The next day we drove to Whittier, Alaska. Another amazingly beautiful drive. You can even really capture the size and magnificence of everything with a camera. Whittier is really just a port. There are no houses there. There is a large hotel, one building of condos and a few little gift shops and food places. To get to Whittier you have to drive through a tunnel through the bottom of a mountain. It's 2.5 miles long and one way. It's the only way in for cars or trains. You have to get there at the correct time to get through.
...and from the inside. Water was dripping off the rock surrounding us. Later that day we learned that Alaska experiences a lot of earthquakes so I was a little nervous on the ride back through.
We got there a little early so we decided to do a hike that some guy told us about. We had been warned about mosquitos in Alaska but we had no idea until we started up this trail. Robert and I were literally surrounded by thousands of mosquitos. I wore my jacket even though I was hot, to protect my arms. I'm sure my hair was loaded. That, and the fact that I started getting nervous about bears, made us turn around half way up. Here are a couple pictures. Beautiful scenery.
How the tunnel looks from the outside.
Robert ate some berries off the side on the trail on the way up.
Trying to swipe away bugs!
After we escaped the bugs we headed to our day cruise boat.
Robert saved the day by getting me a headband to cover my sensitive ears. The wind was COLD!
Here are some pictures of the some of what we saw. We also saw a sea otter, bald eagles, salmon swimming below us and a lot of jelly fish.
It's hard to see in pictures but the glaciers are a pretty shade of blue.
Robert's favorite part of the boat ride was feeling the chunks of ice hitting our boat as we rode through.
If you look close you'll see that this cliff has white spots on it, which are actually thousands of birds. They lay there eggs there, and they are really loud.
It was a nice day.
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