Day Twenty Five Homer and Whittier

Day 25 was Saturday, August 11th.  The story is a bit mixed-up, out of order.  Some day I will learn how to manage the photos and text, but for now I just want to get this posted.  The photo to the right is of the harbor at Whittier and the small boat ramp which was busy all the time we were there.  The facts are that Alaska has one airplane for every sixty residents.  I don't know the number but they have to have lots more than one boat for sixty residents.  There were lots of boats on the road today and many ended up here in Whittier.



We got to Whittier in time for lunch. Surprise!  Connie and I had a cod sandwich and shared a cup of clam chowder, $36.00.  It's crazy what you have to pay for food in Alaska.  Problem is that they are trying to make a year's wages in 3-4 months.  Somebody has to pay the extra.

Here's a sign from Whittier.  Would you take this literally?  We had already parked the car so I felt pretty comfortable.

The photos below are one of the reasons we visited Whittier.  It's the tunnel, it's 2.5 miles long, and it's the longest tunnel in the USA.  It was originally dug for the railroad and then later opened for vehicle traffic.  It was built for a single train and therefore won't accommodate two-way traffic so the eastbound traffic travels on the half hour and the westbound travels on the hour.  The train travels whenever it wants and traffic is stopped when the train passes.

On Friday night we went on a four hour dinner cruise on Resurrection Bay at Seward.  The photo to the right is of the coal loading station in the Seward harbor.  The only coal in Alaska comes from Healey and is shipped by rail to Seward and loaded on to large ships and sent to Asia.
We saw our first Hump Back Whale.  Only got a shot of the tail.  We also saw Stellar Seals, Dolphins, Sea Otters, Mountain Sheep, Puffins, and Glaciers

On the left is a photo of Abe the NPS Ranger we had met on Thursday at Exit Glacier.  He was shadowing another park ranger that was narrating the cruise.  He will be the ranger on several of the cruises later in the season.

This has been the most difficult post to put on the blog.  Between RV parks and restaurants that claim to have wifi and several attempts to add text and
then find out I couldn't save or post, it's been frustrating.  I'm only going to post on days we have a proven wifi connection.