Ashore in Alaska (Friday)

This morning we woke up in Seward, AK. It's not a cruise port like the other places we've been. It looks like a working port. We set the alarm for 6 so we'd have time for breakfast and showers before leaving the ship. We had to meet for disembarking at 8:10. Breakfast wasn't as crowded as usual. They had opened before 6:30 as some people were disembarking as early as 7am. We got down to the lounge to wait for our call to disembark early and played pinochle on our iPads while waiting.

When they called our disembarkment number we did our final check off through the card reader, got off the ship, and were directed to our bus, which is named "Skookum." We'll have the same bus for the rest of the land tour, so we have to remember the name. 

Our tour director is Iskren from Bulgaria. He has very little accent and has tour guided all over Europe. He's pretty deadpan in his delivery of stories, unlike our Skagway madame, but does give us a lot of information as we're driving along. Hanna is our bus driver.

We left Seward on the Seward Highway and then along the Turnagain arm of the Cook Inlet to Anchorage (see map). It's still pretty cloudy and rainy.  We realize how lucky we were with the sunny weather earlier in our trip. Here's a photo of what we can see from the bus. Trees, creeks, some cleared slops and clouds. It's hard to tell if there are mountains around.

After about an hour and a half, we stopped at The Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center. This preserve houses animals that have been injured and are being either treated to be released later or can't be released. We saw a brown bear who had an injured paw (see photo), musk oxen, a young moose (no antlers), lots of elk, and caribou with spectacular horns (see photo). We also saw some wood bison (see photo). The bison are an endangered species and they are being bred here for release into the wild. There was a disabled eagle who had had to have his wing amputated, so he'll be here for life. We also saw a lynx. The gift shop was nice with some very interesting arty things. 

After the conservation center we drove on another hour to Anchorage. We saw gulls and eagles and a moose splashing down a stream. So we've seen two of the "big three:" eagles, moose, and bears (the bear at the conservation center doesn't really count).

The land here seems very flat, but with hills and mountains off a ways on the sides. There was an earthquake in this area in 1964 here that was the largest ever recorded (8.5 on the Richter scale I think). In places, the land dropped 5 feet. That created a tidal wave that brought sea water onto the land. There are lots of trees that are dead, but still standing, killed, but preserved by the salt water. There are also wide mud flats made of glacial silt. When the tide is out these look like mud flats, but Iskren said if you go out on them, you will get stuck and sink.

We arrived in Anchorage around 12:30. Iskren said there are over 800 moose and many brown bears living in the city. They dropped us off in downtown for about an hour and a half for lunch. We had a map with some restaurants marked on it, which seemed awfully far from where we were. But we realized these were only the restaurants that had paid to be on the map. There were lots of other small places around including a lot of hot dog stands, all selling reindeer sausage. We ate at a place called the Bear Paw Bar and Grill. Sandra had a halibut sandwich and I had a hamburger. It's going to be an adjustment to have to pay for most of our meals now (a few are covered by the cruise). But the prices at the Bear Paw didn't seem much different from any pub food place we were used to.

After lunch we met back up with Skookum to go the 2-3 blocks to the Anchorage Museum of Art and History. It seems odd to get on the bus for such a short jaunt, but they have to keep track of us and also get our passes to go in the museum.

The museum had an exhibit on Artic Flight: A Century of Alaska Aviation. That was pretty interesting reading about the history of aviation in Alaska and seeing the artifacts. On another floor was a display of artifacts from the different Native American people. There was a lot of beautiful beadwork and parkas made from everything from arctic hare fur to walrus intestines (the latter water proof so good for fishing). 

While we were in the museum we began to notice that it felt like the ground was moving. It seems we still have our sea legs. It's more disturbing than it ever was on the ship!

We went to the hotel next. The hotel was three blocks away. But the bus took about eight blocks to get there. We're staying at the Marriott. The tour director brought us our room keys and when we got to our room, our bags had already arrived. We had dinner at the hotel restaurant (pot stickers and crab cake for Sandra, Cobb salad for me) and then went out to walk a bit. We tried to find a store called the Quilted Raven we saw  while the bus was driving us round and round, but had trouble finding it. We did find a Starbucks and got Sandra a morning bun (even though it was evening). We finally did find the Quilted Raven, but it was closed, but the gift shop next door was still open. They had some really lovely things.

Back at the hotel, we blogged a bit, then went to bed early. We were tired and have to get at 5am because our bags have to be in the hall by 6am.