Spring Cleaning

I asked Benjamin to put his shoes away, and he said, "Oh, Mommy!  Today's spring cleaning day in the sand box, and that's a big job, so I'm gonna keep workin' on that first."  I let him know that he actually needed to put away his shoes first, and then do his "spring cleaning."  He's practicing his negotiating already.

Juneau - Whale Watching and the Mendenhall Glacier

After enjoying the Tracy Arm Fjord, we felt like we had already enjoyed a full day of seeing Alaska, but we went to Juneau instead of being done with the day.  It was raining in Juneau, by the way.  And I have to give Jeff credit one more time, because he had booked a whale watching trip for us in advance, and also independent of the cruise line.  This saved us money and gave us an experience much more suited to our personalities than the cruise line excursion would have given to us.  We met up with the little bus that would take us to our little boat, and there were 14 people on board.  Had we gone with the cruise line, we would have ridden a gigantic tour bus to our boat with something like 120 passengers.  We enjoyed chatting with the captain and assistant/naturalist on our boat, and we also enjoyed being on the lookout for whales so that our captain could take us all to go look at them

We didn't see any whales breeching, but we did see lots of them spouting, and we saw lots of tails.  The rain mostly stopped, and we were able to go outside the boat to get a better look.  I wondered if I would get seasick, but I didn't.  Being outside on the boat and feeling the breeze on my face was exhilarating.  Here's just one of our whale friends making his presence known.

I thought this was a good picture of Jeff.  I had the little camera with me on the boat, so he was taking far-away shots, and I was taking close-ups.

One whale's dorsal fin and another whale's tail.  There were a bunch of whale-watching boats out there…probably too many…but the law prohibits any of them from approaching a whale and getting too close to it.  (I forget how close - 100 feet, maybe.)

We were told that each tail's markings are like a fingerprint - completely unique - and that most of the whales in the area had been catalogued by their tail markings.  There was a binder full of pictures of tails on the boat.  If we got any photos that were good enough to see the tail markings, we could look up the whale and its name, habits, etc., in the binder.  We didn't get any, but it was still interesting.

The sea lions were fun to watch, too.  I learned the difference between seals and sea lions on this trip.  I'll spare you the details except to say that sea lions can be aggressive and you want to stay away from them.  They are the ones on the California coast.  They have been known to kill small children that they thought were threatening their breeding grounds.  Don't mess with them.

I mentioned the boat was small, right?  Here we are on the back of it.

I thought this was an even better picture of Jeff!

 

After our whale watching trip, which was over all too soon, we took a short bus ride to the visitor center at the Mendenhall glacier.  I don't even know what to say about it.  It wasn't my first glacier of the day, but it was still awe-inspiring.

You can see in this picture how big the waterfall is compared to the people who are going to see it, and then in the next picture, 

you can see how tiny the waterfall is compared to the glacier.  Even with this picture, it's hard to comprehend how huge the glacier is.

Our little bus brought us back to the bus stop, and then we had a nice walk back to our ship, which you can see here in the foreground with the sunset in the background.  The ship was huge.  It had room for 3500 passengers.

I liked this flower, so I had to take a picture of it.  Maybe because where we live, there's not enough water around for green things of any kind to grow next to the road, let alone wildflowers.  We couldn't get over how moist and beautiful Alaska was, even in the ordinary places.

Sunset in Juneau, with the mountains and our ship.  What a full and amazing day!!!

The Tracy Arm

Our second day in Alaska was our biggest day of all.  It's going to fill two posts.  We were especially excited about this one because we would wake up to gorgeous views of the Tracy Arm on our way to our destination…a close-up view of a glacier.  Again, thanks to Jeff's research, we knew that this was not a day to sleep in, and that we should arrange in advance to order room service.  Then we could enjoy the view from our room without interrupting it to go get breakfast.

And, the Tracy Arm Fjord did not disappoint!  We were in awe of waterfall after waterfall.  We were really surprised that Alaska reminded us of a cross between Yosemite and Hawaii.  The rocks and mountains were jagged and dramatic like Yosemite, but the waterfalls, moisture, and abundant rain reminded us of Hawaii.  It's something you have to see to truly appreciate, but here are a few pictures anyway.

Here's Jeff with his breakfast:  Eggs Benedict with crab cakes.  One benefit of the cruise that we enjoyed was that meals were included - whether at the buffet, the fancy dining room, or room service.  We mostly chose ordering from a menu at the fancy dining room, but the buffet was convenient a couple of times, and we enjoyed a couple of room service breakfasts, too.

This view shows where we were on the ship, taking photos from our balcony.

We aren't big souvenir buyers, but we did ask the kids what they wanted us to bring back.  Jonathan wanted a picture of a bald eagle, so we made sure to bring back as many of those as we could.

The water really was this color.  I always associate this color of sea water with a tropical climate, but the weather got colder and colder here, the closer we got to the glacier.

Yes, the waterfalls were everywhere.

And then there was the glacier.  Absolutely breathtaking.  When we studied glaciers in school, they didn't seem very exciting, but a real one in person took my breath away.

If your computer is big enough to zoom in on these photos, you'll see little black dots at the foot of the glacier.  The black things are seals on the ice.

We just couldn't get enough of it, but eventually it was time to turn around and go back out of Tracy Arm.  This is one of the big reasons we came to Alaska, and it was such a treat to get to see it.   Gorgeous.  And cold!

We went up to the top deck to get a picture...

and then we went down to the solarium to enjoy the view as we sailed away.  The solarium was an indoor pool area with lots and lots of lounge chairs.  We spent lots and lots of time there reading, sipping fancy drinks, and generally being lazy.  We definitely relaxed on this vacation.

It really looked like this!  We loved the Tracy Arm.  And, this was only the beginning of our day.  We were on our way to Juneau for the rest of it.

Day at Sea and Ketchikan

Our first day on the cruise was spent at sea.  A lot of the passengers were very experienced cruisers, so they knew how all of this worked (and most of them were retired,) but we were inexperienced, so it took us some time to wind down and figure out how to spend our time.  There was no lack of things to do - shows to attend, delicious food to eat, movies, live music, a spa, and our favorite was the solarium. It was a big, grownups-only, indoor pool area with a couple of hot tubs and lots of comfy chairs and chaise lounges facing the ocean.  We did lots of reading, dozing, and sipping fancy drinks here.  Jeff liked the hot tub a lot, but I think I only did that once.  We met a LOT of interesting people thanks to Jeff's outgoing personality.  Also, someone asked, so I should mention:  yes, the ship felt very clean.  The staff was very kind and conscientious, and you could always see people diligently cleaning…or offering hand sanitizer.

Here we are around dinnertime our first night.  I worried about not having formal things to wear on the fancy nights, both because I don't own anything formal and I didn't have much room to pack that type of thing, but it all turned out OK.

Our first morning, in Alaska, we woke up to these views outside our balcony.  We were in Ketchikan, and the town was just waking up.  I was really excited about this stop for a non-sightseeing reason:  We were going to visit my college friend, Sally, and her family.

Here's more of Ketchikan.

First thing in the morning, we went on a float plane trip.  I have to brag on Jeff a bit - he spent lots of time researching which excursions we should go on, and he booked them all separately from the cruise line, which meant that we got a much more personal experience each time, but spent a lot less money.  It was great.  There were six passengers on our little plane, and it's one of those experiences that can't be captured with words or photographs.  The takeoff and landing on the water were so smooth, and I wondered if I would be nervous (or sick) in that little plane, but I wasn't.  I should mention that Ketchikan gets rain on about 228 days per year, so of course it rained most of the day.  We didn't mind at all.  Our view was still amazing, but the pictures aren't so clear.

We flew over the Misty Fjords and saw one gorgeous panorama after another.  Of course, the pictures don't capture it, but we loved it.

The pilot landed in the water partway through our flight and let us get out of the plane and walk on the plane's pontoons.  Jeff did, of course, but I did not.  I took this picture from inside the plane.  Then I took a picture of him with his phone, and after I handed it back to him, as he went to put it in his pocket, he hit it on the step, and…plop!  It dropped into the water, never to be seen again.  Aside from one naughty word, Jeff was a very good sport about it.  We weren't planning on the expense, but it was nice that his word couldn't reach him when we were in ports and had cell service.

Here we are, back in the plane, sans cell phone.  See?  Good sport.  (We still had my dinosaur phone to keep us in emergency contact with the kids.  But, no face time for the times in port that we had cell service.)

And here we are after our ride, in front of our plane.

The latter part of our day is something I had been excited about for a long time!  It just so happens that a good friend of mine from college, Sally, lives in Ketchikan with her husband and kids.  We made arrangements to get together, so Sally picked us up after our plane ride and brought us to church where we joined (and met) her husband and kids.  Sally and I met on RA staff 20 years ago, and hadn't seen each other since graduation just over 18 years ago.  Still, it was wonderful to pick up where we left off with no trouble at all!  (The farther I get from college, the more thankful I am for that experience that provided me with so many friendships that are standing the test of time.)  Our visit with Sally's family was a really rich part of our trip, and we figured this was the most authentic look at the life of a real Alaskan family that we would see while we were on our vacation.  We had lunch (fresh halibut!) and a nice visit (although I wish it had been longer) and then it was time to go back to the ship and push on to our next destination.

20 years after meeting…I'm sure we've only improved…right?

Sally and her wonderful family:  Eric, Ella, and Marcus.  I do have to brag on them - they didn't know any of us, but were all so kind and welcoming, and the kids were friendly and helped us to feel at home.  I'm sure our kids and their kids would have gotten along well…and their kids could have taught our kids a thing or two!