Skagway, Alaska & Riding the White Pass Scenic Railroad

The next stop on our vacation was Skagway, Alaska.   Skagway is a fairly small town, with a year-round population of about 3,000 people.  Of course, that number grows during summer, when tourism abounds in the town.   When we got off the boat in Skagway, we were pleased to have a beautiful sunny day awaiting us.  The weather was perfect!  

 A lot of the locals kept telling us how lucky we were with the weather that day.  Skagway, like Juneau, gets a LOT of rainfall each year – so we were pleased that we arrived on 1 of the 50 days of sunshine they get per year!

We also got a glimpse of some wildlife: a seal enjoying a fish for breakfast right beside our ship.  We watched him for a few minutes, and then walked into downtown.  

We started our visit by walking around the main street of downtown Skagway.  A lot of the shops have been renovated to resemble the way they looked when Skagway was established in the late 19^th century as a gold rush town.  We enjoyed a one hour walking tour offered by the United States Forestry Service, where we learned a lot about the history of Skagway and its founders.    

After our tour, we headed back to the boat to grab lunch before it was time for our ride on the White Pass Yukon Route Railroad.  This railroad was built in 1898 as a way for gold rushers to reach the Klondike region.   It is also considered a civil engineering wonder because of the terrain of the area.   Now, visitors can buy tickets to ride the railroad for a 3 ½ hour trip up into the mountains.  

The scenery was indescribably beautiful.  Lee and I stood outside on the balcony for nearly the entire trip just trying to take pictures that would capture at least half of the beauty around us.  We got extra lucky on our train ride as we were able to enjoy an extra 14 miles of railroad for free!  One of the other trains had an engine problem, so they had to turn around, making our train the first up the mountain.  Because of the way the railroad is designed, the first train has to travel an extra distance up the mountain before turning around to go back down, so we got to travel farther up, crossing into Canadian territory.  It also added an extra hour to our ride, as we had to stop and reverse down the mountain at one point to let the damaged train pass us.  They whole reversing down a mountain situation made me a little nervous, but the extra time on the train made it entirely worth it!  If you ever get the opportunity to go to Skagway, I highly recommend this train ride.  It was one of my favorite parts of our vacation! 

There really are no words to go along with the scenery, so enjoy the pictures!

 Enjoy the rest of your day!  Thanks for reading!  Coming up next: Glacier Bay, Ketchikan, and Victoria!

- Gina

Our First Day Onboard & Our Visit to Alaska’s Capital City: Juneau

Our ship set sail for Alaska on Sunday at 4:00 pm.  The cruise line celebrated with a huge outdoor BBQ, which was a little less than enjoyable for me due to the 57 degree temperature on deck.  Everyone always says that my mom and I aren’t “warm” unless it is 80 degrees or higher.   But I toughed it out and watched as we sailed out of the port of Seattle.  We were able to enjoy some more great views of the Seattle skyline.  

Setting sail!

After setting sail, we had an entire day to spend at sea.   We had lots of fun on the ship because there were several ways to entertain yourself.  Lee took advantage of the rock climbing wall.  He scaled the “difficult” side like a pro (after we watched another cruiser attempt the same feat and fail miserably…. what a show off)!  Unfortunately, I did not have my camera with me to document his accomplishment, but it was pretty impressive.  We also visited the casino on-board, where I lost $3 on a 1 cent slot machine in 2 minutes.  I did the math:  that means that out of 300 attempts to hit “BAR-BAR-BAR,” I succeeded ZERO times!   0 out of 300?!  Anyone want to take me to Vegas?  Didn’t think so….
After losing all confidence in my chances of hitting it big in the casino, we left to get ready for dinner, which happened to be “dress up night.”   Here we are looking snazzy for dinner: 

 Mom and Dad looked pretty sharp, too! 

 After dinner, we went to see some comedy on board in the theater and then went to bed to rest up for our arrival in Juneau.  Our ship reached the port at 2:00 pm, and we were pretty excited to see land again!

Enjoying the view of land!

View of Juneau's port from sea

However, we were not excited about the weather that greeted us in Alaska.  This Southern girl was missing her hot, sunny days pretty bad at this point.  It was about 48 degrees with strong winds and it was POURING rain.  To make matters worse, the minute we stepped off the gangway, I stepped right into a puddle.  Such a lovely welcome to Alaska!!!  We hadn’t planned a way to spend our day in Juneau, but at the ship dock, we found a small local company that was offering tours of the town.  They had a van and offered to drive our group around for a few hours to show us the sights.  We were 100% ready for any way to get out of the dreary weather, so we took them up on their offer.  10 minutes later, our tour guide arrived.  He was an Alaskan local with an interesting personality and an Indian Jones hat, who felt no need to keep his political opinions to himself.  It was pretty funny to say the least.  Those Alaskans are rogue when it comes to political correctness.  He took us on a quick tour of downtown Juneau, which was not that grand for a capital city. 

Juneau's downtown

He then drove us out an area where we could see the Mendenhall Glacier in the distance.  Unfortunately, the weather was so bad that the visibility was very low.  But we saw some small icebergs and pretty scenery.

Mendenhall Glacier in the distance

Icebergs

Our next stop was the Shrine of St. Therese, a small isolated church built in 1938.  It was a really beautiful area, but the winds on the island were 30-40 mph and were icy cold.   We still spent a good bit of time outside, roaming around and appreciating the scenery around us. 

Our tour guide then drove us to Salmon Creek in Juneau so that we could see some of the salmon swimming upstream to spawn.   Our trip fell near the end of the spawning season, so the activity had slowed a good bit, but we were still able to see several salmon fighting to swim upstream. 

Each dark spot beneath the water is a salmon

Our last stop was a visit to an overlook of the port of Juneau, where once again, our view was impaired by the bad weather.  Our tour guide attempted to reassure us about our luck of weather by explaining that Juneau gets an average of 150 inches of rain a year.  He also said that this summer had been unseasonably wet, and that the last day of full sun was in APRIL.   I can’t imagine!  So Juneau was definitely a beautiful place to visit, but quickly got crossed off my list of places to live in the future. 

 Once we parted ways with our Alaskan tour guide, we headed back to downtown to do a little souvenir shopping.  My favorite find was a $400 fur bikini.  They even had a matching fur Speedo for the fella's.   Lee and I decided, however, to leave those beauties in Alaska, figuring they wouldn’t look as fashionable on Myrtle Beach’s sunny shores.  We were pretty tired after our tour, and I was past the point of over the wind and rain, so we headed back to the ship, leaving Juneau behind.   Despite the weather, I am so glad we had the opportunity to visit Juneau! 

If you are interested, check back later for a recap of our visits to Skagway, Glacier Bay, Ketchikan, and Victoria!
Thanks for reading! (if anyone still is at this point)   :)

-Gina

Our Weekend in Seattle

We just returned from a wonderful vacation to Seattle, Alaska, and British Columbia.  It was truthfully the trip of a lifetime, and we are so happy that we were able to have this experience.  I never want to forget any part of our trip, so I've decided to do a recap of our vacation highlights, starting with our first stop:  Seattle, Washington. 

We arrived in Seattle, at around 11:45 AM, which was more like 2:45 PM eastern time, making us already pretty tired – considering that we left home at 4:45 AM to be at the airport.   But we were all so ready to start our vacation that our excitement quickly overtook our exhaustion.  After dropping off our luggage at our hotel, we ventured into downtown Seattle.  We enjoyed a quick lunch at the Potbelly Sandwich Shop and then headed over to Ride the Ducks!  for a quick Duck Tour of Seattle.

Ducks in a Row

Another Duck in Lake Union

Our tour guide, or Captain, was an interesting guy, calling himself “Captain Beaux-dacious.”  While the tour was pretty silly and tourist-y, we did see some great sights around the city, including our first view of the Space Needle, several downtown highlights, and a beautiful ride along Lake Union where we got a glimpse of some of the boats from Deadliest Catch, as well as a view of the Sleepless in Seattle floating house. 

The blue house is where Sleepless in Seattle was filmed

 After our Duck Tour, we headed back into downtown, utilizing the Seattle Monorail.  The ride as short, lasting only 2 minutes, but at least we can say we have been on the Monorail.  We immediately headed to Pike’s Market, which quickly became one of my favorite parts of Seattle.  The market completely overwhelms your senses:  the noise of the city, the smells of fresh produce, flowers, and seafood, and the sights of the diverse people and vendors, gorgeous bouquets and crates of fruits and veggies is really amazing.  We could have spent hours just wandering through the many areas of the market.

Pike Place Market

Gorgeous flowers everywhere you looked.

Fresh "see"food

Sunflowers = my favorite!

Just an example of the beautiful produce for sell

After doing a great deal of exploring, we had worked up an appetite, so we headed to Lowell’s for a seafood dinner.   The food was pretty good, but the menu was quite small, which surprised us.  After dinner, we were pretty exhausted, considering it was 8 pm in Seattle, but 11 pm eastern time.  We were feeling the jet lag, so we decided to head back to our hotel.  Lo and behold, on our walk back, we saw a Target in the middle of Seattle’s downtown area.  And Mom and I were all over it like white on rice!  Poor Dad and Lee were patient and let us browse for a few minutes. 

After a much needed restful night, we were wide awake at 5:30 am (8:30 eastern time)  - the time change was really throwing us for a loop.  We decided to go ahead and get ready for the day.   After a decent breakfast at the Hurricane Café, we went to go enjoy the gorgeous day from the top of the Space Needle.  It was a really clear day, so we got some great views of the city, as well as Mt. Rainier.  

Looking up at the Space Needle

At the top

Mt. Rainier

Green Screen Photo Op

We spent the rest of our afternoon at Pike’s Market, doing some more exploring.  We found a great local artist and bought some pretty (and cheap) artwork.   After some souvenir shopping, we walked over to Pike Place Chowder to try their award winning chowder for lunch.  It was honestly the most delicious chowder that I have ever eaten, and it was definitely worth the 30 minute wait in line just to order. 

CHOWDER!

We finished up our afternoon by walking down to Pioneer Square for Bill Speidel’s Underground Tour which leads you beneath the city streets to see the original Seattle streets.  It was an interesting tour and we learned a lot about the more colorful history of the late 19^th century town.   We decided to walk over to the waterfront after our tour to enjoy dinner at Anthony’s Pier 66.  The seafood there was delicious.  After dinner, we headed back to our hotel to get ready for our cruise the next day. 

We woke up really early on our last morning in Seattle.  We headed back down to the market and visited Le Panier to get a taste of their pastries for breakfast.  

This is called a Chocolatine, a chocolate croissant with almond cream and it is like heaven in your mouth.

We wandered back toward the fish counter, and the guys let Lee go behind the counter to try his hand at catching a fish.  Before I knew it, they were throwing a HUGE fish toward my husband.  He caught it like a pro!  It was one of his favorite moments in Seattle.  

After a thorough hand washing (or three), we walked down to see the Market Theater gum wall.  Seattle has a lot of pretty funky public art, and this is just one example of that.   The gum wall is literally a wall that citizens and tourists have been putting their gum on since 1993.  Now there are several feet of nothing but gum, placed on the wall to spell words, make pictures, etc. 

We joined in on the fun, using our four pieces of gum to make a smiley face, so if you ever go to Seattle, look for this guy on the gum wall:

Finally it was time to board our cruise ship and set sail for Alaska.  We boarded the Norwegian Pearl at noon and spent the afternoon acclimating ourselves to the cruise ship.  We could hardly wait for our upcoming trip to Alaska!

Our ship docked in the Port

If you’d like to hear about the rest of our trip, check back later as I update with details of our visits to Juneau, Skagway, Glacier Bay, Ketchikan, and Victoria, British Columbia. 

Thanks for reading!
- Gina