Homer, Seward, Kenai Fjords

Hey everyone...

It's a little after midnight and we just got back to anchorage after a few days in Homer & Seward & Kenai Fjords, AK. We got this post up quick because we're leaving for Vancouver tomorrow (its a minimum 3 day drive), so we thought we'd share with you before we took off. Also, check out our Anchorage post right after this... we got it up yesterday.

Just to fill you in, Homer is south-south west of Anchorage about 200 miles and Seward is south about 115... the drive is beautiful but the destinations are well worth the drives. Though we've been here for about 2 weeks, we felt like we got to experience legit Alaska and we were glad we did....

On the way down. It might be hard to see because of the small pictures, but the colors are pretty incredible up here. The shades of green and blue are very diverse and dynamic.

We got into Homer right around dusk (aka, around midnight). The park where we stayed was having a kite running festival.
Homer Harbor. I was really excited to take a walk through it... In my idealist brain, I think it'd be cool to be a seaman.
Our favorite boat.
We took a few hours and hung out on the spit. I guess that's the beach in Homer. Everyone said it and we assumed they were referring to the beach, but we're still not exactly sure. Just say it with confidence, I guess....

It was a beautiful day in Homer, lots of boats out, the Cook Inlet was calm, and the weather was cool to mild. We heard that the record high in Homer, at least on the spit, was 72 degrees. You could tell that though the sun was shining, the wind off the cold water kept it that way.
Notice the row of seagulls atop the roof. Ps, I became deathly afraid of seagulls while in Anchorage when a flock of them began to dive bomb me in a parking lot, which resulted in me screaming like a little girl and running. Nell took much pleasure in the sight.
Our second night there, we decided to camp on the spit.


After Homer, we took off to Seward and went on a 6 hour day-cruise through Kenai Fjords National Park. This was probably our favorite thing we did while in AK.

Right out of the harbor, we came across this Sea Otter, which spends 75-80 percent of it's life like this, and the rest of it eating. (A little info: this little dude is about 100 lbs and eats about 25 lbs a day. I wish I could lay around and eat as much as this guy can.)

A bald eagle scouting out food.
Puffins. To me they look like a mix of duck, penguin, and toucan.

We also saw three different kinds of whales: the Orca (or Killer Whale), Minke Whale, and pictured above and two below, the Humpback Whale

This is Holgate Glacier in the Holgate Arm of Kenai Fjords. The glacier face above is about a quarter-mile long.
I love this picture of my beautiful wife.
The glacier was really blue and active that day
Some of those chunks of ice in the water are small - maybe the size of a volleyball or basketball, but they can weigh around 200 lbs because the ice is so compact.

Hard to see, but if you look right in the bottom center of the the glacier, the ice is caving. We have it on video we'll try to upload and show you. It was really great experience watching this glacier.

The white parts are seagulls.

The Alaskan version of penguins (though not real penguins, but they can actually fly (a little)).
The killer whale - Nell's favorite. This was actually pretty neat to watch because there was a huge pod of them and they were on the move.

Sea lions.
Another Orca. The other whale Nell saw (I didn't) was a Minke, which is the shyest of whales and was apparently a rare thing to see. Once he saw us, he didn't come back up, thus why I didn't get to see him.
Seward Harbor

Marathon Mountain. The picture doesn't begin to show how steep it is, but there is an actual race that takes place where people run to the top and back down. Word has it, it started with a bet in a bar... which makes me wonder how much stuff in AK started with a bet in a bar.

On our way out of Seward, we took a hike to Exit Glacier.

Well folks, this is it for us in Alaska. We had a great time and now we're on to Vancouver. Pray for us, that we keep safe on our journey south. It might be a while till our next post, but check back in 4 or 5 days and see what we're up to.