Cruise to Alaska

Our cruise to Alaska actually began in Portland, OR. We flew from Portland to Seattle, WA and after a long layover on to Los Angeles, CA. Much to our dismay, the cruise line transport we had paid for wasn't there to take us to the ship. We hired a limo and were driven to the ship in comfort and style. Our first port of call, ironically, was Seattle, WA where we toured the local market place and saw the famous Pikes Place fish market. We had great intentions of going to the top of the Space needle and made the trek up the hill only to discover there was a very long line of people with the same thought. Bill and I are not patient waiters and opted to take the overhead tram across the top of the city and walk back to the cruise ship. Our second port of call was Ketchikan. Bill and I love to just walk around some of the ports making our own scenic tour. This port was ideal for that. We browsed in some of the gift shops and admired the handcrafted items for sale. There wasn't much happening here. The next port, Juneau, was much more interesting; after all it is the capital city. We walked up the hill to the State Capitol, past the tourism bureau, a museum and many gift shops. The shop we decided to enter was a local bead shop. We must have talked for over an hour with the owners. One of the owners makes beaded jewelry and beaded gift items, while the other ownermakes violins. The port of Skagway was our next stop. After walking around the town for about an hour checking out the tourist bureau and going into a few shops we decided to take a bus tour into the scenic mountains of Alaska. The first stop on the tour was at a cemetery. The tour driver told us tales about some of the cemetary's unsavory occupants. We discovered, in reading the tombstones, that gold miners did not live long lives. We boarded the bus again and headed up into the mountains; the countryside was magnificent. Our tour guide, who was originally from Massachusetts, gave us a great account of the hardships endured by the gold miners just getting to the gold fields; many died enroute. Next point of interest was Hubbard Glacier, which was not a port of call. The cruise ship just hung out there for a few hours to afford the passengers the opportunity to view the glacier. The glacier was unlike anything I have ever seen. Huge snow filled mountains surround the glacier which is acutally is an formation that stretches 76 miles from its source in the Yukon to the sea at Yakutat Bay and Disenchantment Bay. Breathtaking is all I can say. Next stop was Icy Strait Point located near the city of Hoonah. We opted to walk the mile plus into town to see the sights. Well, there were interesting things to see but not the usual kinds of tourist attractions. We just loved watching the dog who begged visitors to throw the stick for him and the dog who just laid on his rug watching us! The bald eagles high up in the trees were also deserving of a picture. The picture of me sitting in front of city hall and the one of Bill pointing at the town of Hoonah sign are priceless. (can you find the sign with the missing o!) The port of Sitka was quite interesting. We walked for miles browsing through the gift shops and walking to the other end of the town to visit a state park and the Tlingit museum gift shop. Inside the museum we watched several craft making demonstrations and saw a docmentary about the Tlingit Indian tribe. To our dismay our cruise was cut short by a day because of transportation problems. We disembarked the ship in Victoria instead of going on the Vancouver with the rest of the passengers. We were fortunate to find a bus service that took us from the cruise ship to the ferry terminal in Victoria and from the ferry terminal on to the airport where we caught a cab to a nearby hotel. The next morning we took a shuttle to the airport at 8AM and boarded our flight to Florida about an hour later.