Day Eleven –Seward to Anchorage to Denali, NP – September 10, 2009

We pulled to Seward at 3:00am, and our scheduled time to disembark was at 7:00am. We met at our location on the ship, received our transfer tickets for the train, which we took to Anchorage Airport, and headed towards the exit. Once we stepped outside the doorway, it was a beautiful scene.

We walked through customs where bags, upon bags were waiting to load on the train. I hope ours is in there somewhere!

And walked to the train.


On the train we were pretty impressed with the seating area. I’ve never been on a train like this before that I can remember. All open, you can see everything. Our Steward, Mike, was quite the crack up with his story telling

Day Ten –Hubbard Glacier – September 10, 2009

Hubbard Glacier is a tidewater glacier. Named in 1890 after Gardiner G. Hubbard (regent of the Smithsonian Institution and first president of the National Geographic Society), it is the longest tidewater glacier in Alaska, with an open calving face over 6 miles wide.

The longest source for Hubbard Glacier originates 76 miles from its snout and is located at about at about approximately 5.0 miles west of Mt. Walsh with an altitude around 11,000 feet. A shorter tributary glacier begins at the easternmost summit on the Mt. Logan ridge at about 18,300 feet. Before it reaches the sea, Hubbard is joined by the Valerie Glacier to the west, which, through forward surges of its own ice, has contributed to the advance of the ice flow that experts believe will eventually dam the Russell Fiord from Disenchantment Bay waters.

Woke up today to some thick fog. I was excited because the ice will be that beautiful blue

Floating at Sea Today - There's Been a Hold-up

We're taking a break today. Seems a migrane is in the works and staring at a monitor will not be a good thing on the eyes today.

So, I'll leave you with a taste of what's to come. A beautiful ice berg.

Day 10 will be up tomorrow.

Go and enjoy your Saturday!

Day Nine –Icy Straight Point, Alaska – September 9, 2009

Icy Straight Point is located on the Chichagof Island in the town of Hoohan. It’s 40 miles west of Juneau and approximately 900 people live in town. It is known as the Real Alaskan experience. Hoonah means ''village by the cliff.'' It was the principal village for the Huna, a Tlingit tribe that has occupied the Glacier Bay/Icy Strait area since prehistory. Hoohan is the largest Tlingit village in Alaska and is only accessible by boat or plane. Hoohan is also the home to a historic cannery, which now houses a museum.

The island has only 8 miles of road. So, if you want to go on a nice long cruise on your motorcycle on a cool spring evening, you’ll most likely be passing back and forth in front of your home approximately 14 times. Man, that’s a bummer. Talk about not going anywhere!

Icy Strait Point was established in 1912 as a new port of call for cruise lines and hosts only one ship at a time. It’s great to

Day Eight –Skagway, Alaska – September 8, 2009

It was the fall of 1897 as news of gold discoveries in northwestern Canada's Yukon region spread worldwide, the glacier-shaded harbor of Skagway, Alaska, became so congested with boats carrying would-be prospectors that new arrivals had to anchor up to a mile offshore. Overloaded scows then shuttled men, women, children, and their provisions to the town's gravel beach. On the beach, owners protected their piles of belongings with scattershot curses or the rapid cocking of pistols.

As we walked off our ship, we didn’t hear any scattershot curses or rapid cocking of pistols. The port of Skagway is a popular stop for cruise ships, and the tourist trade is a big part of the business of Skagway. This town seemed as close to “old Alaskan” as you can get! Real rugged feel to it. You could almost hear the cowboys of days past. A very old town. And it felt old too.

Skagway (originally spelled Skaguay) is from the Tlingit name for the area, "Skagua" or "Shgagwèi" meaning “a windy place with

Day Seven – Juneau, Alaska – September 7, 2009 – Part Two

After untying the ropes and heading down the top of the crevice, Dawn tells us about this cool ice cave she wants to show us. So we head towards the cave. In the background we kept hearing helicopter noise. Then they appear. They come in groups of 4 or 5, land and take off. Turns out those were the helicopter excursions dropping people off, leaving, coming back with more and picking up the second group. They would get dropped off and walk around take a short dog sled ride. All on the flat part of the glacier. That was something I considered before I found this trip.

Dawn told us a story about being stuck on the glacier and having to be rescued. Sometimes the glacier can produce fog, almost like dry ice would. Sometimes it would clear up just as soon as it starts, other times it would continue to get thicker until it’s almost a white out. The later happened to her and a group she was with and

Day Seven –Juneau, Alaska – September 7, 2009 - Part One

Juneau is the capital city of Alaska and where our favorite person of all time lives: Sarah Palin!

NOT!

Let’s try this again.Juneau is the capital city of Alaska. And while I was walking around Juneau, I couldn’t see Russia in any direction! I really tried. I really did. I asked everyone around if they could see Russia and they couldn’t either. So I have no idea what that woman was smoking when she said she could see Russia from her back yard! And we saw her back yard!

Ok, let’s get serious now.

Juneau is the capital city of Alaska. Located on the Gastineau Channel in the panhandle of Alaska. The area of Juneau is larger than that of Rhode Island and

Day Six –Ketchikan, Alaska – September 6, 2009

Alarm goes off at 5:00am. I forgot to change the time by an hour yesterday, so it was really 4:00am. But wow! Peeking out the window and what a surprise it was this morning to wake up to a beautiful day! It’s still dark, but I can see stars! It was quite misty through the Inside Passage and I was worried the rain had started to follow us. Hopefully, it’s gonna stay away today.

We pulled into the Ketchikan area at around 6:45am. Ketchikan is the southeasternmost sizable city in Alaska. With an estimated population of 7,368 in 2007, it is the fifth most populous city in the state. Ketchikan is named after Ketchikan Creek, which flows through the town. Ketchikan comes from the Tlingit name for the creek, Kitschk-hin, the meaning of which is unclear. It may mean "the river belonging to Kitschk"; other accounts claim it means "Thundering Wings of an Eagle." Ketchikan also has the world's largest collection of standing totem poles. Ships dock right in

Day Five –Cruising the Inside Passage – September 5, 2009

The Inside Passage - a protected waterway approximately 950 miles long. Along this route you’ll see snowcapped mountains, forests, waterfalls, glaciers, and deep, narrow channels. Just great scenic and peaceful beauty.

I woke up pretty early, before the sun came up. We’re 3 hours behind Central time. Hope this doesn’t continue! I sat and watch out our porthole while Ray slept and watched the steep mountains rising right out of the water as we pass by. We’re cruising pretty slowly. The water’s calm and it’s foggy with a light rain. I think the weatherman was right. Looking on the bright side, I’d say it’s going to be a beautiful misty day. I love to photograph things in on a foggy day – especially at night!

Most of you remember this shot I did back in December ‘08 in New Orleans?

For those of you who haven’t seen this - it’s actually Ray walking down Pirate’s Alley.

As the sun rose, we were able to get a better view of what lies ahead on our journey through the Inside Passage. It’s approximately 8 hours of the same scene – but all

Day Four – Vancouver, BC / Cruising – September 4, 2009

The Grouse Grind day!

The alarm wakes us up at 6:00am. I’m a little bummed this morning because the weather man said rain was heading our way in the afternoon and will stick with us for a week! This is our cruise week! It can’t rain! I go on line to check, and sure enough, each and every single port we pull into is supposed to be rain. Oh, well. We’ll just have to do this all over again until we get sunshine!!

After lying around in bed for ½ hour contemplating if we REALLY want do to that Grouse Grind thing, I finally get up and tell Ray if we’re gonna do this, let’s go. Secretly hoping he says something like “I don’t really feel like it”. But noooooo, he hops up, full of energy, and we head for the Mountain. We figured if we get to the Grouse by 7:00am and give ourselves no more than 3 hours to complete this “Grind”, since we have NO idea what were about to get ourselves into, we’ll make it back to the hotel by 10:30am – plenty of time to shower and head to the ship.

While in the car on our way I look at our little handy booklet all about Vancouver

Day Three - Vancouver, BC – September 3, 2009

Woke up today with some light rain so we decided to hang around the city. We headed over to this little Dutch breakfast placed called De Dutch and had Pannekoeks (pãn-ne-kõõk). It’s the Dutch version of pancakes and are a little thicker than crepes. I had one with fresh berries and whipped cream on the side. Taste great! The Pannekoek covers the entire plate. Seems like a lot of food, but it is quite lite. (The following image is not my image).

After our yummy breakfast we headed to the Vancouver Aquarium located in Stanley Park. Stanley Park is 1,562 sq mi of forested urban park which boarders downtown Vancouver. It is more than 10% larger than New

Day Two: Vancouver, BC - September 2, 2009 – Whistler Mountain

Ray and I are very spur-of-the-moment people while on vacation. Personally I dislike detailed itineraries. So doing what we do best we were up and out at 6:30 am. Headed over to a great little coffee place we noticed while walking around last night called “Blenz Coffee House” to grab some coffee and a pastry. We headed north, out of Vancouver, on Hwy 99 called the "Sea to Sky Highway". Our first stop was this quaint little town called Horseshoe Bay. We hung out by the harbor for about a ½ hour and noticed what we thought was a cruise ship turned out to be their local ferry. Loaded with people and cars. For a minute, we thought about jumping on that and heading to wherever it was going, but decided to just stick to our drive north.
Some totem polls stood around the park near the harbor.

After our visit we’re back on Hwy 99. We noticed this little lake with a hiking trail along the Hwy and pulled off. It had a great place for a picnic and nice views of the water. Just a little lake to fish in on a quiet

Day One: Vancouver, BC - September 1, 2009

We arrived in Vancouver, BC September 1st around 12:30pm. Flying into Vancouver was one of the most beautiful city scenes I’ve seen in years. The city is bounded by the Strait of Georgia, Burrard Inlet, the Fraser River, and the city of Burnaby. Vancouver is named after Captain George Vancouver, a British explorer. The name Vancouver itself originates from the Dutch "van Coevorden", denoting somebody from Coevorden, an old city in The Netherlands. Vancouver is known for having clean air, water, and a panoramic view of beautiful mountains. It is considered to be one of the most livable cities in the world and I wouldn’t mind living there! Just an absolutely beautiful, beautiful city. Vancouver will be the host city for the 2010 Winter Olympic and it was interesting to watch and listen to the pros and cons of hosting such an event.

We picked up our rental car and headed to the Metropolitan Hotel in the heart of downtown and dropped off our suitcases. We walked around the area, enjoying the shops along

Our Trip of a Lifetime!

We're back!

I’ll have to warn you – there will be lots and lots of pictures for you to enjoy. I know, it’s a bummer, so deal with it! I sweated up a storm capturing our trip so you all can be there with us. Go grab your coffee, martini, Diet Coke, or whatever your drink is. Sit back and relax! Day One is just right around the corner.