Alaskan Cruise

So, we've had this Alaskan cruise planned for over a year. Suddenly it was here, and we were so excited to have 10 days alone. We made a quick visit to Seattle and visited my dad and brother Clay. I hadn't seen Clay in years, and my dad set up a little surprise for me to "run into" him....literally. Long story short, my dad dropped us off at Pike's Market to grab some dinner, and as I was waiting on the curb for him to swing back around and pick us up, a man blatantly went out of his way to slam into my shoulder, and then yell "WATCH WHERE YOU'RE GOING!!" at me. I was turning to yell something along the lines of "what's your problem??" when I noticed that it was Clay. Dad had set up the whole thing! We got to spend the evening with him at dinner, and it was a blast to catch up. He's so happy and healthy! 

The next day we were up bright and early to pick up Colton and Christian, our cruise mates, and get to the boat. All went smoothly, and I'd say we rather enjoyed the trip. Except, I will say that I missed my kids so badly, I about cried every time I thought of them. 

Saluting Seattle fairwell!

We even got to enjoy the supermoon

Juneau was the port where we had planned to go whale watching. It has always been on my bucket list to not only go whale watching, but to see Orcas, specifically. I didn't have too high of hopes that we'd see much, especially since our tour guide started out the tour with this zinger "well, we usually only see one or two whales, and you only see their humps." Dang. But, like everything else on this trip, we were unusually lucky and say WAY more! 

Sighting #1 already a treat. Not just ONE, but a mommy and her baby. 

Sighting #2, next treat, a tail wave. 

Then our Captain comes on the radio and says, "guys we have quite a special surprise for you up ahead," He races the boat off a Mach speed, and I about died when we pulled up onto a pod of Orcas. SIX orcas!!! According to the tour guide, seeing these guys is incredibly rare. We definitely hit the trifecta with all the cool things we saw. As I snapped pictures of the Orcas, I remember whispering, unintentionally, "wow, oh my gosh...." I wanted to cry, it was so amazing! The dorsal fin on the matriarch was at least 6 FEET tall. 

We had a gorgeous view of the Mendenhall Glacier

We stopped for dinner at the highly-recommended Red Dog Saloon. 

Ryan ordered the reindeer sausage, and MADE me try it. It was pretty good. Sorry, Santa. 

Every inch of this place was covered in people's names, either scraped into the wood or written in marker. I didn't have a marker, but my tweezers made a good enough tool to carve "Nat & Ry" into the wall behind our table. This is Ryan's "I can't take her anywhere" look. 

Skagway is (rather, WAS) a big gold mining town. Ryan and I are huge fans of all of the Gold Rush and Bearing Sea Gold shows, so we wanted this port to be where we panned for gold. The TINY town of Skagway was my favorite for many reasons. It was a GORGEOUS day, a day that the locals say only happens 20 days out of the year. I was also able to do a lot of my charm hunting (story to come later) at this port. Then we went on our excursion, and were stunned by all of the amazing views. 

Pettin' the prospector! 

And if you're wondering, yes, I did make Colton that hat. It's from Firefly. (gotta be a nerd to get that one)

The ship didn't serve Dr. Pepper, so Ryan was having serious withdrawals. We found not only an ice cold can, but some delicious fry bread as well. 

Our tour guide said the colors only started changing last week. And the week before, it was raining with 60 MPH winds. Man, we got so lucky at every port. 

The first stop on our excursion was a quick hike up to this waterfall and then to see the miner's cemetery, where the famous miner Soapy Smith is buried. 

This over-the-top grave stone was for the man who KILLED Soapy Smith, since Smith was more of a conman than a miner

Then we went to Liarsville. Named because all of the newspaper writers lived there. 

So this was my "pay dirt." The tour guide hands it to me and then immediately takes it from me and says "here, let me show everyone how it's done." Then he proceeds to pan all my gold, leaving me with nothing to do. We only got one pan....

I really did suck at panning, though, so maybe it's good that he did it all for me. 

Holding up our $3 worth of gold....we spent $5 to pan. 

After Liarsville, we drove up and up and up into the mountains, into Canada. That's where the weather changed and it got really cold. 

We didn't have much planned for Ketchikan. Mostly we just wanted to wander the town and see what there was to offer. I did some more charm hunting, we visited a museum, and did some shopping. This picture below is the ONLY picture Ryan allowed me to take, since by that point, we started fighting every time I asked everyone to stop for a picture. And by "we," I mean Ryan and I. 

Inside the museum, they had a little corner where the kids could color a picture and hang it on the wall. Christian and I gave it our best efforts, but were pretty embarrassed by the results.

My favorite part "Christian....age 32"

We spent most of this day slowly sailing through a valley of glaciers. It was perfectly sunny, and the scenery was stunning. I'll let the pictures do most of the talking. 

20 or so seals, sunbathing on an iceberg. 

I just barely missed the piece break off, but I did catch the splash! 

Ryan and my family have been to Victoria several times before, so this port was more of a "let's have dinner" kind of thing, since we got in late. We walked to the downtown area, had dinner at a little pub, stopped for gelato after, and then headed back to the ship. No biggie. 

I think I would be correct in assuming that we were the youngest group of people on the cruise. Yet we were participating in some of the top cliche elderly activities out there, while all the old people were boozing it up and playing bingo. In our spare time, we liked to find a quiet spot on the ship and either play board games, or the guys would read while I worked on crocheting Ernie's sweater. It was nice and relaxing. There were a few nights that we tried some of the specialty on-board dining. One night was Teppanyaki and another night was a Brazilian steak house, similar to Rodizio Grill. 

This is basically what Ryan's breakfast looked like every morning. 

This was the day that ALL the desserts served in the cafeteria looked good....so I tried them all. I literally only took one bite of each (as you can see)

This was my favorite crocheting spot. A big chaise lounge at the front of the ship. I saw so many whales and porpoises from this spot. 

It was so sunny and pretty, you wouldn't think we were in Alaska

Board gaming. I lost every time. 

Teppanyaki night. I'm proud to report that when the chef flung a piece of egg for me to catch in my mouth, I was the only one out of our group that caught it!! WOO!! 

Okay, so onto the charm hunting story. If you've ever been on a cruise, you know that the port cities try to get tourists into the jewelry stores by offering free charms, in hopes that they can upsell you something more. I've made hunting down these charms a tradition on every cruise, since hey, it's sort of exciting AND it's free. I have a Mexico cruise charm bracelet, a Caribbean bracelet, and now an Alaska bracelet. Granted, Ryan and I fought a ton because he didn't want to go with me on my charm adventures, so Christian had to be my charm buddy. I figure, since we were already wandering down the main street, if I'm walkin' past the store anyway, I may as well pop in for a free trinket. It made Ryan mad because it took "like 5 minutes" for him to wait for me to go in, and it was annoying him. UGH!!  By the end of the cruise, every charm stop guaranteed Ryan and I would fight, and the game was no longer fun. Charms include: a salmon, a train, an eagle, a totem pole, a bear, two stone bears, a whale tail, and a "Northern Lights" gem

I missed these Moose cabooses and bear bums SOOOOO much! I'm glad to be back to normal.