Back to Anchorage

August 4, 2010

On the way back to Anchorage, we stopped at the city of Kenai. Auntie Amy visited Greek Orthodox Church and got all excited about something called ICON.

We found our retirement home in Kenai, just need some minor repair...

We then had lunch at Veronica’s, a local popular restaurant... The food was ok but pretty expensive.

We visited the visitor center at Whittier and decided not to drive through the tunnel to Whittier because it was getting late and all the stores were closed plus our gas was low and Whittier doesn’t have gas station!

A path next to bear camp ground near the Whittier visitor center...

This is our last night of RV stay, we parked our RV at the Sports Authority parking lot.

August 5, 2010

We returned RV in the morning. We had driven 1,965 miles for this trip. After we said goodbye to Yi’s parents at the airport, we rented a car and dropped auntie Amy at the Alaska Heritage Museum then headed to the Flattop Mountain.

It was a foggy on the way up to the peak. The hike was over 5 miles round trip and it took us more than 2 hours to get to the top. The last ¼ of climb was strenuous. We had to climb with all our limbs. It was fun and good exercise.

Victory at the top of the mountain...

Going down was more difficult than climbing up...

On the way down, the sky cleared up and the view was awesome...

We also saw some patchy structure on the hill we couldn’t figure out what it was until we climbed up and paid a closer look. It was snow/ice covered with dust – a mini-glacier!

After the Flattop maintain hiking, we visited some stores in downtown Anchorage, then went to the airport and waited for our flight.

Homer, AK

August 2, 2010

We left Seward around 3pm and headed for Homer which was about 4 hours away. We passed many rivers, streams, and lakes along the way, and saw several groups of fishermen standing in the middle of the river/stream cast lines.

This picture and the next few pictures were taken at the end of Homer Spit. The Spit was about 5 miles long, the width of the Spit ranged from 200+ yards to maybe about 500 yards. There were stores and RV parks on both sides of the Spit. The Holland Cruise ships also had a stop at Homer.
The "beach" had small round rocks looked like moraine...

Grewingle Glacier distance away...

Our RV Park was at almost the end of Spit. Yi and I took a late night stroll along the shore on the “board-walk”. It was after 11pm but it was light. Most of stores were closed except some restaurants and bars.

Salty Dawg Saloon was a Homer landmark. It was a bar with dollar bills pinned/glued/stuck everywhere...

August 3, 2010

Wet and drizzle all day. The plan of taking a water taxi to Kachemak Bay State park to hike or to China Poot Clamming didn’t seem appealing so we took it easy today. The 3 elders went to the Pratt Museum while Yi, Matt, and I wandered around town.

This is what inside of Salty Dawg Saloon looked like...

We were waiting for mommy to finish window shopping...

Fresh catch and priceless...

This is our RV park, right in front of the bay...

Enjoy fresh/live oysters...

Yi had a dozen of fresh oysters cultivated from the Kachemak Bay then Matt and I went to Homer High School to swim. It only opened one hour for lap swim so he did about 2,500 yard with some fast 200 back intervals.

We spent the night at the high school parking lot, inside RV of course.

August 4, 2010

Matt and I got up at 6:30am for the morning practice at the high school pool. This is his last practice in Alaska. He had total of 6 practices – twice in Fairbanks and in Homer, once in Valdez and in Seward.

Seward, AK

July 31, 2010

We left Valdez in the morning about 9:30. Today’s destination is Seward. We could also take the ferry to Whittier but it would be a lot more expensive (over $800 for 6 of us plus the RV). We took our time and stopped at small towns and several vista points. The weather was rainy and cloudy most of the way until we got to Anchorage. Everything seemed to be a bargain at Anchorage – gas was 30-40 cents cheaper per gallon ($3.36/gal vs. $3.79 in Valdez and along the highway and $3.69/gal in Homer). We bought more food at the super Walmart then headed to Seward.


The scenery on Seward highway outside of Anchorage was breathtaking – the ocean shore,

the rail road next to highway,

the mountains with glacier, the air was so fresh,... it was just absolutely beautiful! We took a little detour to Whittier was was about 60 miles south of Anchorage.

It was also very scenic on the way to Whittier. We parked at the visitor center parking lot and looked this big chunk of ice right in front of the visitor center builder and wondered if it were real because it was the only piece of "sculpted" ice around in the "pond". We found out later that it was from the nearby Portage Glacier about a week ago, all the smaller pieces had melted away.

It was getting late and we didn’t feel like paying for the toll to go through the tunnel so we turned around before the tunnel. We got to our RV site in Seward after 9pm.

August 1, 2010

This Husky-looking dog was begging for food in front of RV in the morning. He was a neighborhood dog from one of the houses near the RV park. We fed him some leftover fish and hotdogs. We thought Cara would love it if we could bring him home.

I took Matt to the Sea Life Aquarium while the rest of group took walk around town. The most impressive thing I saw in the Aquarium was the birds diving into the water and swam around like fish (but with much faster speed) look for food. Their wings worked like fins and they could hold their breath for more than 2 minutes.

Some birds can dive under more than 6,000 feet with a single breath according to the people working there. Matt ran into a glass wall and bounced back like Super Mario long jumping straight into a wall. It was very painful... @#* (AAAAAIIIIIEEEEE!) ...

After the Aquarium, we went to the Crab Pot restaurant where auntie Amy ordered a King crab for us to share.
She had always wanted to try a fresh king crab so I took pictures before and after the crab was cooked.
It tasted a lot like lobsters and it was delicious.

After our afternoon snack, I took Matt to Seward High School pool to swim. We only had about a hour and 15 min and swam about 2,500 yard.

August 2, 2010

We went to see Exit Glacier in the morning

with a park ranger and learned many interesting facts about glacier – why the water in the water/stream was clear or murky, how to determine the years for glacier retreat, etc.

We took some pictures in front of the end (toe) of the glacier and wished we could have climbed on the glacier like what we did a few year ago at the Canadian Rocky Mountains.

We then went to the sled dog place next to the Exit Glacier. It was the high light of our trip learning about Iditarod race and petting Husky puppies.

This Husky dorm... each"room" was a 50 gallon barrel...

Those hard working dogs didn't ask for a lot...

Those Husky puppies were so tame and well trained...

We looked like Husky parents...

Those puppies loved to sniff and chew figures...

Maybe I should consider becoming a musher...

The musher showed us how to prepare for a dog sled race...

We had arrived "Nome"...

We came in first...

These were our lead dogs, our musher/guide referred the gray-white one as air-head. A lead dog doesn't need to be smart (although smartness would definitely be a plus), the most essential traits for a great lead dog are motivated, dedicated, hard working, and obedience to the driver (musher).

Glacier and Wildlife

July 30, 2010

We took the 10-hour cruise from 10am to 8pm with Stan Stephens Glacier and Wildlife

and saw 2 glaciers, Columbia Glacier and Meares Glacier, in close range.

The above 3 pictures were taken at the foot of the Columbia Glacier. The Columbia Glacier was about 3 miles wide and had miles long of floating “icebergs”. Some of the icebergs were bright blue. We couldn't see the glacier from our ship. All the icebergs and large chunks of ice were broken off from the Columbia Glacier and scatter several miles long.

The following pictures and video clip were taken near the Meares Glacier.

Our boat approached the glacier...

The width of the Meares Glacier was only about ¾ mile wide. Our boat stopped at a place about ¼ mile from the glacier wall. We waited there to see chunks of snow falling off the glacier and generated loud sound and waves.

This video clip of glacier calving might not seem that impressive, but it was really incredible when we watched it live.

We saw many sea animals including humpback whales, staller sea lions, sea otters, seals, and various sea birds. The whales were pretty far from our ship, and it was difficult to take a good picture of the whales when they briefly broke out of water surface. The cruise was expensive but it was well worth it.

After we came back, auntie Amy went to the harbor and got some salmon and halibut heads and belly meat from some local fishermen. The fish were very fresh and tasty when it was fresh out of the pot, but it smelled fishy the next day.