So I might have gone a little crazy with the photos this time, lol, but I've been so bad about posting photos lately, I thought I'd put most of them in one place so it would be easier for me to give people a link. I also compiled some of the video and put a YouTube link at the end - it's pretty short, only about 2 minutes, but there were some things that just didn't convey the same with a still photo so I wanted to include it.
Unfortunately, my mom has covid right now - we don't even know for sure if she got it on the cruise, since she didn't get it until we'd already been back nearly a week, and my Dad and I don't have it (knock on wood), but it's definitely possible she got it there, and the symptoms came on slow. My brother was sick in Seattle over the weekend, so it's possible he just had a super mild case, since his girlfriend now has covid too.
Anyway, covid sucks. I'm bummed my mom has it, but she seems to be slowly improving now that we have her on Paxlovid and she's sleeping a lot.
As for me, I've been running around like crazy all week, but I'm looking forward to writing today, and hopefully I'll get even more done next week when the sickness wave passes through.
Anyway, here's the ridiculous number of photos I pulled out of the even more ridiculous number I went through to reach this marginally less ridiculous amount...
So we landed in Seattle first, and stayed at this historic downtown hotel, The Arctic Club. It's covered in walruses (the building and the inside), and a bit weird, but my parents liked it, lol, so I considered it a win. Also, it was really hot in Seattle and it had air conditioning, which I found out not all Seattle hotels have. My brother and his family joined us the next day on the cruise itself.
My mom in a small cafe in Pike's Place. We were searching for ice cream for my dad, heh.
A little glimpse of downtown Seattle. I hadn't been back in years (I used to live there), and some of the changes were a bit shocking, I admit, but only in a few places, thank goodness. This isn't far from where I used to work when I lived there.
A little peek at the edges of Pioneer Square
Getting on the boat was surprisingly painless. My dad chilling on our balcony. :)
My brother and his family chilling in their room with my niece and nephew.
The rather weird atrium of our ship, lol. It was surprisingly small, but I've only ever been on one other cruise before this, so I have very little to compare it to. That other cruise was over 20 years ago and was also to Alaska, but on a much larger ship, and much earlier in the season, so it was quieter, bigger, and there were a lot fewer kids onboard.
Goodbye to Seattle... (from the deck of the ship)
Exploring more of the boat... they also played movies in here, on the other side of the pool, and this was the floor with the ice cream (and the buffets), so we ended up in here a lot of the nights to watch movies and eat pizza. I'm pretty sure my niece and nephew had around 5-6 soft serve ice cream cones a day, and they definitely weren't alone. The machine kept breaking down from the endless line of kids using it. Their pizza was surprisingly decent!
More exploring... this was the bakery and coffee shop (with the REAL coffee drinks). I spent a lot of mornings in here, as anyone who knows me would expect. I'd usually get up before everyone and grab an espresso drink and write by a window for a few hours.
This is where I'd write and drink coffee every morning, at least until someone came down to find me (they figured out where I went pretty quick).
First sunset from the ship :)
First glimpse of glaciers the next morning... we were in Alaska territory when we woke up, since the ship was positively jamming through the night.
The main dining area on the ship
A pretty amazing glacier, viewed from the top deck (the 11th) on the ship.
Our first day ashore! My brother's girlfriend and my niece wanted to try King Crab, so they bought a pound of it to share. They looked pretty happy when they were finished, too.
Downtown Juneau - we totally lucked out on the weather! Apparently it had been raining for the past 2-3 weeks straight. The very first sunny day was the day we arrived. :)
I had to check out the local book shop, of course. It was right next to a coffee shop called "The Rookery," which seemed pretty danged well planned out, if you ask me.
My brother and I shared a plate of tacos, which is just such a California thing to do. They were FISH tacos though, and they were delicious!
Tlingit mask - one of my writing goals while in Alaska was to do some research on one of the tribes that one of my characters Miriam (Fox) Black's family supposedly came from. I went to a few museums and searched out artwork from the Tlingit tradition and read stories about tribe members. I found a lot of great info, even on the ship from our naturalist.
My brother and his family went on a small seaplane to go see glaciers! Very cool! I was tempted to go, but after I hemmed and hawed a bit, the plane was too full. They had a blast, and my niece showed me all of her photos of glaciers, and they were gorgeous. I ended up getting my own chance to see a glacier up close and personal, so it all worked out!
One of the stranger totem poles I saw... I'm very curious about the fly-creature feeding that baby. And the fact that the baby's head is in the raven's head, and the baby's arms are red, and all of that is roughly in the woman's womb area.
Another shot from downtown Juneau... looked very Dark Mark to me, so I couldn't resist.
Trash bears! They're pests in Juneau, so it's not unusual to see them there, looking for treats. It's not a great photo of them. I got a short video too, but the First Nations guy who stood by the cans was trying to get all the dumb tourists to move along, and I didn't want to aggravate him, so I cut it short. Of course, his efforts were in vain. We saw the crowd keep getting bigger and bigger as we walked away.
Another funky totem pole. I love all the faces. You can see the yellow hang-glider in the background.
Only including this because my crazy nephew bet his father $20 he could run all the way to the top and back in less than 3 minutes (I suspect my brother started it). He did it in just about a minute and a half, so he earned the $20, but then he told me he might throw up and he was sore the next day. A local old woman watching all this told us that in her family, who apparently lived up there at some point, you had fifteen minutes to get down the stairs and back up again with whatever item your parents sent you down to the store to get. More than 15 minutes, and you'd get "punished." Yikes. Tough town.
My brother, his two kids, and his girlfriend. :)
Leaving Juneau behind... such a lovely day for our first outing!
View from the back of the ship as we finally left the dock...
We had a gorgeous moonrise that night... of course I took way too many photos of it, but here is one, chosen almost at random.
Another beautiful day as we headed into Skagway...
I had a hike and boating excursion planned for that afternoon, but I spent the morning in the town with my parents. My brother and his family took the train up to the summit (kind of "the thing" everyone does there), but since I'd taken the train on my last trip to Alaska, I decided to spend some time in nature. I really lucked out with the weather! It was almost hot that day, in the high 70s F. My parents and I stopped for ice cream, because, god knows, we weren't getting anywhere near enough of that on the ship. To be fair to us, this was REAL ice cream, though, and my father is basically an addict.
One way they cleared the train tracks with snow. This thing was huge! It's also retired, and part of the museum near the older train station downtown. It's very "Snowpiercer," though.
Heading back to the ship's dock so I could meet up with my hiking and rafting group. Again, just crazy how great the weather was those two days.
On the way up to the hiking trail... a ship was attacked by pirates in this bay, and the crew and captain tried to fight them off but failed. The ship is still there; it can still be seen at low tide, but as we were there for historically HIGH tides, we didn't see it. Our guide told us the whole story. He was great! Knew a ton about the area, and even more about the wildlife and plants.
Our hike was along the first part of the Chilkoot Trail. It was gorgeous, but the first mile or so was pretty much straight up. Our guide told us stories about prospectors trying to get their horses and mules up there loaded with gear (sometimes needing like 50 trips to get all of their stuff up there) and the horses getting so angry and frustrated they'd actually throw themselves off the cliffs loaded with the human's prospecting equipment. So another name for that part of the trail is Dead Horse Peak. He told us a number of crazy stories about that time period and the whole gold rush mentality. Apparently people thought a city up there would eventually be the size of NYC at the time. Its population blew up to roughly 30,000 people overnight and had the electrical capacity of NYC even then. But like a year later it was all gone. People totally underestimated the weather and overestimated the amount of gold people would find.
The hike was beautiful! I wish I'd taken more photos of the trail itself. We were moving at a pretty good pace though, and I didn't want to slow things down too much. Our guide did take the time to show us which plants and berries we could eat and which things would 100% kill us (always useful), and how to touch certain plants and a bit more about the wildlife and some of the interdependence different species use up there to survive.
A brand new bridge, made out of a single log. We could only go over it one person at a time (as in one person had to traverse the whole length of it before the next person could get on). We were the very first commercial group to use it. Our guide told us that even the previous day, they'd had to do "up and back" walks to get to the river. We were able to traverse the entire trail, straight to the river.
Just a gorgeous place, beautiful views the whole way, including when we got on the river.
All of us gearing up for the raft.
I ended up in the front of the boat, with all of these fine people. The couple on the right had already done a bike ride down from the summit that morning, so they made me feel lazy in comparison. Everyone on the trip was great!
On the raft with our guide (he was the only one paddling). He told us that when the river's slower then everyone paddles, but in this case, it was mostly a matter of steering (I'm sure we would have made that harder for him, not easier). He spent a lot of the time keeping us from being pulled around in the currents and being pulled into the deeper water by the shore. The trees grew right into the water and might have knocked us out of the raft, and he also had to navigate us around at least one whirlpool, and a bunch of obstacles in the river itself.
This is Face Mountain (or maybe a First Nations word for the same?). It looks like someone lying on their back and facing upwards. I couldn't really unsee the face part of it after he told us that. It's supposed to be a local native woman, but I could see several faces there. It's a really beautiful mountain, either way.
A view of the river. While we were out there, the clouds started to roll in. By the time we got to shore, it was crazy windy and the temperature started to plummet. Made me realize how fickle the weather is up there. There were tons of people taking helicopter tours from the boats, too. When I got back to the docks, some of those helicopters were struggling against the wind to land. That's got to be a crazy place to be a pilot with the weather changing so fast.
Our guide really was great (middle, in the blue shirt). He was such a cheerful guy, and he liked to read books! Always a bonus. He showed us a tattoo he had with a quote from his favorite book (The Alchemist, which I've also read/enjoyed).
The sky only got prettier when the clouds rolled in... but dang, it was windy!
Such a fun excursion! I wanted to only hike and see nature after that. I ended up wishing I'd done the 7AM hike so I could have done another one after. I really enjoyed that trip!
This was growing everywhere along the banks of the river. He called it "fireweed" and said it's the first thing to come back up after a big fire, and after the winter thaws.
That night the ship took us through a national park filled with glaciers. It was gorgeous. I wish they'd announced it when we went through - we were actually lucky to see it, since we happened to go up to the top deck after dinner (my brother's idea). Super dramatic with the stormy skies and the glaciers on either side of the channel. I only found out we were in a national park the next morning, when the naturalist told us during the glacier excursion I went on by myself at 6:30AM.
A wider view of the mountains and glaciers as we went through. The sky was really dramatic. The photo doesn't quite capture how crazy it looked.
And this is me from the boat I loaded onto just before 7AM. It was so, so pretty, and the water was the most amazing color. Another excursion I was super glad I went on, it was just amazing. I was lucky to get on, actually - I took the very last seat!
Heading for the Sawyer Glacier in the Tracy Arm Fjord. The water was just like glass, and super clear and blue-green until we got to the glacier itself. The area near the glacier was full of silt from the calving and run-off.
A really big waterfall - much bigger than it looks on here. I also got some video of a big brown bear nearby (I edited all of the video together below, so you can get a glimpse of it, at least)
More beautiful views and water in the Tracy Arm Fjord...
Iceberg!! I took way too many photos of these - they seemed to be every shade of blue imaginable, with some nearly black and some sky blue and some almost white.
A photo of Sawyer Glacier. If you can see the seal floating on an iceberg in the bottom right-ish side of the image, you can get an idea of scale. The seagulls looked like insects flying in front of it. They don't even show up in a still shot, but you should see them in the video.
The top of the glacier (at least the top of the part closest to the water). Like every shade of blue, the ice was every texture you can imagine, as well, both on icebergs and on the glacier itself. These formations are also a lot bigger than they look in the image.
Here are a few more colors of icebergs... see the darker one in the back compared to the one in the foreground. These were also a lot bigger than I realized at first.
The smaller boat we were on (which was still about 70 feet long). There were two decks, with the bottom deck entirely indoors, and a smaller indoor area on top that mostly consisted of a bar. People were buying alcoholic drinks with glacier ice in them. That was kind of a yikes for me, honestly - not sure I'm up to toasting my extinction just yet, thanks. But I wasn't indoors with that crowd, anyway. I was outside on the upper deck the whole time, and DANG, it was cold. I had on multiple layers, including a fuzzy jacket I borrowed from my brother, and a raincoat over it all to act as windbreaker with a hood and I was STILL freezing for most of it. But so worth it. There were two boats this size to bring us out, and then two more went out a few hours later. It was about a 3-4 hour trip in total.
The really deep blue, thick parts of the glacier were just stunning. As I've said elsewhere, photos don't really do it justice...
Another image, this time with another seal in front, so you can get an idea of just how massive it is. Even this is distorting, since the harbor seal is still a good way away from the glacier, so it looks bigger in comparison than it should.
Me, very cold, but very happy, lol.
A somewhat wider view of one side of the glacier.
Me getting coffee after I got off the super cold boat. I obviously wasn't the only person who had this idea, lol.
Me after getting my coffee, plus some egg and bagel breakfast. I just chilled up there and looked at the amazing views in the Fjord for the next however long. It was fantastic.
I found my nephew and absconded with him to my hidey-hole. He hung out with me there for a while and we watched icebergs float by and looked at the fjord.
Just to give people an idea of the size of some of these icebergs... those are seagulls hanging out on them. They look like bugs.
Strange creature I found on my bed when I got back to the room. :D
For a lot of that day, we went through parts of the inner passage that were as still as glass. We saw lots and lots of humpback whales (see the video, below), but no orcas, unfortunately. :( I was kind of bummed about that - I really wanted to see some. So did the naturalist on board, and she said she didn't see any either, unfortunately.
Just a gorgeous sunset that night. Everything about it looked almost unreal.
Arrived in Ketchikan the next day, and it was our first day with real rain. It wasn't bad when we first got there, but there was about an hour in the middle where it was absolutely pouring.
Ketchikan is known for their totem poles, and their salmon ladders, which the salmon climb to spawn in higher waters. I noticed a lot of totem poles have little T-Rex and/or bunny arms and hands, of which I heartily approve.
The beginning of the salmon walk, which we started downtown...
One of the salmon ladders we saw during the walk...
Fly fishermen. The guy in the back had something hooked while we watched, but it snapped the line before he could bring it in. He probably wasn't thrilled to have a good-sized audience for that (we weren't the only ones watching).
That whole area is temperate rainforest (Tongas National Park), the largest temperate rainforest in the world, and it's super green and lush. I wish we'd been there longer (we only got a half-day there), I definitely would have gone on a longer hike.
I did have time to go to two small museums there. This is a Thunderbird ceremonial mask from the first one, which focused mostly on totem poles but had a lot of other cool First Nations art featured in it, too. This ceremonial mask was huge and made of wood, so whoever wore it must have been pretty strong.
This was one of the pieces in the totem pole museum. I don't know if you can read the card there, but this is a raven mortuary marker - it originally stood high up on a pole, as depicted in the smaller image in front.
Another original totem pole. This is really massive, much bigger than it looks in the image. The head alone was bigger than me.
More research for me - this is a Tlingit ceremonial wrap.
I read a lot about individual artists from the Tlingit tradition, especially the women.
More artwork from the traditional Tlingit style.
Some of the masks were really cool... :)
This is from the story about the raven stealing the sun. I saw all different kinds of depictions of this myth while I was there, in jewelry, wall-hangings, clothing. They were all different from one another. I ended up getting a print of one for my niece (she loves ravens, like me).
As I was leaving that museum, the rain really started to come down. I was pretty drenched by the time I made it back down the hill, so I hid in a bus shelter for a few minutes until the rain chilled out a little bit. I met this really sweet couple in the process, and ended up trying to help them figure out the local bus schedule (and they were never heard from again... lol).
I walked down Creek Street after that, which is this historic area along the river. They have the requisite historic brothel from back in the day (no one mentioned where the current one lives, lol), and lots of cute shops and restaurants. I liked all the art for sale, but there was a lot of touristy stuff that was pretty funny, including a lot of gold shops.
Still getting hit with rain here and there. It's a cute area though!
A view from the other side, with some people trying to fish for salmon along the pier. The puke green building is the old brothel, "Dolly's."
More bunny feet / T-Rex arms. It's such a cute feature, lol.
On to the next museum, which was a weird mish-mash of all kinds of things about the area. This is a bizarre metal bear sculpture with a real bear skull both below it and inside the head part.
They had a lot of interesting tools used for hunting and fishing. Some of them were made from whale teeth and/or bones. All of them strike me as evidence of a really hard life, honestly. Everything about that museum was like a reminder of how hard it was (and maybe still is) to live up there, especially when you're dependent on hunting / fishing to eat.
I loved this photo of a first nations couple. Really lovely image.
This photo of Native American totem pole artists is great, too.
Their local theater company (on top) at the beginning of the 20th Century. A really interesting community, despite the slight Shining vibes, lol.
Another Tlingit artist, this one more modern, who is also a famous clothing designer and a really fascinating person. She gave off the most "Miri" vibes for me, in terms of my research for the Tlingit side of her family. I might model one of her relatives after her.
Another famous Tlingit woman I read about in the museum. I felt like I got a lot of great information and good "vibes" while I was there, for sure. It was a good call to check out a few of the local museums and look at a lot of art. I also lucked out because the second museum was specifically highlighting locals and their accomplishments, with a few displays on Tlingit women specifically. I tried to find an orca image with stars in it, btw, but I couldn't find one that I liked. I did get an orca print for myself though, and a few other things.
We went to the comedy club that night on the ship, but it was pretty "yuck," honestly. We sadly picked the wrong comedian of the three (mainly because it was a "PG" show so my nephew could go - you had to be 18+ for the others). The other comedians sounded like they were much funnier (there were at least 3 on the ship). This was an older dude and his jokes reflected that. He did a whole "terrorist" bit that was really dated and offensive. So yeah, lame.
On the much happier side of ship offerings, my mom and I went to a lecture by our naturalist on whales, and I LOVED it. I learned a lot, too... like how to tell how old a whale is (earwax, I kid you not), and the whale that lives the longest (Bowhead Whale, over 200 years), and some stories and facts about whale culture and emotions that were really fascinating. One story she told us is that whales have "trends" among them. The example she gave was of a senior female whale in Puget Sound who decided she liked wearing pink tunas on her head one summer. Within a week, all the other whales wore pink tunas on their head, too... and then, a few months later, the pink tuna trend passed (pink tuna hats are so LAST SEASON, sheesh). She also talked about the orca gangs currently attacking boats near Portugal, and how strategic they are. They apparently knock out the rudders first so the ship can't get away, then ram the shit out of the boat itself until it sinks. The other funny thing is, their leader's grudge (an older female) is specifically against the BOATS, not the people. They leave the people who end up in the water alone. They're also going after much larger vessels now, apparently emboldened by their success. There was a lot more, but I loved all of it. I could have listened to her talk for a few hours, easy. Unfortunately, we got kicked out by the Bingo people who were the next group slotted for the space - talk about two very different crowds!
After a very stormy night, and a very relaxing and sunny day on the ship, we landed in Victoria, British Columbia (Canada), our last stop, at about 8pm! We thought we would take the kids to Butchart Gardens, since there was an excursion to there from the ship. We found out it was about an hour away by taxi, though, and said forget it and went to downtown Victoria, instead. My brother and I had been to the gardens before, but not since we were kids, so we were a little disappointed. Still, we only had a few hours there (8-11:30pm), so it's good we didn't go - especially since the gardens close at 10pm.
I love Victoria! It's a beautiful city! This is right next to where the taxi driver dropped us off. :)
Here's me looking happy in front of some flowers... luckily there's a lot of flowers in the city itself, even if we didn't get to go to the gardens.
More flowers - with the Empress Hotel in the background. :)
More flowers! (believe it or not, I'm restraining myself, lol)
Flowers spelling out "Welcome to Victoria!" Because of course. :)
Inside The Empress Hotel...
Another glimpse of the inside of the Empress Hotel...
Sunset in Victoria...
Orca and baby made out of plants. I thought this was so creative! I love how they did the wave, and I don't know if you can see it, but both orcas are spouting grasses out their blowholes.
Walking around downtown Victoria...
Random shot in downtown. Felt the need to include since Ryan Reynolds is, in fact, Canadian, eh?
Chinatown! We wandered around a bit down there, including stumbling into an outdoor punk show going on (complete with mosh pit) just a few blocks from here.
Another view of Chinatown...
Another of me as a happy Canadian... :)
Because who doesn't want fudge and funk? Especially at the same time?
Night time on the water...
Definitely feeling back in civilization at this point. We didn't have internet for most of our time on the ship, and only a little bit when docked. We had to get off the ship to get a real signal.
The Empress from the outside at night, as we were heading back to the ship...
And we were back in Seattle again, as of 6AM! :) We were all pretty beat at that point... my brother and his fam were spending a few extra days in Seattle, but me and my parents headed back to California, taking a shuttle to the airport from the docks.
Mom and Dad, waiting for the plane to take off (note the Kindle in Mom's hand! She reads even more than I do). It was a pretty painless trip home, but yeah, they were tired.
***
So there's my excessive number of Alaska photos, lol - hope you enjoyed them!
Oh, and here's the heavily-edited video I compiled. It's only about 2 minutes long or so. Apologies in advance for my excessive use of the word "awesome," lol. I'm a GenXer who never shed her California slang, what can I say?
Anyway, have a lovely weekend everyone, and thanks again for all of your support! I'll have more specific writerly news coming your way soon! :)
Best wishes and happy reading ~
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