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Published: August 2nd 2010
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Another day of adventure. We decided to drive to Whittier, which is a port town. We drove along Turnagain Arm, which is an arm of the Cook Inlet which comes out of the Gulf of Alaska. It has some of the highest tides in the country at 28 feet and a tide called a bore tide. The “Arm” is quite shallow. At low tide, it is mostly a mudflat, but beluga whales are said to frequent it. With our luck with moose, we don’t expect much. Anyway, it was a lovely drive with snow-capped green mountains on both sides of the long bay. Before we could get to Whittier, we went by Portage Lake. Portage Glacier meets the lake, so we got to see a few mini-icebergs floating around. We also passed a couple of other glaciers that were very blue. The ice looks bluer when the snow has been compressed in the glacier. The interesting part about going to Whittier is that you have to go through a tunnel. Not just any tunnel - a train tunnel! A few years ago, the tunnel that had previously been ONLY for trains, was paved (around the tracks) so that now sometimes trains
use it and sometimes cars and trucks and campers use it! There’s a schedule. We waited in line for cars to came through from the other way. Then it was time for the vehicles to go through from our direction. It’s only one skinny lane wide. Then the train gets a turn. It’s all very well run with lights and barriers, etc. Rowan loves trains, so after we got through the two mile tunnel, there were trains! The Alaska Railroad.
Now we were in Whittier. It’s a very interesting town. There is the port, the railroad yard, about twenty touristy buildings, a big abandoned building, and two other large buildings. There isn’t room at the base of the mountain between the waterfalls and Prince William Sound for much else, so the entire population of Whittier lives in two apartment buildings. The school is across the street from one of them, and the city offices and police department is in one of them! It was a beautiful place, even in the rain. We found a little seafood place and ordered small lunches. Vivian and Seth and I had halibut fish and chips. Rich and Janet had clam chowder which Rich actually
rated at about a 6! Then we went to peek in a couple of gift shops. It kept raining, so we decided to get in line to go back through the train tunnel. We didn’t have to wait very long, luckily. The schedule only has traffic going through from Whittier once every hour for fifteen minutes. When we got to the other side, we weren’t far from a wildlife park. The animals were in large natural enclosures with fences, instead of in cages. We decided to go in since we weren’t having any luck seeing the animals in the wild. We saw wood bison, elk, grizzly bears (one of which was doing that nervous pacing that some animals do in zoos and I can’t stand it!), musk oxen (including an adorable baby!), moose, reindeer, caribou, owls, an eagle, and a black bear. Then we went to the GIFT SHOP! While I was in there I mentioned the bear’s pacing. “Oh, he’s all right. He’s just fine.” Yeah, right. When we were in Yellowstone in February, they had a wolf and a bear project at West Yellowstone, where one of their programs was called “enrichment”. They put food in locations for
the animals to find it like they might in the wild. They put items that they might come across like a hide or a bone that they can investigate, etc. This bear needed “enrichment” activities! After enjoying looking at all the animals in only a sprinkle of rain, we headed back to Anchorage. Along the way was a train station with “real” trains. Oh, was Rowan happy! I went in the station and they had a counter about cruises in Whittier that were for looking at glaciers and animals. I took the brochure and was totally sold! I told Rich I wanted to go with the family or without after they left, but I really wanted to do that boat trip!
So, our day wasn’t packed enough. It stopped raining and it was actually time for the “bore tide” to make its way up the Arm. We stopped at an overlook with about 50 other people. This was supposed to be one of the best days of the year to see the bore tide in terms of being impressive. The tide was late and kept us waiting for about an hour. We all practiced our “oohs” and “aahs” and “wows” and “look at that’s” while we were waiting. Poor Rowan and Vivian and Seth! They went back to the truck. For them, it was the “boring tide”. Finally the bore tide came. Janet was the first to spot it. We expected a small tidal wave ( a little joke) with curling foam about six feet high sweeping up the arm. The real thing was somewhat anti-climactic. It seemed about a foot high, you could only see the foam through binoculars, and even though it might have been moving at 20 miles per hour, it didn’t seem very fast or very impressive. BUT, we saw the bore tide that Turnagain Arm is famous for. The crowd dispersed rather quickly with none of our rehearsed comments. (Instead we heard mutterings of “Was that IT?”)
On the way back to town, we passed a barbecue place called the Turnagain Arm Pit. Ha Ha !
After a burrito dinner, (we shopped at Fred Meyer, not Target) we went to the airport to pick up Nancy and Janet’s other sister, Carol, and her husband, Art, to add to our adventures. We dropped them off at their motel and went back to crash.
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