Seward! Gorgeous!
First shore visit since Korea – I was so glad to get off the ship and walk on land again! Seward was just lovely. My first object on going on shore was to send a parcel home. Get rid of some of the stuff not needed for the rest of the trip – including my hair straighteners which don’t operate on 120V. 
That done, I needed a bank and a coffee. Two old guys in the bank told us about the Mt Marathon race: they set off from the bank, run up the mountain and more or less slide down on their bottoms and then back to the bank. I think it’s something like 1300 feet and the current record is 43 minutes. Trivial pursuits, eh!
We spent a couple of hours in the laundromat, which doubles as a great little cafe with bagels and wifi. Interesting people and lots of tips on what we should do and where we should go. We took off after that for the shops on one of the main streets – lovely craft places, lots of artists in this little town. A bit like Barry really, but with a glacier in the mountains behind. We more or less walked back to the ship, farther than it looked, and saw that part of the town with a beach onto Resurrection Bay and small boats in the harbour. Nice place – worth a future visit.
The view as we sailed out of Seward was glorious – more so because the sky was a threatening, dramatic billow of grey and white clouds, and the setting sun shone on the sea and the mountains behind us. We headed for the ocean again and a channel between islands that would take us to Whittier. After about half an hour up on deck, the cold wind got the better of me and sent me scurrying down to get a hot drink.
On Saturday 21st May we finally disembarked at Whittier, said goodbye to the Diamond Princess and the lovely Luis, passed our unused coffee cards on to a couple sailing on to Vancouver, and set foot in Alaska for the second time (old hands at this…). At breakfast, some of us had seen the arrival of the Green Tortoise bus on the dockside, so we knew we weren’t going to be stranded from now on. Sully, our driver, was waiting as we stumbled out into the car park with bags hanging from all over us. He seems a nice guy, just come back from several months in Antarctica where he was working, and now back doing his summer job, driving Green Tortoise buses again. He’s done San Francisco to Alaska before, but never Alaska to New York. So it’s a first for everyone on the bus. We stowed our large bags under in the hold and found places to sit/lie on the bus for the trip to Anchorage. Sandra and Tony leave us there, and have hitched a ride with us.
The drive to Anchorage from Whittier took us through a tunnel also used by trains. Until a few years ago, Whittier could only be reached by train – one single track from Anchorage. Then they built the road – a very scenic route alongside the coast and ringed with mountains. As the railroad had already blasted a narrow tunnel under a mountain near Whittier, it is also used for the road. But it is single lane only so traffic has to queue up for about 30 minutes to go through while it is being used for the opposite direction. And then both sets of traffic stop for a while so trains can use it. A very economical use of resources!
Our home for two nights, the Spenard International Hostel, is lovely, friendly and full of places to sit and lounge and blog and read. What more do you need? Jen, the manager, made several phone calls to try and find out why my laptop (Asus Eee, Linux) is not connecting to local wifi, and unfortunately was unable to find any answers. The routing supplier’s comment was ‘Oh shoot’ when he heard it was Linux. I was then advised to buy something else.
Today we went into Anchorage for the day, saw a great Sunday market and bought bits and pieces in local shops. Needless to say, I bought bits of jewellery, stones, and beads. I feel the need for another box to be sent home.
I had a bit of a deja vu moment. Ben, Victoria and Gordon (if you’re reading this) will recognise part of the story. Well, today, Pat, Linda and Ann and I had a coffee together and went separate ways, planning to meet at 1pm at the Glass Gallery on G Street, and then again at The Snow Goose bar (recommended) at 2pm for lunch. At 1pm, vainly seeking the gallery only to find from locals that it had closed a year ago, I then went straight to the Snow Goose to see if the others had gone on there. It was closed; not due to open till 3pm. No sign of the others. We finally met up by chance about an hour later. This is not the first time this kind of thing has happened. In 1991, Ben, Victoria and I were driving from Vienna in the direction of what had been East Germany in order to meet up with Gordon, who was driving from the Hamburg area. On the phone we arranged to meet at Rathen, a small town on the Elbe river and, as every German town has a church, we arranged to meet there at 3pm on a certain date. Well, we got there and discovered that Rathen was the only German town without a church. Or maybe it was in the other half of the town across the river, reached only by a ferry, for which there was long queue. Luckily the kids happened to see their dad strolling by (not looking in our direction!) having at least ended up on the same side of the river as us.
Anyway, back to Alaska…. while I’d been lost in Anchorage! I’d bumped into a few of the others having a late lunch in a restaurant. They’d been to the tourist information place and were planning to go to a husky sled dog show that evening, so I joined them. There’s a race run in Alaska each year – the Iditarod – and it covers a huge distance – about 1000km or miles – I’ll have to check on that. When they’re not in training, they open their doors to the public so we can see how the dogs (and drivers!) – are trained and looked after. Beautiful dogs! Amazing eyes….. We learnt all about the special talents of the lead dog, and of the dogs who are positioned right at the back and act as brakes – imagine going down a steep hill – they have to pace themselves to make sure the dogs and sled don’t end up in a heap at the bottom. Clever animals.
After the show, we got a lift back to downtown Anchorage and finally got to sit on the deck with a drink at the Snow Goose. Still couldn’t see Mt McKinley though, as it was too cloudy. A nice end to the day. Then a taxi back to the hostel.
Tomorrow we leave the shelter of our hostel for the great outdoors: eight nights camping or sleeping on the bus. Should be fun! At least there are only 17 of us, and Sully makes 18. We will be at Denali National Park, then Chena Hot Springs (!) and Chicken(!!) before crossing the border to Dawson and Whitehorse in Canada. Then more hot springs at Takhini before crossing back to the USA at Haines and taking a ferry to Juneau. Then we have the luxury of a hostel again and maybe a chance to get online again. Who knows!
Patamateria 