Off the ship

Friday was time to disembark. We had packed all of our things on Thursday and put our suitcases outside our door to be picked up and taken to a holding area. We were in the group to get off at 9AM. That gave us plenty of time to eat breakfast and gather the rest of our things before going to the meeting area. When we got our luggage, we went outside where Jim (who is a world traveler) quickly snagged us a taxi van. The van took us on a quick 5 minute ride to the train station. We unloaded, purchased tickets for the 6PM train to Anchorage and walked across the street to see about going to Exit Glacier. This glacier is about 15 minutes from Seward, but we could not get on a bus until 10:30. We hung around killing time before getting on another shuttle bus. We rode out to Exit Glacier which we could see from the parking lot. Jim and I started the walk up to the glacier and Daddy walked around the bottom. It was not a long walk, but it was uphill all.the.way! Dang, I was getting winded. The closer we got to the glacier, the cooler it was getting. Jim and I had jackets with us, but we were warmed up from the walk, so we never put them on. We hung around for a bit taking photos and found a different route down. We found Daddy and waited for the shuttle to take us back to Seward. When we arrived back, we found a restaurant on the water and ate fish and chips. One thing about french fries in Alaska...they are delicious! Even on the ship we ate them probably every day. After lunch, we walked to town. It was just a mile, but a loooong mile! We walked in and out of the shops and bought some postcards. We did not want to walk back to the train depot, so we got a cab ride. It was the same cab driver we had when we got off the ship. At 5PM we boarded the train. It did not leave until 6PM, so we just toured the train and rested. It is a 4 1/2 hour train ride from Seward to Anchorage. It is a very scenic ride. We saw more glaciers and lots more waterfalls. We got in to Anchorage at 10:30 and Jim did his trick again by getting a cab very quickly. (I learned there is an art to getting cabs). It took about 15 minutes to get to the newly opened Crowne Plaze where we were spending the night. We were able to stay free with Jim's Holiday Inn points. It was a very nice hotel and we were dog-tired! Sleep time.