Are we sad that we're delayed in O'Hare? No! Captain Denny Flanagan was flying our plane! Google him, he's incredible.
Look, we're airborne.
First glimpses of Alaska.
More Alaska.
Check it out! Our car in Anchorage has Alaska plates! Who knew?
This is a reminder that the sausage that Kevin was eating was made of REINDEER.
Taking a walk in Anchorage. Spectacular.
All those clouds behind Amy are the weather that Mount McKinley makes for itself. Seriously, Mount McKinley is in there somewhere.
The people in the background are the ones that we're cruising with. We're waiting to be picked up by the Princess bus.
The bus has arrived! Again, please note how many generations behind we are compared to the rest of the clientele.
Kevin getting on the bus.
Beautiful scenery.
Glaciers.
What do we have here...I believe it's caribou? We toured a fun conservatory of sorts that kept wild animals safe.
A musk ox.
Not sure...reindeer? Moose?
Buffalo. Or bison. Not sure the difference.
Reindeer.
Glorious scenery. We're on our way to Whittier where we'll get on our ship.
Interesting story. There is a one-way tunnel to get to Whittier and it is used by cars and trains alike. The train goes first, then everyone waits until the fumes are cleared out, then the cars can go. It's open 1/2 hour for one direction of cars, then another 1/2 hour for the other direction of cars.
Here's Amy in the tunnel.
Glorious Whittier.
Beautiful Whittier.
Lots of rainbows that day. Here's Kevin aboard the Pacific Princess.
Here's Kevin on our balcony with more rainbows.
Incredible.
Amy on deck. It was very pleasant weather.
Kevin on deck.
Kevin playin golf on deck. We still haven't even left the port I don't think.
Scenery.
The library on board.
Kevin reading an Atlas.
Alaska.
Oh my gosh, this glacier was great. We saw it very early in the morning, just cruising by. We saw it through our balcony.
Can you get over this thing???? It's amazing.
There's the glacier.
More views from in the room.
Here's Kevin pouting after Amy beat him at the Game of Life.
Here's Amy gloating.
Little cold and rainy this day.
I can't believe Kevin hasn't left me yet.
Captain Kevbo.
Day 2, Kevin golfing again.
One simply must have a round of shuffleboard on an Alaskan cruise.
And one simply must play bingo.
Playing bingo.
Beautiful.
Look at this place.
We loved our balcony.
Kevin being an outstanding husband. We always document our travels in a little book. He is writing about our wedding in this picture.
Look at that hot man. Look at that sexy wedding ring.
Now it's Amy's turn to write in the book while Kevin drinks wine and watches Alaska go by. It was heaven.
Evidently we're arriving in Glacier Bay.
Awe-inspiring.
Having breakfast in the great outdoors.
We finally caught on that binoculars would be a good idea. We love the binoculars.
Look at this, this is the boat that brings luggage to people who lost theirs flying in.
There they are, loading it on board.
I can't remember if this was Burt Bacharach night or Tom Jones night.
View from the balcony as we enter Glacier Bay.
I think I'm looking IN to the room instead of out.
Ready for some wildlife watching.
More beauty.
Majestic.
Serene.
Probably a whale or something, we never got very good pictures of that.
Definitely some whale watching going on out there.
Ice sculptures! The finished product is coming soon.
See the splash from the whale?
More whale splashes.
Is that a whale? No! It's Amy!
Check it out! A native American!
Gorgeous.
Speaking of gorgeous...yowza!
A little breezy on the top deck.
Glacier Bay.
Look!
More wine, more cruising.
Is that Amy or Dennis Leary?
The glaciers, they are coming.
Lazy outdoorspeople.
Simply marvelous, Alaska.
Wow.
Great weather.
Glaciers around the corner.
Great boat, huh! It was small, but it was cozy.
People spectating.
The happy couple.
Having a wonderful, relaxing time.
Note the little icebergs floating by. They have been "calved" from the enormous glacier we're about to see.
There it is!
Look at the birds flying.
Check this monster out.
You just cannot get the feel for the magnitude of this glacier.
Here it is again.
And here.
This is it as well.
Incredible. Kevin will need to write about some of the facts of this thing, but it is by no mean silent. It makes a lot of noise as it calves. Sounds like a thunderstorm.
Kevin and Amy attend prom on the ship.
The ship "parked" for a bit so we could listen to the glacier.
It was amazing.
We loved the glacier.
Look at the sea lion!
Look at the glacier!
There it is again!
Kevin and the glacier.
I was humming the theme song to "Ice Castles" at this point.
Heading out.
Goodbye, marvelous glacier.
Birds hanging out.
Amy crashed after a long day of glacier watching.
Everyone should see Alaska.
Look how happy it makes people.
It's probably 10:30 at night in this picture.
We're so happy.
Goodbye, Glacier Bay. Onward to Skagway!
Beautiful evening.
Taking a little walk around the track.
Little after-dinner workout.
Look! A towel animal! The towel animal is on the right.
I mean, Alaska is beautiful, but sometimes we needed to make our own entertainment.
Whale blow-hole steam.
Whale back?
What a dream.
Arriving in fabulous Skagway.
Those are enormous salmon swimming upstream.
See the salmon?
Landlubbers.
Going for a little train ride.
Loved the train ride.
View from the train.
Awesome train. It goes quite a long way, I believe. Again, Kevin will need to provide facts.
Not President Buchanan, some other guy.
Little waterfall.
We are about to cross that bridge on the train.
Loving it here.
Great train, huh?
She'll be comin' around the mountain when she comes.
We're about to cross that rickety bridge and go in the tunnel.
We're in the tunnel!
We're out of the tunnel!
We are not going to cross that bridge.
Here's a big reason why.
This is incredible. That was the walking path that the "gold-diggers" would follow to get to Skagway and try to make their fortune. Evidently the trail of people was so congested that if you got out of line to tie your shoe or use the restroom, you could wait up to 5 hours to get back in.
The trail again.
Crossing into Canada.
Some serious whitewater.
We're off the train and ready to kayak.
Kevin putting on his kayaking skirt.
This should be a real test of how compatible we are. Sharing a kayak.
So far so good.
Of course, we're still on land.
Here we go!
Yahoo!
We even managed to get our camera to someone else to take our picture.
So we had them take several pictures because we didn't want to try that transaction again.
See.
Looking good.
Still looking good.
Now we're just getting cocky, taking all these pictures.
We made it! No "swimming!"
Getting sleepy taking the bus back to the ship.
Here we are at Stop #2...Juneau. We plan to ride the tram.
But first we must sit on a bear's lap.
And take pictures of the tram.
And go see a fabulous glacier.
But wait! What's that?!?
It is a bear! Eating a salmon!
I mean, look at this guy.
There he goes.
And there's the glacier. This is the Mendenhall Glacier.
There are amazing facts about this glacier as well, but Kevin will have to write about that.
Here is an iceberg that calved off of the glacier.
I believe there are kayakers in this picture. Lends some perspective.
We love glaciers.
Before riding the tram we had a little seafood and Alaskan Ale while watching an enormous ship in the bay.
That is Mel Gibson's house up on the hill.
Quiz question...what is the only state capital NOT to have a McDonald's? Hint, it's not Juneau. There's the McDonald's.
Kevin with Alaska's version of the Liberty Bell.
The governor's mansion.
This guy ate his willpower (by the way, the answer to the quiz question is Montpelier, VT).
On a much bigger hike than we thought.
A bear proof (and Kevin proof) trash can.
At the top of the tram.
The only eagle we saw up close. Poor eagle. It had been shot (notice its beak) and was being taken care of.
The "canned eagle."
Beautiful animal.
Kevin and the eagle. He actually does a great impression of this eagle.
Riding the tram down.
Scared to death.
Okay, here is Stop #3, the final stop. Ketchikan. This is the Ketchikan airport.
Here we rode another boat to get to shore.
This is the boat.
Amy and an eagle butt.
Us and an orca.
Kevin being devoured by a wolf.
Not Dairy Queen, not Burger King...
The Office Max branch store in Ketchikan. Ha.
We liked it here. We hung out and watched football and drank beer. It was great.
Making time to write in the wedding book.
Next day, Vancouver!
But sadly this is the end of the journey. We left the Pacific Princess behind here in Vancouver and made the long trip home. The entire vacation was fabulous.
