Alaskan Vaca 2022 - Day 10, Seward & A Long Boat Trip

I think this is the day that only Mama Chaos was looking forward too.  It involves all four of us on a 7 hour boat tour to see Alaskan wildlife. 7 HOURS!!!!

Mama, Rob and Caleb are all known to get motion sickness on planes and boats, yet she still booked the 7 hour tour...  well, we'll see how it goes.

We're currently in the Best Western in Seward Alaska.  It's the most hostile bed towards my back that we've experienced so far.  This is truly a positive thing as it's really not that bad and really is a testimony to how great the beds have been so far!

The alarm was set for 6:30am as our boat launches at 9:30 with an 8:30 check-in.  Rob drags his feet, as usual, so Caleb and I go down for breakfast.  Caleb's trying to eat light since he may be feeling bad only hours from now.  We finish as Mama and Rob are just leaving the room.  It's 8:10 so I walk about 1.5 blocks (in the rain) to get the car and pull it down by the BW to pick everyone up.

It's been raining nearly constantly in Alaska since we left Fairbanks and today is no exception.  It is 50 degrees with a steady light rain as we leave the hotel.  

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Puffins so I was happy to see their no smoking signs!  Puffin's are the Boston Terriers of the bird world to me.

Our vessel for the day.    We boarded this beast around 9:10 and left terra firma at 9:23am.  It is worthy to note that we're waiting in a different hotel to board the boat.  They have their breakfast laid out so I, as a multi-meat loving Schmitz lad, decided to grab a napkin and some pieces of supplemental bacon before we head out on the high seas!  Caleb saw this and decided that even if he were to get sick soon, extra bacon would not hurt the situation!  Mom and Rob were not impressed with us two law-breaking vagrants...  but, we had extra bacon!

Our first wildlife was a bald eagle that is somewhere in this pic...

Our first of many sea lions...

I tried to stay outside as much as possible as you can only get so wet...  Our assigned table in the boat was table 13 which was in the middle of the boat, and with the rain, the windows were pretty clouded.  And on top of that, all of the people were wet so the windows fogged over from the inside.
Having learned a bit from our ATV tour, I have on knee high compression socks, blue jeans, long sleeve shirt with a short sleeve over the top, a fleece pullover topped by a medium weight winter coat with a hood and a stocking cap.  We're all dressed in similar fashion as you'll see in the pics to follow.

The spires were super cool and reminded Rob and myself of Veggie Tales and the Pirates Who Don't Do Anything!  lol

Fams and spires!

Caleb spent most of the time outside with me.

I think these were napping sea lions.

This was a cool trip and we had some good sammy's and chips served for lunch.  There was free coffee and tea.  Caleb wanted a hot chocolate so he and I went to get that and I noticed that the had something called the Kenai Kicker, which was a hot drink.  Sounded good.  I was paying one of the two young ladies who were working the bar when she asked for my id...  wth???   I commented about being from Iowa and being so old that I fart dust.  She giggled as asked me if I wanted Amaretto?  Hell if I know...  so, I replied, "Sure, be generous!".  The second gal hands Caleb his hot chocolate and then hands me my KK with a wink.  Again, wth??   I drank about half of it when I realized what the wink was for!!  That sucker was STRONG!!!!  I drank about 3/4 of it before refilling it with decaf coffee to finish up.  It's hard enough  walking on a boat stone sober much less with a belly full of that!!

The sight of the first glacier!  We were lucky enough to visit two glaciers on our tour.  The first  was the smaller of the two but the temps were noticably colder by both!  

Chunks of glacial ice...

This beauty was 700ft tall and ~1 mile wide.  Another feature of glaciers is that with the contrast in temps it causes it to rain more.  So along with a steep drop in temps, you also get more rain!  Neat.

Dear ol' Dad with chunk of glacial ice that will soon be in our margaritas!  This ice is estimated to be betwixt 400 - 700 years old.

Told ya!!!

 

Glacier and fams!!!  You can't beat that.

The bride and I enjoying glaciers much more than we could have ever imagined!

They call me...  Ishmael.

Why not take a large vessel underneath a waterfall?

The boys are over it all...   This is on the way back to shore in Seward.

We got back to the Best Western and I took a hot shower before heading out into town and more specifically Seward Brewing Co. for dinner.

On our walk to get dinner.

Seward.  Mama and I went for a drive looking for property to buy in town.  Man, I could work in that hardware store and be perfectly happy living in an area like this!!

Got'cha Day Supper

 SUSHI!!!

A Bunch Of Pirates On The High Seas

 

Rob (far right on the green 'N') and some of his buddies and the moms that went along to Honduras to chaperone (and enjoy the island, but that was secondary!).

Caleb's Got'cha Day, 11 Years In!

I love our two sons as they bring me great joy and pride (with some frustrations and wth? moments...). 

This is a special day because other families had 4.5 years to welcome this kid into their families and they didn't. The Lord moves in mysterious ways and somehow, he ended up in our family and we couldn't be more thankful for what he brings to life.

We love you, Caleb!

Friendsgiving, 2022

 

Alaskan Vaca 2022 - Day 9, Our First Glacier On The Road To Seward

It has come time to check out of a great AirBn'b and none of us were happy about this fact.

Rob and I were still up at 1:30 am and I told him that I was going to walk down to the lean-to on the beach as I did NOT want to leave this place and he asked if he could go with me, like I'm going to pass up an opportunity to spend time with a teenager who asks to spend time with me!

1:30am; Rob and myself listening to the waves and having a fantastic conversation.

We had a visitor!

The water was cold!  lol

Drippy Caleb slightly out of focus on the upper half.

Next up are some pics of our AirBn'b...

You can see the top of the lean-to just to the left of that camper and pine tree in the left part of the pic.

Carl, the owner, lives upstairs for the summer and lives at his other AirBn'b in Cabo during the winter.  That is some kind of life!

I did a TON of writing  at that table where if pondering something, I could simply turn to my right,  look out the window and see the Redoubt volcano across the waters of the Cook Inlet.  Absolutely beautiful.

Robby in the chair where I took my most favorite and best nap of my life.  The breeze off of the water was blowing across my feet as I napped.

Carl was building a cement whale tail to put out in the back yard.  I said, "Dude, you need to put that out front for your guests to guide them in.".  He really liked that idea so I'm curious where he eventually put it.

Morning came quickly and we found ourselves packing, drinking coffee, doing dishes, sweeping and other stuff all the while dreading leaving.  The feeling was similar to the feeling when we left the Big Island in Hawaii and Rob was so sad as I think it was his favorite place that he'd been to that point.  His posture in one of the early pictures that represented how we all felt leaving here. 

Once everything was cleaned, loaded and so on, we left and locked up. I ran into Carl as I was heading out and thanked him for everything including getting to play with his daughters Jack Russell Terrior puppies.  He then told me about the jumping fish about 1.5 hours previous as they were migrating North not far from shore.  That would have been cool to see...

So we left for Seward, heading thru Kalifornsky and Soldotna.  Mama Chaos spotted a bear in the St. Elias Brewing Co. parking lot as we were leaving Soldotna.  I spotted a bear many more miles down the road in a private drive but that was about it.

This was on the way to Seward.  Airplanes instead of boats at the docks.

Looks like an album cover if he ever becomes a musician.  Love him!

Before getting into Seward proper, we took a detour to Exit Glacier and went on a bit of beautiful hike.  It's cool as they have signs with a year on it to indicate where the base of the glacier was at that time.  Cool stuff.  It was good to do a little hiking for once instead of driving/sitting/riding or something...

That's the glacier from a distance.

The glacier from a much closer, and colder, view.

My fams!

Rob with a sign representing his birth year.

Caleb and Mama went up further for a closer view.

Sasquatch with a coat!

 

Caleb dancing across a log bridge.

I like bathroom signs that I find funny.  Apparently, there was an issue in this bathroom with people flushing...   Thank you kindliest.

This is in Seward, Resurrection Bay.  We went to the Alaska Sealife Center and had lunch at Seasalt.  The Alaska Sealife Center was ok but would have been "more gooder" if the boys were 5 & 7 years old instead of 15 & 17.  That scar on the hillside is from a fairly recent landslide.

That's the Seasalt Restaurant.

From the balcony of our hotel.

Cool shot showing a fairly recent landslide that happened.

Then it was back to the hotel to chill for the evening, playing blitz and watching Impractical Jokers.  We're pretty tired at this point...