North to Alaska

Warning: Non-genealogy blog post.

Even though genealogy research is my favorite pastime, I do not spend all of my time at the computer researching family history. Occasionally we travel.

This past May we took back-to-back cruises in Alaska. We flew to Vancouver, boarded the Grand Princess, sailed to Whittier, sailed back to Vancouver, and flew home. Sixteen days total. These were actually 2 separate 7-day cruises that we combined into one. We got to visit the three ports twice (Ketchikan, Juneau, and Skagway), and we got to visit Glacier Bay twice. It was a fantastic cruise that exceeded our expectations. We saw all we had hoped to see and more.

Our goal was to see whales and beautiful scenery, and we certainly did. We saw humpback whales, a black bear, moose, mountain goats, deer, otter, mink, sea lions, starfish, king crabs, lots of bald eagles and other waterfowl, several glaciers, glacier calving, and the northern lights. And, the  White Pass steam engine passed right by us on the tracks, a rare sight.  

I took a couple thousand photos, using my phone camera and my Sony point and shoot. My goal was to enjoy the moment and not stress and fuss over getting the perfect shot. Plus, I did not want to lug around a lot of camera gear. My phone and small camera worked pretty well.

Here are a few of the photos I took, showing the beauty of Alaska.

Portage Glacier area

Our ship, the Grand Princess

Creek Street, Skagway

Moose grazing along the highway near Anchorage

Glacier

Joe holding a King Crab

Totem Bite State Historical Park

Harvard Glacier

The next photo is the perfect photo-a humpback whale diving with Mendenhall Glacier in the background.

Whale with Mendenhall Glacier

You can see the whale and the whale spout in the next photo. We would hear the spout before we saw the whale.

Humbpack whale with whale spout

Seeing glacier calving was exciting. We would hear the “white thunder” before a large chunk of ice broke off and fell into the water.

Harvard Glacier calving

Chugach National Forest

Haines

Haines

The beautiful drive along Turnagain Arm.

Turnagain Arm

Turnagain Arm

Turnagain Arm

Totem in Juneau

Whale sculpture in Juneau

Glacier Bay area

Northern Lights & moon

Ketchikan

At Whittier, a train had just come through the 2.5 mile Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel, the only way to get to Whittier by land.

Whittier

Eagle

We hiked about a mile to Nugget Falls. You can just barely see Mendenhall Glacier in the background on the left.

Nugget Falls with Mendenhall Glacier in background, Juneau

Mendenhall Glacier is more visible in the photo below. Nugget Falls looks small, on the right.

Mendenhall Glacier with Nugget Falls on the right, Juneau

A belated 50th Anniversary photo.

Ship photo

What wonderful memories from our Alaskan cruise.