Day 8 -- to Seward

Is there a “crack of dawn” in Alaska in July? If there is, we saw it.

The ferry from Valdez left at 7 a.m. We had to check in at 6 a.m. So we were up by 5 to make sure we would be in the queue in time. Gah. At least it was light out. Thank God for that. 

We parked the ‘Burb in the cargo hold, and found seats in one of the two lounges on deck. It was a five-hour cruise on the M/V Aurora through the stunning Prince William Sound to Whittier. We ate breakfast in the cafeteria and played Uno for a bit. Then Charlie and Clare discovered that “The Muppets Most Wanted,” was playing in one of the lounges, followed by “The Lego Movie.” Keith and Natalie read and dozed, and I worked on the blog. 

Before we knew it, we were pulling into Whittier, a strange little community south of Anchorage, on the Prince William Sound. 

The town was established as a secret army base during WWII, after the Japanese attacked the Aleutian Islands. The army maintained Whittier until 1968, leaving behind two ungainly cinderblock apartment buildings — the Buckner Building, now abandoned, and Begich Towers, which houses 80 percent of Whittier residents today. The complex is connected to schools and businesses by a labyrinth of underground tunnels.

The rest of the town is not a “town” so much as a giant parking lot and rail yard in front of the ferry terminal. If it weren’t for the jaw-dropping setting — the town is tucked into a fjord, overlooking deep blue-green waters and and surrounded by 3,500-ft peaks — Whittier would be downright creepy.

That giant building in the background is the Buckner Building. Former housing for the military; now abandoned. 

We grabbed lunch, then high-tailed it out of there. Since Whittier is surrounded by mountains, the only way out of town is through a 2 1/2-mile single-lane train tunnel that was cut through the Chugach Mountain Range by the army back in the ‘40s. It was opened to cars only 15 years ago. Outbound traffic flows through the tunnel for the first 15 minutes of every hour. Then, 30 minutes later, inbound cars move in the opposite direction. I worried that we’d have to wait at least 45 minutes to leave town, but our timing was impeccable, and luckily, we were able to sail right through at a few minutes past 2 pm. 

About 90 minutes later, we pulled into Seward, on the southeast side of the Kenai Peninsula — the gateway to Kenai Fjords National Park. We made a brief stop at the national park visitors center for junior ranger books, then drove to far end of town, to the Alaska SeaLife Center, a marine research and educational center that overlooks Resurrection Bay and features exhibits of seabird rookeries and sea mammal habitats as well as touch tanks and other interactive displays. 

After spending a couple hours at the SeaLife center, we walked up the main street of Seward, perusing shops, checking out restaurants and getting our bearings. A few blocks up the street, we noticed a sign in the window of a cozy coffeehouse advertising a showing of “The Goonies” on their big-screen TV — tonight! Sweet!

So we checked into our hotel around the corner, and made our way back to the Sea Bean in time for the movie.

Our hotel. This is our seventh hotel in eight days. I am getting a little tired of moving around. 

Back in February, when I was making plans for the trip, fleshing out the itinerary and securing reservations, I could not find a hotel or a guest house in this area with availability on three consecutive nights in July. In February. So I had to cobble together our stay in Seward. Tonight we’re staying in the Van Gilder Hotel, downtown. Tomorrow, we’ll pack up and head out again, and for the next two nights we’ll stay in a guesthouse just outside of town. 

The appeal of the Van Gilder, for me, was that it’s supposed to be haunted. And I knew that would fascinate Natalie, too. Built in 1916, the hotel is on the National Register of Historic Places. Maybe I’m just road-weary, but when I walked into our room tonight, I felt frustrated and disappointed by the cramped space, the thin walls, the funky step up into the bathroom and the pathetically thin curtains. People. How hard is it to hang room-darkening shades in a hotel room? This aversion seems to be endemic to Alaska innkeepers. (This from a woman who, every night, makes an elaborate display of carefully covering the tiny green light on the master bedroom DVR at home, so it doesn’t keep her awake.)

Tonight, Natalie is needling us, wanting to know if the Van Gilder ghost is evil or not. We’re not filling her in, for fear that the story will freak her out and keep her awake — as if the dearth of room-darkening shades doesn’t already prevent her from sleeping.