God after another. We truly do walk in His favor and LIFE!