Alaskan Cruise: Day 10--Seward to Anchorage

This was the end of our time aboard the Radiance of the Seas. When she docked in Seward all passengers would be going ashore. While some on board were going on their final excursions of the trip, or hopping buses to go to Anchorage, or checking into hotels for the night before reboarding to head south again, we boarded the Grandview Train (an apt name) to take a very scenic ride up the Kenai Penninsula and around Turnagain Arm to the Anchorage airport. 

It was around 30 degrees when the train departed and had snowed a little over night. There was fresh snow at some of the higher elevations. As we gained altitude, that snow would come down to the track level.

View from the train out of Seward.

Clear indication of the snowline.

Every turn and bend exposed more breath taking scenes.

Could that be a glacier in the distance?

View from the train.

Waterfalls were numerous.

A little closer to the waterfall.

Snow capped and cloud covered.

Finally reached Turnagain Arm at the head of Cook Inlet.

Tide was out exposing the mud flats.

View across Turnagain Arm nearing Girdwood.

Also known as Potter's Marsh, this is the outskirts of Anchorage. Good birding but all I could ID were Mallards, Ring-necked Ducks and Ring-billed Gulls.

Somewhere between the wildlife refuge and the Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport, the train engineer had to toot his horn to get a moose away from the tracks. Then we spotted a dozen or more Dall Sheep up on the rocks along Turnagain Arm.

The train delivered all passengers to the airport where our luggage awaited us. Once at the airport, Brian rented a car (a Denali as it so happens) and Vicky drove us all to our hotel, the Sheraton on the east end of Anchorage--on 6th and Denali.

Not too shabby a view east toward Merrill Field Airport (not the one we had arrived at nor the one we would depart from).

You could see the Knik Arm from the hotel.

Terry and I met with fellow blogger and Facebook friend Paul Gleason, once of the Way Up North/Moose In the Yard blog which he has since shuttered. We met on line back in 2008-2009 and then in Anchorage in 2010 when we RVed through Alaska.(Sorry Paul, forgot to get a photo!)

Vicky, Brian and George went to the Anchorage Museum a short walk from the hotel but returned early because someone got a little cranky. I think George missed the ship. Or, maybe, he sensed this great adventure was nearly over.

We ate dinner at a nice Mexican restaurant within walking distance of the hotel before retiring for the night.