Heading West

Today we flew to Denver for a Colorado vacation for a planned three concerts and lots of sightseeing.  After landing and picking up our car we headed to Estes Park over some back roads rather than the main highways due to lots of road construction.  It was neat to drive through these newly developed areas north of Denver.

Unfortunately the weather is not cooperating - it's cool, cloudy, and rainy.  Mary shot this picture as we drove up US-36 to Estes Park. They are working on the road, blasting rock to widen the roadway but fortunately only at night so we did not hit any delays.
Once there we found our hotel and with the time changed headed out for supper.

I found a great restaurant, the Estes Park Brewhouse.  They have a cool feature - when you walk in you can get 4 free beer tasking samples!  It tried 2, including a Blueberry beer!  It was actually quite good so I ordered one when we reached the restaurant.  If you look careful you can see a couple of blueberries floating in the beer.  They had typical brewhouse fare - I had pulled pork and Mary, fish and chips, and we shared a chocolate, brownie sundae for dessert.
Our plans called for us to head to a Brad Fitch concert, at an outdoor amphitheater but it was raining so we decided to skip it. Hopefully this rain gets out of its system tonight so we can enjoy driving through rocky mountain national park tomorrow as we head on to Glenwood Springs. 

Sea Otter Video

As I mentioned in a prior blog post  I took a video of a group of sea otters swimming in Glacier Bay.  Since I'm home I have the bandwidth to uploaded it to Youtube so I can share it with you.  

Many thanks to Katie for the editing help, title, and opening/closing effects. 

Click the link above and enjoy! 

Back Home Again...

Well our vacation is over.  Back in our house after an early morning alarm and a long travel day.   No pictures today, just a quick post to let all know we got home OK.
I do plan to post the otter video and possibly a whale one sometime soon, so check out this page next week.  But tonight is for unpacking and a starting the time zone transition process so that Monday morning alarm doesn't seem too early.

Last Day at Sea

Well, our cruise is coming to an end.  It's been a very nice, relaxing vacation, but quite cool.  

Mary and Andy went to the cooking show and kitchen tour this morning while Katie did line dancing. We had burgers and pizza for lunch, but it was cold on the deck so we ate in the buffet area which was very convenient for getting desserts.  This afternoon we watched a movie, "12 Years a Slave".

This evening is a turkey dinner, then packing suitcases for our early departure tomorrow.  Due to our early flight we need to take the "walk off" option where we take our own luggage off the ship.  At least we don't have to set it out this evening! 

So many memories of a nice anniversary trip.  

Ketchikan

Today was our last Alaska port as we head south to Vancouver. We arrived late morning at a pier a fair distance from town, but the town offers a free shuttle service -  got to get those cruisers to the shops so they can spend their money!
Mary did some shopping today, then returned to the ship while Katie and I did a zip line excursion. The weather did not cooperate very well as there was a light rain all day. 

The course was very good with 7 lines and 3 bridges, all while over 70' in the air!  The zipline runs faster in the rain so we hit a good day for hitting top speeds. The longest line was 750' long and riders hit speeds of close to 30 mph! With these speeds, stopping at the end of each segment proved to be a challenge.  Also I had to frequently clear my glasses as they picked up a lot of rain during each transit.  In the end, we both had a very good time. 

Here we are all decked out for doing the course:

Juneau

Our main event in Juneau was a whale watching excursion.  But prior to that we had some shopping time in the city.  Well, at least Mary got in some shopping while I did a small walking tour of the city looking for cold medicine for me.

We had sunshine during our whale watching ride and saw at least 4 humpback whales today.  Ideally the vessel will find a feeding whale that is surfacing every 4-6 minutes.  All the whales we saw today were doing 8-10 minute dives so we did not get many opportunities for "tail diving" shots.  But one whale gave quite a show for us, swinging around it's pectoral fin, then splashing it down.  

I did get one video of a dive, but that will have to wait to be shared until I get home.  

As we headed back to the dock we passed a Juneau landmark - the sea buoy where juvenile sea lions hang out. These were busy sunning themselves, with no battles for territory on the buoy. 

The rain returned as we headed toward our ship so we got wet re-boarding.  The movie "Gravity" was starting as we returned so I hustled to watch it with Katie.  

Lobster & King Prawns was on the menu in the dining room tonight which was delicious!  And it was topped off with Mary's favorite dessert - Floating Islands!!  

It was a very good day.

Skagway and Hanes

On Tuesday we visited Skagway, one of the 3 cities in lower Alaska that has roads to the outside world. Rain greeted us in the morning and we had spotty showers all day. 

Our excursion took us to Hanes by fast ferry, a 45 minute ride.  Andy and Melissa, our son and daughter-in-law, had a similar excursion and were on the same ferry with us which was nice. After a bus ride to our rafts, we set out for a 1 1/2 hour float through Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve.  We experienced rain, sun, clouds, wind and just about every other type of weather on our float.

We were well bundled up as the temperature was in the low 50's and very windy.  My favorite Australian hat thought that the river looked so inviting it jumped off my head and took a dip, but was quickly rescued. 

Eagles, eagles and more eagles!  At one point we had 5 of them flying near us! Lots of views of eagles sitting in trees or on sand bars, even one in her arie (nest).  Here's another one of a mother and a young eaglet (their heads do not turn white until age 5).