Monday, June 18th - Palmer to Seward:

We were all up early, and anxious to continue on the next leg of our journey. I think we broke records packing up the camper, hooking up, and pulling out of the campground!

Seward is about 2.5 hours from Palmer, but the drive is awesome. I know how excited I am to see those views, and Steve and I do the drive at least once each summer. We wanted to make the drive an easy one and allow for plenty of stops along the way so that Donna could also appreciate the views.

One of our first stops was the rest stop at Bird Point. It's a wonderful stop with a lot of information posted on boards along the walkway, and gorgeous views of Turnagain Arm. If you time your visit right, you can watch the bore tide come in - an impressive rushing wall of water up to 6 feet high. Also, Beluga whales can be sighted here if conditions (and the tide) are right.

We asked Steve to take our photo at Bird Point even though the wind was gusting at times. Oh well... no one said we had to have perfect hair!

We stopped at our usual rest stop just after going around Turnagain Arm. It's amazing how the scenery changes with every passing day. This time we walked Sedona a little further than usual, and let her go swimming in the creek. She loved it! Sedona is such a water dog.

There was a family there with a couple of small kids (one was a baby in a backpack carrier), who hiked to the top of one of the steep hills overlooking the rest stop. They left their stroller below where Sedona was swimming, which was a bit of a disconcerting sight until we spotted them up on the side of the hill.

Donna still has the same strange (just like me!) sense of humor she had when we worked together at the Levittown Post Office more than 15 years ago. It was really fun to exchange humorous quips with each other.

Our next rest stop was at Summit Lake. The lake was as still as glass, and the reflection of the high hills were a mirror image in the water. We just had to walk down to the small house - accessible by a wooden boardwalk - to take photos. We also stopped at Tern Lake to take some photos.

We decided to visit Exit Glacier before we set up the camper, since it was on the way. What a pleasant surprise to discover that they were waiving the fee to get into the park (normally $5). There were plenty of RV parking spots available, and the sun was shining hot above us. Only a short time into our hike to the glacier overlook, we had all peeled out of our sweatshirts. The hike was a short one, but the second half of it was a steady uphill climb. I felt myself break a sweat almost immediately.

The path to the glacier seemed different to me this time. It's been two years since Steve and I have been to Exit Glacier, and I wondered if the park officials had changed the trail to get visitors closer to the ice. We tried the path that traverses the riverbed, but it was impassable - as the river was flowing swiftly and too wide to jump across. We did see some people strip out of their shoes and socks to wade, but the idea of plunging our bare feet into icy cold water did not appeal to any of us.

We made our way to the Seward Military Resort and quickly set up the camper. Steve dropped me and Donna off at the Sea Life Center, and then made his way to Lowell Point to throw a line in. We really liked visiting the sea bird exhibit. We were able to get up close and personal to the puffins, murres, cormorants, gulls, and eiders.

When we came out of the Sea Life Center, we decided to do a little souvenir shopping in downtown Seward. Just as we finished shopping, we saw Steve drive by in the truck. We talked him into driving us back to Lowell Point for some photos before coming back to the camper for the night.

Here are some photos from the day:

Seward Pass	Summit Lake	Summit Lake
Summit Lake		Tern Lake	Exit Glacier
Donna & Me at Exit Glacier	Exit Glacier	Steve and Me at Exit Glacier	Sea Life Center - Seward
Seal - Sea Life Center	King Eider - Sea Life Center	Tufted Puffin - Sea Life Center	Steve, Me, Donna - Lowell Point

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