Seward to Hidden Lakes

Grasshopper the Native Eskimo told us how he was here during the 1964 Earthaquake when he was 12 yrs old. June 26 was his birthday (same as my brother Ryan). Sherry, our friend, brought out a Reese candy bar with a candle and we sang Happy Birthday to him. This is his Token he is holding up. He was a mole in the war. This is someone who has to crawl through the tunnels looking fot the ememy. He was fun to chat with out our campsite.
A church with "Red Doors". My mom asked me to find a church with red doors. This was the only one we found so far. It definitely meets the criteria. Seward, Alaska. This is an Episcopal Church. There are as many bars in Seward as there are churches and 20% of the people are incarcerated.

We moved to Hidden Lakes yesterday. In Seward I saw the boat my boss Brian Melear and his family went on. We left a rainy Sunday and landed in a beautiful lakeside spot on the lake. The host here said people are usually on a waiting list to get to our site. We just were lucky. We are traveling with friends we met on the Klutina River. The zodiac is going to get inflated this morn and we are going to try and catch Lake trout and Rainbow trout. The Russian River is just down the road and they say they are catching (snagging) salmon there. We had Halibut last night for supper from what we caught yum yum. We also went to the Marine Sea Aquarium and saw sea lions, octupus, etc. Very educational and interesting. The temp is 65 at noon today. Love to all.

Pictures for Danny..

Seward is truly beautiful.

Whittier Mountain Range

Earthquake 1964 other pics

Seward view from camp.

Just hanging around at the fish house.

House left behind from earthquake. 1964

Tuesday 6/22/10 Seward

The drive to Seward is spectacular. There was a volcano the hit in 1964 and the area dropped. Salt water came in and ruined the trees. Here is a pic of an old remaining house. But, the rest was nice. We are parked overlooking the bay. This is where the cruise ships leave from. Thursday we took a charter to catch Halibut. We got our limit which is 2 per person. Birdie caught a hog, which weighed 42lbs and a turkey 38 lbs, and a chicken 20 some pounds, and then another smaller one. It was about 100 lbs undressed. He cut them up and we vacuum packed them and fired up the deep freezer. There were 11 people fishing and the seas were rough. I did not get sea sick so I was thrilled to death. Yesterday we walked up to Exit Glacier. They have it marked up how it has receded in the past 100 yrs.

Whittier,Alaska

Monday we went on a glacier cruise for 6 hrs. We saw the calving of the glacier, which makes a loud cracking sound and then falls into the water. Then comes the wave. The boat held 350 people so was pretty big and calm bay water. There was also a group of sea otters. They were all mamas and baby otter. This otter is larger than the ones we have in Florida. They carry their babies until the baby is almost as big as the mom. We stayed at Williwaw campground near the outskirts of town. We traveled through a 5 mile tunnel to get to the cruise.

Elmendorf AFB, Anchorage, Alaska

We have been getting ready for our next leg of travels. We re-packed the motorcoach and did up every piece of laundry we could find. We also bought groceries. Yesterday we went to a 6 story mall in downtown Anchorage, ate chicken wings at a bar called the Peanut Farm, and went to Cook Inlet. We also went up to Arctic Valley which is a ski slope owned by the military. It is closed now but the view of the city from the area is spectacular. Here are some pics of the planes on the base for display. We are going to go fishing tonight. I heard my mom broke her wrist today and my thoughts are with her. She asked me yesterday on the phone how far I was from her. We are about 5,000 miles from home. Love to all . Louise and Birdie.

Mountains

Klutina River,Glennallen, Alaska

Anchorage, Alaska (civilization)

We arrived at Ft. Richardson Army post this am. We ended up catching enough salmon to can 17 jars. I borrowed a pressure cooker from mom before heading to Alaska. After talking with salmon canners we met along the way I learned that it is very important to process the fish correctly. Anyway $229.00 later, we ended up buying a new pressure cooker. The one I got from mom was lets just say older than dirt. Ha, sorry mom but I could not find a seal and I did not think botulism was a nice present to give to friends and family when we return. We met some really nice people Treba and Hal, Max and Jeanne, Dennis and Sheri. Happy hour was whenever the mood hit and fishing was right out the front door. I am downloading pictures we took from this past week that I could not download berfore. We have several adventures planned this week from anchorage. Sooo, enjoy the adventure with us. Terry here are some more mountain pics with glaciers we walked on on the way to Valdez. This was Worthington Glacier. I found some more specks of gold in the glacier rocks. See ya