Skagway,Alaska

Our last major stop was Skagway. After leaving our cruise ship we had to board a Ferry which took us on a 30 minute trip over to the town of Haines.

We took a van for a short trip up to the lake. We were on a road that followed along this river that feeds into the lake. There is a gate apparatus across this river so that the salmon can be counted.

These pictures can't even begin to describe how beautiful, breath-taking, quiet, serene and awe-inspiring the scenery was.

This is Lake Chilkoot. The only people on this lake were our two fishing boats and a group of kayakers. It was misting and overcast; perfect for fishing.

Lake Chilkoot is also a bald eagle preserve and we were surrounded by eagles in the tall pine trees. The brown and white one is a young eagle. They would be on branches right above us, watching us.

Bruce first caught a Dolly Verden. We had barely started casting when he caught this one. Then it took us a little longer to get the fish to wake up and notice. Lures only, no live bait allowed on the lake.

Then Bruce caught a sock-eye salmon. Beautiful catch, put up a good fight. I, on the other hand didn't have one bite all day. So right before we got ready to leave Bruce hooked another salmon and I got to bring it in.

This was the most "Alaska" like thing we did. I totally enjoyed relaxing and throwing in the fishing line. The whole time we were there we just couldn't stop looking around at the scenery.

After fishing we headed into the town of Skagway. I think this was my favorite town because it looked the most authentic. It was a very small town, 4 blocks wide and 6 blocks long. The sidewalks were wooden planks.

We went into this small shopping courtyard and I got to hang with my best bud, Sarah. Yep, she has her own store there in Skagway. Lots of totem poles around also. The crafts stores are full of indian crafts. One store had taken a reindeer antler and carved it into an eagle.

We were most excited about Skagway because two young women from our church were there working for the summer. A church member family lives in Skagway and hires students from BYU Idaho to work in their stores for the summer. It was so exciting to see Nicole and Mallory. They took us to one of their favorite restaurants, Norther Lights Pizza, to have lunch. The calzone was definitely the best I've had. It was fun to see they were having a great time on this adventure. I think they enjoyed seeing someone from Indiana too.

They took us down the street and showed us where they worked most of the time. The people they worked for own the only Radio Shack around, plus a clothing store, the ice cream shop and two other stores. They even bought us some ice cream and fudge.

We didn't get to meet Mallory's boyfriend that day. He wasn't working. After we got back home we found out he proposed to her. So exciting for them.

After a couple of hours with them we had to say goodbye and head back to the ship. Right next to the ship dock is the train. Luckily we canceled our train trip and went fishing instead, because the day we were there the train broke down. Great for us, otherwise we would of missed Lake Chilkoot. This was a great vacation for us and we are thankful we had the opportunity to go.

Juneau, Alaska 2010

Overnight we cruised, so when we woke up the next morning our cruise ship was already in Tracy Arm Fjord. The cruise ships can only go so far into the Fjords and then they have to turn around and go back. But not us. Bruce found out they had a tour that morning to go to the glaciers, so we got onto a little boat, holds about 100, from our cruise ship and we took off further up the Fjord.

This was Bruce's favorite vantage point, up on the top deck with an unobstructed view.

There were waterfalls everywhere and beautiful scenery.

There were lots of icebergs we had to navigate around, some of them really blue. The pilot would get us as close as he dared. We went to the South Sawyer Glacier first and stayed there for about a half hour and yes we got to see the glacier "calve", which means large chunks of it broke off and fell into the water. Even the naturalist said she hadn't seen that happen since she had been working there.

Then we went down a different arm of the fjord and saw the North Sawyer Glacier, which was larger thanthe south one. We also saw it "calve." That made Bruce's day.

We also saw harbor seals laying on the icebergs and lots of birds. I was handling this boat trip really well because the water is so calm in the fjord. Then I got the bad news. We had a 3 hour trip back to Juneau to meet up with our ship. I didn't know that before we got on this boat. Well, this boat was going pretty fast which wasn't too bad, but then someone spotted a whale and so we had to slowly circle the area for quite a while to find the whale. It was really exciting though to see whales.

We got back to the cruise ship and just had time to grab a bite to eat and then we boarded a shuttle bus to go to the dog sled camp. The day before Bruce had told me he thought he saw Dick Smothers (The Smothers Brothers TV Show in the 70s). I told him that was crazy, but sure enough Dick Smothers was sitting right across the aisle on the bus. The bus went up into the mountains on a one-lane road. The bus driver had to radio ahead at specific locations because if she met another vehicle one of them was going to have to back up and she said it wouldn't be her.

We got to ride on a sled and be pulled by some of the sled dogs from the camp. An interesting tidbit -the dogs learn to do their "doodie" while on the move. No stopping for anything.

These are the sleds they use to train the dogs in the summer. They are made of aluminum so they aren't too heavy to pull and they have a steering wheel and a brake.

This dog sled camp was a group of 4 women and over 100 dogs. They train all year long. They do have electricity and some plumbing.

The best part of the whole trip was getting to play with the new puppies before we left. They have the biggest feet. SOOOO DARN CUTE!

Ketchikan, Alaska

Ketchikan, Alaska - July 2010

This was one of the trips I would dream about taking, so when Bruce got invited to speak at a convention in Vancouver, I jumped at the chance to go on this cruise while we were up there. Even though I knew the chances of me getting sea sick were very high, I was willing to take that chance for this once in a life time experience. This is a picture of our Princess Sapphire ship (Bruce took it during his plane flight). It holds 2800 passengers, but it never felt like there were that many people on board.

Ketchikan was our first stop after an evening of cruising. The towns in Alaska are long and skinny right on the coastline. Lots of small fishing boats out at sea.

This day was bright and sunny and 65 degrees. The locals said they only get about 5 days of sunshine in the summer and we were very lucky to get such great weather. Who knew that Alaska is one giant rain forest.

We took a bus to an ATV Outfitters company. We were given a safety lesson and outfitted with rain gear and helmets. Yes we wore the rain gear because it got really dusty on the trails. We were on old logging trails up in the mountains.

Bruce drove the first half of the trip and this was the scenery at the top where we took a break and changed drivers. It was a lot of fun driving. There are waterfalls everywhere.

This plant is called "Devils Club" because it is covered with spikes. They say bears love to use them for bedding because their fur protects them from the spikes and predators won't come near them because they will get poked by the plants.

After our ATV trek we asked one of the locals for a good place to get a burger and they recommended the Burger Queen which was only about 4 blocks away from the ship. Just a tiny little place but great burgers and excellent shakes. Bruce had raspberry and I had chocolate.

Since the weather was so nice Bruce wanted to take a flight seeing tour. Well, I had already been on 2 planes and had had my fill of being in the air so I told him to go by himself and I would find something else to do - like shopping. His flight took him over the Misty Fjord and they even landed on the lake for photo ops.

Meanwhile, I found Creek Street which is THE place to go shopping there. All these shops are built over this creek. You can stand on the bridges and watch the salmon swim up stream. Beautiful artwork by local Indians and Eskimos. I bought Bruce an ULU pocketknife. You can get them in many, many sizes.

We had to be back on board the ship by 4:00 and as our ship left dock, we were only gone about 30 minutes and the wind and clouds came in and the temperature dropped 20 degrees. So much for warm weather.