Wednesday, September 17th - Scenic Cruising

We were scheduled to go scenic cruising in Tracy Arm Fjord from 6:00 am – 10:00 am Wednesday morning, but due to the foggy weather we could not go there. Instead we went to Endicott Arm. The scenic cruising was the only time during the whole cruise that we in climate weather. Shan and I decided to go up on the deck around 7:00 am – thinking that would be more then enough time. We knew it would be cold so we bundled up in many layers and headed up.

Good thing we had all the clothes since it was hailing out.
I can not even begin to tell you how amazing this was. I have tons of pictures, but they just can’t do it justice. I was seeing colors I have never seen before naturally, it was just amazing. Trevor was the naturalist on board and pointed out a few things, but mainly just let everyone take in the scenery.

The water was really green and the ice blue. Here is a picture of some ice- it looks like a snow cone.
This one was a deep blue.

This had more rock in it.

A mixture of rock and ice. A big blue one.
Here is Shannon and I all bundled up on the deck.
Shan is freezing.
Hot Chocolate makes everything better.

Shan is even smiling now.

It was pretty foggy, so we couldn’t see Dawes Glacier all that well. Here are a couple of pictures.
Here are some pictures of the cliffs and more floating ice.

The clouds and the hills

One more blue ice.

These waterfalls were the coolest things. Here is a wide one.

Lots more pictures of the water falls

Ketchikan Continued

Ketchikan was one of our longer days in port. Since we went Ziplining in the morning, we had time in the afternoon to explore the town.

Here are some pictures of the town from the bus on the way back to the pier.

Here is a handy map of Ketchikan.
Shan and I returned to the boat to drop off some stuff and stopped to poise for a picture.
When we got back off the shp my favorite tour – the duck tour vehicle was close by.
As you can imagine the area surrounding the pier is filled with souvenir shops and since we were there near the end of the tourist season everything was on major clearance specials. Shan and I were able to get all our gifts for super cheap!

Alaska is known for their wildlife, but many people who visit never get to see any live wildlife, so many of the stores have large animals to take pictures with. Shan and I decided to have a little fun with the bear.

Can you tell me where this store is?
Let me tell you about my morning…
Here is a cute little street.
I loved the salmon store sign – totally me!! Here is the fish house.
The local marina
The town looking out to the rainforest.
Ketchikan is known for their Lumberjack show – we didn’t go, we didn’t even think about going, so not our thing, but in case you want to go – here it is.
Here is our home for the week!
Another view. The afternoon in Ketchikan was just beautiful – the weather was a sunny fall day and we enjoyed wondering around town. Since we were in the States we were both able to use our phones and took some time to contacts our families. When it was time we got back on the ship and got ready to sail away. Shan decided to take a nap and I went out on the deck to watch as we left.

Here are some of the beautiful sights of Alaska
Here is a float plane

Here it is closer.
Here are docks for the barges. Here is a barge – this is the most common form of transportation in Alaska. If you look closely you will find a pick up truck and two boats among the cargo. This is the city from the ship.
During the election one of the big buzz themes was the bridge to no where in Alaska. This bridge was going to be built to connect the Ketchikan airport to the town. Currently the only way to get to the airport is by ferry. The ferry only costs $3 each way, which is not a huge expense it costs a lot more to park at any other airport. The airport is pretty much off by itself – there is nothing else around. So someone thought a bridge needed to be built to connect the airport to offer an alternative way to get to there. This bridge was going to cost millions to build and most locals did not think it was necessary - so it became the token example of a pork barrel sending project.

Anyway – here is the famed airport the subject of the bridge to no where.
As I was wondering around the deck I found the kids area of the ship – yes cruise ships have areas and activities for kids of all ages – I was a bit jealous when I found out the teen area had a wii and rock band and no adults were aloud. Here is the kid’s pool
Here is an area for kids to ride some bikes.
I also saw this black smoke coming from the ship – not sure it that is supposed to look like that.

Tuesday night at dinner we sat with two other couples and conversation lagged a bit. It was the only night we didn’t really enjoy our dinner companions. After dinner we had some time before the show so we went to the casino and Shannon won $20 on the penny slots. We were captivated by these people putting quarter after quarter into this game that has a pile of quarters that get pushed towards the end and any that fall off you get. On the quarters are two piles of money and you try to get that to fall also, because you then win the money. We saw people spending so much money for such a little return. We went to Steve Morris's show, but did not enjoy it as much as we had during the opening show.

We then went to the Vista Lounge for the Motor City show. It was good – all that great Motown music and costumes from the 60’s and 70’s. During the middle of the show Shan and I had a conversation about wither or not the dancers were singing back up. I think being in the smaller venue we were that much closer to them and could tell they didn’t have microphone battery packs on – they had the mic, but they were not hooked to anything. It was quite entertaining trying to figure that one out. After the show JJ was standing outside in the hall talking to some passengers – as we walked by I caught his eye – it made me very happy. :) Now I just needed to talk to him.

After the show we went up to Skywalkers and good ole DJ Tony was over talking to us before we even sat down. It was very obvious he was only interesting in Shannon and he became a bit over bearing. We didn’t want to be up too late since the next morning was the scenic cruising through Tracy Arm Fjord beginning at 6 am. Tony wanted us to wait for him to close down Skywalkers and then go up to the buffet for some dessert, but we declined. Then he wanted to join us during the scenic cruising and asked for our cabin number – we didn’t give it to him, but took his instead. After we got some dessert and went back to our room, Shan and I had a long chat about Tony and decided not to call him in the morning. We then went to bed with the alarm set for the 6 am scenic cruising.