Seward; is there any reason to leave?

August 1-3  Days 54-56

We really like Seward!  We biked around Seward just to see some of the history.  Seward is a coastal town of ~2,600 people but is a center for transportation, fishing, and tourists from the commercial cruise ships.  I was not able to get a picture quick enough, but a bald eagle had a salmon in his talons and flew in front of our rv no more than 30' away.  Another camper got a picture, though not very good.  If you zoom in on the dark spot just above the second post from the left, you can make it out.

A true picture of Alaska. 

Due to the small population, business owner tend to diversify to support themselves.  Here is one example; the small place in the picture below had a few rooms for lodging, a laundromat, a day spa, a hair & nail salon, and a cafe.  When I inquired, they confirmed that one person owned all of it.  What was really unusual, was the cafe was inside the incredibly clean laundromat.  Therefore, patrons could purchase a beverage and a snack while waiting for their laundry.  Besides having small cafe tables inside, they also had patio tables outside for the customer's convenience.  As an added bonus, they provided free wifi.

We decided to pry ourselves away from Seward and creep back towards Anchorage.  We stopped at the town of Hope, where it is claimed to be the most preserved gold rush town in south central Alaska.  A very quaint place, Hope did not have one paved street, including Main Street.  Below is a picture at the corner of Main and Second.  Notice the sign for Main St. is hand painted. (just under the stop sign below the green Second St. sign)

Hope is also popular with people fishing.  Just beyond the cafe, is a bar, then a campground before the street dead ends at the south shore of Turnagain Arm.

We left Hope and continued on for a while before stopping for the night.  This was our view for the evening.

The next morning it was raining, again, so we decided to take a 5 mile bike ride (10 mile RT) to Portage Glacier as well as other glaciers along the way.

It was a great gravel and boardwalk bike path that traversed through the forests, over streams, and next to lakes.

OBSERVATIONS (and other unscientific data):
Since Seward is a coastal fishing town, there are, understandably, a lot of boats.  So, I made yet another observation.  Of the 100% of outboard boat motors in my unscientific data pool:

• 50% were Yamaha
• 40% were Honda
• 5% were Suzuki
• 5% were all others