RV ALASKA - Wrapping It Up in Seward

Based on the previous two posts, y’all might think that Alan and I just sat around drinking coffee and gazing lovingly at Resurrection Bay during the 10 days we were in Seward.  Not true!  We biked around, poked around and found all kinds of interesting things to see and do.  And there was one place we went that we probably shouldn’t have.

Date(s) – July 26th – August 4th   

Total Miles Traveled to Date – 12,036

Wildlife Sightings to Date – Here’s the tally of wildlife sightings for the entire 10 days we were in Seward: 2 swans, 13 seals, 5 sea lions, 15 otters and 31 eagles.

So, our current count for wildlife sightings is: 93 eagles (including 2 fledglings); 4 seagull chicks; 10 swans (including 2 fuzzy cygnets); 8 sea lions; 26 seals; 17 sea otters; 3 cow moose; 1 bull moose; 1 grizzly sow with 2 cubs; 1 back end of a grizzly bear; 6 black bears; 1 coyote; 1 snowshoe hare; 3 rabbits (including one very fast bunny that just managed to cross the road safely); several small herds of bison with at least 2 dozen young calves; 9 deer (2 of them bucks with their racks covered in velvet); 9 mountain goats (including 3 tiny and adorable kids); 23 bighorn sheep; 62 elk (including 7 calves that hadn’t yet lost their spots and a number of bull elk with full racks covered in velvet); several small herds of pronghorn antelope (including 2 mamas with 3 newborn fawns between them); 3 great blue herons; dozens of American white pelicans; at least a half dozen families of adult geese with goslings; and several dozen ducks (with lots of little ducklings).

Highlight(s) – Those of you who don’t own an RV will probably not consider this a highlight, but Alan and I were pretty darned happy.  So, please, bear with us.  First, a word of explanation.  When you’re “dry camping,” as we were for the full 10 nights we were in Seward, you’re camping without any way to hook up to a water line (to supply your water), a sewer line (to drain your tanks as you use the toilet, shower and sinks) or electric power (to operate your lights, microwave, coffee maker – or, as our friend Rick would point out, an ice maker).  There are several things that limit the consecutive number of days we can dry camp in our travel trailer - our batteries (to supply power for some functions), the size of our fresh water tank (in our case, that’s for water we use to flush the toilet, take showers and wash dishes) and the size of our black and gray water tanks (for the water from our toilet and the water from our sinks and shower, respectively).  After our first three nights, at the time we moved from site 837 to site 816, we hitched up the trailer for the move, and went across the road to the dump station.  We emptied our black and gray water tanks, and used the potable water fill to fill our fresh water tank, then crossed the road again and set up in site 816.  I know you’re all wondering when the highlight is going to be unveiled, and that moment has come: We survived the next seven nights without needing to pack up, hitch up the trailer, drive over to the dump station again and empty our tanks.  Seven nights!  Yes, indeed, that’s a BIG highlight in our book, and it marks the longest number of dry camping days in our history with this trailer.  How did we do it?  Easy-peasy.  1) Careful water management – military showers and batching dirty dishes.  The key here is that Outdoors RV builds their rigs with large tanks.  Our fresh water tank holds 82 gallons; our black water tank (for the toilet) holds 40 gallons; and our gray water tank (for sinks and shower) holds 40, as well.  2) Operating our Honda generator for a few hours several times during our stay to recharge our two, 6-volt, deep cycle golf cart batteries.  We can’t run the microwave or the air conditioner when we’re operating strictly on battery power, but we can use our lights, fans and 12-volt TV and stereo system.  When we have no shore power (electricity), the refrigerator and water heater both run on propane, and the furnace always runs on propane.  We depend on the batteries for everything else.  Note: Normally, we travel with a portable waste tank.  That’s a cute little tank on wheels (ours holds 42 gallons) that can be towed to a dump station after you empty your black or gray water into it.  That eliminates the need to pack up everything and drag the entire trailer to the dump station, only to return to your campsite and set it all up again.  Since our stay in Seward was the only time we might have needed the portable waste tank, we left it at home for this expedition, willing to pack and drag for that one time if we needed to.  But we didn’t!  Seven nights!  Yay, us!!!

Exit Glacier, just a short drive outside of Seward, is part of Kenai Fjords National Park.  You can see glaciers all around northern Canada and Alaska, but’s it’s a treat for travelers when those glaciers are easily accessible.  In the case of Exit Glacier, there’s an excellent viewpoint on the road leading to the National Park’s Exit Glacier Visitor Center – that’s where the photos below were taken.  Even better access to the glacier can be gained via several trails, one of which is a loop trail that’s only one mile long.  The effort is minimal; however, the National Park Service (NPS) advises that you walk (and talk a lot) in groups and carry bear spray.  Risk, reward.  Risk, reward.  Our risk meter outweighed our reward meter in this matter, and we decided that the photos we had taken at the viewpoint were sufficient.  That being said, many people walk those trails on any given day.  If the risk had been immense, I do believe the NPS would have curtailed activity along the trail or only allowed access to the glacier via Ranger-led hikes.  Alan and I agreed the hike to Exit Glacier wasn’t a necessity for us, but to each his own.  We simply enjoyed the exhibits in the Visitor Center, and I stamped my National Parks Passport before “exiting” the building.  (Sorry.  Had to say that.)

A hat tip to the Harbor Street Creamery in Seward!  We gobbled down delicious hot fudge sundaes on excellent ice cream not once, but twice, while we were in Seward.  Since we had biked over to the creamery, we figured the calories didn’t count.  Wink, wink.

After looking at the buildings on the other side of Resurrection Bay from our campsite for a number of days, we finally checked a map to see if we could figure out what was over there.  Map says it’s part of Seward.  Hmm.  If it’s part of Seward, there must be a way to get there from Seward, so we set out to find it.  Nash Road led us around the port to the far side of the bay.  It was a quiet little road, at first, with some housing and some small businesses.  Then the road climbed higher, and we found a wonderful viewpoint that overlooked the main part of the city.  With the help of binoculars, we were even able to spot our travel trailer.  It was actually pretty cool to see Seward from that perspective, and it reminded me a lot of the view of Bar Harbor, Maine, from the viewpoint across the harbor on Bar Island.  We followed Nash Road as far as it would go.  After passing a small recreation area where a number of folks were fishing, the road ended in an industrial section with a few marine-related companies.  One of the lots held a number of older fishing vessels.  They certainly weren’t seaworthy, but they were definitely interesting.  “Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.”  After wondering for several days about what was on the other side of the bay, we enjoyed the poking around it took to answer the question.

One of the things I really liked about Seward is that it was small enough to be easily bikeable.  We were able to bike to anywhere we wanted to go with the exception of the grocery store.  It wasn’t all that far away, but we didn’t want to figure out a way to lug the groceries home without dropping the milk or squashing the bread.  We biked down to the Alaska SeaLife Center at one end of town, and to the waterfall just past it.  We biked over to the harbor, the Mariners’ Memorial and the Alaska Railroad Train Depot.  One day we biked over to a couple of gift shops in town and on to the Post Office to mail a postcard to some of our young cousins.  (Didn’t realize it was uphill to the Post Office – both ways!)  The very best part of all of this biking around?  Most of the places we went were on the bike trail that runs through town – which happens to be the Iditarod National Historic Trail!  Do you remember I mentioned previously that one of the reasons Joe Reddington, Sr., and Dorothy G. Page wanted to create a long-distance sled dog race was to commemorate the Iditarod Trail?  The creation of that trail from Seward up to Iditarod country opened up great opportunities to move people and goods into interior Alaska.  Well, Mile 0 of the Iditarod National Historic Trail is on the coast in Seward, and we had the privilege of tracing the steps of pioneer mushers as we biked along the Trail through town and to its outskirts.  (Fun fact: The City of Seward named the municipal campground that’s located near Mile 0 the “Iditarod Campground.”)  The experience reminded me of one of the songs we used in the music component of the elementary school lesson plans based on the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.  Only one of the lines came back to me: “I did, I did, I did the Iditarod Trail.”  Now, I’ll have that stuck in my head all day.

One place we didn’t bike to (but could have) was the Benny Benson Memorial.  We stopped at this sweet little park on our way home from the grocery store one day.  Benny Benson was born in 1913 in the small community of Chigak on the south shore of the Alaska Peninsula.  Benny’s mother died when he was four; shortly thereafter, his family home was destroyed by fire.  Benny’s father found it necessary to separate his children.  Benny and his brother were sent to the Jesse Lee Memorial Home in Unalaska, their sister to a school in Oregon.  The Jesse Lee Home was moved to Seward eventually, and Benny lived there until he was 20.  When he was 13 years old, he entered a contest open to students in grades 7 to 12 to design a new flag for Alaska, which, at that time, was still a territory.  Benny’s design was a simple one – eight gold stars (seven for the Big Dipper and one for the North Star) set against a field of dark blue.  As Benny explained for the judges, “The blue field is for the Alaska sky and the forget-me-not, an Alaska flower.  The North Star is for the future of the state of Alaska, the most northerly in the Union.  The dipper is for the Great Bear – symbolizing strength.”  Benny won the contest with his design, and Alaskans flew their new flag for the first time on July 9, 1927.  Benny passed away in 1972 at age 59.  The City of Seward honored Benny, his creativity and his success with a beautiful memorial that will forever remind residents and visitors that Alaska’s flag was designed by a young Alaskan Native who made history right there in Seward.

Lowlight(s) – As we were biking on one of the early days of our visit, we spotted Zudy’s Café, and the name rang a bell.  In fact, there was a note in my “Trip Notes” document indicating that it would be a good restaurant to try while we were in Seward.  The best part about it was that the restaurant building was actually the old train depot, and I just love old train depots.  When we drove down to Zudy’s one day to give it a try, we found it to be one of the days the restaurant is closed.  Okay, that was our fault for not checking first.  No harm, no foul.  On our next attempt, we biked down to Zudy’s, and found a sign on the door that simply said, “Closed Monday.”  Since we had already checked Zudy’s hours online, we knew it was supposed to be open on Mondays, but it wasn’t, and there was no indication whether or not it would be open on Tuesday.  At that point, we gave up.  If we had persevered, maybe we would have had a delightful (and delicious) experience.  Or, the restaurant could have been closed again on a whim.  We’ll never know.  Unless, of course, there’s an encore visit to Seward in our future.  

Laugh(s) of the Day – Remember I said there was one place we probably shouldn’t have gone while we were exploring in and around Seward?  Yes, well . . . On the day we had driven out Nash Road to the other side of Resurrection Bay, after we had reached the end of the road, we started exploring the side roads off of it on the way back.  We turned onto one road, and saw what looked to be an unusual complex a bit ahead of us, but neither one of us could tell what it was.  We could see a couple of large buildings and a number of RVs parked out front, but we had no clue what we were looking at.  A factory?  An RV park?  No idea.  So, we continued on.  Hmm, lots of fencing.  Is that razor wire?  Look, there’s a sign with itty-bitty words printed on it.  We had to get really close to read all that fine print.  As soon as we did, we couldn’t get out of there fast enough.  What was it, you ask?  The Spring Creek Correctional Facility.  Oh, my, look at the time!  Gotta go!

Campground(s) – Forgot to mention . . . We felt that we had made a good choice in reserving a site at the Marathon Municipal Campground.  The very popular Resurrection North and Resurrection South campgrounds were bigger, and had a much busier feel to them – readily apparent as we biked past them.  One or two of the municipal campgrounds wouldn’t have been a comfortable fit for our size rig.  Although it’s often difficult to determine the “feel” of a campground from a website, photos or campground map, in the end, we had made a good choice by reserving at Marathon, and I’d go back in a heartbeat.

Pic(s) of the Day

I really loved the old Seward train depot, but we never did eat at Zudy's Café.

Exit Glacier, as seen from the road to the National Park Visitor Center

A zoon lens photo won out over the hike.

Seward, as seen from the other side of Resurrection Bay

I don't know what Seward's residents call it, but I call it the "Town Square."

That's a magnificent backdrop behind the current Alaska Railroad train depot!

A poignant reminder of and memorial to those lost at sea

Like many of Alaska's port cities, the harbor is surrounded by spectacular scenery.

So. Many. Boats.

THE place to show off your catch in Seward

Boats and glaciers - not an uncommon combination in Alaska

Boat launch at the Seward harbor

Seward's lovely memorial to Benny Benson

Mile 0 of the Iditarod National Historic Trail

We biked part of the Iditarod Trail!

Last, but not least, look what I found!  Remember I said I took a quick pic as we drove by an adorable “coffee cup” kiosk, and I promised to post it when I came across it?  Well, it was in Seward, and I guess it’s actually a coffee pot, not a coffee cup, but it’s still adorable!

Up Next – You may recall that we lost our reservations for the Riley Creek Campground in Denali National Park earlier in the trip due to the wildfire just outside the Park entrance.  Guess what!  We were able to book a couple of nights at Riley Creek for later in the expedition!  Before we headed up the Parks Highway to Denali, we stopped in Girdwood for two nights to visit Whittier and see Portage Glacier.