Cruise to Alaska

We just returned from a 7 day cruise to Alaska. It was quite an adventure. We started by picking up Bob's sister, Lynn, at Sea-Tac airport on Tuesday, September 8th. We spent the night in Marysville, and then on Wednesday morning (Sept 9th) took the train from Everett to Vancouver, B.C. We took the Skytrain to the cruise terminal where we boarded the Volendam, a Holland America cruise ship.

Wednesday at 5:00p.m. we sailed for Alaska. Our first stop was Juneau where we enjoyed the Mendenhall Glacier. We saw a black bear and cub at the glacier. Our next stop was Skagway. Bob and Lynn took the White Pass and Yukon railway to the pass and back. Bob and I had done this train ride in 2005 when we drove to Alaska. I went for a walk to the miner's cemetary. It was a nice morning and great for walking. After lunch on the ship, Bob and I went back into town to do a little shopping. It started pouring, so we were really dodging the raindrops.

Sunday, the ship sailed into Glacier Bay. It was a little rainy and cold. About 10:30 they served us pea soup to warm us up. We enjoyed the day by either spending time in the Crow's Nest lounge or out on deck. We saw a huge brown bear (grizzly). We also saw a couple of whales (not realy great views however), a sea otter, and lots of seals.

Monday, we spent the day in Ketchican. The day was really nice - sunny and warm. We took the Cape Fox Hill-Creek Street Funicular (known as "the tram"), a sort of diagonal elevator, runs 211 feet from the boardwalk up to the Westcoast Cape Fox Lodge on top of the hill. There is a nice view and an enjoyable walk down through the woods. We saw lots of salmon spawning in the stream.

Tuesday was a day at sea - and then we arrived back in Vancouver and disembarked about 9:00 a.m. on Wednesday (the 16th) morning. We spent the day in Vancouver - going to both the aquarium at Stanley park and also to Granville Island. We took the 5:45 pm train from Vancouver back to Everett. We came back home to Wenatchee today (Thursday, September 17th).