Wednesday, July 05, 2017

Seward to Homer

The landscape of coastal Alaska was shaped by the massive 1964 earthquake.  There is evidence of massive subsidence all along the coastline such as the remnants of these pilings, such as these along the Seward waterfront, that were submerged. Along the roads you also see dead top halves of trees sticking out everywhere.

Before leaving Seward, we stopped by the Alaska Marine Life Center....funded by the Exxon Valdez Spill payout.  We got an up close look at some of the wildlife we saw from the boat the previous day.


The center runs an "I Sea U" to help rehabilitate wildlife found to be suffering.  This "guy" was found dehydrated and abandoned, so was being cared for by the center!  There is someone with him 24/7.

Sea Life Center photos courtesy of Onions.






The bulk of this day was driving around the Kenai Peninsula from Seward to Homer.  Here we have the Chugach Range with Forget-Me-Nots (the state flower of Alaska).


The Chugach Mountains, Forget-Me-Nots and an Ernie.

The Chugach Mountains and a lily pond.

The Chugach Mountains and Kenai Lake



Lunch in the town of Soldotna (not the prettiest of towns).  Onions chose the Chinese Buffet.  It's like traveling with my parents all over again!

Rounding the "turn" and heading south, this was the scene looking west across the Cook Inlet.  This part of the Kenai Peninsula felt very much like Seattle....water all around with distant views of snow-capped mountains.


And boom, there it was, our first moose sighting!  You can tell tourists from locals by their reaction to moose.  Locals drive right on by.....



Homer, AK.  The town at the end of the road.  See how it looks like Seattle?  Looking Southwest across Kachemak Bay at the Chugach Mountains.  Seward is 40 miles or so as the crow flies over those mountains, but it's a 180 mile drive around the the peninsula from Seward to Homer.



This photo captures Onions happiness at the fact we booked the smallest room at a B&B and it turns out we were the only ones booked for any of the five apartments.  We got the run of the ENTIRE house.

I'm just proud I got the action shot on my first attempt...and now just showing off my skills.

Photo taken at 930PM looking south from our B&B.  The great thing about the long days (Land of the Midnight Sun) is that there is no need to budget daylight.  We never had to worry about getting an early start.  Sunset after 11PM and sunrise around 4AM.  It never really got dark!

We enjoyed our two nights here.....but only had this beautiful weather and view the night we arrived.  Overcast, cloudy and rainy to come.

1 comment:

Prettyballs said...

reminds me of Kodiak when i was a kid