We’ve been talking about visiting Alaska for years – Kevin last visited 18 years ago (another story for later in the trip). Welp, we finally made it.. after a four am wake up that is, and a plane full of older fisherman (literally Kevin was probably the second youngest on the flight).
No time was wasted, as we landed, grabbed a quick bagel for breakfast and met up with Kevin’s friend of 20+ years for a hike to ease us into the long weekend.
Now I’m no triathlon athlete and as it turns out I’m definitely not fit for Alaska’s moderate hiking.
7.5 miles as a warm up hike, no big deal.
The start of the hike is straight up, no big deal.
Heart rate jumping between 150-180, no big deal.
The equivalent of 130 floors climbed.. well you get the picture, they were trying to kill me and I was barely here for two hours.
Hobbled back to our rental and we have a screw in our tire. Fortunately we haven’t lost air yet and were able to drive back to the rental car place. When we picked up initially they were turning people away if you didn’t have a reservation, so we were surprised when the random location was able to give us a car. Though I’m 99% sure that the people in front of us were turned away because of our situation (since he asked us both what we were there for before finishing up the person he was already helping). Either way, we had a car again and were off to Seward.
We originally were supposed to be on a dinner cruise tonight but the weather wouldn’t allow it. So instead we wandered down to the harbor looking for sea otters since we learned earlier that was a possibility. No dice though. Burgers for dinner and early to bed. Because of the four am start, definitely not from the mountain climb earlier…
Animals we came to see:
Grizzly Bear – ✖️
Moose – ✖️
Bald Eagle – ✖️
Puffin – ✖️
Whales – ✖️
Other animals we did not consider we could see:
Sea otters – ✖️
