Bears, Moose and More

We are now sitting in the airport awaiting the first of several flights home. Earlier this week, we travelled to Exit Glacier, Kenai National Fjords Park, Alaska. It is a place where you can walk right up to a glacier and experiience how glaciers re-shape the landscape. The girls actually touched the glacier and walked on the moraine! On the drive to Seward, we saw a moose and her twin calves. On the 1mile walk from the parking lot to Exit glacier, we saw rabbit, ptarmigans, and lots of moose skat! On the way back, we saw a mother black bear and her cub. It was pretty cool! Before leaving Seward, we spent 1/2 day at the Alaska SeaLife Center where we watched a live video of a stellar sea lion giving birth to a pup. That was really neat! Then, we took a 5 hour cruise of Resurrection Bay. We hoped to see humpback whales and orcas and bear, but the torrential rain sent them into hiding. We had to settle for puffins, otters, sea lions, kittywakes, and eagles. All in all, it was quite a successful day! On the trip back to Anchorage, we saw more moose and eagles and we spotted some sheep on the mountains above Turnigan Arm. We hope to post pictures soon and the girls will post some Alaska facts for fun.

Posted by C.

Alaska

This is the first time we have had access to email and we don't have a lot of time but here's where we've been so far: Vancouver (where Daddy got his chipped tooth repaired and we boarded the ship), Ketchican (we walked around town and toured the misty fijords by float plane), Juneau (we took a tram ride to the top of a mountain, toured a gold mine, and took a raft trip down a glacial river), Skagway (we rode a horse for 3 hours and took a train to White Pass and had the best cupcakes ever), Glacier Bay (we saw glaciers calving and watched a few seals, otters, and orcas swim by the ship), College fijord (we saw more glaciers and walked in the Race for the Cure), and Anchorage (we toured the Native Heritage Center and visited an art museum with an historical exhibit and an iditarod exhibit). Tomorrow we will head to Seward. The weather has been gettting colder and rain is forecast for the next few days. We haven't seen a humpback whale yet or a moose but we're hopeful we'll see them on our drive tomorrow. That's all for now. No time to load pictures.

Posted by H and T

Alaska

While in Atlanta, we visited the Carter Museum and Library. There was a fantastic display of photographs of Alaska. We were thrilled to see some photos and inpsired to capture some of our own when we travel there ourselves! the exhibit was
Southwest Alaska: A World of National Parks and Wildlife Refuges (Photographs of Robert Glenn Ketchum)The exhibit included 39 large format photographs of southwest Alaska by Ketchum. there were photographs of watersheds, tundra and forest landscape, rivers and lakes. Some images were larger than life. They were surreal. To see some of Ketchum's photographs online, go to http://www.robertglennketchum.com/ and click on photographs and then select a collection and watch the slideshow! They're awesome!