McBerkoBlog

Our big activity for this Thursday was a cruise of Resurrection Bay at 12:30, so we decided to fill our morning with a visit to the Alaska Sealife Center . It's a fun small aquarium focused on local animals, a great place to get a close look at some of the animals we were hoping to see later that afternoon from the boat. We especially loved the seals and sea lions here, as well as the large touch pools with anemones, sea urchin, and starfish.  Next, we headed over to the harbor for the cruise with  Major Marine tours , a 4 hour wildlife viewing cruise. The boat had two levels, each glassed in and filled with tables. You could move around as much as you wanted in the open areas, but you were assigned a specific booth for your seat. The top level had open decks on all sides, but our bottom level had open space only at the front and back. We quickly realized that the back deck area both reeked of diesel and was incredibly loud from the motors, so the uncovered lower front deck became

Bear with me, folks, I will eventually finish all my planned posts from our Alaska trip! We woke on Wednesday, 8/10 to a chilly but clear morning, so bundled up and walked through the adjacent campground to find Coopers Lake. Near the path, we saw tons of hilariously cartoonish, bright red mushrooms. Jim fished while we drank our coffee on the shore, then we explored a bit, wandering to the other side of the lake where Bill found the (very stinky) skeleton of a large fish and Ruth practiced skipping stones. Next up, we headed to the Russian River so Jim could fly fish for salmon. It's a popular destination for salmon fishing, enough so that we had to park in overflow parking. Bill and I dropped off the others near the trailhead, then went back to the overflow parking with the RV and hiked back up to meet them at the river. The trail near the river was beautiful - raised foot path over the foliage with frequent exits to the shallow, rocky river. Bill and I eventually found the other