Seward - Anchorage

The drive to Anchorage was very beautiful! At first we drove through densely forested mountains hugged by fog. The bus driver was not a freak like the Juneau woman and told us interesting trivia along the way. ......... there was a plant called Fire Weed growing along the road; so called because it was the first thing to grow back after a fire. Also, when the Fire Weed started to die, you had about 6 weeks until winter arrived. Important to know when living in Alaska. And those markers attached to near the tops of the trees along the road? Snow gauge. That was scary!!!

Then, because we were making good time, we were able to stop at a Glacier and at it's base was a stream filled with spawning salmon.

G- They are such a beautiful color red.

Random man in crowd to bus driver - Can these be eaten?

Bus driver - No. Once they turn red they don't taste good. They are about to spawn and die.

P- Well that sucks! Spawn then die.

Random woman in the crowd to bus driver - Are those fish spawning?

Bus driver - No. Those are males fighting to spawn with the females.

P- Well that figures!

Back on the bus we turned and drove along a lake and the sun came out. We saw several bald eagles and Beluga Whales!!!! Anchorage was bigger than we expected with a population of about 300K people.

We were dropped off at the airport at about 11:00 AM. Oh joy! Our flight was at 5:20 PM.

Get off our ship!!!

Today we awoke in Seward, Alaska and they were tossing people off the ship by 6:30 AM. Fortunately we did not disembark until 8:15 AM. Last night we had to have our bags in the hallway by 1:00 AM. We returned from the show at 9:30pm and the hall was filled with bags. These damn old people had probably had their bags out by 8:00 PM and went to sleep at 8:30 PM. On the Carnival Cruises we've taken drunk people were stuffing their crap into their bags at 1:05 AM as they dragged them into the hallway, and were headed back out to party for the last remaining hours.

We packed our bags at 9:30 PM and headed up to the Crow's Nest for a final night of dancing.........disco night!!!

P- Are you kidding me? There's no one here.

G- Well, let's just sit and have a drink. Maybe more people will come after the late dinner seating.

After 30 minutes............

P- Ok, it doesn't appear anyone is coming and I'm falling asleep.

G- Damn old people! I wanted to dance. But I'm falling asleep too. If we ever take another cruise, we have to find some happy medium between Carnival's Animal House and Holland America's Cocoon.

P- Well, they gotta get to bed early so they can get up early to get off the ship.

G- Hell, they get up early every damn day!!! They stop serving breakfast at 9:30 AM!!! I am not even hungry yet at 9:30 AM!!

P- Quit ya bitchin and let's go to bed like the rest of the old people.

G- Speak for yourself!!!

We sat eating breakfast and talking to Jackie & Hal until 8:10AM, then we disembarked and got on our bus for the 2 hour drive to Anchorage Airport.