monday, june 9 - ketchikan

4:00a - transiting Sumner Strait
5:00a - transiting Snow Passage
8:15a - passing Guard Island
10:02a - safely docked in Ketchikan
12:00p - partly sunny, fresh breeze; 55 degrees F
6:24p - commence voyage to Vancouver
6:42p - drop off Alaskan Pilots at Twin Island

Our day in Ketchikan was beautiful. We got a little bit later start thanks to not docking until 10.

I talked to my dad on the phone while we ate breakfast - the best meal on the ship by far. We only had cell service at Juneau and Ketchikan.
Ketchikan is the southernmost city we visited. We hit it on our way back down to Vancouver, but most people go here first, thus the "First City" nickname. It's also the "Salmon Capital of the World."

A picture for my brother

Another great sign we found - now appropriate for Ryan!

We opted to walk instead of take the "Seahorse" tour.

Apparently Alaskan dogs are lazy in the summer.

We visited a place that had two injured bald eagles. They used to have this one's mate until an otter swam in and they killed each other.

This one was sitting on two eggs. Since both eagles are females, the eggs are infertile.

I'm not quite there :(

Just below the salmon ladder that the fish swim up to spawn

All of the stores along Creek Street are on stilts. Ketchikan had the best shopping by far.

One of the many totems Ketchikan is famous for. This one was outside the library where we got to spend time on the Internet. It's really expensive to buy the hand-carved ones. The cheapest was $22 and it was about 3" tall!

Once safely back on the ship, we decided to brave the Rotterdam again. This time it was the Master Chef's dinner. Each course was brought out with "song and dance."

We were seated with at least 8 other people who just sat and looked sadly at us waiting for our side vegetables since the only thing vegetarian on the menu for the night was smoked brie cheese. Believe it or not, this is the whole salad! We left before they brought dessert out. Ryan went back and ordered room service.

sunday, june 8 - glacier bay

1:00a - transiting the Lynn Canal
6:11a - pick up park rangers at Bartlett Cove
10:00a - 0.2nm off the face of Margerie Glacier
12:00p - clear skies, calm; 50 degrees F
5:00p - commence voyage to Ketchikan

We discovered that Herring Gulls are cruise groupies. It's not like we fed them, so I don't know why they followed us.

A grizzly walking along shore. Since we were almost 1/4 mi. away from shore, it's a little small.

The nesting colony of kittiwake gulls were really loud. You can see the little white dots speckled across the rock face. The little bits of brown below the white are their nests.

We got to see quite a bit of ice calve off the Margerie Glacier.

The Grand Pacific Glacier right next to it looked totally different, more reminiscent of lava or something.

This was the most people on the deck during any part of the cruise. The scenery was unbelievable.

As we were leaving, the biggest pieces of ice fell into the water.

Can you ID this bird floating on an ice chunk?

This is the John Hopkins Glacier (but a crew member told us it was the John Hancock) - over a mile wide at its face.

Watching the John Hopkins

Trying to stay warm on a deck chair

We ate at the Rotterdam Dining Room for supper. It was the second of the two formal nights. The lighting was so terrible, I don't have any more good pictures of us eating there. By that time I couldn't taste anything, so I don't remember much about the food.

Ryan with the beautiful sunset

Sorry it's blurry. We should have checked to make sure it turned out ok.

saturday, june 7 - skagway, b.c., yukon

2:30a - transiting Lynn Canal
6:41a - safely docked in Skagway
12:00p - partly cloudy, afternoon showers; 59 degrees F
8:38p - unmoored
8:54p - commence voyage to Glacier Bay

We woke up in Skagway, right at the end of an inlet.

A pair of bald eagles was circling over as we walked toward town.

We rented a little Chevy Cobalt and took off northeast on the only road out of town.

We quickly gained elevation and climbed into the snowy mountains. There are lots of places to pull over and look at the scenery.

We were quickly out of Alaska and back in British Columbia. We stopped at the sign on the way out.

After miles and miles of beautiful views, we reached the Yukon territory, or the Klondike. The train that goes through White Pass doesn't even cross into Canada and costs twice as much as our rental car did, so we were glad for the option we chose.

Ryan spotted Smokey the Bear out his window. We quickly turned around and I took some pictures of this nice black bear munching on plants. He didn't mind me taking pictures out the window.

He didn't mind either when I got out and climbed up the bank to get a little closer. I left the car door open, just in case. I think he was trying to smell better with his mouth open.

It was kind of overwhelming having so many breathtaking views all around.

By this point, I felt pretty bad. I couldn't breathe and was going through tissues pretty quickly. I didn't get out at all the overlooks that Ryan did.

We finally got to the first Yukon town, Carcross (short for Caribou Crossing), where we ate lunch and got our passports stamped at the post office. The locals encouraged us to keep driving north to Emerald Lake.

The one store we went into was home to the jail!

This was why encouraged us to keep driving.

The lake bed is covered with CaC03, calcium carbonate, which is where the green color comes from. The lake right next to this one looked totally different. Weird.

Miles (kilometers) of road on our trip back.

This is back in British Columbia, before we got to the border near Fraser.

The snow banks were still pretty substantial.

Coming back across the border we had to declare the canister of Pringles we bought in Carcross.

We drove West of town a little bit to get this vantage point on the way back. It was neat to see how big the ship really is - over 700 feet long by 100+ feet wide.

Back in Skagway - the smallest town we visited. A lot of the shops didn't even open or closed pretty early because it was Saturday.

This should clear up any confusion you may have about where we were!?!

I thought the hot tub on the Lido Deck would make me feel better. It didn't. Shoulda called it a warm tub instead :(

A beautiful sunset as we sailed away. The sun rose around 4:00a and set close to 10:00p.