Alaska & Canada Day 6 & 7!

The sixth day of our trip was spent on the open seas. It was a long day of hanging out on the ship. To pass the time we played Mexican Train Dominoes.

We also spent quite a bit of time doing some whale watching. The whales would come up out of the water to blow through their blow hole. They would always be far enough away to where you couldn't get a picture of them. Sometimes there would be a pod of whales going up and down out of the water. Brent was the master of the binoculars and could always spot the whales first.

At 11pm there was a chocolate party in the Centrum. This is a chocolate sculpture of a king in his thrown. There were several other chocolate sculptures to look at and lots of chocolate treats to sample. What a yummy event! Maybe I should host a chocolate party at my house, could be fun!

We arrived in Victoria, Canada on July 1st. This is our last full day of our cruise. We walked from the ship toward town along the waterfront. It was a good half hour walk to the heart of the city.

It was raining all morning long. It wasn't pouring so it wasn't too bad to be out in the weather. Plus, it wasn't cold and windy.

Staying dry on our walk into town.

The first thing we did when we got into the city was tour the Victoria Parliament building. Victoria is the capital of British Columbia (just like Phoenix is the capital of Arizona). The building is made of granite walls and a copper dome roof. It is an impressive site to see.

The interior of the building was stunning. The walls had many paintings and many of the windows were stained glass windows.

This is their coat of arms.

This is where the legislatures make their laws. The majority sits on one side and the minority party sits on the other. This building was built in the 1800's. The distance between the two sides is a standard distance used in all of Canada's parliament buildings. The distance is not measured in feet or meters. The distance was two sword lengths apart. Sometimes debates could get quite heated and being two sword lengths apart was a safe distance. Our tour guide let us know that currently the legislatures leave their swords at home.

We walked a long way to get to our next tourist spot. This the Craigdarroch Castle. It was built in the 1890's. This 20,000 square foot mansion was built in three years. It has the most beautiful oak walls throughout the first floor entry way and stair case. Its amazing to witness the incredible skill the builders of this home had.

Brent is ready to enter the castle.

Many of the rooms had been restored to what they were when the castle was occupied by the original family that had it built. When the parents died, the kids couldn't afford to or weren't interested in maintaining the building. The building was used as a college, music school and even as a military hospital. Now it is a historical site to visit.

Every room of the house had a magnificent fireplace. We have 50 more pictures of the home. If you would like to see them all, just come on over sometime :)

Once we left the castle, had lunch at Subway, we decided to tour the Maritime Museum. This is a museum dedicated to the history of ships and the importance of the sea for the city of Victoria. The museum was quiet. It was filled with model ships, cannons, pirate memorabilia, and many other interesting things.

Brent thought the scuba suit was very cool!

We figured the boys would like to see the torpedo. I think it's longer than me.

Once we left the museum we wondered through the crazy town. The streets were packed with people celebrating Canada Day. Canada Day is to Canada as the 4th of July is to the United States. There were many celebrations going on all over town. With all of our walking through town, we were exhausted when we made it back to our ship.

On Day 8 we woke up as we were pulling in to Seattle, Washington. The cruise vacation was officially over as we arrived in Phoenix and were blasted with temperatures 60 degrees hotter than what it was every day on our trip. Although it was an amazing adventure, we were glad to be home.

Explore Alaska - Day 5!

Today we were up pretty early so we could see the Sawyer Glacier. This glacier created the Tracy Arm Fjord. A fjord is a narrow inlet from the sea between steep cliffs. The glacier carved out the fjord between the mountains. The water from the glacier helped to create the sea passage that leads back to where the glacier is today. It was COLD on deck early in the morning. I was extra bundled up. The ship moved slowly through the fjord. There were icebergs all along the way.

You can see Sawyer Glacier off in the distance between the mountains.

The glacier is magnificent. The varying shades of blue throughout the glacier are captivating to the eye.

While we were admiring the glacier, it "calved." Calving is when a piece of the glacier breaks off and falls into the water below. When it does that, there is a loud thunderous noise as it breaks away.

Brent had his binoculars out the entire time. He and another man were able to spot seals swimming in the water below and lounging on icebergs.

The cruise ship had to navigate around this island on the way to the glacier and on the way back out.

If you were to enlarge this picture, you would see two seals on the iceberg in the middle. We were looking at the seals from the 10th floor deck so it was hard to get a good picture of them.

Icebergs littered the path that the ship had to carefully navigate through.

We spent the rest of the day out on the open seas. So this night was another formal night. It was fun to get dressed up again and pose for pictures :)

Later that evening the cruise ship hosted the "Love and Marriage" game show. They needed three couples to participate. They tried to get the couple who had been married the longest to be one of the contestants. However, they declined. Fortunately, Lyn and Carole said they would go up (it was their 49th anniversary). It was fun to watch them answer questions about each other and to hear the answers the other couples gave. We had lots of laughs that evening!

Explore Alaska - Day 4!

We arrived in Skagway, Alaska early in the morning. We had the opportunity to spend the entire day in Skagway! Skagway is a small town of 800 people year round; however, during the summer months the town population explodes to a few thousand. Our ship docked close to town. It was just a 10 minute walk to get into the heart of Skagway.
The water is this amazing green blue color. The color is from the glacier melts.

Skagway looks like a western town from the movies. The building in this picture with the "AB" on it is made entirely of driftwood. It is one of the original buildings in the town from its gold rush days in the late 1890's.

The town of Skagway has a strict building code. All buildings must be built to this old town time period. The sidewalks are made out of wooden planks. It was fun to go into several of the shops in this cute town.

One of the shops we visited was the Sarah Palin Store. This store was opened in honor of Governor Palin because she lived in Skagway when she was a kid.

This granite building was built by the Methodist church in the late 1890's early 1900's. They Methodist Church intended for it to be a school for girls. However, during a gold rush era, there aren't many girls in the area looking for a finishing school education. The building is currently a museum and city offices.

Near the museum, hidden in the woods, we found this abandoned steam train. It is one of the original trains that hauled gear up the mountain toward the gold fields.

Brent loved exploring this train. He climbed all over it.

This train is used for tours up the mountain. Grandma and her friends took this train on their tour up White Pass.

Brent and I took a bus tour up to White Pass. The tour stopped at several locations so we could get out and admire the amazing scenery. Skagway is at the bottom of the mountain in a valley. The reason Skagway was important to the gold rush was that it was a sea entrance to this valley. If you could climb up the mountains and make it to the lake system at the top, you could then navigate through the lakes another 300 - 500 miles to the famous Klondike Gold Mines. To make it up the treacherous and steep mountains, a railroad was built. I wasn't aware that railroads couldn't be built up steep inclines. So this railroad had to be creatively built. It was designed to travel up switchbacks through the canyon to make it up the steep pass.

There wasn't much space along side of the mountain to build the railroad.
At the top of this mountain is Goat Lake. In the center of this picture is Pitchfork Waterfall. It originates at Goat Lake and then races down this huge mountain side. Before it dumps into the river below, it splits itself into several waterfalls like a pitchfork. On the right side of the waterfall you will notice a long pipe. This is not an oil pipeline. This pipe also starts up at Goat Lake and takes in water to run the hydro-electric power plant that supplies Skagway with its electricity.

Behind Brent and I on the right is a suspension bridge. We went over this bridge on the bus. The bridge is only suspended on one side. The other side of the bridge sits on a rubber ledge. This area is right on a major earthquake line so the bridge had to be able to move during the earthquakes. Also because this area gets a good 50 feet of snow each winter, the bridge needed to be able to expand and contract without being damaged. At the top of White Pass, you can see the effects of the altitude we are at and the harsh environment we are in. The small trees you see in this picture could be 100 to 300 years old. The trees can't grow very tall in this area because of the lack of soil, sunlight, harsh wind and the extreme weather conditions. Very few plants survive in this area.
Our trip up White Pass took us into Canada. When we returned back to the United States, we had to pass through customs. Thank goodness we had our passports with us! We had to stop at the Alaska sign for a photo moment. The sign is made of wood and is in great condition. We asked our tour guide if it was new. He said it wasn't; however, each winter they take the sign down and store it. If it was to remain out all winter under several feet of snow, it would get ruined.This is the joining of two separate water systems. On the left you can see the blue green water that is from the melting of a glacier. On the right you can see blue black water that is just normal snow melt. In the middle you can see the sandy ridge that joins the two water sources together. I wish my camera could have captured the stark difference between the two.

On our way back to Skagway we stopped at a bridal fall. The water was raging down the side of the mountain. It is always impressive to witness the power of water!

On our way back into town, our tour guide took us to a look out point to where we could see the entire town as well as our cruise ship. Our cruise ship is the one on the left.

Lastly, we went to the Gold Rush Cemetery. Outside of the cemetery was this huge nugget of gold. Thankfully, it was chained to the tree so no one could run off with it. I'm sure it weighs more than a ton. Mitchell and Grant think we should have chipped some of the gold off and took it with us. ;)

After our tour and exploring the town some more, we headed back to the ship. The next day we would be going to a glacier that was located at the end of the Tracy Arm Fjord.

Explore Alaska - Day 3!

When we awoke on the third day of our cruise, we were in Alaska waters. We could see the coast line of Alaska. It was a breathtaking sight!There were magnificent mountains on both sides of the ship. The mountains were covered with thick forests of trees. The water around the boat was clear and calm.We spent much of our morning on deck just taking in the sights of beautiful Alaska.We saw small fishing ships that were dwarfed by our huge cruise ship. We saw small cabins along the shore line that appeared to only have one way to get to them, the sea.Here is our first glimpse of Juneau, Alaska. Juneau is the capital of Alaska. It is a small town and their are no roads to or from Juneau. The only way you can get to Juneau is by ship or by plane. Once we left the ship, we went on a bus tour to Mendenhall Glacier. As we rode through Juneau to the glacier, our driver pointed out the capital building, the governor's mansion and several other important sites. We saw two bald eagles along our drive too.

Glaciers aren't soft billowy piles of snow. Glaciers are created by years of excessive snow fall. As the snow compacts, the oxygen is squeezed out of the individual snowflakes. This turns the snow into solid ice. The blue you see in the glacier is the densest part of the ice. This glacier has been receding for several years. As it recedes, it has carved out this valley and left a glacier lake. Floating in the glacier lake at Mendenhall Glacier are icebergs. These icebergs are parts of the glacier that broke off in a chunk. There are many icebergs floating around the lake.

Near the glacier on the side of the mountain was a roaring waterfall. We didn't have enough time to hike to the waterfall but we could hear its roar from the observation deck.

The brown you see in this glacier is dirt and rocks that the glacier has ripped up off of the mountains as it has slid down the valley. The glacier starts further up the mountain in a snowfield. Parts of this glacier are a mile thick. That's a mile of solid ice!

Because we are standing so close to a huge ice field, it was definitely chilly! I'm so glad I had a sweatshirt on!

Brent's parents came with us on this tour. Grandma and her friends came to the glacier too but they went to a creative garden first. Ask Grandma to see the pictures. You won't believe what someone did to create this unique garden!

From the observation deck we could see the visitor center. All of the land you see up to the visitor center used to be covered by this Mendenhall Glacier. Just 70 years ago, this entire area including where the visitors center is standing was all beneath thick layers of ice.

After we toured the glacier we had the bus drop us of in the thriving town of Juneau. We had lunch and then explored the tourist trap part of the town. To my surprise, 70% of the stores on this street were jewelry shops. I had no idea that so many people went on cruises to go and buy jewelry!

There isn't much room for the shops on the small street. As you look up the staircase in the middle of the picture, you will see the thick forest and a steep mountain right behind the stores. We were told that there are small homes at the top of the staircase. However, we didn't hike the stairs to find out.

Brent and I had fun shopping at a few places and enjoyed the rugged culture of the town.

After a fun afternoon exploring Juneau, we headed back to the ship for a relaxing evening of sailing to Skagway, Alaska. This is a picture of the sun finally setting. The sun didn't set until around 10:30pm. Spectacular sight!