Every now and again I will be sharing photos we took on our Alaska trip back in May. We saw a lot of interesting sights that intrigued me and I am sharing one of those today, The Igloo House, a four-story concrete structure built in the 1970's.
It was pointed out to us on the tour bus as we were making our way from Seward to Alkeetna, on the George Parks Highway. It is so large it can be seen by airplanes at 30,000 feet. The igloo-shaped building was going to be a hotel, a premier Alaskan-style accommodation but it was never finished. They ran into all kinds of building code violations, and it has sat abandoned for nearly half a century.
The interior was never finished either, was once padlocked but no longer is as it was impossible to keep the curious from wandering in to explore.It passed through several owners but none of them were able to get it back to par. How strange it is now a tourist attraction, as no guests have ever stayed there. You can see more here. It also shows what it looks like inside.
You will find it 200 miles out of Anchorage, at the halfway point between Fairbanks and Anchorage (Alaska's two largest cities) on the south side of the Parks Highway at mile 214.5.
These are the sea otters we found in Seward, Alaska. They were floating in the marina, a family of four. I posted about them here. If you scroll down that page you will see them.
The first Sea Otters were discovered by Georg Steller in 1751. Steller was a botanist, zoologist, physician and explorer who worked in Russia, and who is considered a pioneer of Alaskan natural history.
Weighing as much as 99 lbs., the sea otter is the heaviest member of the weasel family.
Sea Otters are polygamous. While mothers and pups are usually solitary, Sea Otters can form groups of up to a dozen. A group of up to 2,000 is the largest ever recorded.
Sea Otters can live their entire lives without leaving the water.
While extremely agile they are slow swimmers. They spend the majority of their lives on their backs, flipping over onto their fronts when greater speed is required. To swim faster they use their webbed feet for propulsion, and undulate their bodies.
Sea Otters were brought close to extinction in the 19th century, widely hunted for their fur. This was stopped by the International Fur and Seal Treaty in 1911. Populations in Canada and California are doing well.
They were reintroduced in the 1960's. 403 Sea Otters were transplanted to six sites, mainly on the outer coast of Alaska. The population is now estimated at about 25,000 and ranges continuously along the outer coast of Southeast Alaska, and interior areas including Glacier Bay. The Glacier Bay population is particularly interesting because it grew from five animals in 1995 to over 8,000 in 2012. Such a dramatic increase is likely from both births and a movement of animals into Glacier Bay.
Always fascinating to read these things. I found the above here. There is also a lot of other interesting information to read at that link.
Travel Day from Anchorage to Los Angeles, and Los Angeles to Dulles-Washington Airport
Tuesday, May 29th, 2018
Happy Canada Day to all my Canadian friends. These first two photos was taken in Vancouver at the beginning of our trip, and I wanted to save it for this special day of celebration. Hope you all have a wonderful day.
(Above photos were taken in Vancouver at the beginning of our vacation.)
Thank you everyone for taking time to read my daily journal of our trip to Alaska back in May, and for leaving all those great comments. It was a once-in-a-lifetime vacation for us, and one we will never forget.
If you ever want to catch up on other posts, you can click on Alaska Trip-May 2018 in the labels below this one. Way too many to read in one sitting but you can bookmark the one you end up at, and continue on from there if you are interested in reading more.
And now for our last day traveling home.
11.11 a.m. we are at Anchorage Airport In fact these wonderful works of art were hanging on the walls where we ate our breakfast.
We actually arrived at 9.30 a.m.
It will be another 20 minutes before we are able to check our bags.
We got out of the hotel early and reached the rental place at 9.30 a.m. to drop off the car We got an UBER to take us to the airport, a nice young man from San Antonio, Texas.
(I have shared this beauty before, this and the mosaic ceiling above it.)
12.19 p.m. we have gone through security. It wasn't so bad and we were treated very politely, they were really nice. We are now sitting at our gate and it is very quiet as we still have about three hours before we board our plane.
2.22 p.m. and time is ticking along. The waiting room is filling up ever so slowly. A couple sat next to us and started talking to us. They were returning from a cruise with another cruise line and had enjoyed it immensely. It sounded like they were seasoned travelers.
7.06 p.m. we have been in the air for a while now and have 1 hour and 45 miutes to go before we land in Los Angeles. I have my iPad but you have to download an app to watch their movies. They are also passing iPads which you have to rent. We paid for the wi-fi and I have been watching Blue Planet II. Marvelous show!
(At Anchorage Airport there were several display cases of birds that could be found in Alaska.)
9.01 p.m. sitting at our gate in Los Angeles now, for the flight to Washington-Dulles Airport. We have a couple of hours to wait here. On our flight from Anchorage we were in a row of three seats and no one sat in the middle. It was nice having the extra room between us.
Coming into Los Angeles it was lit up like a Christmas Tree, very pretty. This flight crew were very nice and it was a great flight. There was an older lady sitting behind me and she smiled when I got up to get off the plane. There were two unaccompanied children sitting opposite. The flight attendants looked after them beautifully and were very attentive. One reminded them that it was very important for them to remain seated on the plane until everyone had gotten off, then they would be escorted to their next flight. They were nice kids, very well behaved. No one talked very much, we were all too tired.
(This is a mural painted on a water tank in Seward. I have already shared part of it, the fishing boat. The rest of my photos were taken as we were driving back to our hotel from Seward, Alaska.)
11.38 p.m. and we are on the flight to Dulles. There are 4 hours and 14 minutes left to our destination.
1.51 p.m. and I can't believe it, we are home! Our son was waiting for us at the luggage carousel, which is where we always arrange to meet. Nice to be able to text him to let him know we have landed; we are making our way to the carousel, we are here where are you? Smiles! He's standing right in front of me practically and lots of hugs and more smiles. We chatted all the way home telling him about our time away, about all the fun we have had, he tells us about his time and before we know it we are rolling into the garage. I feel like kissing the floor when I walk through the door. One thing Gregg and I agreed on, whenever we travel again we will avoid taking the red-eye.
But we're home and our son stays for a few hours. This time together reinforces how much we missed him when we were gone. I am dropping off to sleep on the couch - sitting up - and am content listening to dad and son talk while I doze in and out and listen, joining in here and there. So good to be home!
We are on the road to Seward in this video. If you can't see it, you can go here.
4.56 p.m. We are back in our hotel room after driving to Seward today. It is a hundred miles away. Anchorage is in one direction and Seward is in the other. As Anchorage Airport is where we are heading tomorrow, we thought it would be nice to drive to Seward, for one last chance to look for the Sea Otters we saw a few days ago. The weather was a whole lot better than when we were there with our niece and nephew, and also from the first time we were with our bus tour group.
We stopped in Girdwood first and had breakfast at another local restaurant. The Girdwood Fire Department was having their breakfast in there too, so we figured we had chosen a good place.
We ordered eggs and sausage patties, home fries with toast. It was very good.
There was a large map of the United States on the wall where people had put colored pins to show where they were from.
It was interesting to look, people were from every state it seemed like. We checked Virginia out first.
There were no pins available so we didn't add ours. I suppose I could have asked but this was on our way out and I was focused on those sea otters.
We checked a couple of other states out where we have family. I always enjoy looking at maps.
Enjoyable to see where people from Alaska had come from also.
Several from the UK and Europe.
The back of the restaurant was painted in a very cute, kitschy way.
There were three faces painted in the center of the flowers.
The owners and their dog perhaps?
I really enjoyed it here. Gregg and I love nothing better than to find out-of-the way places. This one wasn't really out of the way though as it is easy to find. All you have to do is make your way to the Girdwood Picnic Club in Girdwood, Alaska.
It is a great drive to Seward, along a very picturesque highway. We traveled this road a lot and this became a familiar sight.
And the signs were always interesting.
Notice the avalanche sign?
There is still a lot of snow up there.
At around the half-way point we stopped at a pull off to take photos of a mountain lake. There were a couple of men fishing and we watched out of curiosity to see if they caught anything. Not two minutes later one of them did and he saw us watching. He gave us a broad smile and said it was a trout, holding it up and inviting us to take a photo. We did!
In the meantime we are getting closer to Seward.
We headed straight to the marina where we had seen the sea otters before. They were still there. It must be their favorite hang-out spot.
They were even closer this time. We spent over an hour with them. We noticed a boat heading towards them, but it slowed down and gently went by without disturbing them. The otters stared but didn't stop what they were doing, which was floating and eating...
and preening...
and smiling...
I fell in love with them all over again.
Gregg got into a conversation with a man in his small fishing boat, who threw a few of his catch back into the water to try to entice the otters to come even closer.
These were called Hooligans and are a small and oily fish. You can read a description and about the best time to catch them in this article.
It was the first time I had heard this name used for a fish. The only other term I had ever heard of was when someone was talking about a young troublemaker. No, not you buddy!
The sea otters didn't want anything to do with the fish. They were very happy eating what they could find for themselves, which in the long run is better for them. It was very kind of the fisherman to try though, and we thanked him. He had several, much larger fish in his ice chest. A nice dinner for his family tonight? And probably a few for the freezer. By this time his wife had joined us and they left.
As for the sea otters they were as entertaining as ever.
One pulled itself out of the water to sniff around the edge of one of the docks...
looking for scraps of fish maybe.
One last shot with a promise that I will share another post sometime, of them alone. I took so many photos!
After keeping the sea otters company for quite a while, and not really wanting to leave when we did, we walked around the marina. There were interesting sights there too, always love the dogs.
Her head was looking in all directions.
Here she is patiently looking at the funny lady with the camera. She poses so nicely.
And then there are the bears who had also had a good catch that day.
The map below shows you the route we took to get to Seward. When we got back to the hotel we stopped at the coffee shop for a latte, and we decided to have a bite there also. We chose a turkey and ham panini to share, and we each had a yogurt with wildberries and granola for dessert. I stopped at the gift shop one last time and bought a few souvenirs.
It is 11.22 p.m. and we are both wide awake. It is going to be hard to get to sleep knowing that we are traveling in the morning, and also I am thinking of those delightful sea otters.
He seems to be trying to go to sleep. I guess I will too.
