Alaska...the Big Post...part 1

It's been one week since we got back into town and things are indeed settling down. Sam misses Papa, Grandma, and Aunt TT (which is probably affecting his nighttime sleep patterns) but appears to be having fun at school. Mom and Dad are not thrilled to be back at work, but this is a three-day weekend, which works. Our Alaskan voyage was pretty fun. Seas weren't choppy very much, the food was great, and plentiful, and as was said before, everyone loved the Sam-man. We're not too worried about his people skills, though a bit later in life we'll need to explain to him the importance of not talking to strangers.

The journey started off with a day at sea, followed by several hours cruising slowly around Glacier Bay. The next day brought about Juneau for a few hours, the at night we sailed to Sitka for the better part of a day, and our last stop in Alaska was Ketchikan the following day. Our final day brought us to Canada for a few hours, enough to see some pretty flowers and fireworks.

Oh yeah, purpose of the trip: to celebrate Papa's 60th! Dad's B-day was in there too and it was a nice consolation for him to get double servings of shrimp cocktail and king crab legs for dinner.

We're happy to answer questions, but we'll let the photos speak for themselves...

Sam starts the cruise off with Aunt TT in the pool.

Why not spin spin spin with Aunt TT?

Of course he's excited to be on a ship!

Breakfast is over! Yup, ready to move on.

Sam has a great time playing in the morning.

Entering Glacier National Park.

This bloody Brit tried to take our photo all week long. TAKE THAT YA BLOKE!

Sam and Mom on the lookout up on deck 10. Of course, Sam has a conversation with a stranger.

Mom and Sam are all smiles in the Park.

Sam and Dad pose with the Glacier National Park ranger.

Glaciers (and ice) everywhere.

A smaller cruise ship is dwarfed by a glacier.

Marjorie calves! This is the best of 20 or so photos we got.

The sun on Marjorie Glacier really brought out the blue.

Dad's artsy shot from the Promenade Level.

Alaska...the Big Post...part 2

We took soooo many photos at each of our stops that it was painfully difficult to narrow the field down to the best. By the way, it's not easy to get a photo of a salmon in mid-jump...it's a good thing cameras are digital or we would have gone through 4 rolls of film just to get one of those.

Sam made great use of the window sill for playing.

The Mendenhall Glacier is sadly receding, like pretty much every other glacier in the world.

You can see the cruise ship way back on the left.

In Sitka, Sam climbs a rock.

Dinner time!

There are a ton of spawning salmon in the river!

In Ketchikan, it was a rainy day but quite pretty.

There's a jumping salmon in there, click on the pic to see it.

Bed time? No way.

In Victoria BC, the ship looks massive.

A long exposure at twilight leads to surreal lighting at Butchart Gardens.