Kenai Peninsula

After Fairbanks we continued on our journey through the Last Frontier down to Seward in the Kenai Peninsula. The town is at the end of a large Fjord, which is a Norwegian word for a U-shaped inlet created by a glacier and filled with water. The story of it was pretty cool. The bay was discovered in the 1700s by Russian explorers who were caught in a storm at sea. After days of being tossed around by waves they landed in a particular bay on what they later remembered to be Easter Sunday, so they called the bay Resurrection Bay.

We arrived Friday afternoon after spending the previous evening back in Anchorage. Upon arrival, Dad, Toley and Pooh biked into town on a recon mission. They brought back all sorts of pamphlets on small marine cruises you could take into the Gulf of Alaska. So Mom and Dad mulled over this while I hooked up our newly acquired TV cable and we entertained ourselves with some non-Andy Griffith TV for the first time in a few months. It was kinda boring actually, although, I must say that ESPN was a welcome sight to the whole family (give or take a few people).

The following morning Dad and I went for our weekly 10-mile hike. The road we took was pretty cool, winding along at the base of one of the surrounding mountains and on the shore of the bay. The weather was miserable but hey, it probably built some character. When we got back we found out that Mom and Dad had decided on going on one of the cruises. This specific tour took us on a five hour ride into the Gulf of Alaska and to Bear Glacier, which is part of the Harding Ice Field of Kenai National Park. We left at noon aboard the Star of the Northwest and headed down the bay. This was no short trip either, Resurrection Bay itself is roughly 10 miles long and that was just the beginning. At the end of the bay we were told that another boat had seen a pod of Orcas out in the water a little while earlier. We spotted the Killer Whales a few minutes later. There were about four whales in all, two males, a female and a baby. They were so cool. Three of them were spotted first surfacing together and then a few minutes later the boat almost ran one over. The whale was literally 10 feet from the boat when we first saw it. We got some great pictures!

We saw all sorts of animals during the rest of the tour. All in all we spotted about five bald eagles, a sea otter, a small lagoon of brightly colored jellyfish!, a couple rocks full of lazy, fat sea lions and hundreds of sea birds!! It was really cool. Another sight I especially liked was a small island with the remains of a WWII lookout post on it. The island was so steep that the only way to get men and supplies to the top was by a cable, which we saw parts of. The glacier was pretty cool too. There were even a few icebergs in a small lake in front of it, some of which got up to 400 feet tall!

The trip back home was Kik’s favorite park. He got to become a Kenai Fjords Junior Park Ranger and took an oath promising to protect the park and pick up “glitter” (litter, for those who don’t speak Kikish). He even got a badge, which totally made his day.

The next day we had our own little Bible study since the only church we could find was two mile s away and it was pouring rain. We spent the day pretty much doing nothing and that night Dad and I suffered through the Green & Gold’s first game. Thankfully they won which made the rest of the evening that much better.

We left the next day and drove to Homer, another town on the Kenai Peninsula, where we spent the next couple of days. The town was right on the water and there were bush planes taking off from the lake across the street from our RV Park. We were able to take a small hike on the beach as well. The mountains around the area were beautiful! Mom and dad really liked this town. They said it had a nice feel to it. They took the girls out biking on the Homer Spit that stretched far out into the Cook Inlet which empties into the Pacific. They were hoping to see some beluga whales (being that the nearby bay is called Beluga Bay), but were unsuccessful. Deep sea fishing seems to be the big thing in Homer. But that was easy to figure out since the welcome sign says “Welcome to Homer, Halibut Fishing Capital of the World”

Well our time in Alaska is starting to wind down. Hope none of you are bored of it yet, there is still more to come.

Z