Camping in Seward

This week I got to go camping out on the beach in Seward with my friend Elizabeth. We had a great time, even though it rained all night and was quite chilly.

Elizabeth is taking some really difficult math classes at the University, so really needed to take a break from all that heavy thinking. She drove directly from her last class of the week to my house Thursday afternoon. We packed up my car and headed out from there.

I’d like to take a moment to brag, here: I drive just a regular old car. It’s a 2001 Nissan Sentra - nothing special, but I like it. It does get GREAT gas mileage, however – even better, in my opinion, than some of those high-priced hybrid cars. We drove all the way to Seward and back on LESS than half a tank of gas!

Anyway, our camping spot was at Miller’s Landing. If you drive through Seward and keep going passed the huge waterfall, you eventually end up at a little point sticking out into the ocean. I’ve been out that way before, but this was my first time staying there.

As we were driving out I saw something in the ocean, so we stopped to see what it was. I was amazed to see a group of roughly 8-9 sea lions just hanging out in the water, flapping their flippers and burping like sea lions do. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that many so close to town before. We looked around and actually found about 5-6 groupings of them. We thought perhaps there must be some good munchies or something, to attract that many of them.

We eventually got our spot located and went to work setting up camp. The tent Elizabeth brought was a nice little one, a two-man tent and supposedly easy to assembly. I have to admit it did take a while to figure out exactly how to put the thing together, but with both our brains working on the problem we did eventually get it figured out.

Then Elizabeth got our camp fire going and our dinner cooking. She is a great cook, by the way. The few times she’s invited me over for dinner have been eagerly accepted, and I always return home happily full of great food. This time our dinner consisted of a couple fillets of salmon and some Great Harvest bread with locally made cheese. Later on, sitting by the campfire at night, we consumed a bottle of wine and some organic free-trade chocolate that went perfectly with our conversation.

I have my niece to thank for our conversation that night. She is writing a paper for her history class titled “Ethiopia and the Civil Rights Movement” and had sent me the rough draft asking for my advice. Elizabeth and I spent a good two hours reading it and taking notes on what we thought might make it better. It was a very stimulating evening; we hardly noticed the rain except for the fact that it made my red pen bleed all over the paper. I hope Katy can read our notes, although I did summarize them in an email for her.

Having nearly frozen to death out in the Gobi desert last year, I learned my lesson and brought not only my sleeping bag but also a self-inflating insulated pad to sleep on AND a blanket to lay over me! I’m so glad I did, because – as I mentioned earlier – it was a chilly night. It also rained all night long.

We awoke around 6:00 am to the sounds and smells of the forest mixed in with the ocean nearby. A perfect way to wake up! Breakfast consisted of potatoes, onions, and eggs with more Great Harvest bread & cheese followed by a nice HOT cup of tea over in the office where we paid for our camping site.

We had taken our time with breakfast so it wasn’t until around 10:00 that we walked through the front door of the Seward Sealife Center. As we were standing at the ticket counter I realized I had forgotten to bring the paper that had the names of the people we were supposed to meet written on it, but one of the girls working there overheard me and asked “Are you Ruth and Elizabeth from The Alaska Zoo?” She called the education director down to the admissions counter, and he took us back to the mammal research area.

And by the way, thank you Katie Larson for getting that arranged for us. The zoo has sort of an unofficial partnership with the Sealife Center, helping each other out whenever possible – so with just a few emails and phone calls our behind-the-scenes adventure was all arranged!

We got to meet one of the female Stellar sea lions, an orphaned sea otter, and some of the harbor seals – all of whom were hanging out in the research area. The center is attempting to breed the Stellar sea lions this year, so we were not able to meet their male. He’s pumped full of hormones at the moment, and is quite dangerous and unpredictable. We did get a brief tour of their facilities and some insight into the research currently going on, which was very interesting because Elizabeth is currently *studying the field of marine debris* and was asking all kinds of in-depth questions. The scientists working there were more than happy to talk about their projects.

*Clarification: I don’t know exactly what degree Elizabeth is working towards. As soon as I find out, I will come back and edit this posting to correctly reflect the title, since I know it’s a lot of hard work and should be acknowledged as such by giving it the proper name.*

We poked around the public side of the center, also. Amazingly enough Elizabeth had never been there, so everything was brand new and exciting to her. I have been there almost every year since it opened, but I love it and loved showing it to her. The puffin exhibit is always a favorite, as is Woody the male Stellar sea lion – who is roughly 2,200 pounds and is just plain HUGE!

We rounded out our visit to the center by hitting the gift shop. I could spend hundreds of dollars there. They have some beautiful art work on sale, as well as some really interesting books & DVDs. Elizabeth got a couple books and a shark puppet for her nephew, and we headed off to find a place to eat a late lunch.

A hike up to Exit Glacier concluded our trip to Seward, and we arrived home by around 7:30 Friday night. Now Elizabeth is back to work on her math homework, and I’m getting back to my job hunting.