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.
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| 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. |
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| 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! |
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| Our first wildlife was a bald eagle that is somewhere in this pic... |
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| Our first of many sea lions... |
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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. |
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| The spires were super cool and reminded Rob and myself of Veggie Tales and the Pirates Who Don't Do Anything! lol |
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| Fams and spires! |
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| Caleb spent most of the time outside with me. |
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| I think these were napping sea lions. |
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| 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!! |
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| 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! |
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| Chunks of glacial ice... |
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| 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. |
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| 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. |
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| Told ya!!! |
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| Glacier and fams!!! You can't beat that. |
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| The bride and I enjoying glaciers much more than we could have ever imagined! |
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| They call me... Ishmael. |
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| Why not take a large vessel underneath a waterfall? |
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| 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.
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| On our walk to get dinner. |
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| 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!! |
