Juneau AM

We made a stop in the Capital of Alaska, Juneau.  You can only get to Juneau by plane or boat.  Locals say they have a road out of town but it ends in 50 miles.  It is literally a road to nowhere, hahahaaaa. 

We traveled by the Glacier Express (Blue Bus) to Mendenhall Glacier.  A round trip ticket was 16 dollars and by far cheaper than the cruise ship excursion.   Walking around the glacier was free, but if you want to go in the visitor center it will cost you 3 dollars. 

Mendenhall Glacier

This visitor center was at the foot of the glacier when it was built. It was amazing to see how far the glacier had receded.

They had QR codes on signs along the trail. Since I have an Iphone now I scanned it and it provided a guide with Ranger Travis explaining what we were seeing. So cool!

Today was cool and we had a light drizzle during our hike.  But after a few miles it felt good.  It was neat to see the icebergs close up. 

We hiked the trail to Nugget Falls. At one time these falls were behind the glacier flow and made an ice cave.















Then we head back to town on the Blue Bus.  The ship was docked right on the main street, so we hopped back on for some lunch.  

I didn't want to make this post too long so I will save our afternoon activity for my next post. 

Word Filled Wednesday

I haven't been posting my art journal for a long time because I ran out of ideas.  I mean I could slap a verse or quote in randomly, but I want this little book to have meaning to those who find it after I am gone. 

 I stumbled upon this BLOG. 

She uses her journal to doodle/draw what she learned in church each week.  That little idea has inspired me to do something similar with my art journal. 

 Be available to the Lord.  Setting your priorities in life, so the Lord is numero uno.  Listening for His guidance and surrendering to His call. 

Have a blessed day!

The Ship

This was our home for our seven night alaskan cruise.  She is called, the Radiance of the Seas.  This class of ship is know for all of its glass.  They have huge windows, which is great when scenery is one of the main attractions in Alaska.

Michael and I really enjoy cruising.  Once you are on the ship, they meet your every need.  Each day you wake up in a new port.  O'yes, you can forget about the endless food opportunities!!

Here is our room.  Yes, we spoiled ourselves and got a suite.  We enjoy the perks and extra room a suite provides. 

On this ship you could go out onto the helipad!  We took advantage of the great views from this area. 

Can you see the captain sailing the ship? 

That is the bridge up on the top.

They had a solarium area, which was very nice.  It had a hot tub and pool.  They also had the Park Cafe, which served breakfast and really yummy lunch sandwiches.  Michael enjoyed the salt water pool.

Here is a picture of the outside pool.  I found it funny with the snowy mountains in the background.  On days when the sun came out, people were swimming and sun bathing. 

Looking up in the Centrum

The Centrum was the area for different demonstrations during the cruise.  They also had nightly music and people would dance.  On the second level was a coffee shop that served Starbucks coffee.  Michael liked that!!!!

Here is the view of the main dinning room.  I will share more about the food and dining later.  It was first class service and was a nice way to wrap up our days.

My next post will be all about Juneau.  At this port we walked around a glacier and ziplined through the rainforest.  Stay tuned..............

Hubbard Glacier

Saturday we spent the day at sea and cruising to Hubbard Glacier.  It was a rainy and cold day.  When we finally arrived at the glacier area and the rain stopped.  We were able to go out on the deck to watch as the ship sailed with in ¼ mile of the glacier.  The ship did a 360 turn so everyone could see the glacier.

Michael and I went to lecture on glaciers.  We learned a glacier is a slowly moving mass or river of ice formed by the accumulation and compaction of snow. 

The brown layers are rocks/soil that get caught up in the moving ice.  Only 1/3 of icebergs are floating on top of the water.  The other part of the berg is under the water. 

This iceberg was bobbing up and down in the water.

The ice absorbs most light and reflects the short-wave-length blue light.

As the ice moves along and is exposed to warmer air or warmer water, the crystal structure breaks down and reflects all the light. That change, makes the ice appear white.

 

We heard the glacier calve.  It was a loud boom, like thunder.  But by the time the sound made it to us the ice had already fallen in to sea.

The deepest blue coloration is often seen in fractured places: crevasses, towers and where chunks of ice have calved. The color may appear richest on cloudy days.

The cruise line sent out a boat to collect large pieces of ice for people touch and then be sculpted into things by the ships food artist.

The ice carving dude also does all the food carving.  I will share his creations later.  He made an eagle out that chunk of ice. 

Here are some more close up shots of the glacier. 

After I wrote this blog entry I realized that I said I was going to share about the ship today.  I got distracted so I will show you the ship tomorrow.

Anchorage to Seward

Today we traveled from Anchorage to Seward .  We had a choice of either a bus or train ride. 

We decided to take the Alaskan Railroad train.   

Trip Advisor said it was the most scenic trip in Alaska. 

Michael and I like traveling on trains.  They have roomy seats and you can get up and move around the cars. 

The train traveled along the coast.  The two tall cars in the front of the train are the Gold Cars.  They have a dome roof.  We chose the standard fare because they had a military discount!!!

When someone would spot wildlife, the conductor would slow down the train so we could all see it.  Here we saw some mountain sheep.

We took advantage of the cafe car to get some coffee and hot chocolate!  We kept our free (to go) breakfast from the hotel to munch on druing our ride.  We knew at the end of the trip we would be getting on the ship of endless food!!!!!

We had a beautiful sunny day for most of the time.  The water is so calm, it made for some great reflection shots.  Not a bad shot from inside the train.

Below is an area that was flooded after the 1964 earthquake. The land was displaced up to 38 feet in some areas.  This turned  a wooded area into a mainly swampy area. 

Then we started to go into the mountains. 

 Rivers ran next to the train.

We went through many tunnels.  Then we came to the "loop".  The tracks curved back and forth to get over a pass area.  You could see the front of the train straight across from where we were sitting.

We saw a a glacier!



Another, pretty good reflection.



After a four hour ride we made it to Seward.  By this time it is rainy, windy and very cool outside.   We made our way to the cruise ship.

This was a spectacular ride!  I was thinking if I had to go home right now, I have already  had such a fabulous experience.  But, NOoooooo, there is so much more to come.  Stay tuned......... Next I will share with you our home away from home for the next seven nights, The Radiance of the Seas.

Alaska: The Last Frontier........

As many of you know Michael and I took a vacation to the great state of ALASKA!  It was an amazing trip.  I will try to share with you the details and adventures we had during our time in the Last Frontier.

I plan to give links to all the places and activities so you can check them out further and maybe someday go on your own Alaskan adventure!

We flew from Washington DC to Anchorage (layover in Seattle) in around 13 hours.  It was a LONG time.  As we sat in the sardine box, (I mean plane) I wondered if this long flight would be worth it????  Then as we got close to Anchorage I looked out the window and saw this:

Words cannot descrobe the beauty of the mountains below us.  They looked like they went on forever.  We saw hundreds of miles of southeastern Alaska.

As we got closer to Anchorage there was less snow.

Then BAM, we hit the Anchorage area.  It was a drastic change, but nice. Here is a little Wiki about Anchorage. 

View from the airport.

 We stayed at the Hampton Inn because it had a free shuttle that took you into dowtown and gave us a ride to the train station.  This saved us some $$$ because we didn't have to rent a car. There was a four hour time difference. We we tried to stay up so we could get on Alaska time.  Plus they have 18 hours of daylight, so it was daytime all the time, woo hoo!!!!    

The next day we had the shuttle drop us off downtown. 
 We rented bikes and rode Tony Knowles Coastal Trail . 

Pete at the bike rental place was great.  He fitted us for the bikes and gave us tips about the trail. The trail was 11 miles one way.  We took another way back and ended up riding around 25 miles. 

We rode along the coast.  We thought we would be right next to the water, but it was

 low tide and it was mostly mud flats. 



We saw a moose grazing in a park. 

We rode past this lake where every house had a plane parked on their front lawn. 

They say the plane to people ratio is 1:50. 

Of course there is always time for FISHING!  Michael bought a 7 day fishing lisense and had a blast catching salmon, trought and bass.

So that was our first two days of our trip. Next is our train trip to Seward.  I have to go pick out which of the 100 pictures to share with you.  Plus I have to check out a thesauus so I don't keep using the words AMAZING, BEAUTIFUL, AWSOME.......