Saturday, August 27, 2005
08/21/05 Sunday and 08/22/05 Monday - Homer to Seward
. 08/21/05, Sunday and 08/22/05 Monday
It’s 168 miles from Homer to Seward. We had a short drove, but there was a fishing tournament going on and we could not get into our campground until 4:00 PM.
We left at 10:40 and traveled with Gail and Johnny DuBose. They are some of our favorite people on the caravan. They live in New Port Richey, Florida.
The travel through the Kenai Peninsula is very beautiful and easier than many of the highways that we traveled in the interior. There are big mountains and a lot of glaciers, but the mountains are spread acorss large areas and have flat land in between. There are three volcanoes that are visible from the highway between Homer and Ninilchik. We stopped a couple of times on the stretch Mary and Gail got some really good pictures. They walked about a quarter of a mile across a field and ended up standing on a bluff looking down several hundred feet at the water and shot the mountains across the water. I don’t remember the name of the little river, but we stopped at a rest area and I went to the restroom. Mary, Gail and Johnny walked down to the river and got pictures of the stream and even some of the fishermen who were down there fishing for salmon.
We stopped just after we went through Soldotna and had lunch at a place named Susie’s. It was small and crowded with Sunday travelers so we had a pretty long wait. The lunch was great and worth the wait. We finished our trip and arrived at our campground about 4:15 PM. We stayed in a city park that was spread along the shore of Resurrection Bay. We pulled into our space on the second row looking directly across the bay at a mountain range with two large glaciers visible to us. Mary looked at the view and got her camera. She said that she was going to take a picture and when anyone asked why we wanted to be full timers she would just show them the picture.
After we were set up and got ready we car convoyed out of town to see another sled dog demonstration. We had already seen three of these and I was not too excited about another one. We went to a place called IdidaRide Sled Dog Tours It is owned by Mitch Seavey, the 2004 Iditarod Champion. His Father is one of the founders of the race and ran in the first race. Mitch has three sons and the oldest has already run in the race. I believe that they told us that the Seavey family is the only three-generation participants in the Iditarod. We got to see all the dogs, see how they were trained, what they ate and where they lived. We saw the puppies, and they all got passed around so we held and played with them. The kennel felt that this helped the puppies grow up trusting humans and responding to them in a favorable way. Later we saw why that was important. The second thing we got was a look at what the musher wore and the equipment that he took with him on the trail. They truly test the elements and their endurance as well as the training and conditioning of the dogs.
The last thing we did was to ride in a large sled with seats for six people. They hooked thirteen dogs to the sled and we got a two-mile ride. The sled had wide rubber tires instead of runners, and weighed about 500 pounds. It was amazing to see the dogs work as a team and respond to the commands that the musher gave to them. The only control that he has over the team is verbal. It is impressive. They had four
drivers there for our group. Mary got all their names so we can keep up with their progress as sled dog racers. and she got two of them to autograph the back of a picture which we bought of our group riding the sled. She told this young kid that now she world already have his autograph when he won the Iditarod.
It was getting late when we finished at the kennel, but it was time well spent. We had to rush, but we wanted to go up to Kenai Fjords National Park. It was only about six miles away and there was a glacier there named Exit Glacier. We walked about nine tenths of a mile up to the edge of the glacier. We actually touched the ice and had our picture made standing directly in front of that wall of ice that is about 3500 years old. I don’t know how high the face of the glacier is, but from looking at people standing in front of it I would estimate about 50-60 feet. As we walked up we passed signs with years on them making the point the glacier had been in that year.
The oldest sign was for 1951 and I guess the ice and retreated about a half a mile in that fifty-four years. At one time the entire valley was filled with ice. Global warming is not such a new topic.
We stopped at Safeway on the way home to pick up a few groceries. We looked at the note board on the Wagon Masters Motor home and saw that we have to catch the bus at 7:15 AM for a tour of the Kenai Fjords. It is ten o’clock when we got home. Short night. Sleep fast!!
On Monday 08/22/05 we caught the bus and went to the dock where we boarded a boat for a tour of the Kenai Fjords. The fjords are waterways that were formed by the glaciers. As the ice receded it left valleys and mountains. It also left streams, coves and bays that are part of the ocean. We traveled around the shoreline of the extreme North Pacific Ocean. The guy who drove the boat was our narrator and he knew a great deal about the area, the mountains, the glaciers, and the marine life we saw a lot of all of that. We wer
e on the boat from about 7:30 until 2:30. The served lunch so we didn’t even have to stop for that. The entire area in which we traveled was a National Park. We must have gone 70 or 80 miles. We saw a boat in the port marked National Park Service. We were told that Kenai Fjords Park had more boats than it had pickup trucks.
Most of the pictures we took do not show the birds or animals as well as we would like to have them shown. They will be enough to be a reminder for us of a great day we spent in a really wild, isolated area. We saw a lot of animals, fish and birds. First we saw a Bald Eagle, we saw three different kinds of sea gulls, and ravens. Two of my favorites were the Puffins and Ordinary Muir. Both of these birds are fish eaters and divers. The Puffins can dive down to 350 feet into the water. The Muir can go as deep as 600 feet. They don’t fly well because their bodies are heavy and big and they do not have hollow bones like most birds. The Puffins sometimes eat so much that they cannot get off the water to fly. They actually use their wings to propel themselves through the water when they dive. The Muir is like a Penguin except that he can fly. One other bird that we saw a lot of is the Cormorant. All of these birds contributed something to the survival of the Indian and Eskimo people who live in this area. They are still hunted and trapped today for their skin, feathers, bones and in some cases meat.
In the water we saw three Humpback Whales, schools of salmon and smaller fish, and we saw some Dall Porpoise. The porpoise played with the boat, swam under the bow and along the side. As we picked up speed they followed along and jumped in the wake. We saw Sea Lions and got close enough to hear them roar. We saw fur seals and harbor seals and saw Sea Otter and watched them play. The captain told us the otter lived 99% of its life in water. It is a mammal, gives live birth, but it seldom goes on land.
We saw a glacier named Holgate Glacier. It made the one we saw last night look tiny. We approache
d to within a quarter of a mile. The face of the ice flow is from 300 to 500 feet high. There was a hole at the base where a large river gushed out into the bay. The water came from melt and from rain. The captain shut down the engines and generators and we sat for about twenty minutes in silence listening to the ice creak and groan. Occasionally a chunk of ice would break off and fall into the water. This is called calving. The water was dotted with big ice chunks for several hundred yards.
We returned to port about 2:30. It was a very nice day and we enjoyed seeing the wildlife. As we ere coming in it got cloudier and the wind blew harder. By night it was raining
It’s 168 miles from Homer to Seward. We had a short drove, but there was a fishing tournament going on and we could not get into our campground until 4:00 PM.
We left at 10:40 and traveled with Gail and Johnny DuBose. They are some of our favorite people on the caravan. They live in New Port Richey, Florida.The travel through the Kenai Peninsula is very beautiful and easier than many of the highways that we traveled in the interior. There are big mountains and a lot of glaciers, but the mountains are spread acorss large areas and have flat land in between. There are three volcanoes that are visible from the highway between Homer and Ninilchik. We stopped a couple of times on the stretch Mary and Gail got some really good pictures. They walked about a quarter of a mile across a field and ended up standing on a bluff looking down several hundred feet at the water and shot the mountains across the water. I don’t remember the name of the little river, but we stopped at a rest area and I went to the restroom. Mary, Gail and Johnny walked down to the river and got pictures of the stream and even some of the fishermen who were down there fishing for salmon.
We stopped just after we went through Soldotna and had lunch at a place named Susie’s. It was small and crowded with Sunday travelers so we had a pretty long wait. The lunch was great and worth the wait. We finished our trip and arrived at our campground about 4:15 PM. We stayed in a city park that was spread along the shore of Resurrection Bay. We pulled into our space on the second row looking directly across the bay at a mountain range with two large glaciers visible to us. Mary looked at the view and got her camera. She said that she was going to take a picture and when anyone asked why we wanted to be full timers she would just show them the picture.
After we were set up and got ready we car convoyed out of town to see another sled dog demonstration. We had already seen three of these and I was not too excited about another one. We went to a place called IdidaRide Sled Dog Tours It is owned by Mitch Seavey, the 2004 Iditarod Champion. His Father is one of the founders of the race and ran in the first race. Mitch has three sons and the oldest has already run in the race. I believe that they told us that the Seavey family is the only three-generation participants in the Iditarod. We got to see all the dogs, see how they were trained, what they ate and where they lived. We saw the puppies, and they all got passed around so we held and played with them. The kennel felt that this helped the puppies grow up trusting humans and responding to them in a favorable way. Later we saw why that was important. The second thing we got was a look at what the musher wore and the equipment that he took with him on the trail. They truly test the elements and their endurance as well as the training and conditioning of the dogs.
The last thing we did was to ride in a large sled with seats for six people. They hooked thirteen dogs to the sled and we got a two-mile ride. The sled had wide rubber tires instead of runners, and weighed about 500 pounds. It was amazing to see the dogs work as a team and respond to the commands that the musher gave to them. The only control that he has over the team is verbal. It is impressive. They had four
drivers there for our group. Mary got all their names so we can keep up with their progress as sled dog racers. and she got two of them to autograph the back of a picture which we bought of our group riding the sled. She told this young kid that now she world already have his autograph when he won the Iditarod.It was getting late when we finished at the kennel, but it was time well spent. We had to rush, but we wanted to go up to Kenai Fjords National Park. It was only about six miles away and there was a glacier there named Exit Glacier. We walked about nine tenths of a mile up to the edge of the glacier. We actually touched the ice and had our picture made standing directly in front of that wall of ice that is about 3500 years old. I don’t know how high the face of the glacier is, but from looking at people standing in front of it I would estimate about 50-60 feet. As we walked up we passed signs with years on them making the point the glacier had been in that year.
The oldest sign was for 1951 and I guess the ice and retreated about a half a mile in that fifty-four years. At one time the entire valley was filled with ice. Global warming is not such a new topic.We stopped at Safeway on the way home to pick up a few groceries. We looked at the note board on the Wagon Masters Motor home and saw that we have to catch the bus at 7:15 AM for a tour of the Kenai Fjords. It is ten o’clock when we got home. Short night. Sleep fast!!
On Monday 08/22/05 we caught the bus and went to the dock where we boarded a boat for a tour of the Kenai Fjords. The fjords are waterways that were formed by the glaciers. As the ice receded it left valleys and mountains. It also left streams, coves and bays that are part of the ocean. We traveled around the shoreline of the extreme North Pacific Ocean. The guy who drove the boat was our narrator and he knew a great deal about the area, the mountains, the glaciers, and the marine life we saw a lot of all of that. We wer
e on the boat from about 7:30 until 2:30. The served lunch so we didn’t even have to stop for that. The entire area in which we traveled was a National Park. We must have gone 70 or 80 miles. We saw a boat in the port marked National Park Service. We were told that Kenai Fjords Park had more boats than it had pickup trucks.Most of the pictures we took do not show the birds or animals as well as we would like to have them shown. They will be enough to be a reminder for us of a great day we spent in a really wild, isolated area. We saw a lot of animals, fish and birds. First we saw a Bald Eagle, we saw three different kinds of sea gulls, and ravens. Two of my favorites were the Puffins and Ordinary Muir. Both of these birds are fish eaters and divers. The Puffins can dive down to 350 feet into the water. The Muir can go as deep as 600 feet. They don’t fly well because their bodies are heavy and big and they do not have hollow bones like most birds. The Puffins sometimes eat so much that they cannot get off the water to fly. They actually use their wings to propel themselves through the water when they dive. The Muir is like a Penguin except that he can fly. One other bird that we saw a lot of is the Cormorant. All of these birds contributed something to the survival of the Indian and Eskimo people who live in this area. They are still hunted and trapped today for their skin, feathers, bones and in some cases meat.
In the water we saw three Humpback Whales, schools of salmon and smaller fish, and we saw some Dall Porpoise. The porpoise played with the boat, swam under the bow and along the side. As we picked up speed they followed along and jumped in the wake. We saw Sea Lions and got close enough to hear them roar. We saw fur seals and harbor seals and saw Sea Otter and watched them play. The captain told us the otter lived 99% of its life in water. It is a mammal, gives live birth, but it seldom goes on land.We saw a glacier named Holgate Glacier. It made the one we saw last night look tiny. We approache
d to within a quarter of a mile. The face of the ice flow is from 300 to 500 feet high. There was a hole at the base where a large river gushed out into the bay. The water came from melt and from rain. The captain shut down the engines and generators and we sat for about twenty minutes in silence listening to the ice creak and groan. Occasionally a chunk of ice would break off and fall into the water. This is called calving. The water was dotted with big ice chunks for several hundred yards.We returned to port about 2:30. It was a very nice day and we enjoyed seeing the wildlife. As we ere coming in it got cloudier and the wind blew harder. By night it was raining
