Cruising on a ship !

Life on a cruise ship can be so fun ! It can be slow and relaxing or busy but food was always available to find ! Wonderful people clean your room 2 times a day, leaving you little cute towel animals on your bed with the next days ship news paper. Room service whenever you like, when was the last time someone brought you coffee in bed with a fresh croissant ! ( pre-breakfast !)

It's fun to get dressed up...

Or order two entrees ! I had fish every day, sea bass, lobster, tilapia, shrimp, mahi mahi, it was so fun trying them all !
Jamie and I would scope out the menu for the night sometime during the day to see what was in store ! Most of the time we ate at tables with other people and had fun visiting with them, visiting about what they'd experienced that day. Sometimes a table for 4. We had 2 ladies that after eating with them 2 times asked the next day what time we were eating, I guess they enjoyed our chit chat !

Desserts were wonderful !

Here is a random shot of the inner passage you hear about, I had no idea what it really would be, it's wider than the fiord's we traversed but you see land on both sides most the way.
The central area of most ships have many elevators and almost always had live music to listen to.
We played games, did alot of whale watching, great places for sitting inside or out, comfortable chairs with great viewing out the windows. The dolphins loved the wake of the boat out the back, in fact the excercise room was out the back of the boat so how fun to be on the bikes or treadmills watching the dolphins playing behind! We saw alot of whales, someone would notice a spout, then pretty soon a flipper or tail would come out of the water. Jeremy saw one jump, it was fun to have that in common with everyone, someone would point and everyone would be at the windows watching !
Everything was served in small portions so sometimes you just ordered 2 to try them !
There was a soft serve ice cream machine that seemed to magically appear every day !

Rock climbing for those that dared !

Always something to do to get ready to eat more FOOD !

The Olympics

We spent our final 1/2 of the day driving over to the Olympics. Thank goodness for alot of daylight, we were to late tho to get any stamps at the visitors centers. We stopped for a walk at the largest spruce tree in the world. Amazing isn't it.

Lots of friendly elk...

And decided before turning around we needed to see the Pacific ocean.

Brrr it was cold and windy and wet but wonderful to see.

We headed back to Tacoma and stopped at a little beach town to have pizza at Sasquatch pizza, don't you love out of the way little local places !
I surely didn't see enough of Mt Rainier or the Olympics, after seeing the snow capped peaks of the Olympics from out in the ocean I definitely have that on the most go back and see list !

Juneau Alaska

We made it to Alaska !!!!! Our first stop was in Juneau, their state Capitol ! What a quaint little town !

We took a bus out to see the Mendenhall lake and Glacier

A huge waterfall nearby, you could feel the mist in the air, amazing how much water rushes down from those snowy peaks all around.
These ice bergs all were in the mendenhall lake in front of the glacier, the little kayak shows how big some were.

We took the walk back to get as close as you could to the glacier.

After spending the morning doing that we decided the best way to see the town was to do a bit of geo caching. What fun out of the way places you find. Local people have hidden these treasure hunts in some fantastic spots you'd never find. We walked and walked thru the streets of Juneau, up to the hills behind the town.

Waterfalls and a wonderful flume trail.

Coming back thru town we saw some neat totem poles, it was great to get into the neighborhoods and see what it'd be like living in Juneau Alaska !
Of course the touristy stuff is there but how fun to see life in Juneau on the "other side" !

Back to the ship of course in search of FOOD !!!!

Leaving Seattle and boarding the ship !

We left Tacoma and headed to down town Seattle, stopping first at another National Park in the old Downtown area, Klondike Gold Rush National Park. A very neat place to visit giving us a bit of why the places in Alaska we were about to see were developed for the gold rush. The park rangers posed for a picture with us !And we were off to the ship ! Such ease they move people around with, leaving our suitcases which magically turned up in your staterooms.
We of course found FOOD for lunch first thing ! It was cold and rainy, but we searched out a few fun things on deck, played some shuffleboard and looked around at our new home for the week.
and before we knew it we set sail for Alaska ! An adventure everyone should experience !

How fun to watch a big ship leave port !

Victoria BC - final stop

Our last stop on our cruise to Alaska was Victoria BC. What a charming place to visit ! We got off the ship and took a bus into town and stopped into a coffee shop....Jamie sacrificed herself with a drink so we could use their WiFi ! Time to get boarding passes for our plane rides home tomorrow and who wants to pay the ship to do it !!!! After getting both of ours at different spots we headed out to see what we could see in Victoria !
We walked past alot of the touristy things and it was great to see their magnificent English archetecture and massive buildings ! Tons of people everywhere, lots of buses and school children playing on the parliament building lawn.
Out came the geo chaching and what fun places we found, side gardens to some of these great touristy places. One in a little coffee shop.....what a smart man, then we HAD to buy a cookie of course ! He spied us first and said "I know what you are looking for" !

Amazing trees in these climates !

Lots of totem poles.

One of our paths led us past this lawn that was some sort of very proper recreation area for what looked like boccie ball or some kind of lawn bowling. Everyone was properly dresssed in white, they were using alot of hand signs of all sorts and they even had this cool ball gatherer that they pushed around. The balls weren't even round but all marked with their spin like Ken marks his golf balls.....very interesting as we stood by the fence watching !
We had great luck finding all the caches we looked for, down some wonderful quaint streets where people have darling Victorian homes and everyone has a garden of flowers and beautiful small lawns. Their trees have great hiding spots !!!
We ended up in this magnificent park, there was a petting zoo, peacocks wandering around, canadian geese and ducks, wonderful trees.....great to see while a hunting we went !
We ended up at another park overlooking the Puget sound and then turned back to find the down town and bus that brought us there, and then of course it was back to the ship....in search of FOOD !!!!

Skagway Alaska

Skagway gave us such a fun time on our trip to Alaska ! We splurged and decided to take the White Pass train ride. It was 3 1/2 hours past some beautiful country. We went on the first one of the morning, the sky was blue and the sun was out !We all spent most of the trip out on the platform outside of the cars experiencing the sounds of the steam engine and the many water falls we passed.

Isn't it fun when you give your camera to someone and you get these great shots !
A couple tunnels and bridges, amazing elevation gain up to the snow at the White Horse Pass.

Such beautiful backgrounds in that clean crisp air !

The train ride was a highlight for us all !

After getting off the train we walked into the town of Skagway and stopped at the Skagway National Park office of the Klondike Gold Rush and got another stamp. Then we hit up a quilt shop !!!! Yeah ! After getting to have a fast shopping time there and getting Jamie's ship pass card out from under the boardwalk where it just jumped ( yea for Jeremy with his smooth hands and the kind lady at the quilt store for giving him 2 shelf hangers as retrieval sticks) we were off to have ice cream cones !
We had the rest of the afternoon to go exploring and do some geo caching which took us to some wonderful spots ! Old Train engines, seeing the quaint little town of Skagway and walking the streets where people live...population 800.

A beautiful water fall and an old cemetery from the gold rush days.

And of course by the end of the day we walked our weary feet back to the ship in search of FOOD once again !!!! Skagway was such a quaint little town with alot of personality !
Here is a movie....my first one to try so I hope it works ! Jeremy captured this one for me so you too can feel the rocking of the train and hear the sounds as it approaches another little water fall !