Alaska Cruise

We have been home a month now and I am just now posting about our trip. We had a great time! We were gone for two weeks which was a nice break but we really started to miss the girls. At least we got to talk to them almost every day. This was one of the best vacations I have ever been on and we miss it already. *Warning: This is a long post with a lot of pictures*

The first couple days were spent in Anchorage and surrounding cities. We had a salmon fishing trip planned but out of the 15 days we were gone, this was the only day it rained so our trip was cancelled. Yes, we went to Alaska but didn't fish. It gives us a reason to go back. We went to Homer, Seward, Whittier, and spent a couple days in the Kenai. It was such a beautiful area! We really wanted to see some bears but all the bear tours were $300 and up. A lot more than we wanted to pay. So we decided we would go off the main roads and take a 2.5 mile hike into bear country. It didn't get dark until around 11:30 p.m. there so we went up at night which is a better time to see bears. We didn't pay much attention to the "bear repellant or gun highly recommend" signs, just made a lot of noise going up. It didn't seem so dumb at the time but looking back, we were a little crazy. We did see two bear up at the russian river, a brown bear and a black bear, and several fisherman had bear encounters where the bear were stealing their fish. We were able to see the bear catching the salmon jumping up the river which was something I really wanted to see. The river was covered with hundreds of salmon! You might be able to see them at the bottom of some of the pictures but they were everywhere. We also went on a 14 mile float trip down the Kenai river. It got a little long but it was really fun! We had a great time in the Kenai! We also saw several bald eagles and moose pretty close. We were probably a little too close to this Moose and her two babies but they seemed more interested in eating.

(Top Left: Homer, AK, Bottom Left: Russian River, Top Right: Mt. Redoubt)

For the first few days of our cruise, we went to College Fjord and Glacier Bay. We saw a lot of Glaciers, killer whales, humpback whales, otters, and dolphins. We were amazed and how big these glaciers really are.
Our next stop was Skagway, AK. One of my favorite stops. It was a small town, like all towns in Alaska. We looked around the shops and then rented a car and drove up into Yukon, Canada. This was a beautiful drive. We drove up to Emerald Lake and saw the World's Smallest Desert along the way. Before going back on our boat, we decided we'd go looking for more bears and ended up finding two grizzlies. These were huge bears!

(Left: Train on White Pass Trial, Middle Right: Worlds Smallest Desert, Bottom Right: Grizzlies)

After Skagway, we stopped in Juneau, the capital of Alaska. Not our favorite stop. We could have done without this one. We didn't get many pictures from here.

Then it was off to Ketchikan. The seaplane capital of the world. Another one of my favorite ports. We went to Creek Street where the river was covered from side to side with salmon. You couldn't even see the bottom. As the fish were "waiting for their turn" to go up the river, they were jumping all over the place. Several at a time. We sat there watching the fish for awhile. It was quite the sight. We also went to a totum pole park which was really neat.

(Top Left: Creek Street, Top Right: Totem pole park)

The last stop of our cruise was Vancouver, Canada. We spent a day here and went to the suspension bridge.

We're not done yet. We then drove down to Seattle, WA and spent a few days there. What do I say about our time in Seattle? It was....interesting. We saw just about everything there including a different kind of bare. We went on the "Ride the Duck" tour, the craziest tour I have ever been on, but it was fun. For those of you who have never been on one, you should give it a try. We also went to the famous Pike's Place Market.

We had a great time on our much needed vacation but we were also excited to get home to our girls. If you've made it to the end of this record long (which is also my 100th) post, I'm impressed. Next time I won't wait so long to post. :)