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Many of the streets in Ketchikan are steps leading up to the houses. Imagine carrying your groceries to your house!
It was interesting to watch the salmon trying to swim upstream to spawn.
After leaving Ketchikan, we cruised to Juneau. It's interesting that Juneau is the capital of Juneau, yet the only way to get there is by boat or plane. There are no roads in or out of Juneau. Sea planes seemed to be the main mode of transportation.
We went on a whale watching boat ride and saw LOTS of whales up close and personal. One really decided to show out for us and do all of his tricks. They are SO huge and so interesting. We also went on rain forest hike and hiked to the Mendenhall Glacier which you can see in the above picture. It rains almost every day in Juneau but we didn't let us stop us. The flowers are gorgeous there. I guess they are so pretty because they get so much rain and the weather isn't nearly as hot.
Here we all are on the whale watching boat. I didn't get any good pictures of the whales because I was too busy TRYING to video them and missed any really good still pictures.
We left Juneau to cruise to Skagway which is one of my favorite places in Alaska. There is so much gold rush history there. Hubby and I had gone on the train trip to White Pass before when we were there so we didn't go again. However, we encouraged our friends to go because it's such a beautiful and interesting trip. We walked out to the cemetery where Soapy Smith, the leader of a gang in Skagway at the end of the 1800's, is buried. He wasn't, however, allowed to be buried INSIDE the cemetery because he had done so many awful things. He is buried just outside the fence of the cemetery. Behind the cemetery is a gorgeous waterfall named after F. Reid, the man who shot Soapy Smith. Apparently he was considered to be a hero.
After leaving Skagway, we were on the ship the rest of the cruise. The next day, we cruised into Glacier Bay National Park to see wildlife and glaciers. We saw Marjery Glacier and were able to hear and see it calving. Cruising into Glacier Bay was absolutely breathtaking.
After leaving Glacier Bay National Park, we cruised to College Fjord. Completely opposite to the day we were in Glacier Bay which was sunny and relatively warm, it was extremely foggy when we were in College Fjord. However,the fog only added to the natural beauty and mystique of the surroundings.
Our cruise was now rapidly coming to an end. I haven't mentioned in here all the other fun things we did while on the ship---like EATING!!! It was absolutely fantastic to go to the dining room and have an all day buffet if we chose to do that. We made new friends and ate our way through the cruise. On Saturday we ended the cruise in Whittier, Alaska. There's really not much in Whittier except boats. It's a fishing village and about 800 people live there year round. We had lunch in Whittier and then caught a train to Anchorage where we rented a car for the next part of our trip. Pictures and highlights of that trip will be in the next post, Alaska Part 2. Stay tuned!!
Whittier, Alaska
