Leavin' on a jetplane

Taku icefield from commercial airplane

Today is the start of our ferry trip from Homer to Unalaska (and back).  Dad, Barb, Steve and I, on a ferry: the trip will take 7 days, and we have a room for four reserved on the boat.  This morning we flew from Juneau to Anchorage, where we picked up a rental car for a leisurely drive down to Homer.  We don’t depart on the ferry until late tomorrow night.  

Taku icefields from commercial airplane - that may look like a road but it's not!  It's a glacier!

Amazing!  On the flight from Juneau to Anchorage we not only had clear skies, but the pilots decided to take a slight detour and headed SOUTH from Juneau, then east along the Taku River, and then turned north/northwest (towards Anchorage) to fly us along the Taku icefields…at only 7,000-11,000 feet altitude!  That meant we got to see all the peaks and glaciers and miles of ice.  Incredible.  Once we were past the icefields, we quickly climbed to normal cruising altitude and headed on our merry way to Anchorage.  I’ve never had that happen before!

Anchorage – this was my first time in Anchorage outside of the airport.  It’s big.  It feels like a ‘real’ city, with traffic and crappy malls and people everywhere.  As we headed south towards the Kenai Peninsula, I was surprised at how different the landscape felt from Southeast Alaska – it’s got bigger wide-open spaces and taller mountains and everything is a different shade of green.  I liked it.

Anemone at Sealife Center

We stopped in Seward to visit the Seward Sealife Center and to see Exit Glacier (can never have too many glacier sightings, you know).  The Sealife Center was really nice – small, but well done and I highly recommend it.  They have a bird room full of ducks and puffins and murres and other birds that you can get really close to.  There’s no glass between you and them, which was pretty cool.  I got some great photos of puffins, which were hard to photograph from the ferry.

Tufted puffin at Seward Sealife Center

Giant Pacific Octopus at the Seward Sealife Center

We finally got to Homer at 7 or 8 pm.  We were staying with friends of Dad and Barb at a cute B&B outside of Homer a bit.  They have a beautiful home and a great view!