4 Wheels 4 Girls

July 9th, on the boat tour, we were just cruising along and I was watching out closely for puffins. Suddenly, Amber, our ranger, said in to the intercom, “We’ve got some puffins on the left.” So I rushed over to the other side of the deck and– wow, there were tons of puffins! We slowed to a stop and watched thousands of puffins fly through the air. Some that were in the water were even so close that they had to fly away from the boat to not get hit! I was in puffin heaven! And now, since I’d seen a puffin…

The little specks in the water behind me are all puffins!

A FEW HOURS LATER: OFF THE BOAT

We were finally off! I mean, I liked the boat tour, and seeing the puffins and whales and stuff, but I was getting a little tired of being trapped with all those sick people. So we hopped off the boat, putting a tip in the basket, and walked down the ramp to shore. We walked along the boardwalk and passed by a lady pushing a tub full of fish. We stopped and looked at the five-feet-long fish for a few minutes and then continued on our way. When we were off the boardwalk, we saw a gift shop. Ellie and I asked if we could go in and check it out. Jean answered with a yes, so we hurried through the door and inside.

Whenever I walk into gift shops, I always stop to look at the jewelry and key chains. But right now, the only thing I was looking for was a canned puffin. I looked around and around some more, but no canned puffins. Then I saw another room and– still no canned puffins. But in the corner, I saw something better than a canned puffin… non-canned puffins! There was a big basket overflowing with stuffed puffins! Not stuffed like dead and stuffed, but like fuzzy, soft, stuffed animal puffins! I knelt down to pick out the best one, and now, I have my puffin– Puffy!

This is Puffy

July 9th, we were on the boat trip that we had started a few hours ago. Lots of people were sick, so I went on the top deck where there weren’t many.

I was just sitting there peacefully when suddenly, the ranger, Amber, said there was a humpback whale! I rushed over to the port side of the boat and saw the fins of one– two! whales! I watched the fins go under and the tails flip out with sprays of water flicking around. Dad said that when you can see their tails come out of the water, that means that they are diving deep. I watched and waited for them to come back up and suddenly something shot out of the water and did a 180 through the air. It was AMAZING! Amber said that when the whales pop out of the water and spin like that, it is called breaching. We saw the tail go up again and I wondered if it was going to breach again. So I kept my eyes peeled until– whoa! It breached again! I can’t even describe how it made me feel. The only thing was that it was completely magical. And it felt even more magical when Amber said that it was extremely rare for the boat tour to see a breaching whale. But I can’t describe what I saw, so Ellie drew a picture of it.

Ellie's drawing of the breaching whale

It was so wonderful that I didn’t want to l leave, even when the whales were long gone. But eventually, we headed on.

Can you see the other boat below Holgate Glacier to the left? That is another big boat and is about a half-mile away from the glacier.

At the half point of the boat tour, we arrived at the Holgate Glacier. It was cooler than any glacier I’d seen before, which, surprisingly, was a lot. We were really close, and as we approached, there were millions of mini icebergs. As we cut along through the icy water, I could hear the chunks bobble and crunch and smash against the boat. Finally, when I thought that if we kept going we’d hit the glacier, we stopped. Suddenly, a huge chunk of ice broke loose from the glacier. Greta said that it sounded like a mix of thunder and 2,000 elephants stampeding down a hollow sheet of metal.

We had a great time on the boat tour.

Riding away from Holgate Glacier

June 9th we went on a long, 6 hour, boat ride to see glaciers and wildlife. Soon after I got on the boat, I started to have a headache and then as we started moving more I got a stomachache so me and Momma went outside on the top deck. Momma asked Daddy to get a bag but I couldn’t wait so I tossed my cookies. Momma said I did a good job throwing up over the rail but I felt bad because I couldn’t hit the water and some got on the boat. A nice man who works on the boat brought me some ginger ale. And a nice woman who I didn’t know brought more ginger ale and some bread. I gave that ginger ale to Ellie so she could try some.

Ellie was very scared because she felt like we weren’t safe ‘cuz we were all going ricketty and rocketty and she thought we would tumble over into the water. If we did it would be OK because we all know how to swim and usually the whales don’t bite or anything or there are just salmon and the salmon don’t bite.

After I threw up I felt better. Then we started to see lots of animals. We saw humpback whales hanging out and blowing their spouts and flipping their tails, we saw some killer whales just swimming around and blowing their spouts too. Then we saw a humpback whale jumping out of the water. He was playing. It was cool!

We saw a family of orca swim past us

We also saw a baby mountain goat and its momma, or maybe it was it’s daddy but usually the babies are with the mommas. I’m not sure if the baby was a boy or girl but I don’t think it matters to the mommies or daddies because they still love them.

We also got to see some puffins (Stella’s favorite animal) and another bird that can dive down 600 feet for safety and for fish. Some people saw a bald eagle but I didn’t.

We also went to a glacier. It was pretty blue and white. It was very big and it was down by the water. We saw some ice falling off of it. It was very loud, especially when the ice fell.

When we got back to the dock I was happy because we were home and because we got some dessert on the boat.

July 8th, we drove from our campground to the Kenai Fjords National Park visitor center. Hummph, my brain didn’t seem to be doing its simplest job: thinking. So for some strange reason, I thought we were going to the grocery store. I know, I’m so retarded, aren’t I? I don’t know when or why I thought that, but whatever. So of course, I confused everybody when I said, “Wait, I thought we were going to the grocery store!” , when we pulled into the visitor center parking lot.

When we got out of the RV and stepped into the visitor center, Dad was already there, looking at the 3D map in the middle of the room. I walked over there and stood next to Dad as he examined the mini mountains, glaciers, and icefield. Even though I’m never really enthusiastic about those kind of things, I had to admit that the Harding Icefield was pretty big. And later that day, Dad told me that the Harding Icefield was the second biggest icefield in North America.

I was getting a little bored with standing there, staring at the 3D map, so I decided to look around at the other things in the gift shop. I slowly walked over to a stand of cans, looking around at other things on the way. When I was over to the cans, I picked up the first one I saw; the one that was opened. First I looked at the label: Canned Puffins. Canned Puffins? So I pulled at what was inside and finally tugged out–a puffin! A stuffed puffin! And it was adorable! At the bottom of the can read: CAUTION!: This puffin is known for sitting and waiting in your bed for you to come and snuggle you to sleep! I was in love with this little puffin! Not only because of the caution sign, but also because, well, it was just so cute! And because I’ve always loved puffins. They are all colorful and happy, and all flappy-winged and me-like. I just love them!

I was terribly disappointed when I asked Jean if I could get it and she answered no. But then she made a deal: if we see a puffin, I get the canned puffin! So I’ll be looking out for puffins!

Near the Exit Glacier at Kenai Fjords. The people behind us to the right are a lot closer.

From the visitor center, we took a short hike to the Exit Glacier, which flows down from the Harding Icefield. We saw a pika on the way to the edge of the glacier. A pika is a little brown mouse-like thing with a stripe on its back that looks like it is spray-painted red. Its tail is really small. When we came up over the hill, the temperature dropped about ten degrees. I realized that when you are right next to a glacier, you are right against a whole lot of ice, and you are also right against cold. For some reason, I didn’t realize that glaciers are ice and ice is cold. So as we walked up to the very edge of the glacier, I was shivering like a raisin. And Dad kept us down there for about half an hour, asking questions to the ranger. Since I thought we’d never leave, I stared at the packed blue ice. The ice wasn’t actually blue, it was just the light. I didn’t really understand why blue was the only color of light reflected, so I’m going to let someone else explain that. [Editor’s note: glacial ice is a lot like metamorphic rock, ice compressed over hundreds of years by the pressure of thousands of tons of snow and ice above it. The ice is so dense it absorbs the light which enters it, all except blue.]

I was relieved when we finally left. I don’t think Greta knew it was the shorter way when she said it, but she convinced Dad to let us go back that way to the visitor center. When we got back Dad took us to the 3D map again and pointed out Exit Glacier. It seemed so big when we hiked up to it, but it is one of the smallest glaciers of Harding Ice Field.

On July 8th, we came to Bear Campground in Seward, Alaska. It was pretty weird ’cause there weren’t any adults working there. There were kids running the bar, kids running the office.. There was a playground, but it was small and there were always kids invading every part of it. We basically just went to bed the first night we got there ’cause it was so late, and the second day we hung out a bit and then went to Kenai Fjords National Park. Read the next post to find out about it! 😀

July 7th, we went into Seward, Alaska to get some groceries. So we looked up grocery stores and came up with one: Safeway.

We drove to Safeway and pulled in to the parking lot. I was debating whether or not to go inside and help pick out food. Finally, I decided to go in. I hopped out of the RV and was hit with a sudden smell; the smell of a fish cannery. You might think I’m either crazy or disgusting, but I liked the strong smell. And unlike a lot of people I know, I love fish, and I don’t care if people make fun of me about it.

So I took in the fishy smells as I walked up to the front doors of Safeway.

Along the road to Seward, Alaska

On July 7th, after we left our campground in Wasilla, we went to go do some laundry and get lunch. Luckily, we found a great laundromat with a Subway next to it and a library across the street, AND there was a bonus….. There was a fair right at the end of the road that we could watch. It was pretty sweet for just a boring old laundry day.

We got subs, and then after we finished them, I asked if I could take my sisters over to the library. They said yes, so we went over and plopped down on the comfy cushions and started to read.

Relaxed and cozy in a library

I was so wrapped up in my book that I didn’t even notice when Dad came in and started taking pictures of us reading. Then, unfortunately, he said it was time to go, so we gathered our laundry and continued our drive! 😀

July 6th, we pulled over at a rest stop. We asked why we pulled over, (as we always do) and Jean told us.

A long time ago, Jean was at this exact place. She was with her friends, and when she climbed up on this big rock, she saw Mount McKinley. It was an amazing view! So she got out her camera and took some pictures. And one turned out nice enough to frame.

Now, that picture is famous to our family! Since the mountain is over 20,000 feet tall, it is almost rarely seen through the billowing clouds. Yet that day, Jean took the famous picture of Mount McKinley! And now it is hanging–
in our dining room!
Hahaha! That’s the story! So we went to that exact place and now I got some really good pictures. Maybe we’ll even have to replace the old one! 🙂

This time I took a picture of Jean taking another picture of Denali

After we had lunch we went to catch our bus for the sled dog demo. We ran to get on the bus. We waited for a while for the bus to come and get us. When it came we all ran to get our seats. We road in the bus for about 15 minutes.

When we got to the dog kennel a ranger told us the rules. He said that we were not aloud cross the blue line When we got out Me and Ana ran to go see the dogs. There were so many dogs. Some were black, white, brown, gray, and honey colored. We went and started petting the dogs. There were some that were sleeping and some that were looking at you and waiting for you to pet them. After looking at the dogs the demo was about to start. We went to find seats.

All the sled dogs were really friendly

We waited until a ranger came out with a dog. He started telling us about his dog. His dog was named swift. Swift was black and was big and had big paws. He was so cute. Swift is a wheel dog. If the other dogs make a mistake swift makes sure that the sled does not tip over. Daddy says that swift is like an extra motor. I think that swift has a cool job.

After telling us about what breeds swift was he told us that they were going to show us how the sled worked. Then all the people that worked there started bringing out all the dogs. All of the dogs sat up. They looked as if they knew what was happening. Trout a dog started running in circles. It was really funny. I looked up and they were off. They were going super fast. We watched in amazement as they zipped along. When they came around the bend we all started cheering. They came to a halt and we all clapped. They were really good.

We were driving along when Mommy said STOP! why there is a sale with it’s cub. A sale is a mother bear. We looked and and with are luck it was a baby grizzly with it’s mother. We all thought it was so cute. It looked just like it’s mother. We think we scared them away because they ran into the forest. We all looked for them until we were about to give up when to heads poked up from a bush. There they were. In the bush. We stayed there forever until we left them The baby was so cute. It was my first baby grizzly bear.

[Editor’s note: sale = sow (mother bear)]

This is not the baby grizzly. We watched this one digging for a ground squirrel.