After cruising the bay, we had to stop by and hike the mile into this glacier called Exit Glacier. What made this real interesting is that they have placed signs indicating the end point of the glacier during the year written on the sign. This particular glacier has receded about 3 or 4 miles during the last 120 years. In three hours after I took this picture, I will be boarding a plane back to Phoenix, AZ. Therefore, this will be the last post of this blog. I hope if was as fun for you as it was for me.

They had all of these fish cleaning stations where professionals would clean your catch. This gal would take the cleaned halibut and remove this little white organ and put it in a sample bag and then measure and record the length in a log book. If you look at the fish, they never removed that section of meat near the front of the fish. So far, I haven't found out why not.

If you look at this string of islands out in the Gulf of Alaska, the last one out there was once a military station. There were fifty men stationed here and reportedly it was considered the worst post in the military to which one could be assigned. I'm not sure how they chose the ones that were sent there.

This is bear glacier. It appears to reach all the way to the bay from where I took this picture. In reality, there is a mile of land between the bay and the edge of the glacier.

I was the only one on board to actually get a picture of this sea monster. At first we thought it may have escaped from lock ness. However on closer inspection it was found to be related to the seaweed family.

When they tell you that mountain goats can climb a steep area, they aren't lying. For all practical purposes, this was a vertical sheer cliff.

I forgot the name of these seals, but they were cute.

I think this is called a lion haired jellyfish. I didn't know they visited the cold waters.

I tried to aim away from the boat myself, but may have pulled a couple of shots.

They told us that this beach is the rock skipping capital of the world. Actually, that is what I think they told us. If they actually didn't, then I made it up. I do remember that they told us that the winner of the rock skipping contest skipped his rock 67 times. Since I was only able to get about 15 skips on my very best attempt, I'm thinking 67 might be a slightly exaggerated claim. While skipping rocks here, my daughter was able to hit the boat on 23 separate attempts!

We stopped for lunch on Fox Island where they served us prime rib and salmon along with all of the fixins. Darn, another food pic I didn't take!

There are still a lot of glaciers in Alaska. There are three large ones in this picture behind us.

These sleeping otters were the first official wildlife that we were privileged to see this day.

This was the boat that we spent the day on.

I'm just posting this one for Sherm!

We had a couple of hours to kill so we wandered around the docks and checked out the boats.

On Thursday, we headed down to Seward, Alaska to take a day cruise on Resurrection Bay.

Boy, was it worth it.

We finally made it out to the glacier after about 45 minutes of rowing of which I can proudly say that I didn't do any of.

We dogged several large icebergs.......................

.........................we donned our sailing gear and headed for the yachts (rafts).

After preparing ourselves a gormet lunch, ........................

When our train reached the dropping off depot (a set of wooden stairs) we then took a wild bus ride into Spencer lake.

Along the railway is Turnagain Arm. This is one of several ocean bays in the area. That area between the grassy looking area, and the water in the bay, is an area of mudflats. It is like quicksand and will swallow you up. A few animals die in these areas from time to time as well as a few people. A true story tells of a lady getting stuck in the mudflats and a helicopter was used to pull her out. Unfortunately, she was harnessed up and the chopper pulled her body in half, killing her. Nothing to mess with.

Today, we're taking a train ride. Not this one. We are going to see Spencer Glacier.

There is more power packed into these dogs pound for pound than I have ever seen in anything else. When they run the Iditarod, it is unbeliveable what they have to go through. I don't think they would make very good pets though. They are lovable, but can't sit still.

After all the bear wrestling, we weren't so tanked up anymore and decided to go see a sled dog show. All I can say is "these dogs wanna run". They are high energy like you would never believe. And heart, do they ever have heart.

My daughter was so impressed with my bear wrestling that she wanted to try it herself. Fortunately she was able to find one more her size.

.......................I didn't get very far before I was attacked by a Polar bear. Fortunately I was able to tame him by rubbing his belly. He is now staring in his very own Polar Bear Show.

So after we got tanked up for the day....................................

We started Tuesday off with a 3 hour hike. Fortunately being in the great shape that I am (pear), we were able to complete it in only 30 minutes.

I flew to Alaska on the 31 of August to visit my daughter. She took the week off and we are enjoying a few activities in the Anchorage area.