{"id":101,"date":"2006-07-10T12:53:06","date_gmt":"2006-07-10T18:53:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/alaska\/thursday-762006-seward-kenai-fjords-national-park\/"},"modified":"2012-08-16T13:10:27","modified_gmt":"2012-08-16T19:10:27","slug":"thursday-762006-seward-kenai-fjords-national-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/alaska\/thursday-762006-seward-kenai-fjords-national-park\/","title":{"rendered":"Kenai Fjords National Park"},"content":{"rendered":"

We walked down to the harbor from our hotel, checked in for our Kenai Fjords cruise<\/a>, and went to a nearby bakery for oatmeal and coffee. We had some time to kill before the boat left, so we shopped. I fell in love with Helly Hansen<\/a>, and bought a bag I’m still using for my overnight gear every day.<\/p>\n

We had assigned seats on the boat, and were paired with an Indian couple from San Francisco who were fascinating. Right as we left the harbor, we had our first wildlife encounter: otters gettin’ it on in the water.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nsea otter lovin’
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"
\nsexy in raingear<\/em><\/p>\n

The ship took us out of Resurrection Bay and into the Gulf of Alaska. We’d taken Dramamine because of the many warnings to do so, but I felt we probably didn’t need it. It wasn’t rough at all, just very damp and cold. In the gulf, we saw whales!<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nwhale spout<\/em><\/p>\n

We then headed into Aialik Bay to see the glaciers. The water was an amazing color, more like what we’d seen in the Caribbean. I didn’t expect that in Alaska.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nthree-hole point (supposedly the most-photographed item in alaska)<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"
\nholgate glacier<\/em><\/p>\n

Seeing glaciers up close was nothing short of mindblowing. We were still a half-mile away from it, but it seemed like we were right up close. It’s just a gigantic, blue wall of ice, and it thunders<\/em>. I couldn’t believe it. Something else I didn’t expect? That we’d actually see it calve. It happened several times while we sat there watching; once it sent huge splashed up in the air and rocked the boat quite a bit.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nholgate glacier calving<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The water was full of ice chunks from other pieces breaking off, too. Some of them looked like little icebergs floating around.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

We left Aialik Bay and headed out to the Chiswell Islands, part of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge. To me, this meant one thing: PUFFINS. I’d seen them floating around in the water, but hadn’t seen them up close yet.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nchiswell islands <\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"
\nsea stars<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"
\nPUFFINS!<\/em><\/p>\n

We hung out watching the puffins for a while, then went around to another island to see seal lions. They’re pretty much just like my cats: lazy and noisy.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nsea lions<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"
\ngulf of alaska<\/em><\/p>\n

We had dinner on the way back, and spent a lot of time chatting with our tablemates. On the trip, we’d seen a ton of wildlife: baleen whales, humpback whales, porpoises, puffins, cormorants, bald eagles, a black bear, sea lions, harbor seals, and otters. Honestly, the puffins affected me more than the whales. I just like them a lot.<\/p>\n

We got back to Seward Harbor around 7:30pm, and the sun was still shining. We walked back to the hotel, then downtown, and decided on Christo’s Palace<\/a> for dinner. We had pizza and a couple blue glacier martinis, which turned out to be very strong. I giggled the whole way back to the hotel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We walked down to the harbor from our hotel, checked in for our Kenai Fjords cruise, and went to a nearby bakery for oatmeal and coffee. We had some time to kill before the boat left, so we shopped. I fell in love with Helly Hansen, and bought a bag I’m still using for my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2308,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[16],"tags":[506,30,213,80,56,84,79],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"geo":{"latitude":59.84636309999999781439328216947615146636962890625,"longitude":-150.184478799999993725577951408922672271728515625,"description":"Kenai Fjords National Park, 500 Adams St # 103, Seward, AK 99664, USA"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/storage\/2006\/07\/187272133_4c3aaf14f0_o.jpg?fit=2304%2C3072","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Z5R-1D","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":102,"url":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/alaska\/friday-772006-seward-kenai-fjords-national-park\/","url_meta":{"origin":101,"position":0},"title":"Seward, Kenai, and Exit Glacier","author":"Jenni","date":"07.10.2006","format":false,"excerpt":"We got up early on Friday, went to Safeway for the essential caffeinated beverages, and headed over to the other side of the Kenai Peninsula. We drove through Soldotna, which was a fairly large town for the area, and headed up to see Kenai. It was very run-down, but the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Alaska"","block_context":{"text":"Alaska","link":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/category\/alaska\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/storage\/2006\/07\/187306517_4e0c1f3b20_o.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":100,"url":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/alaska\/wednesday-752006-denali-to-the-kenai-peninsula\/","url_meta":{"origin":101,"position":1},"title":"Denali to the Kenai Peninsula","author":"Jenni","date":"07.10.2006","format":false,"excerpt":"We got up, checked out of our awesome party cabin, and headed back south. We saw a moose crossing the highway with two babies along the way. Traffic sucked in Wasilla, so we got to Anchorage around 1pm. the igloo We stopped for food and a memory card for my\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Alaska"","block_context":{"text":"Alaska","link":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/category\/alaska\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/storage\/2006\/07\/187099969_7857ca20b4_o.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":103,"url":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/alaska\/saturday-782006-seward-to-anchorage\/","url_meta":{"origin":101,"position":2},"title":"Hope, Alaska, and Back to Anchorage","author":"Jenni","date":"07.10.2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Saturday morning, there were brand new cruise ships in the harbor. Sadly, we checked out and headed back up the Kenai Peninsula. We decided to take a short side-trip to see Hope. We liked the name. hope Hope was a ridiculously cute little town, and from the looks of it,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Alaska"","block_context":{"text":"Alaska","link":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/category\/alaska\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/storage\/2006\/07\/187344814_a3f0e2586e_o.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":84,"url":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/bahamas\/saturday-01282006-paradise-island\/","url_meta":{"origin":101,"position":3},"title":"Walking to Paradise Island","author":"Jenni","date":"02.1.2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Saturday morning, we got up and walked downtown. We got coffee, and since breakfast food is hard to find, we stopped into the supermarket. I got a banana and some apple-and-sultana-filled crackers called 'Go Ahead' that I ended up buying a ton more of and bringing home. YUM. straw market\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bahamas"","block_context":{"text":"Bahamas","link":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/category\/bahamas\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/storage\/2006\/02\/315317251_361625dc47_o.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":98,"url":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/alaska\/monday-732006-denali-national-park\/","url_meta":{"origin":101,"position":4},"title":"Denali National Park","author":"Jenni","date":"07.10.2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Monday morning, we took the park shuttle from the visitors' center to the dog kennel, where we got to meet the dogs, and see a sled-pulling demonstration. It was kind of rainy, but the dogs were raring to go regardless. They were probably wishing for snow. denali sled dog kennels\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Alaska"","block_context":{"text":"Alaska","link":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/category\/alaska\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/storage\/2006\/07\/186979362_33a86fcced_o.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":129,"url":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/eastern-caribbean-cruise\/wednesday-3282007-st-thomas\/","url_meta":{"origin":101,"position":5},"title":"Swimming with Turtles in St Thomas","author":"Jenni","date":"04.1.2007","format":false,"excerpt":"We were up at 6am to prepare for our excursion in St. Thomas, but the ship wasn't there yet. We got dressed, washed out our many yards in the shower, and put them in the closet. We had breakfast as we were arriving in port. As instructed, we went down\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Eastern Caribbean Cruise"","block_context":{"text":"Eastern Caribbean Cruise","link":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/category\/eastern-caribbean-cruise\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/storage\/2007\/04\/448507728_6d9fdc8f05_o.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/queenofsubtle.com\/rt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}