The Moose is Loose

We walked around the tiny town of Talkeetna today and saw lots of moose. Not the real ones, but the wooden kind. The town is having an auction on the fourth of July for these moose designed by local artists, schoolchildren and businesses. They are yard art. Some of them are quite cute.




This one was outside of the flight place.




This was a restaurant, wildflower cafe.







The northern lights.




Elementary kids did this one.



It's too bad these are so big or else I would have found a souvenir to take home.

Baby Animals

Who can resist baby animals? Especially when they were rescued from the wild. We stopped at the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center today. They had several animals (I'll write more later) but I just had to show the babies. We got there in time for a moose feeding.









They went through a bottle in about 20 seconds so if you weren't there you missed it. There were also baby muskox in the pen but they didn't get fed for a few hours and they knew it so they just kept laying down. The moose got up as soon as they heard the gate.









They were super cute.

The Island Princess

This was our third time cruising. Each one has been a different line. As always I research the heck out of it before going.

The island is a smaller ship (small is all relative). It only can have about 1,900 passengers. Mega ships nowadays can have up to 4,000. It was easy to navigate. We had a balcony room in the aft (back) of the ship starboard (right) side. It was a really nice location.









There are two pools. One indoors and one outside. We didn't use either but with the sunny weather the outside one did get some use.





The demographics of this cruise were very different from our past ones. Not a lot of children and definitely skewed to the retired crowd. We felt really young. One benefit of this was it didn't seem like there were all the waiters walking around trying to sell you drinks. We walked the stairs almost exclusively which was probably good given all the food they have on the ship.

They have an ice carver and several vegetable carvers. Look ehat they can do.













Yes that's all edible.

They also make incredible looking desserts.
















So that's a small tour of the ship.

Cruising through Alaska

What a trip! After the rough start, things got so much better.

This was the first time we had gotten a balcony. It was nice to be able to see some things without having to fight people for space.

The seas were calm. If anyone had problem with motion sickness, they must get sick just walking. The only movement I could feel was the engines. We were on the second highest deck so I was a little worried about that.

The weather was great. In fact they were having record heat and I got sunburned after one hour in Juneau. I don't even do that at home.

We zip lined in Ketchikan. What a neat experience. The guides were super nice and helpful. They knew how to work with people. We were with another family and the mom was nervous. We also saw a bear on the drive up to the zip line.





I bought the photo they took of me so I'll have to scan it when I get home to post. You end this particular adventure with a 250 foot slide. Dan picked up a lot of speed and almost went to the end.

In Juneau we went on a helicopter ride to a glacier to dogsled. I had never been in one and I can't wait to do it again. I got to sit up front with the pilot on the flight there. WOW!





At the dogsled our guide had raced in the Yukon Quest and had 40 of his dogs there. When the dogs hear the helicopters they get excited because they know they get to run.





In Skagway we had a small bus with two other couples and drove up to Canada to catch the train back. Our train car only had eight people so we got to sit anywhere and saw so much.






Did you notice how sunny all those pictures are? That's the first real sun all those places have had since last summer. They were thrilled. I just wanted a little relief. It was 87 in Juneau for goodness sake.

When we got to Glacier Bay I got my wish. It was in the 40's and foggy and we were worried we wouldn't see anything. But the fog lifted and there were lots of icebergs. It took us longer to get to the Marjorie Glacier but it was worth it. In the hour we were there, we probably saw 15 calving events. That's when the glacier breaks off and falls into the water.





When we left the bay we saw about 15 humpback whales and a few otters. Add that to the bear, mountain goats and eagles I had already seen and we were doing really good in the wildlife department.

I have lots more pictures but figured I could right more details about each day later. Who wants to write a big blog while on vacation! We still have another week to go!

Day one vacation

So once we started on our vacation things improved. The airport was decked out for the NBAFinals.



Once we got to Vancouver we got to our hotel quickly. We watched the end of the game (not good) and then walked outside a bit.






There were seagulls on the street. Not what we see in Oklahoma.

We got an upgrade at the hotel. Top floor corner overlooking the stadium.




And it had a jacuzzi tub.




So today we head to the ship and say goodbye to land for a couple of days. The weather forecast keeps improving so hopeful we get to do all we plan.

Vacation woes

So today's start to the vacation is off to a rocky start. The early morning flight (I really hate these) combines with lack of sleep to create a bad situation. The small carryon bag got left at home. Which we didn't figure out until we were unloading at the airport. So a trip home and a quick reschedule of flights means we are leaving a few hours later today. Let's just say the morning wasn't too great. But the good thing is we got rescheduled at no cost and even have seats together.

I ended my pity party pretty quickly when I saw a soldier who was obviously going back to war leaving his family. Kissing his brand new baby girl and wife goodbye brought tears to my eyes. My problems are easily solved.

Weekend Wrapup - June 18

So I did something silly and went and got a new phone yesterday...two days before I leave on a vacation. Luckily it is almost exactly like my old phone. But I had to go download ringtones (does anyone else think the standard ones they put on the phones are stupid). I also have to get used to the keyboard. I like the phones that slide out and have a real keyboard and this one is much stiffer to use than my old one. The space button is especially hard. So I get lots of run on words.

The poor Thunder lost last night in a tough game That's two tough losses in a row. Here's hoping that Tuesday night will be better.

Church for Father's Day was interesting. They had monster trucks, semi trucks, big pickup trucks, miniature golf, free tshirts for dads that said "Journey Up". (The name of the church is JourneyChurch and Thunder Up is the big basketball slogan). I was going to take a picture of the trucks but my camera battery was dead.

Which led to my trip to Best Buy to get a new one and then the new phone (which was free). So now I have two batteries charged up, three new sets of earbuds for ipod/ipad, and a new phone. I also bought a pair of waterproof pants in case it rains on the trip. I wasn't going to do that but then I thought about when we go ziplining and I didn't want to be caught in lots of rain with just my jeans on. That would be miserable. And if I don't use them, I'll return them.

The plane leaves early tomorrow morning (6:45 am) blech. I hope we can get into our hotel room early because otherwise we will have a long wait. I may need a nap.

Hope everyone has a lovely week.

Had to add in the video they played at church for the dads yesterday. These guys are all associate pastors at church.