Ice and Air

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Today we continued our road trip South and completed our drive to the sea town of Seward. It was another beautiful day and although we were sad to leave the lovely Wasilla so soon, we were excited to be heading somewhere new. Before we did leave though, Daisy got to experience the wonder that is Target (boutique). Laura wondered why the UK doesn't have the shop if Australa manages to have them, but Daisy quickly pointed out that they would put all other shops would swiftly go out of business.

On the drive we stopped at yet more scenic stop areas and it's become clear that although you're planning on only drive a 100 miles or so, you should plan to take all day to get there because you can't help but be caught up in the beauty of it all and want to take a photo of everything! When we were south of Anchorage we stopped at the Alyeska Resort to take a cable car to the top of a mountain. In the winter the resort runs what we assume is an extremely busy ski resort, but the cable cars run year round to take those who may not feel like hiking 4095830834 feet to the top of the mountain in about 5 minutes. Although the restaurants and 'museum' were closed it was still fun to take a look at the view and wonder at the craziness of the skiiers who accept the challenge of the double black diamond slope. After we left Laura commented on the lack of eagles we had since (exactly none) and sure enough Daisy looked up to see a Bald Eagle flying overhead. It was hilariously perfect timing and pretty darn cool to see.

We then carried on the journey and drove the Turnagain Arm where the road shoulder a fjord before turning back on itself before continuing to Seward. We passed such places as Beluga point (no Beluga's present) and the dead forest of Portage, whose namesake reflects the effects of the 1964 earthquake (9.2 on the Ricter scale) which destroyed the town and lowered the ground by 8 feet, thus rendering any future growth of the trees impossible.

Just before arrriving in Seward we reached Kenai National Park, home of the Exit Glacier. After a mile or so walk on some pretty dodgy terrain, we arrived only to find we couldn't walk completely up to the glacier due to the danger of falling ice. It was still really cool to get so up close to it though and along the trail were year signposts, signalling how large the glacier had been in the past, it was actually quite shocking to see how much it had shrunk over a relatively short amount of time and it will be interesting to see what can be done to prevent it melting completely.

We finally arrived in Seward pretty late so grabbed some dinner and headed to yet another new hotel. I think we're now logged in to about 78 wi-fi accounts.

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