Day 9: Sea World

Day 9: Sea World

This day we went in search of whales. To do this another boat ride was necessary. It wasn’t looking to good in the beginning, but these guides know what they’re doing and we did see some. Ironically, the whales were most visible near the shore line in relatively shallow water. Apparently that’s the easiest source of food.

The other animal we got a real good look at were sea lions.


Then on to one more huge glacier called the Medenhall Glacier.
We didn’t have much time here. Not nearly enough to get up close and just be able to observe the glacier. And seemingly not enough time to get a picture of myself next to the Medenhall Glacier sign. I did go and stand by the sign, but the picture was being taken by JW on the bus with tinted windows. I couldn’t tell if she had finished or not. I waited what I thought was adequate time, but apparently not.

That night the ship’s crew helped us to celebrated BM’s birthday. She was thrilled with all the attention.

Day 8: Waterfalls

Day 8: waterfalls

Days are starting to blur together. Ask any one of us what we did the day before and we have to stop and think.. Ask any one of us what we did two days ago and we all have to check our camera cards.

We all took a train ride which took us up and around mountains until we found ourselves in Canada. There was no indication that we were in Canada until our tour guide said we were. We might have been able to take an educated guess when we saw the US and Canadian flags, but until we hear it from the tour guide it’s not official

Running water was the theme of this ride. There were many falls and the river at the bottom was pretty fast moving. I’m not sure which was more impressive. The waterfalls and the river at the bottom, or the train ride itself, which included two tunnels, two trestle bridges and many opportunities to look out the window and see the river bed straight below. Needless to say some of us in the group did not participate in looking down and out the window.

This particular day we had time to kill between tours. DW and JB chose to hang out on the boat. DJ and JW chose to go in to the “town” and track down some exciting landmarks such as the post office and a bank. The rest rested until it came time for the second tour of the day.

The second tour was a boat ride. DC,RW,RJ,CJ all went chaperoned by BM and KC. I believe bald eagles were mainly the wildlife seen on this boat trip.

Day 7: Glacier Alley

Day 7: Glacier Alley
Today was the day that we went in to Glacier Bay and saw a lot of Glaciers. A park ranger was loaded on to the ship and gave a presentation in the morning and then narrated in the afternoon, via the intercom, what we were seeing as we cruised through the bay. We had box office seats for the narrated part of the trip thanks to the DC Clan. I don’t actually remember being invited to join them in their stateroom, but we all wound up there, and spent the afternoon there.

We cruised as far as we could go until we got to where two glaciers prevented us from going any further.

There was potential to see the one glacier calving, but while we heard it crack and moan and groan, we saw nothing fall off. According to our park ranger, that particular glacier is moving at the rate of 7 ft per day. The other glacier was dirty and ugly, but it was two miles wide at the end. Pretty both pretty impressive in different ways.

Then it was off to tea time featuring 10 different kinds of cupcakes to sample. The photo was really difficult to get because KC was having a difficult time getting her pinky finger in the proper position.

Day 6: Kickback day

Day 6: Kickback and relax day

We did very little our first day aboard the cruise ship other than eat meals. Not for a lack of something to do. The ship offers all kinds of presentations and demonstrations which are open to anyone to attend. But there were no tours that we had to be at a certain place at a certain time. I went with BW to a flower arrangement class. There we sat fascinated as the cruise flower arranger made an arrangement right there as we watched. We learned a few tricks of the trade as well, like leaving a little gap between flowers at the base of the arrangement so water can be added without disturbing the rest of the arrangement.

The evening meal was formal dress. There were people there wearing formal gowns and tuxedos.
We tried

One of quirks of Alaska is the number of hours of sunlight. Where we are right now the sunrise was 4:14 AM and the sunset tonight at 9:48 PM. To give you a little perspective on what that is like, look at the two photos below. One was taken at 10PM and the other was taken at 6:30AM. Can you tell from the photos which is which???