Alaska - May 2007

The view of the Chugach Mountains from our room at the conference hotel in Anchorage

One of the trip highlights was riding a tandem along the coastal trail in Anchorage - we'd been meaning to try a tandem for years, finally got around to it! Definitely a very interesting/learning (and communication-fostering!) experience!

One area we rode by (and got lost in) on the way back was Hood Lake, the world's largest float-plane airport. (The shore was dotted with hundreds of float planes / floats / etc)

The view driving south on the Seward Highway towards Whittier

Portage Lake

Waiting to drive through the tunnel to Whittier. The town of Whittier was established in WWII as a remote military base that received supplies via a railroad tunnel bored through the mountain. This tunnel was re-fitted in 2000 to allow (one-way at a time) car traffic, and the town now serves as a base for glacier boat tours in the Prince William Sound.

The old military building that everyone in town lived in during WWII. They haven't been able to tear it down because of asbestos/environmental issues... ouch!

Checking out glaciers in Prince William Sound on the catamaran glacier tour

Just a "tad breezy" on the top deck. And cold - *quite* cold!

Quite a few sea otters hanging out on the ice

A couple of bald eagles hanging out on some ice. We'd never actually seen a bald eagle in the wild before, but what they say about Alaska is true - they're all over the place! At one point on the drive to Homer we saw over 20 circling in one spot!

A sea-bird rookery (eagle food? ;) )

Wandering out to the Exit Glacier in Seward. Definitely a late spring in Alaska (did I mention it was chilly?). Chen-Nee deserves credit for wandering out on a snowy trail at 10pm in fading light and noone else around :)

"Chilly" became "chilly and raining," so we spent the morning at the sealife center in Seward. The tufted puffins were hilarious...

... and the bird that looked a little like a tropical fish was also eye-catching.

From Seward we drove down to Homer, and out to the end of Homer Spit (a big halibut-fishing area during summer - cold and windy for us in mid-May)

Homer Spit from the ridge road

Road-side wildlife along the ridge road

On the way back from Homer we took a side-route (on a dirt road) to Skilak Lake - beautiful scenery with the light green of glacier run-off. We decided to eat lunch on the shore, only to jump back into the car a few minutes later to eat there instead (brrr!)