Alaska Trip Day 10: End of the Cruise/ Beginning of the land tour

Not a sled dog

Not a sled dog either

Day 10: End of the Cruise and the Beginning of the Land Tour. We woke up early to finishing packing and got ready to say goodbye to the Radiance, our home away from home for about a week. We disembarked in Seward and hopped on a bus for about a three hour buse ride to Anchorage. Pretty uneventful. We did see our first moose and beautiful scenery the whole way. Once we arived in Anchorage we had an hour or two to exsplore downtown before going to The Alaskan Native Heritage Center, andneducational place where they had examples of what they used to live in and traditional dances and thing of that sort. After that, back to Anchorage. They took us to the hotel where we waited and rested for our dinner excursion. We had signed up for the Seavey's Wild Rodeo Dinner Excursion. After arriving it was pretty fun. I got to hold puppies wich would be why I don't have very many photos. I was preoccupied with adorable puppies.    

 

While you wait for the show to start you get to interact with the dogs they have and talk and ask questions. When the show starts they give you some information before beginning their skits. They have    

 a malamute that was abandoned that they trained to do things like driving the sled. They also did some racing with real sled dogs. The dogs loved it and it was very enjoyable and suprisingly informative.

After the show, we ate a buffet style dinner and watched a movie on sled dog racing Dale Seavey and everyone else in show talked and answered questionts and were veary down to earth and frindly. Dallas finished in the top four in the Iditarod this year. We were all very happy for him. After that eventful night, we went back to the hotel and got ready for the next stop on the land tour.

Alaska Trip Day 9 Hubbard Glacier: Splash,Crack, and Roar!!!

Day 9

Hubbard Glacier

Hubbard Glacier was something else. It is awe inspiring. I woke up early and dressed warmly. My parents were not brave enough to head out yet so I went alone. It was hard to decide where to go. I ended up on the 12th floor or about. It was crazy; people were everywhere. Some great photos await the early and the prepared. Dress warmly, you will be out here for awhile. The best place will be the front of the ship but you will want to move around some. The front is the best place until the ship gets to where it will stay for the day. I was very fortunate to see and capture some calving.        

To the left is an example of this. After the glacier calves a rumbling sound can be heard that is best described as thunder though that is not fully accurate but there is nothing else to compare it to. I was very lucky to get the photos I got. It takes luck and fast reacting to catch

the calving in process. There were also two bears that made an appearance but they were really far off and barely visible on the grassy mountain sides leading up to the glacier. An interesting fact is that the glacier is in the US and the mountains are in Canada. 

A little bit of advice. If you are thinking "I will go and look around then you meet me on the deck somewhere" good luck as you can see from the following pictures it gets pretty packed. So if you are with a group, set up a meeting place and time to

reunite with the rest of your party. my Mom actually paged me because of an active imagination. she thought for sure that I had fallen overboard because we could not find each other. We kept missing each other. Eventually every thing worked out and now it is just an interesting story.

So as this chapter closes on another wonderful adventure in our Alaska story the sea journey is coming to a close but the land tour is just beginning and yet a few more adventures need to be told so stick with me through this.  

 Hopefully you are enjoying this as much as I did. Thanks for reading! If anyone has any suggestions, don't be shy. Let me know what you want to know more about. Keep reading thanks.

Alaska Trip Day 8 Skagway Trains

Day 8 Skagway                          Skagway was a little overwhelming. There were several cruise ships in port at the same time, making the town claustrophobically crowded. Thankfully, we had scheduled a train ride first and we took the shortest train ride available. It still lasted about three hours and was very enjoyable. The train ride we took did not go all the way into the candian border but it was a wonderful experience. Some awsome photos can be taken from the outside part of the train. Ihe inside is cozy but the glass makes picture taking a nightmare. So suck it up and bring a good jacket if you want photos without reflections.  

   I stayed outside the whole trip up the mountain and was rewarded with some cool pics. If you like trains, this is would be a great experience. If you wait for the train to take turns, you can get most of the train and some pretty scenery. We sat towrds the middle back of the train and it seemed to work well. If you sit too far back you you might not be able to see the front of the train when it turns. My poor dad did not buy the    

White Pass Train hat and is still wishing for one. There is commentary inside that lets you know what you are seeing. I did not hear any of it from outside so if you want to know what you are seeing. have someome listen for you. If you take the ride that goes half way, they take off part of the train and coordinate it so they can go

back down the same way. It was realy cool to see them do it. On the way back down, the outside part got crowded and I went inside. After the train ride, we explored Scagway and found some penny pressing machines. It is a very interesting place and was, apart from all the people, a wonderful port. I would definitely do the train ride again. I don't know if I would do a longer one or not. The people that sat with us for dinner did the one that goes all the way to the Youkon and saw some interesting things. Having not done this. I really can't give advice on longer rides. All I can say is I thoroughly enjoyed the one we did.     

 

   

There is one spot from the train where you can look down the valley and see Skagway and the cruise ships 

You can get a good photo of the train with some size perspective from your ship

This is snow melt run off from the train ride

Alaska Trip Day 7: Mendenhall Glacier and Whale Watching in Juneau

 Day 7 Juneau:   

Whale Watching

 

 Juneau was great, one of my favorite ports! it seemed very big after Icy Straight Point. The excursion we had scheduled did not leave until 11:00 so we shopped around and I got my pressed pennies at a few penny machines. When the time came to go on the tour, we caught a bus to Mendenhall Glacier.  This excursion was scheduled through our cruise and we really enjoyed it. In our research before the cruise many people pointed out that Mendenhall Glacier was a "must see" and we agree.  Our bus driver should have been a stand up comedian.

He was very personable and had us laughing the entire trip to Mendenhall and back. We had a short visit at Mendenhall (about 45 min.). It was enough time to take a short walk to the glacier, get some pictures, and take a quick trip to the visitor's center. We then took the bus to the pier where we began our whale watching excursion. The company offers a money back guarantee. If you do not see a whale they will give you your money back.
They told us that they have only had to refund money once in the last 6 years.
The whales were particularly active on our tour. We saw them surface feeding which even amazed the tour guides.
They said that it was very rare to see the whales surface feeding.
We also saw stellar sea lions and some bald eagles catching fish.
 I was able to get some good pictures and was thrilled to see some more whales and wildlife.
After the cruise we went back to town. It was a beautiful day in Juneau.
It was 71 degrees in late May which amazed everyone.
The store owners had fans running as most shops do not have air conditioning. They rarely would need it!
We went back to the ship for a snack and then toured the town some more including a stop for a picture and some souvenirs at the Red Dog Saloon.
Then back to the ship for a relaxing evening and a chance to look at our pictures from the day's events.