On our way in and out of Glacier Bay, we went through a body of water called the Icy Strait and it was a prime waterway for the Summertime-resident humpback whales.  All the pictures I got were from the outside deck of the cruise ship as we didn’t go on any specific whale watching excursions.

Still, I think we were very lucky in that, not only did we see a LOT of whales (too many to count but definitely triple digits) but, especially on the way out, we got some to come very close to the ship.

It’s pretty easy to lose perspective on the size of these magnificent creatures when you are 12 stories up on a 900 ft boat but they were still incredible.  We were also treated to a couple of breaches near the ship which, apparently, is very rare up here in Alaska.  Breaching is a common occurrence down in the waters of Hawaii (where these same whales spend the winter) but the rangers on the ship said it is very uncommon in this area.

I was even lucky enough to be quick on the draw with my shutter and caught the air-devils in the act.

All the whale pictures can be viewed here.

Well, I haven’t been able to get all the way through the Alaska adventure before we are taking off on our next one.  The kids and I are off to Islamorada (one of our most favorite fishing and relaxing haunts) in the morning.  I don’t think I’m going to have a great internet connection (if at all) while we’re there so I probably won’t be able to finish the Alaska posts until we get back the second week of August.

I promise I’ll pick back up with Alaska then.  Wish us luck as we brave the mid-summer heat and try to catch some Keys fish .

The first full day on the boat we headed up into Glacier Bay National Park.  We went by lots of interesting stuff on the way – including a bunch of whales that I’ll post about later – but the main attraction of the day was to view the glaciers and, hopefully, catch some “calving” action.  That is when huge chunks of the leading edge of ice break off and fall into the water.

The main glacier we hung out by is the one in the picture above.  We were very fortunate to have a beautiful sunny day for this part of the trip and we got to see lots of good calving.  This particular glacier is much larger than it appears in that photo.  It towers 150 feet above the surface of the water, extends another 250 feet below the surface and is about 3/4 of a mile wide at the face.  And that’s just the end of it.  As you can see, it extends on back up the valley and into the mountains for miles.

This glacier is moving at 7 feet per hour (which seemed pretty fast to me) so for the hour or so that we were parked by it we got to see several large chunks of ice fall.  The most impressive part about this is the sound.  It sounds like a huge explosion when a building-sized piece of ice breaks and falls 150 feet into the water!  Makes quite a splash too…

Behold, the birth of an Iceberg.

The birds liked cruising around in the area too.  Maybe the turmoil of the ice falling created for good fishing.

But, the best picture opportunity I got was just as we were leaving.  A private sailing ship (looked to be about a 40 footer even though it is dwarfed by us and the glacier) came cruising up into the area to view the glacier and, just as I was framing a shot of the sailboat, the glacier calved in the background…

Almost a National Geographic moment there.  Look at the size of that splash and realize the face of the glacier is at least another 1000yds beyond the boat.  That water is rising 75 feet in the air.

The rest of the glacier pictures can be found here.

And then we got to the most anticipated moment of the trip…

We came through a tunnel in the mountain and there it was – the boat.  Well, more of a massive luxury hotel/resort/shopping center/fun zone on the water.  I’ve never been much of a cruiser (actually, this was my first) but my Mom knows how to cruise.  This ship was gorgeous inside and out.

The kids were in awe.  Grammy had arranged for adjacent mini-suites that connected via the balcony and the accommodations were top-notch.  We had all kinds of restaurants, grills and snack bars as well as a 24-hour buffet, four different kids clubs, a game room, shops, theaters, etc. but the number one attraction as far as the kids were concerned…

…the pools.  There were two main ones – an outdoor one (that was good for the sunny days) and one that was covered for the couple days when it was cool and misty.  We could be gliding right by a huge glacier or a pod of whales and the kids were like “cool…but can we go to the pool now??”

The ship really was nice.  If you’re gonna cruise, this is the way to do it (with kids anyway).

A few more boat pics can be found here.

I got to really like travelling by train during our jaunt across Europe last year.  It’s just a really comfortable way to travel long distances.  We took two trains on this journey – one from Fairbanks to Denali and then again from Denali down to Whittier (the port just south of Anchorage).  The train travel was probably my favorite part of this whole “cruisetour” concoction.

We travelled in double-decker cars with the top portion (where the main seating was) being a full, 180-degree panoramic window.  So, you could just sit back and take in the incredible scenery of the Alaska wilderness as you chugged your way through it.  I do mean chugged because our average travel speed was probably about 35mph (a stark contrast to the triple-digit speeds of the European versions) but, that was the right speed for this particular trip.

Michael and Allison are world-class travelers who rarely complain about any type of transportation, but I think they especially liked the trains as well.  Of course, it couldn’t possibly compare to the boat we were about to get on, but, since we hadn’t seen it yet the train was a grand experience in freedom to roam while we travelled.

I got some of my favorite scenic shots while on the trains.  All the train travel pictures can be viewed here.

The second day at Denali National Park and Preserve did not disappoint on the wildlife front.  We took what is called the “long tour” into the park.  There were two options for a tour through the wilderness here – one of them was a three hour version and the other an eight hour one.  While planning the trip, Mom agonized over which one to take because we knew they could only take school busses in (not big motor coaches) and we were travelling with two kids.  But, she did her research and discovered that the shorter version of the trip just didn’t go far enough into the park to have a good shot at seeing very much and, when dealing with wildlife, it’s all pot-luck as to what you might get to see anyway.

So, we all got on our school bus (actually pretty nice as they replaced the seats and added luggage racks above) at 7:30am and chugged off into the great wilderness of the park for eight hours to see what we could see.  We were very lucky on the wildlife front as we got to see most of what the park has to offer.  Our guide was even impressed and said we saw as much wildlife as he might usually see in two or three days.

It started off as we turned onto the road just after the main entrance to the park where there was a big cow moose grazing right by the side of the road.  She was obviously used to the traffic and let us creep slowly by her.

From then on, it was a smorgasbord of the animals that call the park home.  We saw eagles, hawks, wolves, bears, foxes, dall sheep (look like big mountain goats), moose, caribou and lots of smaller animals.  Our guide said the only thing we didn’t see was a lynx which he only sees about once a month.  It was a long trip but with all that to keep us interested it didn’t seem all that long and the kids had a blast.  Nice choice, Mom.

The only minor disappointment was that, when we got to the main viewing area for the mountain itself, it was almost totally obscured by clouds (a very common occurrence).  Here’s what it’s supposed to look like (a shot you’ve probably seen before):

And here is what it was that day (from the spot where you see the busses in the above picture):

If you click on that picture to enlarge it, and look closely, you can see parts of the side of the mountain through the clouds.  It’s not quite as big as the previous shot makes it look (they used a very large telephoto lens from very far away to make the mountain look larger in relation to the busses) but it’s an awfully big mountain.

We did get a peek at it from a different vantage point which is the picture I had at the beginning of my last post.

The rest of the pictures from Denali are here.

The morning after our day in Fairbanks we got up early and took the train up to Denali National Park (used to be Mt. McKinley but they have reverted the name back to the native version).  I’ll detail the train rides in another post.  We arrived at the lodge right near the park entrance at about noon and took off on our first adventure at 2:00.  It turned out to be a little more adventure than planned, too…

We took a jet boat tour up the river that ran by our lodge to hopefully see some wildlife and take in the wilderness scenery.  The plan was to jet up the river a few miles, then turn around and come back down a little further the other direction.  Everything was going great until it came to turn around.  This maneuver is normally tricky as the river is flowing very fast (about 12 knots), is only about 40 feet wide (our boat was 25 feet long) and is littered with rocks projecting up here and there.  Our captain assured us he was adept at this process and that our twin-engine jet boat could just about rotate on it’s axis if you knew how to drive it.

All that is fine and dandy until our guide and captain discovered that, somewhere along the ride up the river, the cable that operates the thrust-reverser on one of the engines broke.  He discovered this after attempting the turn about three times and then, carefully, allowing us to beach along the river’s edge (remember, it’s flowing at 12 knots) where he could plunge his hands into the 36 degree water to discover what the issue was.

So, he got on the radio and got a smaller boat to come up from the launch point and ferry us back to the start.  Our trip was cut short and we didn’t really see much wildlife, but we did have an adventure!  Our captain assured us he would have a bigger one as there was no way to get the boat home without fixing the cable.  For that, he would have to don his dry-suit and get in the icy water to do the repair.  Something he figured would occupy the next several hours of his life.

We got back to the launch and the lodge just fine and in time to rest just a bit before we took in the old-time dinner show and learned about the first people to climb to the summit of “the great one”.  It was goofy and entertaining and fun.

To begin our adventure in Alaska, we flew into Fairbanks.  Getting there was a bit of an adventure in itself — I forgot our passports and had to have Sharon drive them up to the airport and our plane was late, causing us to miss our connection and get in a few hours later than we were supposed to.  And, don’t even talk to me about baggage handling on one of these cruisetour things…

But, we got there with plenty of daylight (they had about 22 hours of it the day when we were there) and got to do two fun things in this interior city of the north.  We went to the Museum of Alaska which is on the campus of UAF (University of Alaska Fairbanks) and we went on a three hour river boat ride to an old native village.  I also almost lost Michael when trying to get a picture of the kids by the river where our little motel cottages were.  He took a step back and found out the grass was actually covering the four foot drop down the river bank.  He didn’t go in and we all had a good laugh over it.

The museum was fun and informative but the river boat was the highlight of this particular day.  We saw a demonstration of a float plane taking off and landing right next to us, met and pet real Iditarod dog sled dogs, and saw the way native Alaskans lived in this wild place both before and after contact with the Western world (although, I was puzzled by that description of civilized influence, considering the Alaskans were about as far west as you can get…).  All in all, a very successful one day stay in Fairbanks.

More pictures from Fairbanks are here.

The next foray “Out in the World” was Alaska.  A very generous gift from Grammy (my Mom) to me and the kids.  We did a combination of land and sea for 11 nights from Fairbanks to Vancouver.  I didn’t take a full computer on the trip and there was very limited connectivity anyway so I wasn’t able to blog about it while we were actually there.  So, over the next several days, I will try to recreate the trip in words and images in an attempt to share our journey with those of you who would like to see what we got to experience.

Watch this space (or subscribe) to follow along.

I took 2,961 pictures (no, I didn’t post them all to Flickr) and shot over two hours of video (and, no, I won’t make family members sit through all that raw footage when you visit next time) but, most of all we created some incredible memories.

If you’ve just found this site and want to take our journey again with us, click here to start at the beginning.   I apologize for the goofy characters that are in some of the entries now.  The migration my old provider did (this is all on a new host now)  mucked some things up.

This will probably be the last post out here until such time as we are able to head “Out in the World” again.   Until then, go through that open door and see what’s on the other side… it could be amazing.