Alaska Monday

I hear it's in the 80's at home.  Here, we're surrounded by chin-high snow piles wherever we go. We're having a hard time getting to internet connections, so you guys may just get all these messages all at once.  It might be a little better than getting postcards, which always arrive after we get home.

Today is Seward's Day, and we're in Seward, so we hoped there might be some special festivities going on, but there aren't. The most notable effect of Seward's Day is that the library is closed, so we can't get to the internet.

Last night we borrowed our host's snowshoes and went plowing along the top of drifted snow that covers a running creek.  We barely saw the creek, and the snow we were walking on covered the tops of small trees.  Snowshoes are easy to get tangled with each other, but they do work well as long as you think a little pigeon-toed. A gorgeous walk!

This morning we  had a beautiful breakfast of yogurt & sourdough pancakes with berry jelly, which was our main meal of the day.   At noon we were on a boat (the Chugach) heading out Resurrection Bay.   Steep mountains jut straight out of the water on all sides, which makes it a fjord.  We weren't even out of the harbor when we saw two humpback whales swimming together.  At one point they were right next to us.  We watched them for about 15 minutes.  We saw bald eagles nesting, a colony of sea lions, choppy waters and a snowstorm coming in from the Pacific, sea otters and glacier ice.     The glacier ice is a blue (aquamarine) jewel color, which comes from the density of the ice. It kindof  glows. People are friendly, and we're finding plenty to look at and do.  

We would have stayed in town for supper if an internet place was open, but since we couldn't find one, we came on back.  Amy's reading a journal by Rockwell Kent, an artist who spent a stretch of time in a cabin on this shore with his 9-year-old son. She knows his artwork from the museum she volunteers at.   I'm reading my aviation books, so we're happy even when we're not out in the snow or the wind. 

Supper was peanutbutter bagel, cheese, bananas, pistachios& salt-water taffy.    Tomorrow we have tickets to the SeaLife Center, then we'll head back to Anchorage.

love y'all!

Maggie Hettinger

"Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle, maybe worse than your own."