Aspen Day 1

Our Best Western in Dillon proved to be a major flashback to an older time, before the major chain motels. Outside door and no elevator.  But it had a nice view of what is left of Dillon Lake, which is down about 20' from it's traditional depth due to the long term Colorado drought.

We had a smooth drive to Snowmass, driving though Glenwood Canyon as we do most years, and it was a spectacular as we remember. They had some construction, but traffic was light so we made good time.  We stopped at a rest area for a stretch break where I got this picture of the Colorado River.  It also shows how low the water level is.

What was really cool was seeing 5 big horn sheep walking by the side of the road as we passed by.  We'd heard of other people spotting them in the Canyon, but this was a first for us. 

We arrived in Snowmass at 11:45 just in time for the noon Singer-Songwriter concert, featuring Chris Collins, Brad Fitch, Chris Nole, Ed Stower, and Ron Matthews.  They each took three turns singing a song they wrote.  While all the songs were interesting, in my opinion Chris Nole stole the show by playing a song he wrote with a veteran at a recent Music Therapy Retreat, which helps veterans with PTSD. 

We had some time before we could check into our hotel so we headed to the John Denver Sanctuary for a picnic lunch. 

The aspen trees were so colorful that I could not resist taking this picture of one of the stones with them in the background.

And we took a traditional selfie by the John Denver stone.

This evening was a Ron Matthews concert that started at 6:00 pm.   He was joined on stage by Paul Swanton as he has done, for many years in the past.  Unfortunately this could be the last time that Paul makes it to the Aspen in October events due to a serious medical condition.

Ron played a lot of lesser known John Denver songs.  This year he added a new twist by making some medleys of John Denver's and his personal songs. 

Tomorrow we are having coffee and pastries with Chris Nole for breakfast, followed by lunch with Mack Bailey.  In the evening is Mack and Chris's Poems, Prayers and Promises concert. 

Traveling To Aspen

So we are off on our travel day to Aspen - well, most of the way to Aspen - as we are staying tonight in Dillon, CO before driving the rest of the way tomorrow. 
As you can see we flew Southwest nonstop to Denver.  The flight was delayed a bit so we ended up getting into Denver 45 minutes behind schedule so that gave people making connections some heartburn. But beyond that we had one of our better travel days.  Parking at Detroit was quick, no line at the Southwest counter, our luggage came very quickly at Denver, and the Enterprise car rental went very smooth. I'm now a big fan of Enterprise. They have a great app, solid people who care, and good rates. 

Our drive west from Denver was cloudy and overcast so no pretty blue sky mountain pictures this time.  Mary took quite a few so here's a sample. We've driven this route so many times that we recognize the scenery, which is nice.  It's always a great feeling to be back in the mountains.

So on to Snowmass tomorrow for the noon Singers and Songwriters event, then on to Aspen where we are staying for the extended weekend. We know our way around Aspen, can easily get to the Sanctuary and to the Friday and Saturday concerts at the Wheeler Opera House.    More to come with 5 concerts in 3 days. 

Cruise Day 13 - Nanaimo

Well, visiting Naniamo was pretty much a bust.  Mary searched for attractions and the Harbourfront looked interesting, but after docking we found it was 1 1/2 miles away.  We got off the ship and headed to the visitor center on the dock, only to find it was a 1 mile walk into the city, but we could ride a shuttle for $15/person round trip.  Since we really had no reason to head into town except to walk around a bit, we passed and headed back to the ship, but not before getting this picture taken. 

So today was packing day.  After lunch we got out the suitcases and are 95% packed, with only a few things to add after visiting the dining room tonight.

Dinner was good, featuring Baked Alaska as the dessert. We had a coconut shrimp appetizer, shrimp for Mary's entree and pork tenderloin for me.  

Tomorrow we have a mid-afternoon flight which gets us home after 10pm. So it will be a long travel day as we have to kill about 4 hours at the Seattle airport. 

Since this is a shorter entry, and possibly my last one for this trip, I've added my reflections, below.

Cruise Reflections

In general we found this cruise to be very enjoyable.  It was well paced, with few back-to-back port days and we saw a lot of new places. We had not been to Kodiak since 2010 (could it really be 16 years ago??), and visiting Anchorage from the sea rather than via plane or train was unique. Those factors plus three new ports and sailing the Inside Passage, made this cruise a lot different from our 5 prior Alaska cruises.

It was also our second time on Holland-America.  We learned that HAL is not Princess, and that can be a good thing.  We enjoyed the entertainment, the smaller ship, a super unique itinerary that no other cruise line offers, the ease of moving around on the ship (after the first few days, of course!), and the food was good.  Of course the small-ish cabin and unusual storage space was an issue, but we adapted.  The crew was very friendly and engaging and we had excellent cabin stewards.  We did laugh about their deck naming convention: Lower Promenade Deck, Promenade Desk and Upper Promenade desk, followed by three similarly named Veranda decks but whatever floats your boat!  LOL  So nothing that would keep us from booking HAL in the future. 

Early on the shore excursion process was a bit rough, but it got better as the cruise progressed. The two tender ports proved challenging.  But our excursions ran pretty much on time and only 1 time did we have to wait due to a late returning shore excursion. It was great seeing the glaciers, whales, and bears once again.   

Cruise Day 12 - Inside Passage

Today we cruised the Inside Passage south from Ketchikan. Lots of scenery on both sides of the ship. Above is a panorama photo off the front of the ship showing the scenery. The picture came out a bit small, but click on it to make it larger.

Most cruise ships go west of Vancouver Island as they journey between the lower 48 and Ketchikan.  But we were fortunate to be traveling on the east side of the island, which is known as the Inside Passage since it is in protected waters rather that open ocean. This map picture was taken from our room TV.  It shows you the narrow passages we sailed though. This also means smoother sailing.  😀

One thing that we love about this cruise itinerary - it goes to ports and places the usual itineraries skip.  You won't experience this on your typical 7 day Alaska cruise!

At lunch today, Holland hosted a Cake Extravaganza with 16 different cakes - see list on the left. 

On the right you can see the serving line with all the cakes.  I can assure you the cakes tasted as good as they look!

Diner tonight was in the Italian specialty restaurant.  It was very nice with excellent service.  On the left was a very unique presentation of tiramisu.   I enjoyed a chocolate hazelnut tart dessert.

We had an Irish Dance production show tonight.  We both agreed this was the best show on this cruise.  The dancers were great and the show had good flow from one song to another.

Tomorrow we visit Nanaimo on Vancouver Island as we prepare for the last day of this cruise. 

Cruise Day 11 - Prince Rupert, BC

 

We arrived in Prince Rupert early to a layer of fog.  For a while we could not see the dock! By by 10:00 am it had cleared and we could see this pretty park across the dock.  We had no specific plans for today, just to get off the ship and walk around a bit.  

The port information person mentioned a town-developed Sunken Garden that sounded nice.  After walking up the hill seen in the above picture we found the garden. Reportedly it was started by town people who brought various flowers to beautify the site of a sunken hole in the midst of their downtown area.  In 2003, a local garden club town took over the care of it and it has flourished ever since. 

One of the traditions on Holland-America is"Orange Night" where they request that everyone wear something orange, and they have a big party.  Well, Mary and I have nothing orange but lots of other people did.  On this night they have a special Dutch dinner menu.

Mary enjoyed Salmon with Bay Shrimp while I had Pork Cordon Blue.  The meals have ben very good on this ship and we've found that the buffet frequently has one of the main entrees.

Dessert was a Tompouce Puff Pastry for Mary and I had a Lindt Chocolate Tulip. Desserts often do not look like what we expect. 

So that's it for today.  Tomorrow is cruising the inside passage as we head to Nanaimo on Vancouver Island. 

Cruise Day 10 - Ketchikan

Check out the colors in the sunrise photo!  We had a beautiful, warm, sunny day in Ketchikan.  The weather forecast had a ZERO chance of rain, which is very unusual for a city that gets rain 250+ days per year.   So I thought I'd start with picture of our sunny day as we arrived this morning.

After lunch, we headed for our bear sighting excursion.  And like with the whales yesterday, we had great success as we saw at least 5 bears today!  Mary's 26x zoom camera got all these pictures. There were not many salmon in the stream like we saw on this excursion 2 years ago, but one bear we were watching did catch one (Upper right).  

Later on she was munching on another salmon.  Mary also got this great shot of a bald eagle in a tree.  

We highly recommend this excursion if you ever get to IKetchikan.

We did not feel like getting dressed up so we enjoyed dinner in the buffet this evening. 

Sail away is 7pm and no evening entertainment caught our eye. So that's it for today.

On to Prince Rupert , BC tomorrow!

 

Cruise Day 9 - Juneau

After getting up early for our 8:15 excursion, we boarded busses and headed for the whale watching boat.  The sun came out and the weather was beautiful, if a bit chilly. Lots of great mountain views as you can see in the left photo. After a chilly ride, we spotted out first whale blow.  It was hard to get good pictures of the first few whales. 

Later on we had a whale come up very near the boat and I got these pictures of the humpback arching its back for a deep dive and a picture of its fluke (tail).  After that I stopped taking pictures and just enjoyed seeing the whales. 

Later on a large group of humpbacks were spotted blowing and then diving.  They were too far away to get a good picture.  I counted at least 8 tails!   As we headed for the dock, the guide said we saw over 20 whales today as well as some steller sea lions and a few sea otters.  But, again, nothing we could get a picture of. 

Overall this was a very good excursion and we are so glad we scheduled it. Our guide said that yesterday they had a driving rain and only saw a few whales.  Good weather seems to be following us!

After getting back to the ship for lunch, we headed out to do some shopping.  There were four cruise ships in port so the town was a bit crowded.  I enjoyed a hot tub for a while before sail away and dinner.  Nothing else going on this evening, so we are relaxing and enjoying the scenery as the ship quietly slips though the inside passage on our way to Ketchikan.