In the spirit of "I'll get to everything eventually!" here's the next chapter from back in August. Our Alaska cruise!
We went from Mount Rainier to Seattle to pick up Kip, Cherie, and Bob at the airport. The biggest disappointment was that Jenny and Jerry (John's parents) all of a sudden couldn't make it due to an emergency trip to the hospital for gallbladder surgery a couple days prior. This would have been their first cruise, and it would have been a good one. Happily everything went well with the surgery, just the timing was really bad for getting on a plane and a ship. We missed you Jenny and Jerry!
Parentless in Seattle:
City waterfront as we sailed out:
We went on a tour of the ship, led by crewmember Sunny - who was carrying a Star Trek water bottle! I had to ask her about it, and indeed she was on the NCL Jade last January for the Star Trek cruise, and we'll be seeing her again this coming January! Funny thing was we heard her call the Spinnaker Lounge "13 Forward" while she was giving the tour, and I'm not sure she realized she was doing it. Loved it. Great to meet you, Sunny!
Duck!
The library was an excellent place to hang out and watch the world go by... I even saw whale spouts out the window one morning, super cool. This is most definitely not a Caribbean cruise. We started carrying binoculars around.
A bit of rain and clouds couldn't dampen our enthusiasm for the voyage:
Kip's porthole (not a euphemism) - he paid a little bit for a room upgrade, not sure it was worth it, but it did make for some conversation (plus a guest spot in this blog post):
Dressed to debark at Juneau, our first stop and first time in Alaska:
View of the port and another cruise ship:
We took a Juneau Tours shuttle (highly recommend them) over to Mendenhall Glacier. What a great place for a visitor center! Even with the less-than-ideal weather and low visibility, the view of the glacier was pretty stunning:
John, Bob, and Cherie took a walk on the trails - good thing everyone brought rain gear:
Nugget Falls is impressive (and wet), regardless of the weather:
Nice shot, John:
John took an up-close video of thundering Nugget Falls, with a little peek over at the glacier at the end:
Kip and I went for a run, starting at the falls and then up a steep climb into the wet woods:
Lovely views from higher up:
More waterfalls:
Markers indicating the previous edges of the glacier; the speed and extent of its retreat are fairly stunning. Hard to imagine this area was all under ice not that long ago:
Brief convergence on the trail :)
John tells me they saw salmon in the creek, but it's hard to see from his photos. No worries, we'll get another chance to watch them swim upstream at a later stop.
The sky was clearing up by the time we got back from the run/hike, yay for another even better view of Mendenhall!
One other shout-out, for Twisted Fish at the port, delicious food, and they have Impossible Burgers for my vegetarian husband.
A very nice start to our little vacation.
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