Seward's Cup, the coffee kiosk owned by the guy we met in Deadhorse who'd wrecked his motorcycle. Unfortunately, it was closed when we came by so we didn't get to sample his wares or say hello.
A mural welcoming us to Seward. It's known as the City of Murals.
Just to make sure, we are in Seward, Alaska.
A colorful poster on the wall of the visitor center.
A carved stone on the ground, looks like a native fisherman.
Old posters on the wall of a building.
The library in Seward has colorful tiles on the outside.
A statue of Jujiro Wada, an Iditarod Trail pioneer in the early 1900's.
This is the Founder's Monument, commemorating the founding of Seward in 1903 when John Ballaine and his party landed on this shore of Resurrection Bay. The steam engine weather vane on top represents the start of the Alaska Central Railway here.
This monument marks the historical location of the start of the Iditarod dog sled race. The race ends in Nome, nearly 1000 miles away.
The Seward Axe Company throwing cage. also owned by the guy we met in Deadhorse. Closed when we were there, I'd have liked to have tried this.
Another welcome sign in Seward.
This sea lion in the boat harbor was tossing his food back and forth to break off chunks.
Hard to see with the reflection, but the silty blue water meets the clear water of a merging creek here. In the clear area are hundreds of spawning salmon.
You can see a few of the salmon where the different waters are meeting here.
A rainbow over Resurrection Bay in Seward. People here were so friendly. A family offered us all their leftover food on a table in the pavilion where we'd brought our Instant Pot to cook our dinner. We enjoyed their awesome ribs, cheeseburgers, salads, chips and dessert bars, so they didn't have to pack it back home. Another man there realized we were visitors and gave us a piece of cooked salmon they weren't going to eat.
This eagle is perched on a spit of muddy sand where there are a few spawning salmon swimming. He pecked on on and then flew it away.
The Exit Glacier from the overview along the road. Jason struck up a conversation with a local from Kenai, Jimmy, who told us about Ninilchik agates and invited us to park our rig at his place when we came through Kenai.
The glacial melt water forms pretty blue streams between the rocks at the bottom of the glacial melt.
We hiked up as far as allowed to the Exit Glacier.
You can see people ahead of us on the hiking trail to the Exit Glacier.
People had tried unsuccessfully to cross the Richardson Ice Field for years in the past. After failure, an aerial review determined that this was the glacier they needed to come down to exit the ice field successfully, hence its name the Exit Glacier. Officials have marked where the edge of the glacier was located over the years. Here, you can see how far it has receded since 2005.
The dark line indicates the approximate center of the flowing glacier.
Jason at a lookout along the trail to the Exit Glacier.
Looking down over the rocky outwash from the glacier. The ice used to come clear down this valley.
Another glacier view.
A marshy area filled with yellowing lily pads along the road as we left the area. The golds are starting to show already, indicating the coming autumn colors.
Our
Milepost guide had a blurb about this antler gift shop/rock shop and we had to stop. The blurb indicated you can get a free piece of mammoth ivory for stopping. You can see a small portion of the antlers this guy has just sitting out front. Those are moose antlers on the left and caribou on the right.
The shed contains loads more of raw material. Crates of rocks and minerals and bones covered the front yard area.
Tom Cooper, the owner and resident carver showed us a Dall Sheep horn carving he was working on in the back of the shop. He uses a tool "like a dentist's drill on steroids" to carve out these intricate scenes. They were awesome pieces of artwork.
The front of the place looks like a junkyard, but it's a treasure trove to a rockhound like me. The giant chunk of rock under the black plastic bag is a huge boulder of Mookaite jasper, a beautiful, colorful rock from Australia. He brought it back from Quartzsite and the temperature differences have caused the rock to start chipping off. He's working on replacing the diamond teeth in that 9' rusty looking piece that is a reciprocating sawblade he's set up to cut it into slabs. Weather isn't waiting for him, though.
Tom put one of our stickers on his front window of the shop. Stop by Alaska Horn & Antler Shop if you're in the Kenai or Soldatna area. He was a real treat to talk with. And he gave me some mastodon ivory pieces to polish into earrings.
The front of the Soldatna visitor center. The wooden fisherman holding a record-sized fish is wearing a carved Ford hat.
The record 194-pound salmon caught near here. It's in a display filled with fishing lures.
Salmon fishermen along the river. Note the guy carrying his string of fish to the cleaning station. You're supposed to clean your fish and toss the guts and carcasses back into the water to feed the birds and bears and keep them from trying to get into trash cans to get the leftovers.
A patch of watermelon berries along the boardwalk.
Salmon fishermen here had to be at least 10' from the shoreline to fish. Some folks refer to 'combat fishing', where there are people shoulder to shoulder trying to snag a salmon.
We found an Out-of-the-way boat launch on the far side of Kenai. Other than the pot smokers who found this little hideaway, we were pretty much alone for the night.
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