Vacation Pictures Part II

Oh gosh! I almost forgot to post these.
Be prepared. There are a lot of pictures here.

I celebrated my birthday on the first full day of the cruise. The steward (stwd, not stud), Basco, left this note on our mirror. In fact, it remained during the whole cruise!!

Hubby even surprised me at dinner and had bought a cake to be brought out for dessert (it was really yummy, too!). They all sang Happy Birthday to me. It was sooooo awesome!

At first we thought the weather to Tracy Arm Fjord was going to be yucky. I mean, look at the clouds. It wasn't all that warm, either. But hey, look at that. MOUNTAINS!

I discovered a strange phenomenon and couldn't believe my camera captured it. The sun was behind me. Fog in front of me. A little rainbow appeared. That dark shape in the middle? My head! Hubby stood beside me. He couldn't see my shadow and I couldn't see his. But we both saw our own. Isn't that the weirdest thing? I thought it was pretty cool.
 

Traveling in the Tracy Arm Fjord, we came across lots of ice chunks floating by. I mean, I should have realized WHERE they came from. It just didn't hit me until later. Yeah, I'm dumb.

It turned out to be such a pretty day. Fog all burned away!

More ice chunks. Loved the colors!

Surprise! A glacier. This is what was at the end of the Tracy Arm Fjord. When we came around the corner and I saw that, I gasped. So pretty!

In Skagway (the next day), Hubby and I had breakfast in a bordello. Oooh, I know. Scandalous! This one is called the Red Onion Saloon and the women working there are sooooo funny.

This is Madam Sara Goodlay (get it? get it?) telling us about the brothel. She was a hoot. If you ever go to Skagway, I suggest you check this place out. Very fun and interesting.

We also took a tour of Skagway later on in the day.

Of course we had to visit the cemetery. Hubby was in heaven, I think (he has this thing for cemeteries, back from when he was into genealogy).

When you walk through the cemetery, you come upon Reid's Falls. It was so pretty!!

We made it up through the summit and into Canada. But took this picture as we left Alaska. Driver made a joke about our beautiful sign and how Canada probably paid ten bucks for theirs. Just a plain green and white sign, no bigger than a street sign, that said "Welcome to Canada." We all had a good laugh.

 On top of the summit, on the Canadian side, this is the back side of the Mendenhall Glacier (which is in Juneau). They've been trying to get a road into Juneau for sometime now, but they'd have 70 spots with avalanche threats and realized it just wasn't worth it. So...no road to Juneau. However, there is a road in and out of Skagway (which we were on), so you could drive there if you want.

Juneau, Alaska (on the dock, anyway).

An eagle on the street light. They're all over Juneau (then again, salmon was in season). Driver said the eagles were their pigeons. I just find that hard to believe.

This is the Mendenhall Glacier. It's receding about 40' a year, I believe.

A piece of rock the glacier carved. You can see the lines from the ice.

I believe there is a glacier in this picture (although I didn't know it when I took it). I was trying to capture the whale that was surfacing. Then I got smart and filmed the sucker. If you would like to see a video (about 2 minutes) of a humpback whale (ending with the big tail splash), you can watch it on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/stacy.mckitrick/videos/1813058278740299/. For some reason, I couldn't get Blogger to post the video.

During our whale-watching tour, we came across some sunning sea lions. They were a noisy bunch, too. I also have a video of these over on Facebook, too (shorter than the whales). Here's the link: https://www.facebook.com/stacy.mckitrick/videos/1814715971907863/.

We didn't go on any excursions in Ketchikan, but I did do some shopping!

No roads go in and out of Ketchikan, either, since it's on an island (which I didn't know). I'm always surprised how these small Alaskan towns manage to stay alive.

I finally won my first ship on a stick during this cruise! All I had to do was guess the amount of candy in the bag. Well, I was going to end with 18 and figured there was more than 118 in the bag, so I wrote 218. There was 216 pieces in that bag. I couldn't believe it! I didn't eat all the candy (it got ruined on the trip home), but I have my ship and plaque on display!!

Our last stop on the cruise was in Victoria, BC. We visited the Butchard Gardens. The sun was setting fast, but we managed to see most of the gardens before it got too dark. It's just so beautiful.

Some totem poles at the gardens.

The plaque below tells you about the tree above. That tree is two years younger than my mom!

So, that's all the pictures I have for today. I took so many on the trip, it was hard to pick which ones to share. Hope you enjoyed them. On Monday I hope to remember to post the pictures of our drive home. I say hope to remember, because I almost forgot to post these!!

Happy Friday!

Stacy