Homer to Seward, Alaska

We drove back up the Sterling Highway, stopping for groceries in Soldotna, then went back down to the coast on the Seward Highway to Seward. It was less than 300 km but took most of the day due to our frequent stops.

Our first stop was in Homer at the Two Sisters Bakery. We bought some fresh-baked focaccia bread, sticky buns and a pain au chocolat. All very delicious. This bakery is reason enough to visit Homer by itself!

The next stop was for pictures of two of the ‘ring of fire’ volcanoes which were showing themselves so nicely today. Mount Iliamna:

And Mount Redoubt:

This yard with agility equipment in it has a beautiful view of the volcanoes!

A young female moose was grazing in the ditch right by the road. There was a construction working holding a ‘Slow’ sign right beside her!

A few miles further on we had to stop to put a bandaid on the big stone bruise in our windshield. The highway is in great condition here, so it’s hard to understand where the rock came from, but it certainly found it’s target today. We’ll have to look for a repair place before it spreads.

The salmon must be running now as there were lots of people fishing in the many rivers we passed. These boats are on Kenai Lake. The pretty colour is the result of glacial silt washing into the lake.

This is a very scenic drive with snow/glacier capped mountains around every corner.

Both Reba and Midas like to sleep on our ‘Trailer Life Directory’ of campgrounds when we’re driving. It’s at my feet all the time. Cute!

It was a beautiful day and when we got to the Exit Glacier parking lot, just outside Seward, the temperature was 24 C! This explains the flooding on the road up to the Visitor Centre – the glacier is melting really fast in the ‘heat wave’.

This is the glacier as seen from the road:

It was only a 1 mile hike up to see the glacier, so we did it. It was a bit of a climb, but not extreme. However, my feet were really sore by the time we got back. I think my plantar fasciitis is back? I wasn’t about to miss going up to see the glacier up close, though.

Exit Glacier is part of the Harding ice field, a massive string of glaciers up in the Kenai mountains. It has retreated quite a bit from this point where it was in 1998:

As the glacier melts, it leaves huge piles of gravel and rocks called ‘morraine’. These pictures show little collections of pebbles sitting on the ice and the large ridges of rocks.

There were lots of pretty waterfalls running down the glacier. The river below has overflowed its bank due to the quick melt.

In some spots the ice is really blue.

We only had a short drive from Exit Glacier into Seward where we found a spot to stay for at least the next three nights at the city campground. We have power and water hookups and a really nice view of the mountains just across the bay. We’re in the third row of RVs of this campground which is strung along Resurrection Bay. The sites are bigger than the ones in Homer, which is nice.