ALASKA, BABY!!!

These are my friends Randy and Dave. They live in NYC and both have extremely boring jobs working for law firms. However. Dave is a theatre producer. He owns his own theatre called the Lil' Peach, and Randy's not so secret love (aside from theatre and Dave) is archaeology. In fact, I first met Randy on my last trip to Israel. I met Dave at their Halloween party later the same year.

Well, apparently Randy has parents. And they were having their bazillionth wedding anniversary. So when Randy invited me to go along on an Alaskan cruise to help celebrate, I really had to think about it.....for about 3 seconds. For those of you who don't know me that well, pretty much if I haven't been there and it's supposed to be fun, and you invite me, and there's food, lots of food, I'll go. (I say "pretty much" because I know people for whom qualifiers are necessary for their safety and those around them.)

This trip I was determined to not do anything educational or learn anything about history - too close to what I do for work. My sole objective: eat when I want, sleep when I want, and take lots of pictures. It is a vacation, is it not?

Since it's been a couple months since I took this trip (in August), I apologize if some of my facts aren't entirely correct. My memory is only so good after all. Be sure to click the older posts link at the bottom of the page to see all the photos. There's about 50 of them, so consider yourself warned.

One of the few pictures of Dave

Because he was always behind the camera. The shadow was from his jacket which he very handily hung off the top of our table's umbrella to keep the sun out of our eyes. This was about 9pm my first and only night in Anchorage. The next afternoon we had a boat to catch.

Welcome to the Hyatt.

I wonder if Goldie-locks saw something similar after she ate the porridge?

Alaskan grafitti

Got a blank concrete block wall? You need Alaskan themed cartoons!

These, or something similar, were everywhere.

Cook Inlet

Something about a captain, a boat, and an STD? I don't know....

The last stop light in town

View of Anchorage from one end to the other.

Mush, mush

Hey, it's the closest we'll ever come to actually racing dogs across frozen tundra. Definitely not something on my bucket list.

(Iditarod starting line, 4th Ave. Anchorage)

What did I say?

I told him not to call the 8-foot Grizzly an over-stuffed teddy bear.....did he listen?!?!?!

Bunny fur booties

Specially sized for 3 year old feet....cute, and yet some how, kind of disturbing.

The Saturday Market

A weekly event in Anchorage where you can purchase Alaska themed children's books, jewelry made from mammoth fossils, and salmon quesadillas.

The tunnel through the mountain

The A-frame at the base of the big hill is actually the entrance to the one lane tunnel that goes through the mountain to Whittier where we boarded the Diamond Princess, our cruise ship. Every half hour a set of traffic lights, one on either side of the mountain, indicates whose turn it is to go. To my left, there were seven lanes of cars waiting for their turn-the van I was traveling in being one of them. The guy driving the van said he came to Alaska originally just intending to ski for a year and leave....six years later he's still there. He says Alaska is Colorado on steroids.

All aboard!

The port of Whittier. A town where the grocery, post office and school are all in one high rise along with housing connected via tunnel to the port....or something like that. Apparently they get a lot of snow.


We boarded the boat via a terminal not unlike an airport but for one exception. It seems the people in line have no idea how to properly queue: Excuse me ma'am, but can you remove your enormous gut from my lower back? Repeatedly bumping me with your blubber is not going to get you on board any faster.

When cruise ship SNAFUs work in your favor

My original room was an interior stateroom completely closed off from any pretty scenery. But because I got mistakenly double booked in a room with the nanny of a family of 20 (complete with poorly behaved children and adults), I got upgraded to a room on the bow with a view. Sweet! (Notice the flowers on the right: my bonus apology gift.)

The big deck

When I wasn't in my room enjoying my little deck off the bow, I was in Randy and Dave's room enjoying their deck off the stern. It became the hang-out room because they had the big deck. It was here that we watched the glaciers go by. Yes, that's me in Alaska with my nose stuck in a map wearing my real-live-dead-bunny slippers (made from real live bunnies, except their dead....see it makes sense) the warmest slippers ever! Sorry to all bunny lovers out there, but when you're a country girl from KY with cold feet, any tasty little critter with warm fur is fair game.

Fun things on board

Dave of course, found the theatre. All sorts of shows, movies, and presentations to be enjoyed here. It also served as one of the many muster stations on board should the Diamond Princess decide to pull a Titanic in the Pacific.









Then there's the hot tub. Nothing like a soak in an outdoor tub when it's drizzly and cold. (Dave took the picture).

Another of Dave's shots

Very pretty so I had to include it. I'm actually not sure, but I think this was taken in College Fjord.

College Fjord

We entered College Fjord way before the sun came up and I was one of the crazy few who was actually out of bed taking pictures in the pre-dawn drizzle and cold. My absolute favorite shot. The thing that looks like a wave breaking over the mountain is a glacier.

Leaving College Fjord

I've never seen a cloud do that before.

On the way to Glacier Bay

One of my favorite pictures of the trip.

Entering Glacier Bay National Park

The only way to truly enjoy Glacier Bay is by boat. So you're either a hard-core camper/kayaker or you're on a cruise ship. On the way in we stopped to pick up a park ranger who mc'd the cruise through the Bay over the PA system: about an 8 hour tour. One of the better tours I've ever been on since you could come and go as you please, not miss any of the information, and order room service all at the same time.

The Marjerie Glacier

Believe it or not, we were 6 miles away when I took this shot. The glacier is 2 miles wide. The scale on this is almost impossible to comprehend.
The brown section of the glacier on the left is the dirt it pealed off the mountain on its way by. In all, we sailed passed three glaciers in Glacier Bay National Park. We even saw this one calve (when a chunk of ice falls off the glacier's face into the water).

ooh, look! Another Glacier!

Look fast....you might miss it.

Me, Randy, and his folks in Glacier Bay

Marjerie Glacier is in the background.

The friendly neighborhood gull

This guy was capitalizing on the fact that most people were enjoying the glaciers and their breakfast while seated on their decks. He performed several fly-bys to ensure no food went to waste.

Skagway: first port of call

This is the bow of the Diamond Princess. My stateroom was in the front, just starboard of center.

Swim, Spawn, Die, Repeat

On the way into Skagway I spotted these little tasties, measuring about a foot and a half a piece, swimming in the creek next to town.

Downtown Skagway

An old mining town in Alaska now solely exists for cruise ship tourists. Behind me is the harbor, in front of me is the length of main street. The saloon in the foreground on the left houses a museum to all of the ladies of the evening that used to be employed there back in the town's more interesting days. I'm not a big shopper, so the fact that the ship spent the most time here out of the three ports of call, rather chafed.

The float through the Bald Eagle preserve

So you're floating down a river looking at Bald Eagles and they make you wear all this protective gear. Back in my Montpelier days this much protective gear was known as "field sexy" - based upon the fact that decidedly different definitions of sexy exist based on certain situations. Here it should simply be known as "overkill". At its deepest point, the bottom of the river was 2 ft below us.

Subsistence living

This village at the base of the mountain still survives largely off subsistence fishing. If they don't catch enough salmon during a season, they don't eat. Also, indoor plumbing is not a guarantee. You've got a 50/50 chance of having to use an outhouse while you're over at a friend's house to watch a DVD - the nearest movie theater is 2.5 hours away.

The Mail Wall

Once upon a time while docked at Skagway, ships could pick up their mail from the wall. Each ship had a spike driven into the wall next to their symbol onto which the mail bag was hung. When they were in port, some lucky sailor got to climb the wall and retrieve the mail.

Dinner

Always a dressy affair on the cruise.

Temperamental theatre folk

One minute I'm smiling like an idiot holding a life ring, the next minute I'm being knocked off the boat. You just never know.

Thar be gold in them thar hills

Panning for gold outside Juneau. I only found a few flakes in one of the three pans I sorted through. Even so, I came away with about a dime-sized collection of gold flake. A time-consuming yet barely lucrative past-time. However, the setting is beautiful. Notice the waterfall coming down from the mountain in the background on the right. Alaska has tons of those.

Whale Watching in Juneau

Tis feeding season in Alaska, and some Humpback whales have figured out how to hunt in packs. It's called bubble net feeding. They blow lots of air into the water, virtually suffocating and therefore confusing the herring, and then while the fish are confused the whales can get large mouth fulls as they rise to the surface together. Thousands of pounds of sea-faring mammal all rising to the surface simultaneously...pretty impressive.

Fluke shot

Not quite National Geographic quality, but close. We also saw a double breach - two whales jumping side by side out of the water. Didn't get it on film, but what a sight.

Humpback Whales

Though we were supposed to stay 100 yards away (to avoid stressing the delicate sea monsters), the Humpbacks had other ideas as they followed the fish. When they swim closer to you, what can you do?

Whale Watching: Orca

A special treat that only happens for about 10% of those on the whale watching tour, the opportunity to see Orca not just Humpback whales. Hmmm.....not nearly as exciting as seeing it in person.

You know you're a sea lion when....

...your day is comprised solely of laying on the beach, swimming, and trying not to get eaten. This is outside Juneau right after we saw the Orca.

Welcome to Nowhere!

You may remember this little town because of the bridge they wanted to build so they could more easily access their airport. For, like many towns in Alaska, there are only three ways in: airplane, boat or birth canal. So it's understandable they didn't like being the National laughing stock for something they saw as necessary for the development of their town.

Zip-lining through the rain forest

My shore excursion in Ketchikan was to do an obstacle course through the temperate rain forest: 30-75 feet off the ground, zipping through the air, rope bridges, traversing logs at high altitudes = Very, very, very fun.

Creek Street

Where you build when there isn't any flat space.

En route to Vancouver

This picture will never do it justice - largely because I've never figured out how to take pictures on my camera in the dark without the image being completely fuzzy.

However, you can still make out the full moon reflected on the water off the bow, illuminating the cruise ship in the distance. Cool night, soft breeze, eerily lit sea....doesn't get better.

Sunrise at Lionsgate Bridge

We arrived in Vancouver early one morning. This is what I saw from my deck. Absolutely gorgeous.

How much Is the penthouse with the 30 foot tree anyway?

In July 2009, I met a Canadian architect in Greece who told me the tree on top of the penthouse represents the height the forests of Vancouver would have been had they not been cleared for development. Small world.

Oh, look! It's that bridge again.

In Stanley Park.
Just around the bend is a monument to some Darwin Award winner who dived off a big rock into the water during low tide. Can you say squish? or is it kersplat?

The other buffet

Don't let the casual perch on the rock fool you. He's about to move in for the kill. We watched several gulls as they plucked the pretty purple starfish from the shallow water. They then proceeded to gulp down the starfish whole. They would get all but two arms in before they would have to stop and let the morsel digest a bit before they could swallow the rest of it. I'm no gull expert, I'm just assuming. Ah....the beauty of nature.