friday, june 6 - juneau

7:16a - picked up our first Alaskan pilot

12:00p - cloudy skies, light breeze; 54 degrees F
1:48p - safely docked in Juneau
10:04p - unmoored
10:18p - commence voyage to Skagway

We had fun with the rugs that were changed in the elevators every day. We have a picture of each one, except for Wednesday (sad considering we were on the ship for two Wednesdays!).

These killer whales were really fun to see. I never saw any again after this. A pretty large group of them swam by and I got some pictures from really far away.

Ryan spotted this humpback whale slapping his tail over and over on the water. My dad thought it must have been a giant beaver.

We arrived in Juneau and waited for the gangway to be set up

Juneau was the largest city we visited - its population is around 33,000.

We were the tallest "building" around!

We took a bus down to the Mendenhall Glacier, about 20 minutes away.

Ryan with the visitor center we never went in

Some nice people from our ship took this picture.

Arctic terns nest near the glacier, so a lot of the area was roped off. At least this bird knew where it was supposed to be.

This was the bluest glacier we saw - supposed to be an indication of more dense ice.

After the glacier, we hit Juneau's stores. I'm holding the mug I got Lindsey while I try out this moose hat.

I made friends with the locals while we went in search of cold medicine for me. I got a bad sore throat on Thursday and still haven't gotten over the cold.

thursday, june 5 - at sea: b.c. to alaska

1:00a - transiting Seymour Narrows
12:00p - partly cloudy, good visibility; 52 degrees F
3:30p - transiting the narrowest point of Greenville Channel - Lowe Inlet
7:46p - dropped off our pilots at Tripple Island

Thursday was a whole day spent at sea traveling north along the coast of British Columbia.

We got to see a lot of whales from the ship. This is about all you ever see of them. I do have a picture of this one's fluke, but liked this picture better because you can see where it exhaled.

What's Ryan watching?

One of many beautiful waterfalls along the way

We spent a lot of time outside just watching the scenery, especially when we got out of the rough open water and into the straits.

At the stern

Looking for things to take pictures of . . .

Where we ate a majority of our meals - the Lido Restaurant on Deck 11

Grant would have liked these chess pieces.

The bell at the bow in the evening sun

Our deck bathed with orange sunlight

Back at the room we made up for them not having much to eat at supper . . .

By ordering room service! Complete with cookies!

That night we passed into the Alaskan time zone, 4 hours earlier than Eastern.

wednesday, june 4 - train & cruise

12:00p - partly cloudy and dry, light breeze; 55 degrees F
4:59p - unmoored
5:12p - commence voyage to Juneau

We took a cab to the train station to be there by 6:30a to make sure our bags were checked and that we made our train. We boarded shortly before pulling out at 7:40a.

The ride up was pretty dreary, but the tinting on the train windows made it look even worse.

I thought trains would be a pretty fast, uninterrupted mode of travel, but it wasn't the case. We stopped at several towns on the way to Vancouver, and were delayed waiting for other freight trains to get out of our way. Good thing we weren't in that much of a hurry!

One of the 30+ bald eagles we saw along the beach

Me with all of our luggage in a McDonalds inside the train station. We ate a quick bite, exchanged some money, and took off.

After arriving in Vancouver, we took a short SkyTrain ride to the Canada Place pier where we boarded our ship.

Testing out our bed in the stateroom. We were glad to lay down after dragging our suitcases all over Vancouver.

Home for 7 days - we even got ESPN and TBS on the TV when the satellite signal reached us.

Sports Deck - Deck 12

Our ship was named for the Rhine river. All the Holland America ships are "dam" ships - so says the merchandise available in the little shop.

Ryan and I the first night on our deck. Our stateroom was number 378 and it was on the 6th deck, or Lower Promenade. Our deck had the complete 1/4-mile oval all the way around the ship.

tuesday, june 3 - seattle, space needle, mariners

In Seattle, the first order of business was for me to get a haircut. Ryan and I took the city bus from our hotel to downtown. It's about 13 miles and took at least an hour - partly due to two Indian ladies fighting on the bus.

Once downtown, we took the monorail from the mall to the Space Needle.

The view back toward our hotel and the Sea-Tac Airport. Also in the top middle are Qwest Field and Safeco Field, homes of the Seahawks and Mariners, respectively.

We both had fun with the 360-degree view of Seattle and the Puget Sound. We didn't venture in to the restaurant, which revolves with only a 1.5 horsepower motor - the same as a sewing machine!

I have to warn you that throughout the honeymoon pictures, you'll see a LOT of self-portraits.

If I could have fit this statue in my backpack, I would have brought it home with me.

Our long day ended with a Mariners/Angels game. We got there early enough to watch batting practice, although we didn't get a single autograph. :(

We had great seats just down the left field line, three rows up. The rain started up again during the game and managed to blow in on us despite the closed roof, so we moved up to where this picture was taken from.

We ended up leaving a little early to catch our bus back to the hotel to prepare for our very early departure on the Amtrak train to Vancouver.