The picture above is a beautiful church, which looked so quaint nestled against a backdrop of cloud covered mountains, pine trees and snow. Last weekend we traveled to Seward, which is 125 miles south of Anchorage. We had a 6 hour drive to Anchorage where we stopped to wander the mall and browse at the bookstore for a couple of hours. We ate dinner at the Sourdough Mining Company. The picture below is a white-faced sea otter who was floating on his back as
our cruise boat motored past him. Please click to enlarge the picture - he is cute.
Garth and Nick enjoyed breakfast at this restaurant, famous for it's made-from-scratch breakfasts.
Before going to Seward, I logged onto Map Quest to check mileage and motels. I was so happy to see a Super 8 Motel in Seward (thinking prices would be somewhat reasonable there). I gave Garth the phone number (funny, it was a 402 area code) and he called, asking to make sure this was Seward he was calling. He booked a room for two nights and we relaxed knowing we had a place to sleep. We didn't see a Super 8 as we drove through town, so Garth pulled up here at the Hotel Seward to ask directions. The very nice young woman at the counter said there wasn't a Super 8 in town, she called the number we had and we all were surprised to find out we had reservations in Seward, Nebraska! (Sounds like Alaska) They were kind enough to cancel our reservations, without penalty. We had a lovely room at the Hotel Seward for a very reasonable price - we highly recommend them if you are in the area. Be aware, however, that our two queen beds room for $69 in April is $200 a night from May-September.
We booked a 4 hour Wildlife Cruise on the View Finder. It was a cold, snowy day but there were 30 adventurous people on our cruise. We enjoyed visiting with Don & Gay - longtime Alaska residents who had lots of stories to tell.
We saw black and white porpoises (look closely, he's down there somewhere).
We passed several large rocks with sea lions enjoying the snowy day. There were lots of birds on the rocks, too.
Here are two bald eagles perched on this rock. We passed one a little earlier high in a tree, just watching us drifting by.
I didn't get pictures of the hump back whales we saw - well, we saw the hump back and the tail as he dove back down into the water. It was a very fun trip. We drove back up to Anchorage and spent Saturday night at Fort Richardson. Driving was a little hazardous on the way home because I insisted we take the snow tires off the car. We had had such lovely weather in Fairbanks that it seemed silly to keep snow tires on to get chopped up from the rocks still left on the road. We could have won the dirtiest car award when we got home!
It is probably hard to tell from the picture, but Monty has lost 26 lbs. since October. We are really proud of his hard work. 
In Alaska we have 'break-up', which is when the snow melts and the ice on the rivers break up. It was fun to watch the snow slide off the roofs of our condominiums. Our Homeowner's Association even posted notices on everyone's garage to "Beware of falling snow." They cautioned us to not park our vehicles directly under the roof and not to let children play there. I heard the snow fall several times and there was a layer of ice under the snow that came down too. It was very dangerous! 
Nick is just about done with his semester at the Tanana Valley Community College. He has taken classes in Philosophy and Sociology. He is registered for fall semester at the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus. His plans are to study Political Science with a minor in Economics. It has been so warm lately that all of the ice sculptures have melted.
We purchased a web cam and over the past few weeks have enjoyed chatting with Jacob and Rachel from England. It is wonderful to have access to technology so we can see each other as we talk and it is FREE.
