Monday, August 30, 2010
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!
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
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.
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.
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.
Monday, August 23, 2010
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.
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.
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