Alaska SeaLife Center, Seward Museum & Murals of Seward

This morning we stopped by the Resort office to purchase tickets to the Alaska SeaLife Center here in Seward. The regular admission price is $20 per person and with the discount here at the Resort we paid $15 per ticket.

From Alaska SeaLife Center

We arrived at the Alaska SeaLife Center on Resurrection Bay a little after 11:00. We saw aquariums with fish that are native to Alaskan waters. We especially enjoyed watching the Stellar Sea Lion.

From Alaska SeaLife Center

We went into the Seabird Habitat and watched puffins, eiders and ducks swimming and preening themselves. This one fellow was as curious about us as we were about him.

From Alaska SeaLife Center

By the time we left the SeaLife Center, it was time for lunch and we looked for a place to eat lunch. We could smell hamburgers from somewhere and it was coming from Alaska Nellie's Roadhouse where we had eaten breakfast on Monday. 

From Seward

We checked the menu that was posted outside and Nellie's claimed to have the best burgers in town. Mike ordered the Cajun Burger with a cup of broccoli soup. I had planned on having a burger, but I saw that they had a salmon burger with provolone cheese on the menu and decided to order it with fries. Both of our burgers were served on ciabatta buns and they were great.

After lunch we drove around town to find the murals that have been painted on some of the buildings here.

From Murals of Seward

Our next stop was at St. Peter's Episcopal Church to see the painting of the Resurrection painted by Jan van Emple in 1925. He was a well known Dutch artist who was living in Seward. Instead of painting the Apostles the artist painted the people and natives of Alaska and painted Resurrection Bay for the background. The door to the church wasn't locked and there was a note on the door telling you where to get the key in case the door was locked. I went inside and took photos of the painting and the sanctuary.

From Seward

From Seward

Our last stop was at the Seward Museum located in the Seward Senior Center. After paying the $3 a person admission, we looked around the museum. We saw artifacts from the early days in Seward and saw a 49-star American flag.

From Seward Museum

We even saw photos of Alaska Nellie and learned about her life in Alaska.

From Seward Museum

As we were driving around Seward we took photos of some of the houses that caught our eye. One house was the Ballaine House which is now a bed and breakfast.

From Seward

When Mike came back in from walking Tinker, he said that the skies were clear and got the camera to take some photos. He took this photo at 11:16 tonight and you can see how light it still is even at that hour.

From Seward

Exit Glacier and dinner in Seward

After lunch we drove a couple of miles north of Seward to visit the Exit Glacier in the Kenai Fjords National Park. There is no charge for visiting Exit Glacier. We drove up the Exit Glacier Road that goes alongside the Resurrection River. We drove by 2 turnoffs where RVs were dry camping.

From Exit Glacier

After parking our car at the information center, we headed up the 1 mile trail to Exit Glacier a little after 1:;30. Most of the trail was fairly easy, but there were a few places that required a little more effort. The first part of the trail was through a wooded area and there were a lot of flies (at first we thought they were mosquitoes) that were annoying.

Once we got up higher on the trail and out of the trees, there weren't so many flies. The scenery on the trail up to the glacier was beautiful and was a great excuse to stop catch your breath - which I needed to do a few times.

From Exit Glacier

We saw a bench near the edge of Exit Glacier and stopped to share it with one of the Park Rangers. She was nice enough to take a couple of photos of us before we continued on down the trail to the edge of the glacier.

From Exit Glacier

We had gotten warm walking up the trail, but once we were down by the glacier edge we quickly cooled off. Unlike the glacier at the Columbia Icefields that we visited in June and was able to walk out on the glacier, Exit Glacier isn't flat like the Columbia Glacier. But we were able to get pretty close to this one.

From Exit Glacier

From Exit Glacier

It's just amazing to stand so close to something this huge and that dates back to the Ice Age. There were signs all along the trail and even on the road leading to the Visitor Center showing how far down from the mountain the glacier used to be and the date of its location.

We spent about 45 minutes up at the glacier before we headed back down a different trail to the Visitor Center. We bought some postcards at the Visitor Center and a much needed bottle of water (we normally bring some water with us, but we forgot it today). It was after 3:00 when we left the park and headed back to Seward.

When we got into Seward we drove down to Resurrection Bay and saw several campgrounds  right on Resurrection Bay.

From Seward

We stopped by the Lowell Creek Waterfall on the southwest end of Seward and Mike made a movie of it. He also managed to get a photo of a bald eagle flying over the waterfall.

From Seward

From Seward

By now it was after 4:00 and we decided to eat dinner in town. We had seen a restaurant that had Italian, Greek and Seafood and decided to go there for dinner.

We went to the Apollo Restaurant and no sooner had we sat down than it started raining. I ordered their Monte Mio which is a Wild Salmon fillet with Mediterranean herbs, olive oil and lemon garlic sauce with Pasta Alfredo and carrots (vegetable of the day).

From Seward

Mike, who doesn't eat seafood, ordered spaghetti with meat sauce and added meatballs and we both had iced tea.

We both enjoyed our food and just as we were finishing, our waiter came by with a plate of desserts. Mike ordered the Bailey's Irish Cream cheesecake and I had the Kahlua chocolate cheesecake. Ummmmm - delicious!! Our bill for dinner and dessert came to $66.00.

From Seward

We stopped by the Seward Chamber of Commerce to pick up a few brochures before we came back to the RV.

From Seward

We had rain off and on until about 9:00. Our high temp for the day was 55°.