This Ausflug (trip) was with Elder and Sister
Palmer and Elder and Sister Hawkins. The Palmers work in the office with
us and the Hawkins are at the institute at the University of Alaska
Anchorage. We borrowed the mission van and drove to Seward, which is
about two hours south of Anchorage. We saw lots of pretty sights, toured
the Exit Glacier, and then toured the Aquarium. Well, everyone except
for me went into the aquarium exhibit. I stayed in the van and slept and
then read - I'm such a bad boy!
Sister Campbell and Sister Hawkins by the sign at
the Exit Glacier.
Sister Campbell and her main squeeze at the same sign.
The right antler of a bull moose.
A full shot of a bull's antlers from the back looking
out over the moose's nose.
A rangerette gave us a 30 minute lecture about the
joys of being attacked and eaten by either a brown
bear (Grizzly), or a black bear.
This is the skull of a full grown grizzley. The rangerette
is right behind the skull, to give you a size comparison.
That is a rubber cast of a grizzly's paw print
that she is holding in her hand.
that she is holding in her hand.
You can see the heads of both a black and a brown
bear hanging down - still attached to their pelt. Below
are casts of scat (poo, that is).
Mrs. Rangerette showed us several pictures of bears that had been lurking around the grounds and the glacier. She said that most bears fear a close encounter of the third kind with humans as much as humans do having one with a bear - especially a momma and her cubs. She told us that if we were to keep up a constant noise while hiking to let the bears know that we were coming that that usually caused them to stay concealed.
After the lecture, we lit out on the hike to go to the
glacier, which has receded considerable in the last...
several decades. There was quite of bit of hiking
upward. Silly me, what was I thinking. Here I was
walking into another natural feature that I didn't...
