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Thursday, July 29, 2010

July 29th


This is Dan, reporting for Gary and Debbie...

Just got a text from them. They are now in Whittier, AK! (see map above) Wow, quite a long way in one day... looks like they are seriously on the move again.

They said they are "dry camping" (whatever that means). I presume Deb will explain in a future post, if they ever make it out of the wilderness! I think it means no hook-ups for water or sewer... EEWWWWWWW!!! Now that's real camping!

They go on to say that it's "pretty isolated, like something out of Lord of the Rings". They don't specify if that means 'The Fellowship', 'The Two Towers' or 'Return of the King'... more details to come I suppose...

Anyway, they continue that they'll be in touch when they "return to civilization"...

let's hope this is not just the opportunity that Bruno has been waiting for!

Yikes!

July 28th












So we missed the opportunity to browse around Seward on a partly sunny day yesterday due to doing bills, etc. Today we're back into the heavy clouds, no sun, but at least we didn't have any rain. We decided to go downtown anyway and see what we could of the town. We picked up a town walking tour brochure, parked the RV and got on our way. We discovered that Governor Sarah Palin named Seward the "Mural Capital of Alaska" back in 2008. So our tour turned into a kind of treasure hunt, looking for murals all over town. They were found on sides of buildings and sometimes on the inside of historical buildings. The murals are designed by one artist, then projected onto sheets of alumalite, traced with pens and then filled in with color. The color is added in one day by towns people. That's why they are called "mural in a day" projects.

Besides the murals, the town is nestled at the base of picturesque mountains on the shores of Resurrection Bay. You can walk along the shore looking for puffins, sea otters, whales & sea lions. Well.... we saw sea otters! There were plenty of boats of all sizes and shapes going in and out of the bay which was interesting to watch.

After leaving the town we visited Exit Galcier. It was a really cool walk through a well maintained trail for about 1 mile up next to the glacier ice. Not so close that we could touch it, but close enough that we could feel the cool air coming off the ice and see the beautiful blue fissures that are cut deep into the ice caused by the cracking from beneath. We got a true comparison of size standing next to that massive chunk of ice... Amazing!

We are back at Stoney Creek Campground for one more night and then we'll be moving on tomorrow. I'm kind of disappointed that we were unable to see this area on a brighter day. The weather is not suppose to break all week. Bummer!! Of course the saying here in Alaska is, "If you don't like the weather... drive 5 miles". Okay, we'll see if that works.

PS: Dan, I included one of those big travel buses I had told you about. If you zoom into the writing on the back of the bus it says, "Land Yacht" on the side!