How much for that bear in the window?

Only in Alaska would you see a sign like this....

Today we decided that we were going to go to Whittier to book seats on a glacier cruise. This was for when Diannes mother comes up to visit in about a month. The drive is about an hour and is very scenic. On the way there we saw several mountain goats hanging out on rocky cliffs high above us. Other than that and the fisherman, there was not much wildlife out to be seen. I suppose they were all resting from a long weekend of partying.

As we arrive in Whittier I notice that the town is rather dead for this time of year, especially for a Sunday. We drive around, and finally spot location we are looking for (Phillips 26). Dianne finds a parking spot and pulls in and parks. As we are walking up to the location, I realize that it is rather small, and does not seem to be occupied by anyone.

Upon entering the location, we are greeted by a friendly woman that asks us how she can be of assistance to us. We explain that we are having guests visit us in about a month, and would like to book seats for a Glacier cruise. She quickly explains the cost, length of cruise, and type of vessel we would be traveling in. We are very pleased at this point and decided that we would like to book right then. That is when she told us that we would have to either call the number on the brochure, or go to Anchorage. We just came from Anchorage…. It seems that they do not take reservations at the information center that is run by the cruise ship. We chalk it up to a learning experience and decide to get something to eat.

Walking around we once again notice that not much is open. It seemed to be rather strange due to cruise ship being in port. We drove a little further and discovered several restaurants on the waterfront. One restaurant even had “pet” reindeer. The problem with all these restaurants was that not only were they incredibly small, but they seemed to think that there food was gold plated. I believe most wanted anywhere from $8-10 for a cheeseburger. Now I don’t mind paying for quality food, but what I saw coming out of the kitchen in some of these places, and it was not “quality”. It would be more akin to the forgotten stepchild of bad fast food. So off we went, back home. The only problem was that now the wait for the tunnel was 30 min. We decided to use that time to explore and see more of the town. After finally finding a vertical muddy dirt road that looked like it lead to the middle of nowhere, we decided that this would be the road we would follow for the next 15 min, or until we were lost in the woods. We took it. The road did not disappoint us. It was filled with knee deep pot holes, and sheer drops that would have easily made us late by about 30 years had we fallen off one. Finally we reached a bridge that crossed a stream. The sign said, “cross at your own risk”. What really worried me though, was the fact that it looked like it had been made 40 years ago with 2X4’s and old fallen trees. The bridge was not in good shape. We decided to turn around and head back. We arrived just in time for the tunnel to open. We drove through and started our journey home.

This is Matilda. She is an escapee from the circus. She came to live in Alaska, and now works the tourist scene.

On the way back, we noticed several dozen cars parked along the side of the road. This is usually a good sign of wildlife. We stopped and were able to see a large black bear eating along the edge of a pond. It was quite large for a black bear, and seemed more interested in finding food than being watched by all the people stopping. It would wander a few feet and then scavenge for more food. Finally it decided that it had had enough of being watched and headed back into the woods. We stayed for several minutes hoping that it would reappear, but it had decided that a second showing was not in order.

After about a half of an hour Dianne screamed, “GOAT”!!! I looked up on the cliffs, but was unable to see any goat. Dianne then said, “No, the goat is in the road”! I looked off on the side of the highway, and there standing in the road was a mountain goat with about 20 people around it taking its picture. The closest people were no more than 10 feet from the goat. It didn’t seem to care in the least. It was just looking around hoping that someone had a nice tasty root, or whatever mountain goats eat. Perhaps an extra value meal from McDonalds. We did not stop due to all the cars parked on the side of the road, but it is always interesting to see how wildlife can stop traffic.

Although we did not get to book the cruise, we did have a very interesting and scenic drive to and from Whittier. We were able to see our first Alaskan Black bear. This in itself was worth the trip. We were also able to see a crazy mountain goat that came down off the rocky cliffs to say hello to everyone. All in all it was a good trip and well worth the time it took to drive.