Ok one more for real this is the last one

and this is the best one I'm not sure how I overlooked this.


Ice falling from the Hubbard Glacier.

And the light at night

Ok One More

This is the moose video. Now I'm done.

"It's looking right at you. We have to go."

Alaska Out-Takes

Ok not so much out-takes as much as stuff on the little camera that is cool that I couldn't download while on vacation. There is only one out-take, and it goes a little something like this...

While in Alaska Michael was in charge of the little camera and I was in charge of the big camera. There were lots of times that were not terribly opportune to be changing lenses, like kayaking, so he handled the wide angle stuff and I handled the zoom. He was also in charge of video. I will stress before you view this video this was not Michael's fault.

Picture this. You're in a glacial lake and the salmon are jumping and spawning so you go to shoot some video of it. Just as you start filming a bald eagle flies about 20 feet in front of you. Oh my god it's the video of a lifetime! It's youtube gold!

Memory card full.

You can see the eagle there on the left getting ready to fly across our video. Turns out neither of us had emptied the memory card. Sigh.

Here are a few pics from the little camera that I think are good. All pics will be uploaded soon to picasa or facebook or whichever site is behaving the best the day I try to upload. Enjoy.

No, I'm not saluting. I'd made a Murphy's Law deal with Alaska that day. If I don't bring my sunglasses the sun will come out. I was blind.

And last but not least the pice de resistance...

The full on double rainbow all the way across the sky:

You can hear Michael laughing at the end there. No one on the bus even mentioned the double rainbow guy. And this is a double rainbow but you can't really make it out. Filming conditions weren't great.

We had a great time and if anyone needs AK advice please feel free to drop me a line.

Vancouver

Sigh. I have a crush on Vancouver. I'm sorry Boston, I'm still married to you but my one night stand with Vancouver was very satisfying.

I lied when I said Ketchikan was our final port. Vancouver is where we disembarked and we spent the day and night there on Saturday. We rented bikes and rode around the perimeter of Stanley Park. What an amazing park indeed. Now before you play the next video please note the following:

1) My husband tends to be reckless and does things he probably shouldn't do.

2) His bicycling skills are piss poor. I mean when I was riding behind him it was unsettling. For some reason he pulls on the handlebars when he pushes the pedals and the result is, well, he's kinda all over the road.

So when I saw he was videoing while riding My reaction was this:




Now take note of the joggers he could have run down and that "line" in the middle there is actually a curb oh and the wall we could have crashed into on the left. Yeah, no need to worry there.

The park is really full of cool stuff like this crazy island that is just off the shore

And this artist that stacks the ocean rocks precariously:

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/feb/19/sports/la-sp-olympics-rock19-2010feb19

Oddly enough that's all I could find on the guy. There are some Youtube videos too

After a bit of lunch we headed to the Public Market on our bikes. This place is what Fanieuil Hall should be. Veggies and seafood and meats and cheeses and spices. No Banana Republic, real fricking bananas, thank you very much. I loved it.

We went back to the hotel with some olives and cheese had a snack and then off to Yaletown. Our first stop here was a place called The Keg. Now, when I say The Keg what do you think? A beer bar..maybe a little grungy. Nope. This place was like a trendy NYC roof deck bar. It was really nice but served three kinds of beer. At The Keg. Three kinds of beer. Huh.

We moved on after a couple of drinks to what is hands down the coolest bar I have ever been to. It's called Raw Canvas and the sign in the window said "Eat, Drink and Make Art." Color me intrigued. We went in and looked around. They weren't kidding. You can eat. You can drink. and you can make art. The front is a bar. Mismatched chairs and beat up wood tables but a very clean and trendy atmosphere. Go down the ramp into the back and there is a bunch of easels set up and you can buy a canvas and paint to your hearts content. Cool, cool, COOL! JP is screaming for a bar like this!!

Now what I really need to stress here is the people of Vancouver. If we had walked into a bar in NYC or Boston that had the trendy vibe that these bars did we would have been treated like crap. We were clearly tourists and Michael was wearing a sweatshirt. We were wrung out from our vacation and showed the signs. Neither of us was up for a night of gussied up shenanigans.The bartenders in both places could not have been nicer and more welcoming. In fact everyone we encountered right down to the cab drivers were so genuinely friendly.

And PS the people in Vancouver all seem to be really fit and beautiful. The only fat people we saw were carrying maps and looked lost.

I will absolutely go back to Vancouver.

Ketchikan

Or should I say Kitsch-ikan. No that's just mean. It was absolutely the shopping port and we knew that so we saved most of our souvenir buying for this stop. Cheaper and a bigger selection. It was pretty honky tonk but it was an actual functional city much like Juneau. Tourism is big but it is really a fishing town. I was wise to choose the Alaskan Chef's Table as my activity for the day. Oh my. Deliciousness.

This was the final port and we had already been on vacation for a week together. Most of you faithful readers know that Michael and I don't get a lot of time together (understatement!) so we aren't used to being together every night and every day for such a stretch. We hadn't fought at all, but I'm a pretty firm believer that if you don't do something apart once in a while you run out of stuff to talk about. So in Ketchikan we went our separate ways. He went ziplining (shocker) and I went for a fish feast in town and did a little shopping.

The Alaskan chef's table was divine. Much of what you would expect form Alaskan cuisine, it was all fish. Crab legs (from the Wizard!) King white salmon which is absolutely delicious. I never

knew such a thing existed and the chef said he wasn't surprised. It is really difficult to get and extremely expensive. The chef was most impressive. He was ridiculously cute and his name was Ryan Hendricks. 24 years old and is just now starting formal chef's training. He has great talent and can make a sauce that would make my keyboard palatable. Seriously, remember this kid's name he'll be a reality star one day. He has the looks, charm and talent.

Michael's zipline tour was a bit disappointing but I'll leave him to tell you about that.

When we both returned we went up up and away in a sea plane to the Misty Fjords. Well at least we tried to. The plane tour was running late due to mechanical problems (yikes) and then once we finally did make it onto the plane the starter didn't work. Part of this tour is to water-land in the fjords and let us walk out onto the pontoons of the plane, like this:

That's me hanging on for dear life.

That's Michael not hanging on at all.

Now if the plane would have initially started then failed when we stopped in the middle of nowhere...well we would have missed our boat for sure. That would have SUCKED. well when the first plane didn't start we switched to another and took off. The following pictures are through the glass windows of a 6 passenger plane that was built in the 1950s (we found that out AFTER the flight)

When you say you're in the middle of nowhere and you're really just a couple of miles away from somewhere...I mean anything, you really are exaggerating. I have never felt so isolated as I have in the Misty Fjords and at the Hubbard Glacier. Even on a ship full of 5,000 people you felt small and insignificant. The same is true at the fjords. You were truly just out in no man's land. The expanse if Alaska is one of its marvels. It goes on and on and on.

Then we got back and saw this:

Aw yeah.

Alaska to be continued

I have lots more to say about the trip and more awesome pictures. Hopefully I'll have time to get them up tonight. Stay Tuned!

Time Bandit

I can't believe I saw the freaking Time Bandit!!!!!

Juneau

What a lovely little town. It's nice to visit functioning cities. Skagway was a theme park. Juneau was an actual city where people live. Of course tourism is a huge source of revenue but it wasn't set up specifically for tourists.

What a shit show of a day though. Firstly I'll tell you that the weather has been ridiculously beautiful. Today the sun came out again and I didn't even need long sleeves. We ate outside in town and relished every moment of sunshine.

We strolled into town about 9ish and poked around had tea and coffee and shopped a bit. Then we ventured back to the ship to drop off some things before heading to the helicopter tour of the Mendenhall glacier. Leave the ship to meet the guide and ...ummm...guess what. We effed up. The tour left at 9am and we thought it was leaving at 11:30. Shite. So we went back on the boat only to discover that the tour desk was closed and we had to talk to someone outside. Back off the boat (keep in mind we have to scan our cruise card and go through security every time. they must have thought we were nuts) to find out that the tour had been cancelled anyway due to weather. PHEW that could have been a nearly $400 mistake. Back on the boat to drop off the cold weather gear we needed for out tour and back out to Juneau for lunch. Now, had we shown up for the tour at 9 like we were supposed to we would have known early on that it was cancelled and booked something cool on our own like a sea plane ride, but no, we blew it. We had a wine tasting back on the ship at 3 and didn't want to risk being late. Which we ended up being late for anyway since the line to get back on the ship was like 4 miles long. Thank goodness the weather was good today and we just chilled in Juneau otherwise it would have been pretty frustrating.

We found an out of the way bar and got a beer and watched the seaplanes take off. then we took a tram to the top of a nearby mountain and strolled around up there. Saw a bald eagle that had been shot and rescued. They are very impressive birds.

All in all it was a decent day in Juneau. I am hoping for the improbable, a third straight day of awesome weather. Michael will be one soggy zipliner if we get rain tomorrow.

Skagway

Meh. Skagway is what the cruise folks want I guess but it was a bit Disney-esque. We went kayaking (that's where we saw the bears) so we only spent a few hours in town. We managed to find a great brewery and had a few beers off boat. It was so nice to get off the stupid boat.

Most of you know our last cruise pretty much sucked. Really bad boat and the cheese factor of the cruise in general was nearly intolerable. This cruise is much better and I wouldn't change a thing about our vacation, but the cheese factor is still there. The bars/entertainment is all geared to the old folks. When you get off the boat in a port they have crew members dressed in costumes and they want to take a picture with you. And then there is "formal night" I hate formal night and on this cruise it just seems extra wrong. I just hiked through the tundra and saw huge mountains and bear poo and you want me to put on a gown? No thank you. All that said the cruise is the way to go if you are going to AK. The Hubbard glacier is generally not accessible by anything smaller than a cruise ship and to have come here and missed that would have been a crime. The food on board has been good so far and we have managed to find some people that are nice.

Kayaking was completely amazing and we ended up with a beautiful day. The guides were saying they hadn't had a day this good all season. The forecast called for rain and high winds but the forecast was wrong. Not only was it dry but the sun came out and apparently that is a rarity. We'll be taking a helicopter to a glacier today. Cross your fingers for good weather.

Da Bears

When I came to Alaska I was excited to see the wildlife but what I really wanted to see was grizzly bears. There is something about the danger that really fascinates me. so today we really got our money's worth. In fact every day we say, "If I had to go home tomorrow it would have all been worth it."

Yes I took that. zoom lens was on but the bears were so close to the bus I probably would have gotten great pictures without it.
Momma bear and her cubs.
and a couple of bald eagles for good measure. More awesome pics to come. I can't believe the beauty we have seen. It's just staggering.

Massive Ice

A little seal!

Falling ice

Glaciers...

Ship's wifi is spotty bu I will be posting pictures soon of the glaciers we saw.

People overuse words and the English language is ill equipped to handle the details of the amazing sights we saw yesterday and today. At least my grasp on the English language is. Maybe there are some cunning linguists out there that could describe beauty better than I.

The Hubbard Glacier is just about the most awesome thing I have ever seen. Period. It is an active advancing glacier which means it's moving and getting bigger. Active is a small word for what this glacier actually does. Chunks of ice fall from the face of this glacier every few minutes. The small chunks were probably falling about 50 feet and were the size of buses. The bigger falls were more the size of a building. Possibly bigger. We were really fortunate that we could get so close. The naturalist they have on board told us that the last trip here the ice was to thick even for a cruise ship and they could get no closer than 5 miles. Yesterday we were a mile and a half away and the only ship in the inlet. The sound it makes is like thunder. Even the small ice falls were unbelievably loud.

Pictures soon I swear, but the pictures will not even come close to expressing what we saw. We have video too but can't upload here have to wait till we get home. I'll post those when we return.

Michael At The Top

hehehe look at how little he is.

Day 3 or Did That Really Just Happen? Really?

Today we decided to hike in the Denali park entrance. No long bus ride just a relaxed day of hiking. We thought since we weren't going deep into the park that we would see less wildlife. Oh my were we ever wrong.

We started off the hike to the top of Mt. Healy and not 10 minutes in we see this:

That is a baby moose chillin' like a villain about 50 feet of the trail. Someone on the way down gave us the heads up so I threw the zoom lens on and there you have it. A picture of a moose. But it doesn't stop there. Oh no our wildlife tour was just begining. We walked up the trail about another 100 feet or so and saw this:

That's momma moose. I had to lean in for this shot and my heart was pounding out of my chest. We weren't terribly close but moose are really big and I was kinda freakin.

We continued our hike and got close to the top of Mt. Healy. We made a new friend:

This crazy prarie dog let me get so close it was uncomfortable. I didn't have the zoom lens on for this I was so close I could have reached out and pet him. I didn't.

The whole hike we spoke to people that had seen the moose we had seen at the begining of the trail. It seemed that they had been there a while so we were optimistic that we would see them on the way down. That's when we saw this:

Are you freaking KIDDING ME? This was the same baby we saw on the way up but it had crossed the trail and was having lunch. We were about 15 feet away.

We hung out and took pictures and video but we knew momma was close by so we didn't linger too long. I think I didn't breathe the entire time we were there. It was surreal. No zoom lens for this one either. It was the real deal. Up close and personal.

Everyone that is reading this I must tell you that this is a place you need to see. If you have a bucket list add Denali too it. This has already been the most amazing trip and we are only 3 days in.

Denali

Well folks there it is. Mt. McKinley. It is an amazing thing to lay eyes on and we got really lucky, the people that went into the park the day before didn't see the mountain once, but the clouds cleared for us and we got a spectacular view.

It never really gets dark here. The sun "sets" at about 10:00 but even then it doesn't get truly dark. It sort of stays twilight all night until the sun comes back up at 5:30 or so. It's very bizarre. In fact it is somewhat unsettling. I didn't realize it but there is some comfort in the dark of night. I will say, though, that you really can get a lot into a day when the sun stays up for so long and it's really easy to lose track of time.

Bear in the road!! :) Now off to hike some more.

Days 1 and 2 in Alaska

Warning. Blogger has had 2 glasses of wine and 6 hours of sleep in the last 48 hours. Typos and tangents may occur.

yesterday is much as you would imagine it...17 hours of travel time in either a car or a plane. Surprisingly smooth but loooong nonetheless. After two delirium inducing flights we were in a car on an Alaskan highway headed for the highest mountain n the USA. Very exciting. Very exhausing.

Route 3 to Denali is a two lane highway that is undergoing some serious renovations. After a pretty major delay for roadwork we started to get into the scenic part of AK (PS Anchorage is a shithole Wasilla is ok if you like target and Sara Palin and stuff.) Mountains everywhere just jutting out of the ground like they owned the place. When we were about an hour from Denali we started to see really huge mounians.

Michael: "Wow those are some big mount...holy shit that's McKinley."
Me: What that sticking up out of the clouds?"
Michael: "Yeah!"

Honestly it must have been the cloud placement or something but the mountains we were looking at and marveling at their size were absoutely dwarfed by the peak sticking up through the clouds. I laughed.

How many of you took band in school? Show of hands? OK put your hands down.

My band teacher introduced us to all of the instruments in the orchestra our first day of band class. From the highest note on the piccolo to the lowest note on the basoon. I remember when he blew the lowest note on the basoon I lauged. I didn't mean to it was just the absurdity of the note. It was so low it was just funny. I had the same sensation when I saw McKinley. The absurdity of the size of this mountain was just comical. Mountains we were in awe of were just a joke. I was surrounded by mountains that were taller than any I had ever seen and here was this crazy peak making a mockery of them. It was like the dude that came in and built a mansion in a shantytown.

We arrived at the McKinley creekside cabins and let me just say that if you ever come here this is where you should stay. Our cabin is right on the creek and the white noise is to die for (Amy this is your spot!) the food is amazing and the pillows rock. Pillows are big in my book.

We went into Denali today and hiked a bit. We saw pretty much every animal you can see in Denali. including a bear in the road! A bear in the road playing with a traffic cone!

Pictures will follow. It's hard to upload here but I'll do it soon.

Dance Like No One's Watching?

Well, I do that all the time in the appropriate setting. I mean if I'm out dancing I don't really hold back. There are terrible pictures of me dancing at people's weddings (yes that picture, Doc Sue) because I just don't care at all what I look like when I'm cutting it up. I know I must look a fool when I'm out there killing it on the dance floor, but I simply can't help it. I just lose all control. I've been told I'm the life of the party but really I think it's just a nice way of saying I'm a total dork.

So when I walked by Borders this morning and Adam Ant was coaxing me with his Goody Two Shoes, I had a really hard time keeping my pace and continuing on to work. Damn Borders and their awesome outdoor speakers. I honestly wanted to just drop what I was carrying and dance to Adam Ant. That would have been crazy, right? Yes, definitely crazy. If I had been with someone else that had that same urge and two of us took to dancing in front of Borders at 8:30am on a Tuesday morning it may have seemed less crazy, right? I mean we may have been able to get all the johnny-punch-clocks to actually dance a jig before heading into their mundane desk jobs. Everyone in downtown crossing would have had a better day because of the two people that spontaneously danced on their way to work. We would have had a crowd of people dancing to Goody Two Shoes! I know it! At least that's the way it would have worked out with two people dancing...in my head...sigh. One person dancing in front of Borders would have inspired all the johnny-punch-clocks to call the cops.

And here is my question to you...would you be that person to drop everything and dance with me to Adam Ant at 8:30am in downtown crossing Boston? Would you?