Glacier Cruise in Seward

First of all, it's "soo-word". Like "sewer" with a "d" at the end. Kelsey and I keep messing that up. Windsong Lodge is a really neat place. There are a bunch of cabins spread throughout the forest with a few rooms in each. The problem is their Internet upload speeds might be just slightly faster than dialup. So, the pics will have to wait until tonight when we're back in Anchorage, if it's not too late. We'll tell what we did and add the pictures later...which, if a picture is worth 1,000 words, will add many millions of words to what we have already written. If you enjoyed some of the previous pics, you ain't seen nothing yet!

Well, we woke up Wednesday morning at 5am...which, in Central time is 8am, but it felt like 5 am because we went to bed at 11pm, which in Central time is 2 am. We waited in the hotel lobby for the shuttle to the "Alaskan Rail Road" and were greeted at the station by a very elegant looking blue and yellow train. We got our tickets, hopped on, and waited to roll. To travel the 114 miles from Anchorage to Seward it took nearly 4 hours! In many places there are giant glacial lakes and glaciers within a few hundred yards of the tracks and mountains within inches! It was absolutely beautiful! We saw a couple of moose and random birds.

Seeing a glacier is marvelous. There were a couple of them on the train ride and we couldn't believe how HUGE and BLUE they are. They are so dense they don't allow any light to escape except for the blues, and that's why they look blue. AMAZING!

Anyway, once in Seward we jumped straight onto the cruise ship (can't remember it's name...it's in a picture). It was a rather small cruise ship, not a "real" cruise ship...I think she said 100 feet long??? A little bigger than the riverboat in Bismarck. This glacier cruise was amazing. First of all, there are mountains EVERYWHERE in Alaska. It's not like the US where there are some here and there, but they are EVERYWHERE! And glaciers too...some are smaller glaciers, some are bigger, but they are all over.

Aside from the scenery of mountains and trees, we came across many Humpback Whales, Dahl's (spelling?) Porpoises, Puffins (a bird that is on Kelsey's cereal she eats), and at the very end of the trip a couple of Orcas. I don't even know how to describe how neat it was to see them...aside from saying to wait for the pictures. We have HUNDREDS from today.

We also got very close to a MASSIVE glacier. We were within about a quarter mile of it's face and it was HUMONGOUS! We can't remember how tall, but from the sea to the top it was about halfway up a mountain that was probably 3,000 feet tall, or more. It was ridiculous. Then big chunks were falling off all the time and they'd hit the water and sound like a gunshot. It was awesome to see! The guide said that some glaciers are retreating and others advanced as much as 3 or 4 miles last year. This is because they had about 1,200 inches of snow instead of the normal 700 in this particular area. We have both video (thanks Bryce! It worked out awesome...I wasn't sure until viewing it on my laptop) and Kelsey (and I...but mostly Kelsey) took way too many pictures of these events!

We then made our way back, looked at a couple smaller glaciers, saw the Orcas and then docked again in Seward. We ate at a restaurant operated by Windsong Lodge and had the BEST salmon we have ever eaten. Seriously, way better than the stuff in Anchorage and FRESH from a mile away! Amazing. We also ordered coconut fried shrimp and those were delicious as well. The shrimp were about the size of prawns (maybe bigger) and were covered in sweet coconut and fried...then they had a "cinnaminny" and spicy mango dip to dip them in. It was delicious!

Until later, this is all. We'll edit and add pics when we have faster Internet...I'm guessing no Internet in Denali for sure...so it may be awhile!