Seward, AK

Today’s weather is the completely opposite of yesterday, it is cold and rainy and gray. The other couple staying here had a fishing trip scheduled for this morning that was cancelled due to the high winds and seas. We hope it will pass before tomorrow when we are supposed to go on a 7 and a half hour trip with Major Marine to Kenai Fjords National Park.

Breakfast this morning was yummy biscuits and gravy, as well as made to order omelettes! Michael and Marsha are such amazing hosts and we are very glad we chose to stay here. Tonight once LJ’s parents arrive we’ll both be in the two upstairs bedrooms, with a shared bath. http://www.asunshinehouse.net/ We are out a little before ten and head over to the Hertz office to pick up our second rental car of the week. Hertz is the only rental car agency in Seward currently and doing a one-way was not economical through them from Anchorage so we had a round-trip through AVIS that we were taking back to Anchorage, thus LJ and I drove separately back to Anchorage today. Ford Escape acquired and off we go to Anchorage.

Besides the nasty weather and some construction delays we make the trip in good time, LJ’s parents actually land early and are waiting on us! I return the first rental car, LJ secures “the parents” and off we go to the “Moose’s Tooth” for lunch.  We had about a fifteen minute wait and then ordered, in the meantime, LJ got a call from Bank of America about his debit card being compromised. After delays, being on hold, being disconnected while being transferred and an all around fun time, he is able to keep them from cancelling our cards while we are on vacation and hopefully all is well (fingers crossed on that one!). Lunch complete and our second visit to… the Anchorage Wal-Mart! More cases of water secured and we are on our way to Seward.

The wind is crazy along Turnagain Arm  but we do spot some dall sheep up on the cliffs again and make a stop to take some quick photos. On the drive home we get the call from Major Marine, our tour for tomorrow will be cancelled; we can do a shorter tour or get a refund. We’re disappointed but understand, they just can’t safely go to the National Park. Tour guide LJ gives us a few other options for tomorrow and we decide to ‘ponder’ them and decide later this evening.

We stop for gas ($3.87 a gallon at the cheapest / $4.37 most expensive) and continue on. It’s now after 6 our time locally (10 PM EST) and LJ’s parents have been up for 20 hours. They flew from Burlington VT at 6 AM with a layover at ORD and then on into Anchorage. We get to the B&B and they are ready to crash. We get them settled and we head down to the Major Marine office. They go ahead and refund our money and we decide to get something light for dinner, tonight’s choice is Christo’s Place (also recommended by Michael) and we have some french onion soup and an appetizer. We walk down to the water afterwards in the pouring rain to see if we can see any wildlife and we see a porpoise out in the bay. No whales or otters but maybe tomorrow!

I think we’re going to go to the Alaska SeaLife Center and a few of the stores here around Seward and take it easy. Tomorrow also will be… my niece’s birthday! Happy Birthday Sarah!!!