Alaska--July 2014

Early, early July 4 my friend Renae and I left for a seven-day cruise to SE Alaska. I cannot say enough about how wonderful a trip it was. I would definitely go again in a few years either another cruise or a land tour. We stopped at four ports and the variety of excursions was amazing which means I could go back and have an almost totally different trip. Below are a few pictures from the trip. And my advice if you ever  have the chance definitely do Alaska. It should be on everyone's bucket list.

 

Itinerary: Dallas to Denver to Vancouver. Got on the boat in Vancouver. Sailed the Inside Passage, Ketchikan, Icy Strait Point, Juneau, Skagway, Hubbard Glacier, Seward. We got off the boat in Seward and then took a train to Anchorage. From Anchorage and then flew to Seattle and back to Dallas. It was 24 hours from off the boat to bed in Dallas!

 

As we flew from Denver to Vancouver we saw three mountains. A couple of passengers were saying they were Hood, St. Helens, and Ranier. If they were correct this is Mt. Ranier.

 

 

I have about 100 pictures of water trying to get a decent picture of the whales we saw. You can kind of make out the whale tail in this picture. We were surprised how much it rains in Alaska. In Ketchikan the tour guide kept exclaiming what a nice day we had there while we were thinking that is was cold and overcast. He was just glad it wasn't raining.

 





The picture above is of a pod of orca whales we saw on a whale tour in Juneau. On that excursion we saw a whale swimming alone, a pod of 7 or 8 of which one did a complete breach and at one point the rest did a maneuver called bubble feeding. It ended with this pod of two or three killer whales. The tour guides said they never see so much activity on the tour. I'm just skeptical enough to wonder if that was a comment to get bigger tips!

 

The "big three" to see in AK are whales, bears, and eagles. We did see all three although I missed a picture of the bear as we were in a moving train and my one picture of an eagle in the nest is quite blurry.

 

We know Klopfenstein literally means "pounding stone" and the supposedly the origin of the name comes from a little orphan boy found on a beach pounding stones together so the townspeople called him Klopfenstein. (Dad, you should maybe post the real story as I may be mistaken on some of those details.) At Icy Strait Point the beach was very rocky, and my natural inclination as a Klopfenstein was to pick up two stones and start pounding.



 

 



 



Also at Icy Strait Point we had lesson in cooking salmon. It ended with going outside to grill salmon and halibut. It was very good. You'll notice the jackets. We layered quite a bit of clothing as it was often rather chilly--most days in the 60s. We spent very little time on deck because of the cool temps and rain.

 One of my very favorite parts of the trip was seeing the glaciers. This first picture is of the Mendenhall Glacier outside Juneau. The many colors were just amazing. The ice absorbs all colors except blue and then there is a lot of dirt in the glaciers and floating ice chunks. (Yes, we both decided we needed another jacket so imagine when we realized we both had picked out the same jacket! At least we were easy to find each other!)

 

This is the Hubbard Glacier. We were to be out on deck at 7:00 a.m. to sail up to it. Our first thought was "this is what we got up early for????" Then we were told we were still miles away. When it appeared to be getting pretty big we were still four miles out. We got to within a half mile. This picture doesn't make you realize this is 33 stories tall!!! We saw and heard huge chunks breaking off of it. It was rather weird to be sailing in closer and closer with all these large chunks of ice floating around the boat as well. Not scary, just weird.

 

 

My pictures certainly do not do justice to the scenery. We were on a couple of trains and busses to various excursion destinations. I was just amazed with the scenery all the time. Even sailing the first day up the Inside Passage was just beautiful scenery.

 

 

As I said this trip was just amazing. I know several of you have done Alaska. Let's hear about your memories.