Alaska

Day #31 (August 31, 2022): Today is Mawmo & Dado’s 50th Wedding Anniversary!! Happy Anniversary!! We enjoyed celebrating them by spending the day together during our full day at sea. We participated in games on stage, played Bingo, and attended the Build-A-Bear workshop while cruising off the coast of British Columbia. The girls enjoyed taking turns stamping dots on the Bingo cards even though we didn’t win anything. The very friendly and personable cruise director, Andy, graciously treated each of the kids to their own souvenir Build-A-Bear. How kind is that! That night, we ate prime rib, lobster tail, chocolate heart-shaped anniversary cake (and Melting Chocolate Cake, of course), as we celebrated Mawmo & Dado’s 50th anniversary.

Day #32 (September 1, 2022): What an amazing day! We spent the day enjoying the beautiful scenery of Tracy Arm Fjord. Wow! It was stunning! Even though we had just come from Glacier National Park, this was our first time to be able to see, admire, and marvel at glaciers so close! (Most of the glaciers in Glacier National Park have already melted, and the few that remain require several hours of hiking to see in person, which we did not do.) The blue glacier ice, the teal water below, the waterfalls cascading down the mountainsides…absolutely spectacular! Sawyer’s Glacier at the end of Tracy Arm Fjord was amazing as well! We spent most of the day sitting on the Lido deck playing cards and watching the fantastic scenery! It was such a fun and relaxing day!

Day #33 (September 2, 2022): Today was our first port of call: Icy Strait Point near Hoonah, AK. We took the gondola up the mountain, hiked along the rainforest trails to Hidden Lake, toured the Hoonah Cannery Museum, skipped rock “coins” off the shore of the port, watched a tribal story and dance, and marveled in disbelief at the numerous cruise passengers who participated in the icy “Polar Plunge” with Andy, the cruise director, in the icy waters of Icy Strait Point!

Day #34 (September 3, 2022): Second port of call: Juneau, AK. Today we went on a whale watch! We saw humpback whales, bald eagles, sea lions, and a harbor seal from the boat, and we even saw a grizzly bear on the bus ride back to the ship. It was an amazing excursion! The naturalist onboard put a hydrophone in the water so we could hear the whales communicating under the water. Remarkable! And the best highlight of the trip: while we were distracted and watching for whales off in the distance, one whale surprised us all by coming right up to the boat right next to Dado! So cool!

Day #35 (September 4, 2022): Third port of call: Ketchikan, AK. First, we toured Totem Bight State Historical Park, observing totem poles while listening to their accompanying stories and going inside a tribal house to hear about the history of the local native people. Afterward, we went to the fun-filled Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show where lumberjacks from the US and Canada competed by throwing axes, hacking and sawing through huge logs, climbing tall poles, and running atop spinning, floating logs. Those guys are strong!

Day #36 (September 5, 2022): We woke up at 3 am to check the sky as our cruise director had advised that this “night” would be our best chance of catching a glimpse of the northern lights. We went out on our balcony to check the sky, and he was right!!! The faint green glow of the Northern lights looked like a green cloud brushed across the night sky, and the constellations were so bright! How exciting!!! Chris was able to capture the green glow even more vibrantly with his iphone! Even though it may not have been the most spectacular display of northern lights, it was still an unexpected surprise and a super-exciting bonus to our trip!!

As we sailed toward Seattle, we cruised through a whale sanctuary, which is typically the crew’s favorite day onboard because of the numerous whale sightings from the ship. Unfortunately, it was foggy all day long, and we couldn’t see more than a few feet from the boat. No whale sightings for us today, which was disappointing, but it made us even more thankful that we had decided last minute to take a whale watching trip in Juneau, and the northern lights from earlier in the morning made up for the disappointment of the foggy whale sanctuary day.

Day #37 (September 6, 2022): The Alaskan cruise was our family’s favorite cruise yet!

We loved the slower pace and more family-friendly atmosphere compared to the Caribbean cruises that we’ve taken in the past. We thoroughly enjoyed all the amazing scenery from the comfort of the cruise ship. Alaska is a stunning state that offers many opportunities to witness God’s amazing power, majesty, and creativity displayed throughout all of His creation!

And as with every cruise, one of the kids’ favorite things was indulging in the endless 24/7 soft-serve ice cream and nightly Carnival Melting Chocolate Cake, which are both cruise staples for many cruisers, but especially for our family.

After disembarking from the ship, we picked up Mac from his boarder’s house and the RV from the RV Service Center and drove around the Puget Sound to Port Angeles in the Olympic Peninsula of Washington and parked at Elwha RV Park. Neil and Bethany slept most of the day in the truck, not feeling well. Turns out, they had picked up COVID somewhere along the cruise as did their roommate, Mawmo, who tested positive for COVID later that night.