The last frontier

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

First stop - Seattle

The boats

We got a nice surprise when we got to our room, they moved us from the city side to the water view side :o)

A view of the market outside of our window

Local artists outside of the first Starbucks

Sleeping on the job, must have been a rough night! (in the market)

This was great, it was in the window of a store near the market.

The colors were great, flowers all along the market, I wished I could have brought some home.

An interesting art exhibit at the Inn. It was a stump with axes sticking out of it

Shopping for that one unique thing.... never found it!

Wonder what this meant? I didn't get it!

The lower level of the ship where we did our morning walks
2 miles plus per day

Inside passage

Another great view of the inside passage

I wanted to see a brown bear SO bad!

An orca who was a bit too far, I couldn't get a good glimpse of him on camera

Sarah Palins back yard, Beautiful Juneau

The tram going up to Mt. Roberts

Me and my yetti ( yes.... he's NFL size and makes me feel tiny) on the top of Mt. Roberts, it was awesome! There was a bear sighting so we couldn't walk on the trail. I wished I could have seen him!

Hubbard glacier, the coldest day yet. The sun was definitley shining but it was freezing cold from the wind blowing the cold air off of the icy waters. (Baileys and coffee)

Looking down on Juneau, another view

Down town Juneau ( The red dog saloon on the corner )

The Governor's office
(yes, I was a tourist and got a little history lesson)

An eagle flying over Juneau

Same eagle

Back on the ship, drinking some pretty weak beer and thinking I was falling asleep! Nah, I was trying to invision the next pair of earrings I'm going to make. I had my sketch pad in my lap.

This would have been a nice picture but I managed to get lint in the camera when I changed different lenses. The lint stayed with me the entire trip and messed up all of the pictures

Hubbord glacier

The glacier, it was awesome! It wasn't safe so the ship could only get 6 miles away from the glacier.

Hubbord glacier ice burgs

It was a glorious day!

Thank God for telephoto, looks like we were right on it

Hubbord

The camera couldn't capture the true beauty of this country

This picture was taken at 10:30 at night. It was weird having daylight that late

random ice

This was an awesome sight

There was a huge boulder on the top of the ice burg

I don't think this Alaska knows there's global warming... it's truly hard to believe after seeing all of this snow and ice

A view from the veranda

I finally got my ice cream after several attempts, everytime I went to get one the dessert stand was closed, I was a happy girl when I finally got one!

Sitka with it's beautiful back drop of Mt. Edgecombe, just wishing I could live on an island :o)

The life boats shuttling passengers onto land from the ship

Native jewelry from the Tlingit tribe was beautifully displayed in the Sitka museum

Ketchikan! A fun little town

The docks... I think this was in Sitka

Ketchikan lumber jack show, it was fun

Old little gift shops on Creek street in Ketchikan

Victoria Canada B.C.

Two cruise ships docked in Victoria, they were HUGE! One of them "The golden princess" had a gigantic movie screen out doors on the top of the ship. Amazing

I finally made it to Alaska! A lifetime dream came true but one little thing was greatly missed.... the Northern lights. I'll never make it to the greatest state in the winter so I'll have to stick to national geographic or the Science channel to catch another glimpse of the awesome auroras.

Our trip started by plane, leaving Sacramento's teeny airport and arriving in Seattle. While on the way to Sacramento I sat in the back seat working on last minute jewelry pieces, packaging and having my son ship them off after dropping us off at the airport. A bit frazzled I managed to enjoy the flight to sunny Seattle! The last time I was in Seattle the sun was shining just like it was this time. I hear we were pretty lucky to get this beautiful weather on our trip, seven days of sunshine.

Upon arrival at the Seattle airport, a town car picked us up and drove us to our room at "The Inn at the Market" which is conveniently situated right on the Pikes market! We were right in the heart of Seattle, enjoying the sun, the food and holding great anticipation for Saturday's journey.... Onward to Alaska!

Saturday we disembarked Seattle on one of Holland America's smaller ships "Amsterdam". It was really nice, much nicer than one of our previous cruises on another line that had nearly 2,600 people on board. I prefer the smaller crowd, a more intimate surrounding and loving the fact that I'm not in a floating "Sky scraper"!

Our first stop was Sarah Palins back yard, a town that's similar to my town as far as size goes. We shopped and got the tour of Sarah's office. I really wanted to stop in the Red Dog Saloon BUT there were two other cruise ships in Juneau and the saloon was packed so we walked past the saloon with no regrets.

We worked our way up to the top deck of our ship, grabbed a couple of chairs and ordered two blue mojitos then watched the float planes take off. About an hour or so into our mojito/plane watching venture our ship disembarked Juneau. It was so weird being in a place that stayed light until 10:30 at night, the snow capped mountains were beautiful and glowing during nightfall.

The next morning we arrived to Hubbard Glacier, it was breath taking and cold! While the Amsterdam creeped through the ice burgs, we took our mid morning brisk walk on the lower deck of the ship where the air was crisp and cold. Bundled up yet basking in the sun watching one of Gods creations we stood by the rail in amazement with camera in hand and sipping on hot coffee and Bailey's keeping warm inside.

Bears and sharks are the top of the food chain and there I was, in bear country and on the ocean! I had binoculars in my hands most of the time in search of a brown bear but no sightings. We heard one of the other cruise ships stopped at the Mendenhal glacier letting their people off of the ship onto shore and they ran into a bear so they had to hurry everyone back on the ship. I saw a lot of bear tracks in the snow but no sightings. There were a ton of eagles and few sea life. I think we saw only 5 seals, three orca's and about fifty dolphins on the entire trip, oh.... and several whales.

Tuesday morning we arrived in Sitka! What a beautiful little town with little islands scattered everywhere and the most glorious view of the snowy Mt. Edgecumbe. There wasn't a place for our ship to dock so they shuttled all of us to land by life boats. Our first stop was the museum which I highly recomend if you ever visit Sitka. They have a lot of interesting native indian pieces from different tribes that are well preserved. I was intrigued by the leather work, Ivory, basket weaving and of course their jewelry. A local native had a desk in the museum where she beaded onto moose hide. It was great talking with her and seeing her in action as she created works of art.

I'm not much of a shopper AT ALL and seemed to have a shopping bag in hand during most of the trip! I had to buy souvenirs for everyone at home and bought so much that I ended up buying another suit case at the airport because we went waaaaayyyy over our 50 lb limit! lol

Ketchikan.... I LOVE this town! It has such charm, all of the little shops on the creek, built up on stilts on a lush mountain side over a rushing creek that leads up to a fish ladder. I felt like I was going back in time and loved getting away from todays world in little towns of big Alaska. We enjoyed the lumber jack show of Ketchikan and felt right at home with the scenery. Now that's a money maker! I tried to shop for gifts that were made locally supporting the local arts, There's something special about a handmade gift.

Our last stop was Victoria Canada, this was my second time there which I was absolutely amazed at the growth in the past 5 years. It didn't look quite like I had remembered but it was still a clean lush and unique little gem on the crust of Canada. We walked around and shopped a little more getting the last of the souvenirs for the folks we love who like Canada. At this point we were sad that we left Alaska and were headed back home to 100 degree temps.

Our flight home was interesting, the plane had a little turbulance going over the snowy capped mountains of Washington and the woman next to me grabbed my leg and said "Holy s_ _ _!" I couldn't keep from laughing BUT I was a bit worried myself! Ughhhh I hate flying!

Now that I'm home, I'm back at the old redwood stump it in the shop and anxious to list new pieces.

I'm so grateful for this journey!