Wednesday, 17 August 2011 Seward, Alaska - Homer, Alaska

Another fine morning, breakfast and tidy up. We were up and on our way back to Exit Glacier to walk to the front of the glacier. We made it there by 9:00am and got ready for the walk. A quick check in at the ranger station, stamping of my parks passport and then it was off to the glacier.

The walk to the glacier offered another opportunity to look at the regrowth that has occurred as the glacier retreated. In some area you can see almost distinctive lines as the various plants have muscled in on to their territory.

To get to the glacier involved crossing some of the outwash from the glaciers and ice packs that feed into the valley. After following the river up there was a slower section with rocks that we were able to ford. Then it was walking along the moraine toward the glacier, you really notice the temperature change as you walk toward the glacier. The breeze that flows from the glacier is like standing in front of the freezer with a fan blowing cold air onto you. As we approached the ranger was returning from marking the points where you could approach and touch the glacier and areas to avoid. Apparently people had been trying my Portage trick of standing under the ice and been seriously injured from the falling ice.

Once we were at the glacier toe it was a impressive as the view the day before from above. You could easily see the melt pattern underneath the glacier as well where all the water was coming from. A lot of what you were standing on at the toe was broken sheets of ice covered with moraine as you manoeuvred around the toe.

After an interesting time taking photo's and an insistant reminder to Shoeleh that taking photos under the glacier had the potential to do serious damage, we meandered back to Clancy to go back and look at Seward.

Now the drive back into Seward I decided to have a little bit of a look around some of the other streets of the town, there are only six running length ways so it was down 2nd Ave and 1st Ave. The journey further confused my impression of what Seward should be like. I had a vision that the town would be quite a bustling place with fishing, tourism and mining. The town however more gave the impression that it was clinging to life and that there were distinct gaps in wealth.

There were a disproportionate number of homes for sale, others appeared abandoned, others still were just in a state of disrepair and then there was immaculate mansions with beautiful lawns. I descibe this to give the sort of view of a town that is obviously in a pattern of growth but there seems no method to shed the dead and dying sections. Another thing that was sort of bought home to us was that for a state of about 600,000 residents there was probably at least that many abandoned/wrecked vehicles.

We made it to the main shopping drag, where we parked Clancy as we did this enormous truck swung in beside us dwarfing our home. We walked the main street, this is a single block (with gaps) and while there were places to eat we decided to head down to the port area where there seemed to be more bustling activity going on.

Interesting Aside:

I continue to wonder at the derelict and abandoned houses was it the GFC or is it just part of growth and death of small towns. Given the size of Alaska and its transport infrastructure I think it is the combination of rapid expansions and contractions has left many of these places in this state.

We were both hungry so we decided that the Breeze Inn Restaurant would offer us a nice quick feed. How wrong could we have been! DO NOT EAT HERE… We entered and both felt a little uneasy but hungry so sat down, waited a little too long for service and then received the worst fried food EVER. We left the pigswill (restaurant) and got back into Clancy both not feeling the best for what we ate.

Interesting Aside:

Do Not Eat at the Breeze Inn Restaurant!!!

The experience left us feeling so bad we decide to pack up and leave Seward without exploring the remainder of the port area. I got a Safeways Starbucks coffee (extra large) and some spinach for dinner and we decided to get out of here.

This was our worst experience on the trip and tainted much of the rest of the day. The drive back up the Seward Highway was spent looking at the scenery and berating ourselves for not leaving before the food arrived, if you could call it that.

We turned towards Homer on the Sterling Highway and progressed past Coopers Landing - my how we wished we had had lunch here, the town was a lot more bustling and alive than Seward and was packed with fishermen looking to catch their dream fish.

We progressed along the Sterling Hwy which had signs advising us that in this section beware of Moose and that 171 had been killed over the next 18 miles this year. We still have not seen one in the wild! Our luck continued. We went through Sterling another town that put Seward to shame before arriving at Soldonta where Clancy needed a drink - this town too looked a lot better than Seward (hopefully my last complaint).

Both still feeling unwell we decided to progress to Homer, having made this decision I grabbed another Safeways Starbucks coffee and Shoeleh got an iced tea we headed on. Just outside of town there was another Moose sign this time with 272 dead moose's. We continued towards Homer and other than a furtive sighting of something in the bushes bigger than a dog no Moose did we see.

What we did see was some great coastline and views across the inlet of the volcanos that are sitting there impressive, snow-capped and waiting for a trigger.

We made it to Homer 18:30 and checked out the various RV parks before selecting Oceanview www.oceanview-rv.com/ and booking in for the next two nights. We had our dinner of Campbell's soup, spinach and carrots which was fantastic. Then it was time for a little internet before settling down for the evening. We had a first attempt at using the flyscreen we purchased in Whitehorse.

Then shower and off to sleep.

Animals Spotted: Eagles, domestic pets other birds and that's about it

Day Thirty two