A fine day for a glacier

 

Today we walked to Exit Glacier. What a thing of wonder. You can get about 40 feet from it; then there are ropes to protect it from the masses like me. If I had been willing to hike 7 hours vertical, I could have walked on the Harding Ice Field that Exit Glacier spills from. Don't think I am in shape for that one. If I had been willing to soak my boots, I could have waded across the glacial plain of water rivulets to stand at the toe. We chose the middle ground, dry feet, medium climb.

One the way to the glacier, we passed a bear jam, a crowd of people watching a black bear cub in a tree. He crawled down and was later seen near an information pavilion. Such a cutie.

We spent the afternoon at the SeaLife Center in downtown Seward. It is a center for displays, education, rescue and research on arctic sea life, how it is changing, and how to re mediate the effects of man on the populations. There was one large tank with puffins who entertained the crowd all day. They dive and swim faster under water than any of the fish. They chased the fish all around the tank, nipping at their tails. They can stay under water for a LONG time. I took about 30 photos, all on high shutter speeds, and they were all blurs under the water. I saved the best one and you can see it in Teregram's photo album.

We had a local brew and watched the catch of the day come in. The charter boats hang up the catch and hoist it up for photos and admiration. Today there was a 7 foot salmon shark in the catch. He looks so cute. Too bad he is dead.....You can see his photo in the album too. On the news tonight, there was a 7 foot salmon shark caught in Homer. Apparently this is unusual enough to make the news, so tune in to Anchorage news at 1 am your time Wednesday night and you might see my shark.

Daisy has a new retractable leash, and she is going to be enjoying a whole lot more exercise from now on. Starting today. She likes it. She can run 26 feet away and sniff all the smells that I don't get near on the 6 foot leash. That's three times as much exercise for her. On all the walks without cars that we are taking, it is perfect.

I do love Seward. It can be a little gray, but since it is in the rain forest, it is green and lush. My eye has grown used to a landscape filled with gray glacial gravel, but some greenery is nice. Tomorrow we are going to the other side of the peninsular, to Homer. Another high point for me, Homer.