We went to the Sea Life Center in Seward today. While at the Sea Life Center Brooke fell in love with the bird observatory.  The birds gave her a sprinkler shower as they cleaned and preened themselves. We learned a lot about birds today.  The puffins make their nests in holes in the rocky shore line.  In the exhibit we were visiting there were forty holes in the observatory leading back to the researchers. Puffins don’t fly very well, but they are amazing to watch under the water.

Brooke was taken aback by the information on the Valdez oil spill of 1989. She was very upset that so many animals were hurt.

We watched a neat film on taking care of sea otter babies who are injured. We saw seals and a sea lion in pools.

Things we learned today:

-puffins summer in Alaska, but winter floating in the Pacific Ocean

-sea otters have very little blubber to keep them warm, so their very dense fur does all the work

-sea otters blow air into their fur as insulation and to keep their fur from sticking together

We splurged and went on a Kenai Fjords and Fox Island Dinner Cruise today.  We had trouble deciding which tour to go on because we wanted to work around the kids eating and napping schedules.  The average tour length was six hours and we knew that would be tough to swing with the kids.  We decided on a three hour tour (Anyone else singing the theme song from Gilligan’s Island?)that included an all you could eat prime rib and Alaskan salmon dinner from 5 –8pm.  I enjoyed the salmon a little (I’m not a seafood eater), but I was more in love with the salad and desserts.  I have been craving a large salad for most of the trip.We were treated to a presentation by a National Park Ranger while eating. We ran into a couple from Virginia that we had made dinner with in the same pavilion the previous  night.  The couple spent most of their time on the top deck, and we settled into the first deck so we didn’t freeze out the cuties.  Brooke roamed around with Scott and I at different points.  While she and I were out on the bow of the ship enjoying the puffins and sea otters she was turning blue and telling me she was fine.  It really was beautiful out there, but when the boat was moving it was chilly.

We ate dinner with a kind gentleman who had just lost his wife of fifty-one years and was traveling solo.  Joe was very forgiving of the insanity of dinner with two cuties and trying to keep them quiet during a presentation.

Tonight we camped along the ocean again.  I wish we could camp along the ocean every night.

The view from our campsite.

The Sea Life Center in Seward.

On the left Brooke had just left the bird observatory and with a genuine hearty hug she said, “I LOVE Puffins!”

Brooke took Scott out driving.  (It was a cool hands-on exhibit at the Sea Life Center)

The boat docked at Fox Island for dinner.  It is supposed to have world famous skipping stones.  Scott said they were pretty impressive.  They said we also were able to see the most endangered part of the Kenai Peninsula this July: the sun.  Yeah sun!!!

There are little bitty puffin dots out in the water.  Don’t worry about seeing them, they are there I promise. :-)

We saw several glaciers on the boat ride.  It was a great trip.