Ahhhh, puffins......

Since we didn't see many sea animals on our little cruise, we knew we wanted to head down to Seward to the Alaska SeaLife Center.  It was a great drive down the Kenai Peninsula with some beautiful scenery.

Of course after a bit the window was covered with the remnants of mosquitoes, so not a whole lot of good pictures out the windshield...

I was so excited when we got to the SeaLife Center that I was only a little deterred by the fact that there were a LOT of tourism buses up front.  There wasn't a wait at the door and we were able to get a view every where we went, so all was good.

And the best part of the Alaska SeaLife Center...

Puffins!

Oh, the puffins!  How cute were they!  I don't think I'd ever heard of puffins before getting on the Google before our honeymoon.  And then I just couldn't get enough...

tufted puffin

shy puffin

bathing puffin

horned puffin

two puffins

close-up puffin

Oh for cute!  I just want to squish their cheeks!  There were some other birds in their area, which, by the way, was open to people; if you were lucky you could probably touch one!  There was a puffin just a couple feet away from Jeff an a, well, not sure what it is, but this was just a couple feet away from me:

Finally Jeff was able to drag me out of the seabird area and we checked out the rest of the center (after using antibacterial hand stuff, anyway...)

do you have any idea how hard it is to photograph an octopus?

Seward is a very cute town, and the area near the SeaLife Center seemed based around the tourist trade.  But still cute!!  It's another one of those towns whose size is limited by the water and the mountains.  It seemed like the mountains grew right out of the water!

Seward is really a cute town.  One I would like to be able to visit more frequently than once every 35 years. But the population is less than 3000, and I didn't see a Target store anywhere...  so I don't think I could live there.  But man, I would like to visit again...

See the full itinerary here...