We’ve just finished breakfast. Nina is out taking pictures of the ship and
we’ll meet in the library in about 15 minutes for the daily trivia quiz. She
would have won yesterday had she turned in her paper. I won two days ago. The
prize isn’t much of interest, but it’s kind of fun to have won. Each day the
trivia questions are different, having to do with the area where we are
sailing. I took the one related to glaciers.
Today is the last day aboard the ship. We dock tomorrow morning around 7 a.m.
and will disembark when our number is called. Oh my goodness, there is a huge
bunch of dolphins or something jumping and swimming just off the port side of
the ship. No way to get a good picture without going topside and even then, I
don’t have the right camera. But that was quite interesting!!
Anyhow, we’ll dock and wait upstairs in the library or something until the
motorcoach is ready that we’re scheduled to take to go to the airport. Our
flight is at 1:30 p.m. and we’ll get into Colorado Springs about 7:00 p.m.
tomorrow night.
The cruise has been a lot of fun. I think Nina has had a very good time. I
would have liked the weather to have been warmer, so next time we’ll make this
trip in July or not later than mid August. The best weather day was yesterday
late afernoon. That was the first time that one could have been out on the
verandah in shirtsleeves.
The cruise left Vancouver, B.C., on Saturday afternoon, September 14th. We
sailed all day Sunday and arrived in Juneau on Monday mid-day. Cruising on
Sunday worked out pretty well. We had a short Sacrament Meeting at 9:00 a.m.
and a couple other people from Idaho joined us for that meeting. It was a very
relaxing day followed by formal night in the restaurant.
Juneau was quite interesting. We spent only a short time in town before
boarding a bus for the whale-watching trip. I’ve already written about that,
so more detail isn’t necessary. We left Juneau around 10 p.m. and sailed to
Skagway, arriving about 7:00 a.m. We got off the boat there about 9:30 or so
to do some shopping. We spent a little money, took a lot of pictures, and
enjoyed the town. We “discovered” an old steam locomotive back in the woods
and expended a lot of film around that engine. Now I wished I had climbed up
into the engineer’s compartment to take some pictures, but I didn’t think of
it at the time.
Wednesday was spent cruising up into Glacier Bay National Park and then on
south towards Ketchikan. The glaciers are quite magnificent. The weather
wasn’t very cooperative…. Lots of blowing rain and cold temperatures. We
didn’t stay very long around the glaciers, which was surprising to me. I
thought we would have been there for several hours.
We got into Ketchikan yesterday about 9:00 a.m. Nina and I disembarked shortly
after we arrived and did a little picture taking before taking a tour to the
Tlingit Indian village — called Saxman Village.
More dolphines off the side of the boat!
The village was quite interesting. A number of totem poles along with
explanations of what the pole represented. We visited with a carver working on
a pole to be sent to a customer in Saratoga, Florida. We also saw some native
songs and dances performed. So, with a 2-hour glimpse into this village, we
are now experts on the Tlingit Indians!
So, we’re now on the last day. Lots of small stuff to do and some picture to
take around the ship. It has been a very relaxing time. I’m ready to pack and
go again … which is happening in just under a month when we take a cruise to
the western Caribbean!
Transferred from an older journaling system on 29 November 2002. Pictures from the cruise are available here.