This morning started out as the biggest disappointment of the entire trip. We had planned an excursion aboard a high-speed catamaran to travel 135 miles into Prince William Sound to see 26 glaciers as well as lots of wildlife - whales, sea otters, porpoises, maybe even bears, mountain goats and bald eagles. This was one of the more expensive excursions that we had "splurged" on because it sounded so very cool. Our journey host, Meghan, told us exactly what time and where in our hotel the bus would pick us up to take us to the dock where we could catch the boat. We were at the place she told us on time, actually, we were there 30 minutes early, mainly because we were so excited. We waited . . . and waited . . . and the bus didn't come. At 9:30 am, which was the time we were supposed to be picked up, we asked Meghan about it, just to be sure. She told us sometimes the bus runs late, it would be here soon. We waited some more. At 10:00 when the bus still wasn't there, Meghan finally did some checking. Only to find out she had been given the wrong information, and the actual pick up location was about two blocks away at a different hotel. And now it was too late, the bus had already left.
Talk about bummed! And it wasn't just us, another couple on our tour was waiting with us and they missed out too. Meghan was so apologetic, and embarrassed, she was beside herself - probably almost as annoyed as we were. After quite a bit of dickering between her and her supervisors, the tour company agreed to refund our money, and they also offered to gift us onto a different excursion for that afternoon that would take us to Portage Glacier. Well, one glacier isn't exactly 26 glaciers, but it's certainly better than zero glaciers. So we accepted, of course, and decided to take a little walk around town and grab some lunch to kill the few hours until our replacement excursion.
One thing we have noticed about Alaska, there are flowers everywhere. Gorgeous, colorful, and ginormous flowers! Guess it's due to all those hours of sunshine. And since they have such a short summer season here, they want to make the most of it with lots of flowers to enjoy. Here's just a sampling of what we saw . . .
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| Flowers bloom around every little sign post |
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| Gorgeous begonias, 3 times bigger than at home |
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| Beautiful baskets hang from all the light standards |
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| More little "gardens" along the walkways |
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| Geraniums - one of my favorites |
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| Love how they mix the purples with the pinks |
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And check out these fuscias -
Mine at home better "shape up"! |
We grabbed some lunch and then went to meet the bus - at the right place this time! Our bus ride took us along Turnagain Arm, named when Captain Cook unintentionally found the Gulf of Alaska while searching for a northern passage to China. When he realized he had to "turn again" to find another way, this area became known as Turnagain Arm.
Soon we were at the dock and more than ready for our boat ride to the glacier . . .
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| And yes, it was cold - we were bundled up with all our layers again |
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| Our "ride" |
Portage Glacier is on the Kenai Peninsula of Alaska and is included within the Chugach National Forest. It is located south of Portage Lake and 4 mi west of Whittier. Portage Glacier got its name because it is on a portage route between Prince William Sound and Turnagain Arm - the natives used it as a shortcut to get to the Cook Inlet instead of having to go all the way around the mountains. Hundreds of years ago the glacier filled the entire Portage Valley, a distance of 14 miles, and was connected to what are now five separate glaciers.
Again, I'm going to let the photos do the talking . . .
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| View from the dock |
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| Way off in the distance |
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| Starting to spot the glacier now |
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| Closer |
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| And closer |
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| Portage Glacier (zoomed in) |
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| Guess who? |
And now some more pics of this glacier from every angle . . . taken as the boat circles to be sure everyone gets a good view . . .
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| Thanks to a good zoom lens, we got some great close-ups |
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| Really close |
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| And even closer |
Do you know why glaciers look blue? It's because the dense ice of the glacier absorbs every color except blue. So blue is what we see. And do you notice how dirty they look? Want to know why? They
look dirty because they are dirty. Glaciers advance and scrape the bedrock (the rock beneath the ice). As the rock is scraped, the fragmented bedrock gets incorporated in the ice. Glaciers calve (break) and form icebergs that float out into the water. The icebergs carry the sediment and thus look dirty. If we could take a closer look, we would see that the icebergs look rocky, not just dirty, because of the sediment incorporated in the ice. And that's your geology lesson for today!
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| Some icebergs that have calved off |
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Looking the opposite direction from Portage Glacier
is another glacier sending waterfalls down to the water |
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| A closer look |
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| One last look as we head back to the dock |
Back on the bus, we got a surprise we weren't expecting .. . a visit to an animal preserve where we got a really good up-close look at some of the animals that call Alaska home .. .
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| Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center |
And yes, the animals here are behind fences . . . but the enclosures are very large and are representative of what the animals would experience in the wild. Most of these animals were brought here because they have been orphaned or injured in the wild. In any case, we enjoyed getting a closer look . . . First the bears . . .
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| Black Bear |
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| Grizzly Bear - the keepers just threw him a whole salmon |
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A second grizzly also has a whole salmon -
the first bear has dropped his salmon and is going after his friend's instead |
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| When the second bear hurries away, bear #1 changes his mind |
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| And decides his salmon is OK to eat after all |
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| Good stuff - Yum! |
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Bear #2 consumes his salmon and then takes a nice
relaxing roll in the grass |
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| Awwww - life is good! |
Next, a look at the muskox . . .
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| Muskox out in their enclosure |
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| And zoomed in closer |
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| Baby muskox |
Another surprise . . . they have an entire heard of elk . . . Elk are not native to Alaska, but for whatever reason, someone decided to introduce them to the area and they did not do well in the wild. So the herd was brought to the preserve, where they are thriving and reproducing . . .
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| Elk |
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| While watching the elk, we noticed a very low-lying rainbow off in the distance |
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| I've never seen a rainbow that low to the ground before |
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| The babies |
And then there was this guy . . .
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| Mr. Moose |
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He came right up to the fence - so close we could have touched him.
His antlers are covered with velvet - so cool to be so close
to this illusive animal |
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| One more look |
We also got a good look at an . . .
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| Arctic Fox |
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| Even closer |
We saw this sign that talks about the big earthquake of 1964 - a little different information than what we were told on our bus tour of Anchorage . . . So I guess the actual facts are somewhere in between . . .
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| 1964 Alaskan Earthquake |
So all in all, what started out to be a very disappointing day ended up being just fine and very interesting and enjoyable. After all, how can you have a bad day on vacation in Alaska? Oh, by the way, here are a few more interesting facts we have learned about Alaska and just how big it actually is . . .
- Alaska has more coastline than the continental USA
- If Alaska was cut in half, Texas would be the 3rd largest state
- Alaska has 3 million lakes - each one being over 20 square miles in size
- If Alaska could be superimposed on to the Lower 48 States, it would look like this:
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| Amazing, yes? |
That's all for today. Can't wait to see what adventures tomorrow brings. . .
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