Homer Spit >> Seward (including Exit Glacier detour) 207 miles ridden/5 hours
While breaking down my tent this morning, the ranger’s warning about the wind became apparent, but after a slight struggle I was able to secure everything back onto the bike. Seward was calling!
For a small, relatively remote town (population: ~2,700), Seward has a lot going for it: it’s one of the top ten fishing ports in the United States, it’s the southern terminus of the Alaska Railroad, and its ports service cruise ships and the energy industry. Additionally, every Fourth of July it hosts the Mount Marathon Race, a three-mile scramble from downtown to the 3,200-foot summit of the mountain which serves as the town’s backdrop. Rumor has it the race began over a bet about whether it was possible to reach the summit and make it back to town in under an hour, and this has been proven to be true: best times for both men and women clock in well below 60 minutes.
Even including a detour to Exit Glacier, it was a short day on the road but a beautiful drive nonetheless. Not surprising given that the 127-mile Seward Highway – which cleaves through the Kenai Mountains and the Chugach National Forest – has scored a hat trick of scenic awards: it’s been designated an Alaskan Scenic Byway, an All-American Road and a National Forest Scenic Byway.
By late afternoon I was setting up camp on the shore of Resurrection Bay in downtown Seward. After watching seals frolic in the water for a while, I headed to 4th Ave, what counts as the nexus of nightlife in this tiny burg. For a while, it seemed like I was the only one in town. Then, as if on cue, the bars started filling up. It turns out a Coast Guard cutter back from a month-long supply run to Barrow, Alaska, (the northernmost settlement in the U.S. perched along the 71st Latitude) had just docked and the crew was ready to wet its collective whistle.
Heavily trafficked by seafarers, bars in Seward observe the tradition of hanging personalized bills from the ceiling so anyone heading out to sea will have money for a drink when they come back ashore. Now a member of this green canopy club, I’m all set for my return trip, whenever that may be…
By now, it was habit to ask anyone wearing a Boston Red Sox hat if they were from Beantown. I spied one among the crew and struck up a conversation; another seaman said he was from The Olde Towne too. When I asked what neighborhood he lived in, he replied “Worcester,” to which I responded: “Oh, on the Purple Line?” a reference to the color the commuter rail – which shuttles people to and from outlying suburbs – is assigned on maps of the state’s public transportation options. (For non-New Englanders, the Red, Orange, Green, and Blue Lines comprise Boston’s subway system; each serves a different set of neighborhoods.) The eventual onset of karaoke signaled the hour was getting late, so shortly thereafter I abandoned the festivities for relative quiet of my tent.