We DIDN’T EXPECT MUCH of this place - WE WERE WRONG!

Good morning from Seward, Alaska. We've got our coffee, a beautiful view, and a full day ahead. This is actually our third harbor town that we visited while in Alaska. On the surface, Seward might seem like another charming port, but is there something that makes it stand out from the rest? Today we're going to find out. We are going to head into Kenai Fjord National Park for the glaciers, the wildlife, and those iconic fjord views. Then it's lunch on the water, then we'll give you a tour, and later we'll explore town, the shops, a harbor stroll, and even some dinner. The sun is shining and it's shaping up to be one of those perfect Alaskan days. Let's see what makes Seward unforgettable. But first, if we haven't met before, we're the Shinpaws. We're a family of four who travels full-time, so we can make memories now. Go. Sarah, tell me something I don't know about this park. Did you know that the National Park we're going to covers over 600,000 acres, which is roughly the size of Rhode Island, okay? A national park in Alaska is about the size of another state, inside of a state. The very first thing we do at almost every national park is we find the visitor center, and that's where we're going to start. We're going to check out the hike we want to do, make sure it's the very best, and then we'll also take any recommendations the ranger wants to give us. We're going to stop here and get our picture. We always, well, so long as there's a pull-off, we always stop at the National Park sign and commemorate it with a photo. There it is. Okay. The kids are making fun of me. I'm trying this little fanny pack for the first time, instead of a backpack, just so we don't have all that stuff up here. We got to keep water with us, just in case. I forgot to fill it up before we left the house. This is one of the best and easiest to understand descriptions of glacial ice that I've seen anywhere this summer. Basically, when the snow falls over time, it turns into fern, which means it has survived one year without melting, and then over time, they're saying four to ten years of compression, that turns into glacial ice. What these three things here represent is how much the same amount of snow, fern, and glacial ice weigh. You understand that this first box is super light because it's snow and a bunch of air. The fern gets a little bit heavier because you have some of that air removed, and then the glacial ice is significantly heavier because you have all that compaction. Hopefully, that helped you. This was awesome for us. You guys know what trail you're going on today? Nope. That's why we're here. All righty. Well, I can show you all of our trails. They're going to be right here. Here we are at Exit Glacier Nature Center, and so this first one here is our Glacier Bay Loop, which is one mile and flat and wheelchair accessible. Then we have our Glacier Overlook, which is two miles round trip. It's flat most of the way, and then you gain 150 feet of elevation through here. We should do this one. It goes out past. Yeah, we'll definitely do that one. Check out the fanny pack. The flies are walking with us. It is a first this summer, and it looks like everybody's shooing them. We've got bug spray with us. It looks like we're going to be putting that on, but it's beautiful. It was a pretty quick drive from the entrance of the park back here to the hike. Great visitor center and all the things you would expect. Got a little over two miles. It's a big loop that we're going to do to the overlook, and I believe it's paved the whole way too. I stand corrected. It does go to gravel. You get three-tenths of a mile of concrete, and after that it goes to the gravel. You know what's really cool about this, Willis? What? Three years ago, I was having surgery, having a new hip put in, and the whole two years before that, there was no way I could have done this trail. When I take steps, sometimes my brain thinks I can't do it, but I can. I have all the strength that I used to have. So, so thankful for figuring that out and having that surgery. Sissy, I see it. It's right around this corner. Yep. Oh, look at that. Guys, check this out. Just 20 years ago, where I'm standing right now was the edge of the glacier. They've had these signs going along the whole trail, and it's really crazy to see the progression just years can make, and now it's all the way up there. Until this summer, glaciers just seemed so rare and unique to me, and they're still beautiful, but they're everywhere out here. I love that we can get so close to them and just, you know, take them in a little bit more every time. This is the end of this hike for us. We're going to turn around and head back. There are people up on the glacier. There's an eight plus mile hike that you can take to get a little bit closer, and then there's a tour that will actually take you on to the glacier if you want to do that. We're not going to do that today. We got here in the afternoon. We didn't get here until almost 1 30. We planned on being here much earlier. You don't need a lot of time to come here and check it out, which makes this a very accessible park and a very accessible hike. So if you've watched any of our other videos, you know that we get patches everywhere we go because we have quilts that we're making for each of the kids and for Jason and I, and normally the patches are like five, seven dollars. These were 15 dollars each, and we knew it when we bought them. We're just considering it a donation to the National Park here, but holy cow, that's a lot. We actually hesitated whether we're going to buy it or not, but at the end of the day, it's a, you know, once in a lifetime or once in a long time to be here, so we went ahead and got it. Hey guys, we're hosting our very first rally, and we want you to be there. It doesn't matter if you have a motorhome, RV, tent, or nothing at all, we have a place for you. It's going to be November 5th through the 9th, 2025, in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. We're going to ring in fall in all of its beauty in the Great Smoky Mountains. We would love to have you there. We're going to have four nights of camping, three nights of catered dinners and live music, two morning coffee chats, and one free day where we will organize an optional group hike as well as attend Dolly Parton's Dixieland Stampede, which is a dinner entertainment show. The link's in the description. Don't wait. We'd love to get to know you in person, and there's going to be some other really amazing travelers there. I know you're going to make some new friends. Hope to see you in Pigeon Forge in November. Yay! We are going to have burgers and french fries for dinner, and we found Miller's Landing at the end of the peninsula with a great view. Thank you, Sarah. Hopefully she crushed this one. We're hoping the burgers are really good. We were going to go to a food truck that had great reviews with some of our Facebook groups that were in, but they only had chips and we wanted fries. So sorry, guys. We're going to do Miller's Landing instead. This is a place like I would typically find, sissy. Yeah. Got our food, daddy. Bye! While we're waiting for our food, let's go explore. How cool is this? It's like natural steps. It's really cool that this place is on the beach. I asked the lady at the front, I said, do whales swim by here? And she's like, yeah, there's whales that swim by here all the time. No way. How about right now? She said it was mainly in the spring, though. But she didn't say it was not possible that they would be through here. How cool would that be? Just to look out, there's just whales going by as you eat. So right where we walked through, that's actually a boat launch for some people. And so over here, it looks like the place where they can hang their fish that they catch for the day with some fish cleaning stations. I'd like to think with all the big halibut fish, you know, they hang them up here and they're standing here and they're like, yeah, they caught the halibut on the sides. I think that'd be pretty cool. But this is really cool because if you look over there, you see town. And if I wouldn't have, if we wouldn't have come down here, I wouldn't have known about this. And so this is like a really cool isolated area. And I'm really hoping that this food is good because how awesome would that be? Good food, good view, good location, good adventure, right? But this is a good memory. That looks so good. It looks so pretty. And that is the fried fish I was hoping for in the last place with that crunchy beer batter on it. So I cannot wait to taste this. Because we got a later start to the park, we did not go back home and do lunch. We came here and did like dinner, right? So we had burgers and fish sandwiches. They were delicious. This is a must do when you come, especially if the weather's great and you can sit on the back porch. Right now, we're going to rock, paper, scissors, whether we're going downtown and walking around or just go home and sit and relax. People ask us all the time how we can afford this lifestyle. Well, Jason and I still work full time. What we'd like you to know is that Jason's a real estate broker and I'm a mortgage broker. And that if we could ever help you buy or sell a piece of property or finance or refinance it, we would love to. We're licensed in most states and where we're not, we've got some great people that we can introduce you to. Also, if you happen to be a Realtor or a loan officer and you're wondering how maybe you could be more mobile like us, we would be happy to share those secrets with you as well. So there's a link in the description, get some time on our calendar, and we'd love to get to know you in this way too. We decided we'd go ahead and come on downtown because we might want to come back tomorrow. We are going to go check out the shops, we're going to check out the harbor, and who knows what we'll find. He is, they even say Seward, Alaska, and it says the year. It's only $9, $12. Yeah. It's for our Christmas tree. Oh, well, should we get dad's opinion? I'm calling him in. No, he's okay. Do they have one of those that has an otter on it? No, that's better. It's, it's done. I love him and he's coming home. He is my new pet. We should name him Bob or Jerry. We also get an ornament every year that we can put on our tree someday when we have a big tree again. The trees we have now probably wouldn't hold that. Oh my gosh, Jason, we're going to put this on Norman. Is that what it is, the doggy? It's a doggy vest. It's an extra small made for 8 to 15 pounds. Oh, that's it. Come here pumpkin, come here. Um, hang on, hang on. Careful. He's too chunky. I just really want him. Okay, for sure big enough to fit that chunky monkey. Don't be so sure. This is a small, which it goes 15 to 30, so Norman. Well, he has a big chest. He's been working out. Don't touch the chest. That's a nice way to put it. He's been working out. Playing on the couch all day. Seems like a lot of work, doesn't it little buddy? Eric just wants to pick him up. He looks camo. Okay, all right, time to go to work guys. Oh, I'm done at work. Time to go home. He's so cute. Little Jake jacket. Good boy. How about we go check out the boats in the harbor. See if there's anything different than Homer. We've really enjoyed our time here. Town was great. It was really easy to walk around and the docks here are in great shape and we found a lot of boots that we liked. So it was really, that was fun for us and overall the marina is just really nice. We are going to head back to the rig, sit in a chair and enjoy this beautiful weather tonight. This has been home the last couple nights. Let's take a look around. We are in a city campground and we did have to pay to stay here. It was about $50 a night. As you can see, it's just a gravel parking lot and in the back are these concrete pieces that have numbers on them so you know what spot you're in. But you get a picnic table. There is a fire pit at every spot here and if you come to the other side you will notice that that's it. There are no hookups at all. But not to worry, they do have a great bath house so you can go down there and get a hot shower. Mostly. Willis actually got a cold shower while we were here. So he kind of did the polar plunge. But you also can go and dump for free and it's just across the road. So you can still do all the things you need to do here. Now there are roughly five campgrounds like this right along the water. None of them are better or worse than the other and they're all on the water so they have a good view. It just depends how big the lots are whether you fit or not. These were technically 40-foot lots and we did not reserve one until we actually came and put our eyes on it to make sure that we would really fit. And we do. And not only are the spots big enough for us but as you can see it's really easy to get in and out with a big rig. We are in the Resurrection Bay south lot so if you come here you have a big rig. We fit. You'll fit. Good morning from Stewart, Alaska. Sadly it's time to pull out but I gotta tell you we've had such a good time here. Seward reminds me of Valdez and Homer perfectly put together. We had the marina and the wildlife tours and of course the mountains and glaciers like Valdez. And then we had the beachfront camping like we did in Homer. This was the perfect combination of both of them. I have to tell you having a national park here was so cool. We love the national parks. As you know we got our patch and we did a hike so that was a really really nice thing that we got to do. We're gonna take Seward in one last time. Look how beautiful it is. Well I better go catch up with Jason. We're so glad you were here with us. Go grab someone you love. Make a memory now and we'll see you on the next adventure.