Sunday afternoon Dave and I flew out of Tucson. Everything went smoothly and on time. Due to long layovers I had plenty of time to
roam the various airports I was in. I
actually loved the Sea-Tac airport-I had
some amazing chicken basil pesto pizza there and ate it in front of their huge picture
window facing the runway. We got into our hotel in Anchorage around 2 in
the morning and it was still light outside- weird!
On Monday we went back to the airport to
catch our bus to Whittier. It was cold
and rainy, as was much of our trip. We
made a couple of scenic stops and also stopped at the Wildlife center. My favorite thing there was the baby moose-
if you are ever sad look at a you-tube video of baby moose running around and
it will make you feel better. They were
so cute! When we got to the cruise ship
terminal there was an icy downpour going on.
Dave quickly unloaded our luggage into a huge bin with hundreds of other
suitcases, then we raced into the building to wait in line to get checked
in. When we finally got to the front of
the line, we were informed that we needed to show our passports or they would
not let us on the ship. Sadly, Dave’s
passport was in his luggage and his luggage was…? I ran outside to see if I could find his bag
but it had already been taken away. The baggage
handlers had just gone to dinner so we were out of luck for a while. We sat on the side and waited and waited. Dave felt bad but who would have known that
we needed our passport in the US! Finally
we got word that they had found two of our three bags. Since I was checked in I could go on the ship
and look for Dave’s passport so I ran through
the downpour to the ship, but of course
the one missing bag was the one with the passport. They couldn’t find the third bag anywhere. Luckily, my sister Anona who was already on
board found the missing bag in the hall outside our room, found the passport,
and was able to bring it to me. Phew!
That night we were out in the open sea and it was wild! The waves were so bad that our closet door
kept slamming open, stuff was rolling around, and Dave almost got rolled out of
bed. No one slept well and all the men
were queasy in the morning. The women
didn’t have much sympathy. After a nice
breakfast we went to watch a cooking demo by some of the specialist chefs. We spent a nice lazy day at sea, dressed up
for dinner and got a nice group picture.
Wednesday we were at Icy Point Strait. They had a little Salmon Packing Museum and a forest trail which was really cool. I couldn't believe how lush and green the forest was and how big the plants were! Their growing season must be short but intense! We saw several bald eagles there. That night we decided to pretend we were extroverts. We went to a Family Feud game show activity and I got called up to participate. After that we needed food since it had been at least two hours since we had last eaten so we hit up the crepe bar- yum! Anona wanted to do karaoke so we went to the karaoke lounge and sang a few songs pretty terribly. I dragged Dave up and we sang "If I had a Million Dollars" together; Dave's first time karaokeing in public! For the rest of the trip whenever he saw Dave around the ship the karaoke manager pestered Dave to come back and compete in the Karaoke contest. Anona and I noticed that he didn't ask us :)
Thursday we were in Juneau for just a couple hours. We planned on going to the Mendenhall glacier visitor center, but our taxi driver gave us some sketchy directions on how to hike to the glacial ice caves, so on a whim we decided to try that instead. It was an intense 4 mile hike each way. the last half of the trail was a lot of sheer rock faces, some rock climbing, and near the glacier, mud-covered slick ice. We all got a little battered and bruised and my dad seriously twisted his foot- it was black and blue for the rest of the week. We finally made it to the ice cave, but we had literally only minutes to look around because we were worried about getting back to the ship in time. On the way back we were all dying from the intensity of the hike but getting left behind is a powerful motivator so we booked it back down the trail and made it back to the ship with 15 minutes to spare!
On Friday we were in Skagway. Dave and I did an all-day excursion, riding a bus all the way up to the Yukon, then taking the White Pass train back down to Skagway. In the Yukon we stopped at a little place called Carcross where we had lunch and got to see sled dogs and puppies. The dogs are surprisingly small! The train ride back was nice with a ton of beautiful scenery. It follows the pass the miners going to the Yukon would use but the terrain was so rugged that it was hard to imagine people and pack animals struggling up and down before the train was built.
Saturday we were in Ketchikan. The weather was rainy as it was for much of our trip. We had a float plane excursion planned but I wondered if the weather would affect our plans. Well, apparently pilots in Alaska don't stop flying for much of anything. We got on the float plane and had an aerial tour of Misty Fjords. It was cool to see our cruise ship from the air, and Misty Fjords was beautiful with the clouds, lakes, and mountains. Our pilot flew up around a huge waterfall, and landed us on a mountain lake. On the way back we even spotted a mama black bear with three cubs in one of the mountain meadows! See if you can spot the tiny black specks in one of the pictures.
As soon as we got back to Ketchikan we raced over to the lumberjack show since we were running late. It was actually a pretty impressive demonstration of lumberjack skills and very entertaining. I especially loved the log-rolling competition -they have amazing balance!
Sunday was our last day at sea, and it was pretty choppy again with 15 foot swells. We had some fun looking at all of our pictures together and decided that we had had a pretty great Alaska experience!
Thursday we were in Juneau for just a couple hours. We planned on going to the Mendenhall glacier visitor center, but our taxi driver gave us some sketchy directions on how to hike to the glacial ice caves, so on a whim we decided to try that instead. It was an intense 4 mile hike each way. the last half of the trail was a lot of sheer rock faces, some rock climbing, and near the glacier, mud-covered slick ice. We all got a little battered and bruised and my dad seriously twisted his foot- it was black and blue for the rest of the week. We finally made it to the ice cave, but we had literally only minutes to look around because we were worried about getting back to the ship in time. On the way back we were all dying from the intensity of the hike but getting left behind is a powerful motivator so we booked it back down the trail and made it back to the ship with 15 minutes to spare!
Sasquatch sighting!
Waterfall coming down the inside of the ice cave
On Friday we were in Skagway. Dave and I did an all-day excursion, riding a bus all the way up to the Yukon, then taking the White Pass train back down to Skagway. In the Yukon we stopped at a little place called Carcross where we had lunch and got to see sled dogs and puppies. The dogs are surprisingly small! The train ride back was nice with a ton of beautiful scenery. It follows the pass the miners going to the Yukon would use but the terrain was so rugged that it was hard to imagine people and pack animals struggling up and down before the train was built. Saturday we were in Ketchikan. The weather was rainy as it was for much of our trip. We had a float plane excursion planned but I wondered if the weather would affect our plans. Well, apparently pilots in Alaska don't stop flying for much of anything. We got on the float plane and had an aerial tour of Misty Fjords. It was cool to see our cruise ship from the air, and Misty Fjords was beautiful with the clouds, lakes, and mountains. Our pilot flew up around a huge waterfall, and landed us on a mountain lake. On the way back we even spotted a mama black bear with three cubs in one of the mountain meadows! See if you can spot the tiny black specks in one of the pictures.
As soon as we got back to Ketchikan we raced over to the lumberjack show since we were running late. It was actually a pretty impressive demonstration of lumberjack skills and very entertaining. I especially loved the log-rolling competition -they have amazing balance!
Sunday was our last day at sea, and it was pretty choppy again with 15 foot swells. We had some fun looking at all of our pictures together and decided that we had had a pretty great Alaska experience!
