First, Seattle. We went to the observation deck on the Space Needle. This is our reflection in a window, with the reflection also of downtown Seattle in the background.
Next was the sci-fi museum near the base of the Needle. It was good, except for the absence of anything about Firefly.
Children playing in a fountain. It would stop, start, and change with music.
Metal tree in the Olympic Sculpture Park. Can you spot the metal bird in the branches?
The red beast in the Olympic Sculpture Park.
Strange sculpture of a black wall in the Olympic Sculpture Park.
The Space Needle & LuAnn.
Statue of a small boy over a fountain.
The golden piggy bank (named Rachel) at Pike Place Market.
At the bottom of the totem pole...
The famous "Public Market" sign, with a piano player.
LuAnn at Safeco Field. One more ballpark checked off the list.
The pigskin pig at Qwest Stadium.
Bye bye, Seattle. View from the cruise ship shortly after leaving.
Wake of the ship at sunset.
In Ketchikan: First, our flightseeing tour was canceled due to bad weather. Then a polar bear snuck up behind me...
LuAnn posing with a totem pole.
After I stepped in poop with my new hiking boots that have deep grooves that are hard to clean, LuAnn suggested the only thing to do was to wipe it off in the snow on a snow-capped mountain. So, off we went.
View from the 1-mile lookout point (1500 ft elevation) on the Deer Mountain trail.
Knee-deep in snow. Squeaky clean boots.
Entering Juneau: nice scenery all around the boat.
Mendenhall Glacier. You weren't allowed to get too close, because terns were nesting.
Another view of Mendenhall Glacier, reflected in the lake.
Nice scenery around Mendenhall Glacier.
Start of whale sighting tour. I thought this was Mendenhall Glacier again at the time, but it's not. Another look at the map makes me suspect it's Herbert Glacier.
Sea lions on the rocks.
Thar she blows! A whale lets out a puff.
A whale tail. It's really hard to get a good picture of a whale.
Scenery around the cruise ship kept getting better and better, on the way to Sawyer Glacier. There is a faint rainbow visible against the greenery of this mountain.
More nice scenery. The weather was really cooperating.
Avalanche in progress! I caught it near the end; it happened pretty fast.
One of the many little icebergs floating away from Sawyer Glacier.
More ice in that direction... getting closer to a glacier...
The north branch of Sawyer Glacier (it goes both ways around a mountain) and the Coast Guard.
My better half, with the better half of Sawyer Glacier (the south branch). LuAnn's maiden name is Sawyer.
The south branch of Sawyer Glacier from another angle. The cruise ship didn't dare to get any closer because of all the ice in the water.
Skagway. First, a train ride to our hiking tour to see Laughton Glacier. We never quite saw the glacier, because the snowfall was too thick by the time we got there.
LuAnn hiking.
LuAnn and me in snowshoes.
LuAnn and me.
Sinusoidal rock formation. The guide thought it was interesting enough to point out, so I took a picture.
The scenery looked like something straight off a Christmas card. This was May 14, 2008.
LuAnn in the snow.
The train comes to take us back to town.
Prince Rupert, bear sighting tour. We see our first two bears in the wild. A third one joined these two briefly and went back into the woods.
Another bear by a stream. Another bear was nearby, but too far away for a good picture.
May 16, on the way back to Seattle, we saw porpoises and whales from the cruise ship. This is a whale.
Porpoise fin. Most of our porpoise pictures came out as just splashes.
Back in Seattle: a cheese festival at Pike Place Market.
A giant cow at the cheese festival preparing to attack our cruise ship. That's the last we saw of our cruise ship.
