6/19 and 20 Home

We arrived in Vancouver and made our way to the airport by bus.  We had to say good-bye to Kelly.  She is staying over in Vancouver and flying back to Tampa the next day.  We were able to clear customs at the airport so that we didn't have the hassle of doing so when we got to Minneapolis.  We spent most of the day in airports and didn't have a lot of time to post the blogs so I am posting this morning from home.  We got into Hartford last night and home about 12:25 AM.  We slept in a tiny bit this morning and am now doing laundry (Dave is mowing the hayfield that used to be our lawn).  We had a wonderful trip, but it is sure nice to be home.

By the way, life is really unfair!  Dave lost a half a pound on the trip while I gained two!  I'm sure it was the Princess Love Boat dessert I had almost every night after dinner!  Ah, well, I will be working on losing my love handles from the love boat in the next couple of weeks!

6/18/13 A day at sea

      

Today is a day at sea.  We will arrive in Vancouver tomorrow morning and then fly home via Minneapolis and Hartford.  We are again having sunny weather, although cool on the deck.  After breakfast this morning, we came back to our cabin to pack.  We will put our cases in the hallway before bed and they will take care of transferring them to the airport tomorrow.  At 10 AM, we watched the head chef and head maitre de give a cooking demonstration and then had a tour of the galley.  It was an amazing place!  They prepare 850 pounds of fish, 2000 portions of salad, 900 pounds of pasta, 5000 assorted pastries, and, just for Lana, 8 gallons of mayonnaise each day!  After lunch, I signed up to walk a 5 K cancer walk out on the promenade deck.  It took 8 times around to make the 5 K.  It was breezy and chilly on one side of the ship and warm and sunny on the other.  The bonus of taking the walk was that I saw an otter quite near the ship and also a whale come to the surface (of course, I didn’t have the camera with me!).  We went for high tea this afternoon and now I am catching up on the blog and relaxing until dinner.  Our waiter told us to bring cameras tonight as they will be parading with baked Alaska tonight.  We will go to a musical this evening and then get some sleep before getting to dock something early tomorrow morning.  This has been an interesting experience.  While we have enjoyed the ship and being pampered, I think the shore excursions were our favorites.  Most of the people onboard do not look like they enjoy the activity and we are not ones to just sit around.  It was a great way to see Alaska and all of its beauty, but I don’t think there is any chance we will become “cruisers’.

6/17 Ketchikan

We had a later breakfast this morning as we didn’t dock in Ketchikan until 9:30.  We decided at the last minute to take a tour called Lighthouse, Totems, and Eagles.  It was very good – a boat trip out on the water where we saw lots of eagle nests, quite a number of eagles both flying and in the nests.  We passed Totem state park with a collection of totem poles.  We saw a few seals – one was quite close hauled up on the rocks.  We went out to a lighthouse on a small island and cruised past.  On the way back, we saw more seals, a mink and a bear on the shore – a very good trip, indeed!  We came back to the dock and walked around town poking into a few shops and then got back on board just in time for dinner.  We were entertained by the comic/magician again and again had some good laughs and enjoyed the music.  Tonight we have to move our clocks forward an hour as we will be crossing from Alaska into Canada during the night.

6/16/13 Juneau

     

Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there!  Dave LOVED the card and I had picked up two brand-new Denali quarters for him  when we were at Mt. McKinley.  He was surprised.  We got up extra early this morning to have breakfast as we have a tour today.  We had a fantastic bus driver – very entertaining!  We are in Juneau, which is a land locked city.  There are 40 miles of road here, but everything dead ends.  The only way out is by plane or boat.  We visited Mendenhall Glacier, which has receded greatly over the years, but is still a gorgeous glacier.  Next to it was a huge waterfall!  There were large icebergs floating in the lake under the glacier.  Some of the wildflowers were in bloom and we feasted our eyes on lupine and large buttercups.  We drove to a rainforest garden.  There were lots of things in bloom there including wild irises.  The walking path through the gardens and forest was very nice and we were treated to orange/cinnamon tea and muffins.  We drove to the Alaska State Museum and enjoyed the early Eskimo exhibits, along with informational exhibits on totems, fishing and gold mining.  We got dropped off in town to walk around a few of the shops and then John and Kelly stayed to ride the tram to the top of the mountain, while Dave, Lana and I walked back to the ship.  Again, we lucked out with the weather: hot and sunny!  We must be living right as the weather has been so much better than we expected it to be.  We went to a slide show/lection by Libby Riddles.  She was the first woman to win the Iditerod.  She had great stories about her dogs and the sport of mushing.  I have been sitting on our balcony writing today’s entry and watching eagles soar overhead – life is hard.  We just cast off and are moving out of the bay – I will keep my eyes on the water – still looking for whales, otters, seals, etc.  After dinner this evening, we went to see a comic/musician in the theatre.  He was fantastic – very funny with a wonderful singling voice while he strummed the guitar.  We then went to the Universe Lounge for a stage show set is New Orleans – it also was very good.

6/15/13 Skagway

      

We had an early breakfast and then went into town to do a bit of shopping.  The town is quite small so we had an easy walk all around.  The most interesting building is sided completely in driftwood (see photos).  We saw more totems here than we have been seeing.  Some of them are quite intricate.  We stopped at the library to use their free wi-fi for posting the blog.  I was able to get 2 days on, but the reception got funky and I was not able to get yesterday’s posted. We walked back to the ship for lunch.  Dave took a nap and I read for a bit and then I walked back into town.  I had forgotten to bring a Father’s Day card with me for tomorrow.  I didn’t find a card specifically for Father’s Day, but I did find a perfect pun card for Dave.  It says “Did Juneau I love you?”  - the perfect card!  Kelly was on another adventure today.  She had a helicopter ride to a glacier and then was able to ride and drive a dog sled.  She said she had a wonderful time and took some cute pictures of the pups.  We had another wonderful dinner – surf and turf tonight and then went to see an illusion show.  We enjoyed the show and then walked to the other end of the ship to watch the pianist again.  The ship was beginning to move so we went out on deck and watch the ship leave Skagway.  The mountains were beautiful, the sun was low in the sky, and the moon was out.  It was still pleasant and warm at 9:30 at night.  We have been so incredibly lucky with the weather!  We have had above average temperatures and mostly sunny days.  It is supposed to be colder in Juneau so we will see what tomorrow brings.

6/14

We woke up this morning just as we were entering Glacier Bay.  The views are magnificent!  We saw a number of whales, including a minke whale, seals, sea lions, and porpoises.  It was great fun to watch the porpoises frolicking and the seals riding the wake of the ship.  We had breakfast this morning with a young couple from CO and an older couple originally from England, but now from Georgia.  They were very interesting and told tales of being young children during the blitz.  They have been married 56 years.  We met another couple the other day, who have been married for 70 years!  We made our way up the bay until we reached Margerie Glacier.  It is so enormous and impressive.  We were lucky to first of all, see it clearly – it is a lovely, sunny day and secondly, to see the glacier calf.  Huge chunks of ice fall into the water accompanied by large noises, which sound a bit like thunder.  Hopefully, we got some good shots with the camera.  We had a lovely afternoon walking around the promenade and lido decks, looking for whales and otters and taking pictures of the magnificent scenery.  We had a lovely dinner last night and then went to hear a pianist accompanied by a small group of musicians.  They played classical, rock and roll, boogie-woogie and salsa – great fun!  Dave and I walked around a bit more and then I popped into the casino (tiny) and won $30 in 10 minutes!  We went back to the cabin and settled in for the night.  We have been sleeping like rocks.  It is probably a combination of the movement of the ship and the miles of walking we put on each day.  We will be stopping in Skagway tomorrow and hope to find a hot-spot to up-load the blog.  They have satellite wi-fi onboard, but it costs and arm and a leg!

We are sitting outside the library in Skagway and trying to post the blog.  I was able to get two days on, but am having trouble with this one so I will try again when we get to a different port tomorrow.

6/13/13

We woke up this morning to cold temps and gray skies.  We showered (the water pressure in so great, I almost gave myself a concussion while washing my hair!), dressed and met for breakfast.  Our table was right next to a window and as we were eating, Dave spotted porpoises playing not too fair from the ship – that was so cool!  Dave and I took a few turns around the deck and then split up to attend different events.  Dave took in a lecture about the history and points of interest in our three port calls: Skagway, Juneau and Ketchikan while I viewed a fruit and vegetable carving demonstration.  I met up with Dave, Lana and Kelly while wandering around trying to get the lay of the land, so to speak.  Dave had seen John at the lecture, but we haven’t seen him since.  We will all meet for lunch at 12:30 and exchange tales of our morning.  Our cabin steward, Vicente, graciously removed the panel between our balcony and Lana and John’s balcony.  Now, we will all (with an extra chair for Kelly) be able to sit (when it warms up a bit) and enjoy the views.

Lana and Kelly did a line dancing class this morning – a good way to get heated up on the ship.  We had a lovely lunch and then went to a lecture by the ship’s naturalist on otters, orcas and humpback whales.  We went back to our cabins for a bit and then donned our winter clothes so we could stand outside and view the glacier.  While we were entering the inlet, we saw a whale (or at least his tail) and then noticed some icebergs floating by.  Some of them were very blue (it is because they reflect blue light) and some had seals or Stellar sea lions lying on them.  The glacier was worth the wait in the cold.  Hubbard Glacier on Yakutat Bay is huge!  We had great views from the promenade deck and when we went back to warm up, we had equally good views from our cabin.  We will dress for dinner shortly and then we are planning to see a magic/comedy show. 

Dinner was excellent as usual and afterwards we had our pictures taken.  We then went to the lounge where we enjoyed the magic/comedy show.  He was quite good and we had a few laughs as well.  Kelly was going to check out another show, but we were tired and went back to the cabin.