All I Want for Christmas is Whales and Puffins

Yup, I was prepared to check whales and puffins off of my "to do" list and be content with living the rest of my life in Minnesota with no grand urges to travel the world. Ha! As Bryan said earlier, we saw all kinds of things on our little boat trip, but not a whale or puffin was to be found. Dangnabbit!
Here's us in front of the boat we took out on into Resurrection Bay and beyond. We used Renown Tours and had an absolute blast.



Here's some pics of our trip to Seward in random order:
Seward Harbor











Dall's Porpoise









Mommy and Daddy Big Boat No Big Fish












Seward Highway










Can you tell by the pictures how balmy and tropical it is in Alaska this time of year? This next picture was taken after we rounded a corner and came face to face with a couple of glaciers. The boat captain said the air temp would drop about 20 degrees after we took the corner, and he was right! I estimate the air temp was 10, with a constant 30 mph wind. Got the Southern boys on the boat with us off the deck right quick! We had the whole front deck to ourselves!










The snow field off to the right of this picture is one of the glaciers that was blowing cold air on us. Notice the huge chunks of blue ice on the shore. Cool.










Here's a picture of where an avalanche went into the water. Considerably less scary than the avalanches that come right up to the side of the road on the ride down to Seward! I'll post those pictures next.














On the drive to Seward, first you see the sign, then you see the reason for the sign!
No Stopping? No Problem!














One last picture before I go to bed. Here's me next to a snowbank up on Turnagain Pass. The snow has been melting for a while now, I'm not sure how deep this was to start with. This is a cutout snowbank, not a pushed up snowbank. Crazy.