I want YOU

Happy 3rd Birthday, Jackson!

Alaska VIII - Inside passage and home

Thursday we navigated the inland passage. As Diane and I were working out on the stern of the ship a pod of dolphins swam with the ship. They looked like they were having a lot of fun.

At Dinner we gave thank you cards and chocolate to our waiters, and gave them envelopes with our tips.

Late that night our ship arrived at Port in Vancouver, Canada. It is cheaper to dock in foreign ports than American ports.

We came through customs to leave the port. We rode in buses down to Seattle. We drove through a lot of Vancouver to get there.

We saw lumber mills that used the river for transport.

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Our bus went through the border crossing. We had to get off the bus and run our bags through X-Rays. No passport stamp, though. We had a bathroom stop at a gas station for two buses at a place called something like Port Aesbestos. There was only one women's toilet. That was exciting.

We drove through a town called Mt. Vernon. It was green, pastoral and had big mountains behind it. I could see myself living somewhere like that. It was about an hour north of Seattle.

We drove by the space needle in Seattle.

We had a fairly long wait at the airport. We watched Anne of Green Gables part two on my I-Pod.

Alaska VII - Ketchikan

We used our sea pass (which doubles as a room key, boat boarding pass and credit card) to buy tickets to the lumberjack show. We looked in the shops, including the Christmas store. Santa was there. They sold books there about native Alaskans, as endorced by Sarah Palin.

It rained all day, so it was nice that the lumberjack show seating was covered and heated.

The lumberjack show was loud. Fortunately for me, I wore my ear plugs the entire trip, so I was fine. My favorite lumber jack was Bryce (second from the left). He had a cochlear implant. They divided the competition into the Canadian Camp (Plaid) and American (Grey shirts). Our half of the bleachers cheered for the Americans and boo-ed the Canadians. They climbed poles, ran across logs, chopped things and....

tried to spin each other off of the log in the water.

We were good at finding tourist information booths, and found a city map that showed us where a rainforest hike was across town. We walked over to it and had great views of the city. We watched sea planes land and take off.


We didn't see any ewolks. We walked about 6 miles total.

I liked the doors on this fishing boat.

We went to the "Piano Man" production show. It was put on by the cruise ship's singers and dancers. It was interesting seeing how they changed costumes, and how the sets kept changing. Good thing the boat was fairly steady.

Alaska Part VI: Icy Strait Point

Icy Strait Point was a small area that used to be a fish processing plant. A mile off of the point is a town called Hoonah, which is a small fishing village. The ship set anchor off shore and they sent the ships tender, or smaller service ships to relay people on to shore. People ride a zip line from the top of the hill beyond, down to the point. We walked around and watched people as they came down the zip line. The whole day the weather was at the verge of rain, but it held off until we returned to the ship.

We went hunting for rocks on the beach. We saw the steam from Whales from shore.



They had a path that worked its way around the coast, then through the rain forest. They had a campfire lit with picnic tables around it, and two totem poles. I could tell by the names in the small cemetery there, that there were many native Alaskans who lived in the area.

We enjoyed the walk through the rain forest. We found cool mushrooms, a squirrel and trees with weird scales for bark. We met up with our waiter from Turkey, Ozgur Isik. He was sweat on Diane. We did the rain forest walk with him, then walked the mile into the town of Hoonah.

We walked through another cemetery. It was a cute little fishing town. Ozgur bought us icecream at one of the stores. He is from Istanbul and has a degree in travel and tourism. One of his dissertation papers was on Hagia Soffia, the large church there, that I studied in school.

Hagia Sofia, Instanbul, Turkey.

Thimble berries in the foreground (like rasberries). I ate a few.

We walked back to the dock, and got Ozgur back a little late. We hope he didn't get in too much trouble.

The evening show was the comedy and music of John Joseph and Johnny B--a little border line but pretty funny.

Alaska Part V - Skagway

Skagway is a small town that served as the gateway to the Yukon during the gold rush. People would make a crazy trek over White Pass with the required year of supplies to go look for gold. The only ones that really got rich were those who found claims early on, or who sold supplies. The border between Canada and Alaska is at the summit of White Pass.

Some groups drove over the pass in style...


Some rode on a cool narrow guage train on the original tracks from the gold rush era....




We rode in a small tour bus which allowed us to stop at points along the way to take pictures.








We saw mountain sheep. They were a bright white to blend in with snow. The tour guide pointed out large fault lines.





We crossed over into Canada and saw Summit Lake in the Tourment Valley. The rocks made it difficult to trek over in summer. Part of the lake is light-colored because it is glacier-fed. The other is darker because it was fresh water fed.



On the ride back, our driver recited two poems - The Cremation of Sam McGee and another.

We stopped by the cemetery where many of the gold rushers were buried. There wasn't much top soil above bedrock, so if they couldn't get the grave deep enough, they built fences around the graves to keep the animals out.

Downtown was neat. This is Broadway, the main street. It was such a nice day. It was in the 7os. We were so furtunate with the weather. The weeks proceeding our trip were rain-filled.

The Red Onion is the main saloon in town that was around during the goldrush.

There was a Sarah Palin store.

I waited for the train to come back. It is like the Chama train, except that it didn't look like it was coal-fed.

Alaska Part IV: Juneau

This was the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of 9/11. While we were at breakfast, the ship captain spoke and we all observed a moment of silence.

We walked around town (which is tiny) before our tour. It is also an isolated place. You can't drive into Juneau. The airport is in a neighboring town.

We were driven out to the Mendenhall Glacier. It feeds into a lake. It is receeding.

The lake was full of glacier chunks.

Running short on time, I ran down the trail to the waterfall next to the glacier and back. It was impressive. Appearantly, there was a bear nearby, but I didn't see it. Diane, who was in a later group was not able to walk to the waterfall because the bear was in the path.

I had a few minutes to spare, so I walked down this elevated path over the rivers and was able to see some of the spawning salmon. They had turned red, which means that they had made their final run up the river and were near death. The bears won't eat the fish when they turn red because the meat isn't as good.

After, I rode in a speed boat to go look for whales. We embarked at Auke Bay Harbour (above). Our ship captain was very young. He had been in boats all of his life. His father was the captain of one of the big ferry boats in town.

We saw humped back whales (above) and even an Orka, which are more rarely seen.

The whales are hard to spot. They didn't spend much time out of the water. They can hold their breath underwater for 10 minutes. The pictures above have been cropped and cropped, but were really taken from very far away.

The state capital building was quite understated. It had no grounds and was hidden behind a larger commercial building.

Anything in the flat lands is actually the mine tailings at one point, and new buildings are constructed on top such as the buildings in the picture above.

Abandoned dock near the Alaska Coast Guard headquarters in Anchorage.

I went to the Sunday "interfaith" service provided by fun for less. Steve Johnson, who was at our dinner table spoke. His dad spoke on 9/11. Elvis sang How Great Thou Art.

Alaska Part III - The Hubbard Glacier

The second day on the boat was a day at sea. Diane and I went to the exercize room at the bow of the ship and worked out. We liked the row machines. We ate breakfast in the Windjammer Cafe - The ships 24 hr buffet, then went to the Fun For Less welcome meeting at the Colony Club. It was designed like an old ship and the wood smelled like a deep smoked wood. They had drawings and then Carey Summer did a variety magic show. He did a lot of the same gags as Ron Lucas in the Buffalo Billy show we had recorded on VHS and watched over and over as kids, including the song "The Auctioneer".

That afternoon, they navigated the ship into the Yukatat Bay where the captain navigated the ship through the floating chunks of glacier and pulled our large ship fairly close to the glacier edge.

The glacier is a tidewater glacier, which means that it empties into the ocean. The mouth is over 6 miles wide. They spun the ship around 360 degrees so that everyone could see. I was out on the bow of the ship. It was cold, and there were tons of people lining the edges. I found a warm air exhaust grill and waited against it to keep warm until the ship spun around and I could see.

When glacier chunks break off at the base it is called calving. It sounds like thunder. I had fun watching for the chunks to break off.

Pulling out, they made an announcement that bears had been spotted on the port bow at the mouth of the bay. We waited 45 minutes in the Solarium (Green house-like space with a pool and lots of fake plants) in deck chairs waiting for it. They spotted something moving and we all crowded at the window to take pictures. The dark spot started moving, and then started doing jumping jacks. It was a crew member dressed in a bear suit and white tennis shoes.

They brought a chunk of ice up to the top deck and I was able to have my picture taken with said bear.

After dinner, we went to the 9:00 Temptations Tribute show. Those guys had so much energy. It was fun.