Day 17: Denali National Park, Alaska to Seward, Alaska

The drive from Denali to Seward was very long. We paused to take some pictures of Mount Denali, formerly Mt. McKinley. We passed through Wasilla and we made the necessary Sarah Palin jokes. Wasilla appeared to be a smallish town, with a good bit of sprawl on the outskirts.

Mount Denali/McKinley

Windy air in Denali

Another view of the mountain

We followed Turnagain Arm Bay out of Anchorage into Seward. The bay is enormous and beautiful. The Milepost said you might see beluga whales in the bay (we didn’t) and bald eagles (we did; Dad was happy). You also saw what appeared to be a sandy beach, but warnings let you know not to be tempted to walk in the sand, since some of it was quicksand (Ooooh! Quicksand… I’ve never seen that before... why worry, can't you just press "jump" repeatedly, like in Super Mario 2? Or is it more like the sadness in "Neverending Story?"). You can also see a lot of dead trees in the water, which were killed when salt water came rushing through after an infamous and very destructive earthquake impacted the region in 1964. 
 

Remember this? Neverending Story

Jump, Mario!!!

We arrived in Seward and the weather was crummy. We walked around the downtown, which was not terribly exciting. There were a few restaurants and tourist shops. I bought some fudge and Desmond asked for a chocolate covered cherry at a little chocolate shop. Desmond wanted to walk to see a fountain he spotted from the car. Seward is a fishing town and a lot of tourists go there (or come in on cruise ships) to charter boats to catch halibut or to take day cruises out to see whales and to see glaciers calving. We didn’t spend much time in town, since it was late when we arrived and it was drizzling.

It was a lot crappier outside than this pic shows

We stayed at an RV park a few miles outside of town, Stoney Creek, and fixed some dinner, did some laundry at the laundromat, and went to bed. The rain zapped all our energy, so we showered and went to bed.