All Aboard! South To Seward

8-26-2012

6:45am. The Alaska Railroad pulls out of the Anchorage station. We are relaxing in our seats with a cup of coffee, ready for the city to disappear. The conductor quickly announces that breakfast would be available soon. We eagerly head to the dining car, super hungry from not having dinner the night before. Andrew wanted everything and I didn't see anything immediately that struck my fancy. We ended up both deciding to try the breakfast tacos with reindeer sausage. Okay, I know, I didn't like it two days prior, but I didn't see any other options. Reindeer sausage was clearly made for breakfast tacos. OMG! Amazing!
The views accompanying our breakfast that cold, drizzly morning were indescribable. Glaciers, mountains, rivers, streams. We even saw a family of bald eagles in a tree right by the tracks. The four hour train ride took us through tunnels, past ruins from the 1964 earthquake* (see note below), around crazy turns, and even met up with another train traveling the opposite direction.

We spent some time in the domed viewing car, where we met the conductor. Andrew, of course, asked him a zillion questions. I, on the other hand, just enjoyed watching him answer... what a hunk he was. If Andrew could swoon over a park ranger, then I could admire a train conductor, right? When Andrew ran out of questions, we headed back to our seats. On the way we discovered a spot between cars where the open air was deathly cold, rain was coming in, and there was a crowd. Didn't take long to discover why everyone was clamoring for a spot, this was certainly the best, if not only, place to take pictures from the moving train. Andrew, being the intelligent one, stayed with me there for about 5 minutes admiring the view over the other idiots heads. I, being obviously insane and determined to have a somewhat decent photo or two from this ride, stayed until my fingers were too numb to operate my shutter. I lost track of time. It was cold and wet and fantastic. If ever you get a chance to be on a train in Alaska, don't pass it up. I think it is a requirement when visiting anyway. I'm sure I read that somewhere.
At 11am, we arrive in Seward. Stepping off the train, the rain had gotten a little worse, but we were set on checking out the town a little bit before getting on our cruise ship. We boarded a free shuttle to take us more into the town, and could actually see our boat docked. It was huge. Seward is adorable. Cute little shops of various types line the 3-4 blocks that make up the center of the town, or at least the tourist part anyway. At the far end from the train station is The Alaska Sea Life Center which is certainly a must see with kids. We passed on it this trip, but walked around outside instead. We ended up in a bookstore looking for some new reading material to take home for the munchkins. The cashier, and owner, was very friendly and engaged Andrew in conversation immediately. Big mistake. He went directly into all kinds of queries about living in Alaska, the weather, the jobs, the prices, the people. I was ready to check out the store across the street and finally convinced him that we should go. This store spoke to me ( as seen in photo ) and upon entering I saw why. This was where I could buy my ulu. I purchased one for me and one for my parents, cause after all, who doesn't need a really sharp u-shaped cutting utensil?

We were hungry now and it was time to get on the ship. After a quick shuttle ride around town again, we arrived at the dock. Our suitcases had been automatically transferred for us, so after signing in, getting our room keys, and being strip searched (not really), we boarded Holland America's MS Zaandam for a week of being served. We dumped our purchases in our stateroom and went up to the Lido deck for some lunch. We ate our yummies and looked out over Seward's harbor. It was still cold out, but we walked the deck enough for me to take some shots of the boats around us and admire the mountains on the other side. Since the ship wouldn't be leaving port for another 4 hours or so, we took a brief nap before exploring all the Zaandam had to offer. Rested, we arranged ourselves at a dinner table near a window to watch the departure. As the boat pulled away from the Kenai Peninsula, I knew deep down that I'd be back soon... to stay.

*Note: On Good Friday, March 27, 1964, a 9.2 earthquake shook Alaska. It was the most powerful recorded quake in US and North America and the 2nd most powerful ever measured by seismograph. Across south central AK, ground fissures, collapsing structures, and tsunamis resulting from the quake caused about 143 deaths.*

Real Estate, Redoubt, and Rest

Mt. Redoubt from Soldotna airport

8-25-2012
Let me start off by saying that I am NOT a morning person. I love my coffee and need my coffee in order to function somewhat normally. On the other hand, I will say that there are sometimes when 5am can't come soon enough. For instance, when you happen to be attempting to sleep in the tiny backseat of a PT Cruiser, when it's 40F degrees outside, and you just have a paper thin airline blanket and no pillow.
When the sun began to peer over the horizon at the beautiful Skilak Lake, we were thrilled to get up. We were heading back into Soldotna, but needed food ( and liquid motivation ) first. We hit up a little diner for some breakfast. I think between Andrew and myself, we must've drank a whole pot of coffee and a pitcher of water. The food was delicious. As soon as it was a reasonable working hour, we called the listing agent for property #3 and asked for more details to be emailed to us. We immediately called and forwarded it to Mom and Dad. We were pretty sure this was gonna be the one. We decided to go back and look at it again, maybe try to walk and find the back corners of the lot. Upon arrival we opened the map of the property the agent had sent and quickly realized that the power lines were much closer to the front of the lot than we had previously thought. And we thought it was big before! We walked on and found the large field that seemed perfect for a garden. Waist high grass was the still wet with dew and I was a little cold. Then I saw next to me..... a crop circle. Well, it was worse really. A huge area of matted down grass. I'd seen it countless times on tv shows. A grizzly bear has sat his enormous rump right here where I now stood. I might have been slightly panicky and less willing to walk any further back at this point. Okay, I downright refused, whining and whimpering like a toddler. With much disgust, Andrew obliged and we headed back towards safety. Regardless, I knew this was my new home, it just felt right. We walked to the street feeling completely certain that this was where we needed to be. :Let's look down the road and see if we can see a neighbor."  Not 30 feet down our road, I stopped dead in my tracks and stared across the street. "Oh, my, god, Andrew, did you see THAT?" Right there, across a gorgeous field of bright pink fireweed, was Mt. Redoubt, the most beautiful volcano. ( this is pictured on my first blog post ).

Doubtful now that there could ever be a more perfect piece of land for us, we left. We were now headed to Anchorage for the next leg of our journey. We got back on the Sterling Hwy. Before long the scenery around us opened up tot he most beautiful views we had ever seen. Mountains with a dusting of snow, lakes, streams, and the greenest grass. "Is this the same way we came from Anchorage a couple nights ago?" I asked. "Well, yeah, this is really the only road." So this is what we were missing that first night when we were half asleep. It made much more sense now. The pull off areas, like the one we slept in for a while, weren't for that purpose at all. They were for taking photos of all Alaska's amazingness.  After 2 1/2 hours of oohing and ahhing over the views, driving through Alyeska Ski Resort, and stopping for some lunch, we arrived in Anchorage. We returned our rental car and checked into a hotel. It was going to be an early morning tomorrow. We arranged a wake up call and a taxi, and settled in. After we both abused the hot water, we turned on the tv. You know those tourism channels, right? Short bits of useful and interesting information tightly mashed between tons of commercials for local businesses? They always repeat the same 30 min or so. Well, before we even got through a whole cycle, Andrew was out cold. No dinner and only about 5pm. I guess a combination of odd sleeping arrangements and jet lag finally got us. I jotted down some notes about the things we'd seen, and watched another hour or so of the same channel. (There was nothing else on ) By this time I knew I desperately needed an ulu ( a really cool traditional knife of sorts ) at least. I was out hours before the sun went down.

Scenes along the Sterling Hwy.