Dawn Princess 6/13: Post cruise land tour

[tee_wrecks]

Okay we've been home for 2 weeks. I'm caught up at work (sort of), edited over 2000 pics down to 75 for the website, wrote the trip journal and essays for the site, and got the lawn mowed so I can find the Labs without bells. Time for the rest of my review. You can see the cruise portion posted elsewhere on this board in 3 parts.

 

We elected to set up our own post cruise tour because there were some very specific things we had in mind. With that in mind here goes:

 

June 20-Okay, Princes has this disembarkation thing down pretty well. We had our bags out the night before with the appropriate tags and though we were nearly last to get off the boat because we had our own transportation, we left the ship within 5 minutes of the estimated time on the sheet Princess supplied. We had to wait about 30 minutes for our ride to arrive from Anchorage because she missed the timing at the tunnel. For those that don't know, the tunnel into Whittier serves inbound vehicles, outbound vehicles, and trains and can only provide for 1 at a time. To accomplish this they switch from outbound to inbound and back every 30 minutes. I suppose the train gets to go when it arrives. Anyway, the ride arrived and we headed for Anchorage.

 

Got my first real disappointment of the trip when we stopped at Portage Lake. I'd seen lots of photos of this lake chock full of icebergs and was looking forward to photographing that but we arrived to find the glacier at the lower end of the lake high and dry some 400 yards from the water. The lake contained only 2 or 3 lonely little bergs. We decided to skip the cruise on the lake and headed on into Anchorage. My friend Teri, who played taxi for us, gave us a tour of downtown Anchorage including stops at Ship Creek to see our first exposure to combat fishing, a couple art galleries, and the Art Museum. My mother in law collects artwork of an Inuiput artist who did pen and ink drawings on reindeer hide and she asked if we could find some of his work to add to her collection. We were fortunate to get some information at the museum on his background and discovered he was from a little town where Teri's daughter lives on the north slope. Hopefully they can contact his family and see if there are any other pieces available.

 

My DW is from Anchorage so we spent a couple hours driving around to find her old schools and take a tour through the neighborhood where she grew up before being dropped at our hotel, the Lake Hood Inn. Great B&B and the planes stop flying at a reasonable hour despite the abundance of sunshine. Got a great night's sleep.

 

June 21-This is our 30th anniversary. Had a leisurely breakfast before hitching a ride to the airport to pick up our rental car. We stopped at Fred Meyer for groceries and headed south on the Seward Highway after taking another swing through Anchorage and stopping at a couple more galleries in search of the aforementioned artwork. After stops at Girdwood and a couple of photo opportunities on the way we arrived at our B&B in Moose Pass shortly before the 3pm check in time. Killed a little time looking around the general store in Moose Pass then went to get settled into our chalet at the Spruce Moose B&B. We selected Moose Pass and the Spruce Moose for 2 reasons. First, it's close to the junction of the Seward Highway and the Sterling Highway so we could access almost all of the Kenai Penninsula easily. Second, we chose to have a base camp of sorts and make day trips rather than pack and unpack every day. Just a personal preference. The chalet was marvelous with plenty of room, light and airy, and a wonderful private hot tub where we saw more than one sunset touch the peaks surrouding Moose Pass. We booked a Kenai Fjiords cruise the next day and decided to head to Seward for our anniversary supper and to check out the driving time and logistics involved. Had a terrific supper at Ray's Waterfront and found a cooperative bull moose crossing the highway on the way "home" for some great photo ops. Had a nice glass of wine while sitting in the hot tub watching the last of the sunlight leave the peaks at around 10:30 before heading for bed.

 

June 22-The innkeeper of the Spruce Moose dropped off some delicious scones for breakfast which we ate on the road to Seward. Checked in at the Kenai Fjiords Cruise terminal, boarded our ship and set sail right on time at 9:00. A little cool and light rain but manageable...until we encountered the first of the wildlife on the cruise. Not sure if this is common but our captain had the habit of pointing the bow of the boat directly at any critters we encountered. If you were one of the fortunate 20 or 25 people that got to the rail first you got a great view...if not, you got to see whatever it was after Captain Joe decided to head out to the next opportunity. Not a great deal if the wildlife was a humpback whale that got bored with us and dove deep. There's more on that but you have to see the website essay or e-mail me for details. During the 9 hour cruise we saw several humpback whales much closer than we were able to see them on the Dawn Princess and I managed to get my "whale tail" photos though it was purely because Captain Joe miscalculated where the whale would surface and I was the only one near the stern of the boat when it came up near us. We saw tons of puffins, lots of different birds, some sea lions, and a really nice series of calvings by the Northwestern Glacier when we finally got there. I'd recommend this type of cruise but the 9 hour trip was about 3 hours too long in my opinion. We were more than ready to get off the boat upon our arrival back in Seward. We had a hot meal before heading back to the Spruce Moose and another glass of wine in the hot tub. I called the guide I was scheduled to fish with tomorrow and found I had to meet them at the Kasilof River launch ramp at 5 am which meant we needed to leave at 3:30 am so we headed to bed early.

 

June 23-More goodies from the innkeeper, which she delivered prior to our return yesterday from Seward. We were on the road to Kasilof by 3:30 and arrived at the launch site 15 minutes early. I hooked up with the guide and after our two other fishermen arrived we launched for a 1/2 day on the river while my DW headed back to Soldotna in search of presents for family and friends. (She's NOTa fisherperson) I started getting worried when I saw there were only 2 other boats launching besides our boat. Here we were on one of the best rivers on the Kenai Penninsula when the kings are running and only 3 boats on the river! Not a good sign. Sure enough, we fished nearly 6 hours and other than a 12" Dolly Varden caught by Nate, the 14 year old from Minnesota, we didn't get a bite. Guess that's why they call it fishing and not catching. Got off the river, met up with DW, and we decided to drive to Ninilchik to photograph the Russian Orthodox church there. Stopped along the way to photograph a cow moose with twin calves, photographed the church and headed back to Soldotna and then on to Moose Pass. Stopped on the outskirts of Cooper Landing to photograph another moose with twins. We got cleaned up at the chalet and drove down the hill to Moose Pass for supper at the Trail Lake Inn. Back to the chalet for a last evening in the hot tub, finished the wine, and got packed and ready to head out in the morning before watching the 10:30pm sunset and heading for bed.

 

June 24-This is our last day. We lazed around in the morning prior to the noon checkout time since we really didn't want to leave but finally loaded up the rental car and headed north. We made several stops along the way including one at Beluga Point on the Seward Highway where we saw some Dall Sheep on the hilside above the highway though they were too far away for photos. Around 6pm we met my friend Teri for supper, had a grand meal, and drove up to the Flatops east of Anchorage for views across the city and Cook Inlet. Sadly, all good things come to an end and we had to say our goodbyes to Teri and Alaska. We turned in the rental car at the airport and caught our plane at 11:45 pm for the overnight flight back to Denver. Arrived Saturday morning tired but none the worse for wear. We were glad to be home but a little depressed that our trip was over. Stay where you are, Alaska...we'll be back.