EXPLORING SEWARD

As always, you can view the photographic narrative for this story below. What is a photographic narrative?

After our previous day driving south to Seward, it was now time to get out and explore the small town. First on the agenda: coffee. We walked all of two blocks to Resurrect Art Coffee House, built into an old church. The coffee was good, but the ambience was amazing. White vaulted ceilings hung above dark wood covered walls, broken up by large windows which poured in light from the rainy day outside. We had our coffee and a couple of small breakfast pastries before continuing onto the Alaska SeaLife Center on the southern tip of town. As the name implies, this place is devoted to displaying and preserving the local sea life. Aquariums and animal enclosures let guests observe crustaceans, fish of all sorts and sizes, puffins, and my personal favorite, sea lions. After a few hours of aquatic observation our satiation from the small breakfast pastries was long gone, so we left the SeaLife Center in search of lunch. 

As we walked out of the entrance, driving down the road immediately in front of us was a Cruise America RV with a vinyl-wrapped photo of the exact desert mountain which dominates the view from our backyard back in Tucson. Having grown up in southern Ohio, it felt strange to now reside in a place picturesque enough to be featured on commercial RV’s, and even more strange to be able to see the landmark featured from my kitchen. The RV drove out of sight and my mind came back to Alaska. 

We walked across the parking lot (Seward is easily the most walkable place I’ve ever been) to Zudy’s Cafe, a local favorite. After wolfing down a turkey panini, we drove a couple of miles north to the harbor area. We found parking in a public lot shared by many shops and restaurants, one of which was Ray’s Waterfront. Noting this restaurant in our minds for later, we set out to explore the area of the docks on foot. A seemingly endless number of boats of all shapes and sizes bobbed in the water at their docks. More distant on the horizon was a Silversea cruise ship. More distant still were the ever present snow-capped mountains. We spent probably about an hour lackadaisically moseying up and down the decks before the near constant mist turned into a full on rain, sending us walk-jogging to the car. 

From the start, this day was without a real schedule. No tours or expeditions were planned. No reservations were made. I find these opportunities for true spontaneous exploration incredibly refreshing. In an act of spontaneity, we decided to drive a bit north and then west to explore the area of Exit Glacier in Kenai Fjords National Park. I’d read online that the road isn’t plowed during the winter, and that it wasn’t scheduled to be made clear of snow until a couple of weeks after we left. As such, I’d essentially written off a visit to this iconic area on this trip. However, with nothing else planned, we decided to simply drive down the road to Exit Glacier until we could go no further. And I was certainly glad we did. I’ll save the full story for the next post.