Ice cave
8 years ago
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
City on fire
It took 30 minutes extra to get drew today. The entire city was aflame, but our home and offices were spared.
Monday, June 9, 2008
The last day
Getting off the boat was a pretty dull matter, but here's Amy posing in front of Seattle at the end of our trip.
We took a bus back to Seatac, flew to Sacramento, took a taxi back home, then drove up to Redding to meet Mom, who met us halfway with Drew, which was a very welcome time saver.
On the way, I caught a couple disasters. This is a wildfire...
and this is a tornado, ripping apart the landscape. We're happy to be back home now, and I can get back to publishing in my normal method.
We took a bus back to Seatac, flew to Sacramento, took a taxi back home, then drove up to Redding to meet Mom, who met us halfway with Drew, which was a very welcome time saver.
On the way, I caught a couple disasters. This is a wildfire...
and this is a tornado, ripping apart the landscape. We're happy to be back home now, and I can get back to publishing in my normal method.
Towel animals
This was cool. Every night after we got back in from dinner, one of the boat dudes snuck into our room and put chocolate on our bed (one for each of us) and made us these cool little towel animals. We promptly took pictures of the animals, then disassembled the animals and had towel fights with each other.
Victoria, BC
Victoria was kind of a let-down because the boat didn't even let people off until 6pm and was leaving at midnight. We snapped some pictures of the town from the top of the boat.
There was a cool concrete barrier just outside the town that people walked out on, we'd be going out on it after our dinner that night.
We snapped a picture of the boat from the barrier. In case you don't know, cruise ships are enormous. We were on the 8th floor, the highest floor that the rooms were on.
This is Amy walking out on the barrier. It was freezing cold, compounded by some high winds and vicious seagulls.
This is Amy at the lighthouse at the end of the dock.
And then we took a picture together. Awwwww!
Note that my hair was only "done" because we had a formal dinner that night and I was forced to look presentable. I think the wind might have also had something to do with the styling.
There was a cool concrete barrier just outside the town that people walked out on, we'd be going out on it after our dinner that night.
We snapped a picture of the boat from the barrier. In case you don't know, cruise ships are enormous. We were on the 8th floor, the highest floor that the rooms were on.
This is Amy walking out on the barrier. It was freezing cold, compounded by some high winds and vicious seagulls.
This is Amy at the lighthouse at the end of the dock.
And then we took a picture together. Awwwww!
Note that my hair was only "done" because we had a formal dinner that night and I was forced to look presentable. I think the wind might have also had something to do with the styling.
Ketchikan
Amy was excited to be in Ketchikan primarily because it was the childhood home of Alex Conley (her old roommate). We needed to send off postcards to a couple people that we'd written earlier, and found someone immediately off the boat that was happy to help us, saying he was about to go to the post office himself. We'll find out sometime this week if he mailed them for us or threw them out his window once he knew we were from California.
The day's activity was ziplining, which ended up being a lot of waiting broken apart by 5 - 10 seconds of thrill. Overall, it wasn't a very alaskan activity, but we did see some nice sights on the way. I didn't get to take my phone, but we caught a few pictures of us being dumb with Amy's point-and-shoot while there. After the ziplining, we had a chance to use the harnesses to try rock climbing on the wall they had there. I was first and scrambled to the top, using my muscular physique to launch myself up to the top in record time. Amy followed up my effort soon after with a similarly impressive climb. Afterwards, we snickered as other daredevils failed to match our accomplishment.
This is the Ketchikan airport, across the water. They want to build a $500 million "bridge to nowhere" to connect the land to airport. I wonder if anyone has considered a "tunnel to nowhere". But for $500 million, I think someone might be able to invent a teleportation deck that does the same thing. That's a lot of money.
The day's activity was ziplining, which ended up being a lot of waiting broken apart by 5 - 10 seconds of thrill. Overall, it wasn't a very alaskan activity, but we did see some nice sights on the way. I didn't get to take my phone, but we caught a few pictures of us being dumb with Amy's point-and-shoot while there. After the ziplining, we had a chance to use the harnesses to try rock climbing on the wall they had there. I was first and scrambled to the top, using my muscular physique to launch myself up to the top in record time. Amy followed up my effort soon after with a similarly impressive climb. Afterwards, we snickered as other daredevils failed to match our accomplishment.
This is the Ketchikan airport, across the water. They want to build a $500 million "bridge to nowhere" to connect the land to airport. I wonder if anyone has considered a "tunnel to nowhere". But for $500 million, I think someone might be able to invent a teleportation deck that does the same thing. That's a lot of money.
Dessert night and ice sculptures
One night, they had a huge dessert and ice sculpture display late at night. They spent so much time on the presentation that they had a photography session for half an hour before they served any of the food. The ice sculptures were pretty impressive, but we were so stuffed, we didn't bother sticking around to eat any of the desserts.
Sitka
Sitka was cool because we had friends there. Marylyn Conley and her daughter Anya had just gotten home the night before from their trip to California (including our wedding) and were happy to show us around town. We took a dinghy out to the dock from our ship since Sitka didn't have a real dock, and Marylyn picked us up right there, and we went back to her house. This is the spectacular view from their front room.
I mentioned that I wanted to see bears, and Marylyn knew exactly where to find them. After a tour through town, we ended up at something called "Fortress of the Bear", a rescue center for abandoned animals, and they had two brown bears. They were "small", at only 200-300 lbs each.
After seeing the animals, we stopped by a chocolate factory, and I snapped a picture outside.
Back in town, we had lunch, then we took a walk across the city bridge (see below for photo). After that, it was back on the dinghy back to the boat. We were crammed in.
Here's the panoramic view of Sitka, including the bridge we walked across. It was a charming little city, and lots of crazy people choose to build houses on those tiny little islands.
I mentioned that I wanted to see bears, and Marylyn knew exactly where to find them. After a tour through town, we ended up at something called "Fortress of the Bear", a rescue center for abandoned animals, and they had two brown bears. They were "small", at only 200-300 lbs each.
After seeing the animals, we stopped by a chocolate factory, and I snapped a picture outside.
Back in town, we had lunch, then we took a walk across the city bridge (see below for photo). After that, it was back on the dinghy back to the boat. We were crammed in.
Here's the panoramic view of Sitka, including the bridge we walked across. It was a charming little city, and lots of crazy people choose to build houses on those tiny little islands.
Juneau
Our first port was in Juneau. My first move was to quickly shuffle past the tourist area and up above the town. The mountain behind the town looked awesome.
Amy had heard that Alaskans had a habit of building their houses in places that they couldn't drive to, and we confirmed it in Juneau. We walked up stairs by a bunch of houses. Amy posed for a picture halfway up.
Once we were past the stairs and houses, someone mentioned that there was a river and trail, so we went right for it. After another trip down a long set of stairs and across a mini-park, we found a creek and trail.
The water was essentially fresh glacial melt and was freezing cold, but also perfectly clear and blue, even after travelling down the rocky bed.
I would have preferred hiking more, but we had a whale watching trip to catch, so we had to cut the trip short and went back through town to catch our tour bus.
Whale watching kind of sucked. We did see whales nearly right away, but after you've seen a couple rolling, that's pretty much it. No breaching, no posing for the tourists, whales have no concern for what people think. They just sink underwater for 20 minutes at a time and laugh at all the idiots who paid several hundred dollars to catch a fleeting glimpse of them. Next time, more hiking, less whales.
Amy had heard that Alaskans had a habit of building their houses in places that they couldn't drive to, and we confirmed it in Juneau. We walked up stairs by a bunch of houses. Amy posed for a picture halfway up.
Once we were past the stairs and houses, someone mentioned that there was a river and trail, so we went right for it. After another trip down a long set of stairs and across a mini-park, we found a creek and trail.
The water was essentially fresh glacial melt and was freezing cold, but also perfectly clear and blue, even after travelling down the rocky bed.
I would have preferred hiking more, but we had a whale watching trip to catch, so we had to cut the trip short and went back through town to catch our tour bus.
Whale watching kind of sucked. We did see whales nearly right away, but after you've seen a couple rolling, that's pretty much it. No breaching, no posing for the tourists, whales have no concern for what people think. They just sink underwater for 20 minutes at a time and laugh at all the idiots who paid several hundred dollars to catch a fleeting glimpse of them. Next time, more hiking, less whales.
Cruising and glaciers
The first day of the cruise was a day at sea. There wasn't much to do except to explore the boat and sleep, which we did quite a bit of. The second day was spent cruising Glacier Bay. Glaciers are cool to see because of the blue color and huge blocks of ice, but the real cool part was to park in front of the glacier that was 'calving' (breaking off into the water). We spent most of our glacier watching admiring the calving glacier and waiting for pieces to break off.
We waited...
and waited some more...
and eventually, we saw a real piece break off into the water. We must have been waiting for an hour before we saw it go, and even then, it wasn't a huge piece like you see on the nature shows. Oh well, at least we caught it, I'd say most of the people on the boat gave up and went back for another dinner before seeing it.
We waited...
and waited some more...
and eventually, we saw a real piece break off into the water. We must have been waiting for an hour before we saw it go, and even then, it wasn't a huge piece like you see on the nature shows. Oh well, at least we caught it, I'd say most of the people on the boat gave up and went back for another dinner before seeing it.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
The bus driver who couldn't stop talking
She was a horrible speaker with bad jokes who said very inane things the entire trip. I wanted to call drew, but we'll have to wait until she lets up off. Also, the average age on this bus must be around 80. So much for finding people with like interests no this trip.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
