Reflections on Grasping the Greatness of Glaciers - July 28

Great Pacific Glacier

Glacier Bay surrounds us.  Small islands of ice float by and surround the ship. and I remember the Titanic and the sadness of those hours of hopelessness.  It is cold here now; we are wearing layered coats, jackets and fleece sweatshirts. And we have the comfort of warm staterooms, heated pools, sauna rooms and jacuzzi of all sizes.  What a dichotomy of thoughts on this beautiful day!

Marjorie Glacier

Traveled at night to get to Glacier Bay where we saw the Great Pacific Glacier and the Marjory Glacier. The Great Pacific is amazing and we witnessed several moments of calving…where the ice breaks away ad drops into the water with a great splash. Breath-taking. The Marjorie Glacier is black ad looks like it is made out of stone where the Great Pacific is blue and white. It has “marbling” of dark streak in it that is the rock and boulders it picks up and pulverizes along the way. The silt is so fine that it stays suspended in the water and gives the water a cloudy white look. Loved this part of the trip…in a spot to sit and watch the glacier go by. We will be two days at sea between our trip to Glacier Bay and Prince William’s sound.

Reflections on Sounding Brass - Prince William Sound - July 29

College Fjord glaciers

Our travel day is calm and quiet. There are a plethora of activities but we are content to sit in lounge chair and watch Alaska go by. The sky I cloudy and gray, the water is gray with 1-2 ft swells. The mountains are covered with snow with lower elevations bright green with trees right down to the water’s edge. If you have binoculars, you can follow the water’s edge and see bear, moose and sea otter floating on their backs. They are a crack up! They will put a rock on their stomach and then crack their shellfish on the rock and throw the trash in the water…Will write more later when we get to the sound about 5:00 this afternoon.

Prince William's Sound is the entrance we took to get to College Fjord which is an impressive look at a dozen or so glaciers of all sorts.  Because it is so full of wildlife, all ships must proceed at an extremely slow speed.  We ate dinner at the bow of the ship and watched the variety of glaciers slip by.  They were on every side.  The black stripes are rocks that the moving river of ice has picked up.  When it comes together with another glacier, you get multiple "stripes."  Waterfalls were everywhere.  A silent and beautiful place to contemplate how very small we are in the grand scheme of things... It finally got dark about 11:00 p.m.

Reflections on Scouting out Skagway - July 27

Chinook Trail to Klondike

Downtown Skagway

Woke this am to a mountain within a stone’s throw of my window…day is cloudy and overcast. Will have most of a day to explore. Taking a train ride over White Pass on an old railroad. Skagway was originally a jump off spot for gold miners who were traveling into the Klondike. Lots of history in this area. It is has one main street with about 5 or 6 avenues coming off it. They citizen have tried to recreate the town like it was in 1898. All of the stores have old fronts with many of them having original counters, display cabinets, etc from the turn of the century. Especially interesting was the Ace Hardware store on Broadway. Again, for every regular store there were 5 jewelry stores all selling the same things: diamonds, tanzanite, and Alaskan gold. Ate lunch back on the ship and then caught the train @ 12:30 for a 3 hour ride up and down the narrow gauge tracks. Went over several trestled bridges that spanned rushing waters, cascading waterfalls and bottomless chasms. Beautiful and unforgiving county for those who sought their fortunes over 100 years ago?

Reflections on Juneau July 27 or "All creatures great and small"

Mendenhall Glacier Nat'l Park

Best lunch ever!

Spot after swimming under our boat

Awoke today with balloons at our doorway announcing our anniversary which we are celebrating a month early.  Today was Juneau and whale watching and glacier perusal.  Dawn woke us up around 6:00 with the ship docking in Juneau.  We had breakfast on the ship and then disembarked to stroll Juneau's tourist traps.  Again, hundreds of shops selling jewelry...soapstone carvings, Tanzanite and Alaskan gold.  Spent the morning walking the streets.  Discovered a GREAT crab shack called Tracy's Crab Shack that was down the side street by the library...wonderful crab bisque and crab cakes.  Sooooo  gooooood....yumm!


Afternoon brought a whale watching trip that was amazing.  We were so lucky to have the chance to take a whale watching cruise on which we saw at least 10 whales. The crew and captain were all girls which was usual in itself. There were deck hands, a naturalist and the captain. The captain indicated that if they saw two or three whales, it was considered a good trip. Along with bringing the sunny warm day 68, she said we have also brought luck. The most spectacular event was when a humpback whale swam under our boat and then humped his back and flipped hi tail ad dove for the bottom to feed. The picture shows his flukes. It is not a close-up. He was that close…

Additionally we say several sea lion vying for a position on a buoy to sun themselves. There were at least 6 on it with several swimming around in the water, making noises ad obviously complaining that it was their turn. In frustration, one finally reached up and nudged one of the smaller ones who was precariously perched on the edge. He promptly fell in the water. In a flash the other one was up in the vacated place. There was much noise ad complaining as he defended his position. Within a few minutes things settled down and he was ensconced as the rightful owner of that miniscule piece of real estate.
   
Playing in our wake was a pod of porpoises, smaller ones than I have seen. They seemed to be having a good time, leaping and jumping in the wake of the boat. Very interesting to watch.

Topped off that trip was a drive to the Mendenholl glacier...a river of ice that has carved out valleys over the thousands of years that it has been retreating.  Again amazing...I have to say that something strange happens as you sit at the foot of this wall of ice and see and hear the rushing waters careening out from under it...There is a sense of awe and insignificance....how small we all are...and then in a nano second, there is a realization of the timelessness of our existence...of our place in the eternities...It has been such a wonderful, amazing day.

Got back to the ship about 6 and went to dinner where we had again a choice that was unimaginable…prime rib, Italian, traditional, fruit of all sorts, pasties, desserts, salads…it goes on and on. By 7:30 we were in the theater to watch Invictus, a very good movie about Nelson Mandela and his struggle to put a nation together using the World Cup rugby of 1995. A very good story! Almost didn’t recognize Matt Damon.

One of my favorite books is “All Creatures Great and Small”, a collection of experiences of a Wales veterinarian. It seems appropriate for the day that we have had today in Juneau.

In it there is a quote from Genesis 1:21  "And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly...and every winged fowl after his kind and God saw that it was good."

Reflections on Monday Marvels - Ketchikan

Ketchikan

Today started at 6:00 AM with our docking at Ketchikan, a wonderful town on the inside passage that is about 3 miles long and 3 blocks wide  Almost every store is a jeweler of some sort hawking Tanzanite or Alaskan gold..owned by foreigners of some sort...Our time was short and so spent the time walking the town and took a spur of the moment flightseeing tour of the glaciers and fjords.  It was a beautiful and intriguing flight.  Small float plane with 6 passengers.  We landed in a lake and the pilot says, "  Ok if you want to open the doors and get out you can stretch your legs."  I looked around and said, "Get out where?"  To which he replied, "Get out here...just get out on the pontoons!"  So, we did....

My marvel of this day was a trip to the acupuncturist where I won a treatment in the Bon Voyage party.  I am a skeptic from the get-go...a pseudo-science, mystical adventure.  Nervous I was...very very dreadfully nervous; but why will you say I am mad?!?  Karly treated my shoulder which has been bothering me for months and a couple of other problems that I have incurred since surgery.  Today (Tuesday), after a night with no pain pills and a day without any incidents, I have become a convert and have scheduled three more treatments before I leave the ship for good.  Am convinced that things happen for a reason...and remain cautiously optimistic but pleasantly surprised and elated by the success on both issues..my jaw is on the floor.

Reflections on Sunday at Sea July 25

Sunday @ Sea spent reading on our balcony...

"And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas:  and God saw that it was good." Am sitting in the library, legs up, typing on the Internet, watching the ocean...Guess what?! The earth is FLAT!

Very difficult to be low-key on Sunday. Missed nondenominational church at 8:00…why so early. Attended lecture on glaciers ad discovered that snowflakes are minerals!!! They have all the characteristics of mineral: solid, six points, and made up of chemical compounds…go figure! All this time I thought something totally different…Am sure there are a number of these AHA moments to come!

Reflections on Embarking - July 24

Leaving Vancouver

Have been thinking about a journey/adventure without knowing what lies ahead. I know the destination and have picked out some things to do and see, but don’t know what will happen along the trip. The adventure calls and my fellow travelers come in all shapes and sizes, some have been on other trips and seem ho-hum about the adventure. The staff is pleasant and omni-present, but you can see the newness has worn off and they are tired of answering the same questions in a variety of languages. Won a free hour of acupuncture at the welcome to the ship party. Am getting up my courage to take advantage of it. Needles are NOT my forte.


The food is amazing and you can choose a dinner plate that is the size of a platter or a smaller regular plate. Watching what you eat is difficult as so many thing cry out to be “just taste me!” Why do large people choose platters?


Our room is nice..bed is good enough and our steward is very nice. Found us a couple of feathered pillows. Bathroom is small…like a motor home. NOTE to self: If yaou drop the soap, leave it!


Dinner at 9:30 and it was still daylight!!!

Reflections on Hop-on-Hop Off

Public Market on Granville Island

I’m thinking that this would be a great way to do life…you could ride along for a bit and when you got to a place where you wanted to spend some time, you could hop off and explore and then hop back on again and move forward. I guess you would probably miss a lot of the intricate details, but if you were in a hurry or had to catch up, it would be a great way to do that…We took just such a tour here in Vancouver, getting on at Gas town down on Water Street. We hopped of at Granville island where we walked and explored the Balboa Island type shops…not as boutique high-priced but interesting and fun to explore…Our favorite was the public market which was several blocks long and had amazing produce, baked goods, desserts, etc. We hopped back on and got back to hotel just in time to see a “rock concert” downtown on one of the main streets…A little out of my league, but interesting hair.
Daylight seems to be causing me some interesting problems. My bio clock gets me up at 5:30 but the sun doesn’t go down until 10:00 so I am feeling like it is SIX! Can get to sleep until about 2 and then back up @ 5:00….Augh How do I hop off of THIS?!