Alaska

Chris and I had the "best laid plans" to go on a 15th anniversary trip (Alaskan cruise) a year early to spread out the expense between that and a trip to Disney/Universal the following year. Insert: sciatica and COVID! Womp womp! After rescheduling the cruise from 2019 (sciatica) to 2020 (COVID), to 2021 (No cruises through Canada), then 2022...we had all of our fingers crossed that it would actually happen. We were still skeptical 48 hours before our port time because we both got COVID for the 1st time just 3 weeks before the cruise. Thankfully we were able to do a COVID test via an at-home test over Zoom to be cleared, then flew to WA the next morning. The silver lining was that the cruise package we received kept getting upgraded, since cruise lines were desperate to recoup money and have travelers back. We had an upgraded room (balcony!!), free drink package (cheers!!), spa access (exhale!!), small wi-fi package (hello children!), and BOGO airfare! 

Checking in on Willow on the "Find My" app proved how far away they were! We were super grateful for grandparents to split the time with them!

Equally as skeptical after all of the reschedulings were my uncle Mike and aunt Colleen, who we stayed with in Seattle. They graciously picked us up at the airport and spoiled us rotten with meals, snacks, their master bedroom, tours of the Seattle area, and prompt pick up and drop off to and from the cruise. When we got into Seattle on Friday, they fed us (our 3rd meal of the long travel day with a time change), then took us to Deception Point to explore, which was beautiful, then took us out to dinner (our 4th meal of the day). The view was beautiful, as well as the drive, which passed many lavender fields!

Our first bald eagle sighting of the trip!

Mike and Colleen are the best! They were not only beyond hospitable, but also love adventure and each other! We didn't let them hold hands more than us ;) and enjoyed seeing them laugh together and tease each other. They were a joy to be around!

So much driftwood!

We boarded the cruise ship on Saturday in the early afternoon. We decided we still weren't "exhaling" until we stepped foot on the boat! The check-in process was pretty quick, thanks to Chris staying on top of all the documentation we needed before and at the time of boarding. 

Finally stepping on board!!

The view of Seattle from the ship:

We wasted no time in ordering our first meal and drink. Cheers!

The spa was awesome! We went every day and only went once where it felt too crowded. The best time was usually around 8:00 at night, which was a great way to see the sunset and top off the day with a little relaxation. They had a therapy pool with multiple places to sit with jets, a hot tub, sauna, steam room, salt room, and snow room, as well as heated tile loungers (pictured below). We used all the "s" rooms each day. It's recommended to do the sauna followed by the snow room, so we did that a few days...because, why not?? 

Enjoying our balcony!

We had two dinners included at higher-rated restaurants on board, so we used one the first night since it was our actual anniversary. We left beyond stuffed, then enjoyed a Beatles performance afterwards. 

Our first of many beautiful sunsets:

The next day we were at sea all day, so we enjoyed a few things on the ship including go karts and a comedy show. It was a bit misty all day, so we weren't sure if we'd be able to drive, but we did! It was fun!

Our cruise was Alaska's "inner passage" so we often saw islands on both sides of the ship. 

 

Our first port stop was in Sitka, AK. We didn't have an excursion so we took our time at the spa then lunch on board before checking it out. 

We did a little shopping at the port, then took a short bus ride to "town." It was a drizzly day but was never a downpour. 

All the rain makes for bright greens and beautiful flowers!!

This purple flower is fireweed.

Our 2nd bald eagle sighting:

Quotable by Chris as an eagle flew right over our heads: That would've been a good shot. 

We walked about 20 minute to the Sitka National Historical park. A friend has a National park stamp book, so we got one to add in case we ever get the book too!

There were a lot of totem poles to walk around and check out. 

There was a man working on carving one, so it was nice to see part of the process and ask a few questions. It takes about 6 months to make!

Undocumented: very large bear poop on our walk through the trails.

Listen to the sounds! I'm not sure if they're eagles or another type. Look closely for the eagle on top of the tree at the end!

We learned that the juvenile bald eagles have brown head feathers. This one was about 20 yards away from us, enjoying a fishy snack!

The details were incredible!

We called these "happy floppy fish" until we talked to a ranger who told us they were salmon jumping and that no one knows why (she'd even looked online!). They were super fun to watch and were HUGE!!

We enjoyed a little shopping before returning to the ship. 

Random facts: Sitka is the 4th largest city by population in Alaska with 8,500 residents. It's only accessible by ship or plane. The water rises by 14 feet at high tide. 

After walking in the drizzling rain for 3 1/2 hours, we returned to hot chocolate as we boarded the ship!

The shower head took us a minute to figure out. There were 6 sprayers in addition to the shower head at the top. The bottom dial selected how many sprayers/jets you wanted and the top controlled the temperature. It was fancier than anything we'd ever seen before!

Our 2nd port stop was in Juneau, AK....even further away from the kiddos:

It was another rainy/cloudy 59-degree day, which meant that it wasn't safe for our excursion of a helicopter ride to a dog sled camp (the excursion I was most excited about). We didn't officially find out until we got off the boat, then went in search of something else to do to experience Alaska. Thanks to Chris's determination, we were able to get the last 2 tickets on a canoe trip to Mendenhall Glacier!

The trip left 15 minutes after we got tickets and he dropped us off right at the ship afterwards with less than 15 minutes to spare. Whew! They outfitted us with all the gear we needed to stay dry. There were 10 people on the trip, plus our guide named Bryce. 7 of the people were related to Thomas Mendenhall, who the glacier was named after and who, ironically, never stepped foot in Alaska. 

We paddled through rain the whole time but were able to get within 30 yards of the glacier, which was incredible! Bryce pointed out the group of people in the distance who were at the visitor center on a bus tour (another excursion option) but they were easily 200 yards away with a much different view for sure!

A few facts we learned: The glacier melts 8" per day. It takes 100 feet of snow to create 1' of glacier. It's 600 feet thick. The gray color of the water is from floating powder of pulverized rock by the glacier (rock flour). Crevices form when the glacier breaks over rocks. A quarking event is when the glacier splits and breaks (there was a large chunk with seagulls on top of it from the glacier).

Bryce said the glacier looks different each time he takes a tour out to it. This chunk of glacier ice was floating near us, so he grabbed it and passed it around for us to try. 

Nugget Falls

Bryce made us hot drinks when we returned to dry land. Most people got a "Mendenhall Mocca" (mix of coffee and hot chocolate). Some of us opted for just hot chocolate. :)

Other facts we learned from Bryce: The tide rises 21' at high tide. Skunk cabbage is what bears eat after hibernation to get their "system" going. Arctic Turns (a bird) travel from the Antarctic to the Arctic and back (we saw one fly by). We saw numerous bald eagles drying their wings on street lamp posts. 

Sidenote: Bryce's cat goes on hikes with him! He carries the cat in a backpack on his bike too! It's Instagram name is mercurygoesout. (I'm currently deciding which cat to train to go on hikes with us!!)

After having this view for a couple days...

...we were excited to get a peak at blue sky!!

After leaving Juneau, we cruised to Dawes Glacier. 

We noticed this boat coming towards the cruise ship but our ship was turned perpendicular to the waterway, not leaving much room on either side for it to pass. We figured the captain was just giving both sides of the ship a view of the glacier before leaving, but the boat kept coming right at the middle of our ship. It ended up pulling up alongside our ship, then unloaded about 30 people!! We figured they got left behind in Juneau and were super lucky to get a personal escort back onto the ship!!

Some glacier runoff:

Another activity they had onboard was lasertag. Chris and I ended up on different teams. He'd like to point out that he had 

More welcomed sunshine peeking through!

The weather was still in the 50s but we noticed an unoccupied hot tub near the lasertag area, so we took the plunge and enjoyed another great sunset!

Our next stop was Icy Strait Point, AK. We had a 52-degree, partly cloudy day for our whale watching and crab feast excursion, which we really enjoyed! We lucked out in finding a pod of 6 humpback whales "bubble net feeding" together 5-6 times. It was hard to get a video of the whole process because you never knew where they'd pop up next...you'd just see all of their mouths shoot up out of the water together, then they'd swim around for a minute or two before coming up a final time and diving down, showing off their tails. Here's a YouTube video explaining it and here's my best capture of the full process. 

Here's an eagle stealing a fish from a seagull:

Our best views of tails at the end:

The Instagram highlight:

Facts we learned on our trip: Humpback whales' throats are the size of a grapefruit. Sea otters don't have blubber; they have 1 million hairs per square inch compared to humans having 1-2,000. They'll get food from the bottom, then lay on their backs and use rocks to break it open. They often have a favorite rock. A group of otters is called a raft. 

After whale watching, we took a gondola ride to where our seafood feast was. Everyone working on the cruise was over-the-top kind and cheery, that when we encountered our first interactions with NOT overly cheery people, it felt overly harsh. We got very vague directions to where we needed to go for the feast, then got completely different directions from the information center. So when we thought we'd gotten to the right place and asked the couple behind the counter if we were in the right place, they looked at us like we were two-headed monsters for showing up 20 minutes early. (Sorry....we've never been here before....) They were a little "crabby," you could say ;) They insisted that every-other-person got a crab cracker and there were NOT enough for everyone. Not being much of a seafood eater myself, I was envisioning a cracker (like Ritz, Saltine, etc.) and wondering how big it was if I was going to need to share it with Chris! I felt a bit silly after realizing it was a cracker to open the crab (similar to a nut cracker to open a nut). The crab was great but definitely made me thankful for pre-picked-off crabmeat!!

We "shared" our crab cracker nicely...

I wasn't able to get a video, but check out this zipline!! The 6 cords go to the top of that mountain! The guy said they get going up to 60mph on the 1-mile long zip! When they get to the bottom, you hear loud pops as the springs stop them. 

Our room! Bernie was the steward. We couldn't take a nap without the bed being made within the next 2 hours. He probably checked on the room 3 times a day. We insisted on taking the blue cloth off the bed each time, and he insisted on it going back. We even would play hide-and-seek with it around the room. There was only one spot he didn't find it ;)  He liked Chris' socks together. Chris had put on in the sliding closet door that rattled, then we found it with the other sock, which was by Chris' shoes. He left extra desserts a few times (cookies, chocolate-dipped strawberries) too! The stewards always had a smile on their faces - even when they were washing the walls in the hallways! Whew!

Another great sunset from the spa:

Our next port stop was in Ketchikan, AK. 

We had a ziplining excursion with great weather - finally some sunshine! We took a unimog to the starting point. Check out our zips here and here. 

At the end of our last zipline, we rappelled off the platform to the ground. We all got down, then as one of our guides was rappelling down, she shouted about a bear, as she almost landed on top of it! We were all about 20 feet away from it. It took no notice of us and moseyed along on its way. 

While we waited for our shuttle back to the port, we had a chance to talk with another totem pole carver. We also saw some more bald eagles. Two were coming straight towards us and fought each other about 10 feet away from us. That one is an "uncaptured moment" that will have to live on in or memories. :) Here are a few of them hanging out by a stream. 

Unfortunately we didn't have time to explore the town before or after our excursion. Our bus driver pointed out a stream that he said would be a great place to see salmon running. 

Fun Fact: People living outside the city rely on rainwater for water.

The "silver lining" to not being able to go on our dog sledding excursion was that there was an Iditarod musher doing a presentation in the shopping area and I was able to learn a lot. I have a book at school called "All About Sled Dogs" so I was wanting to verify facts in the book and learn more to tell the students. The musher was actually a teacher and has GoPro videos posted on CNN.com.

Pictured below are the boots that she wore and her brake. In my book it says that mushers use a command "Whoa" to get the dogs to stop, but she said the brake is more what she used. The furry white thing on the right goes over the dog's "boy parts." I think I'll leave that detail out of my explanation to the students ;)

In the Iditarod they travel 1,000 miles in 13 days. 

This is one of the booties that the dogs wear on their feet. The kids always giggle when they read that word. I had imagined it was to keep their feet warm but was surprised how thin the material was. She said it's for keeping their paws from getting cuts, not for warmth or traction. 

At each checkpoint, vets do an exam of every dog. Mushers have to keep track of this notebook so any injuries can be tracked. She trained 24 dogs. You have to start with 16 and have to finish with at least 5. In the book it talks about the leader of the team. She said that she had 8 leaders on her team that she could rotate. One time the winds were so bad that she had to try all of them in the front before she found the one who would actually lead. The sled weighs 150 pounds loaded, plus the weight of the driver, which she said means that each dog pulls about 2 pounds of weight. 

This is one of her sled dogs named....Willow!! :)

Dinner with a view!

We saw a lot of seaplanes, since the areas we were visiting were only accessible by boat or plane. This one got a good view of our ship as we pulled out of Ketchikan! I was hanging out at the back of the boat because we were told that orcas like to jump the wake of the ship in that area. I didn't see any orcas but did spot a humpback!

(This Mango Meltdown was amazing!!)

Chris' teeny tiny espresso

I enjoyed a few of the games/activities in this area of the boat. They had a game for couples, one for Battle of the Sexes, then this balloon making activity. I was pretty proud of the dog and sword I made but knew they weren't making the trip home to the kids, so this picture is my evidence. The dog went to a couple girls who sat in front of me that were having a hard time and asked to look at mine for reference, so I told them they could have it. On my way out there was a little girl crying because her brother was whacking him with his balloon sword. Their mom was telling him to stop. I asked her if she'd like mine and she stopped in her tracks for a few seconds then a smile grew on her face and she said yes. 

Our last port stop was in Victoria, British Columbia. 

I didn't get a picture while we were on our bus to our Butchart Gardens excursion, but the city has 1600 hanging flower baskets that are placed by the city every June. Water trucks come by at night to water them. They were beautiful!

Our port time changed at some point. Originally we were to be there from 5-9pm or so. We didn't get into port until 8:00 and stayed until midnight. Our Butchart Garden tour was a bit different of an experience in the dark!! We could still tell it was a beautiful place though!

 I was thankful for the picture capabilities on my phone, which showed more color than we were seeing live. We used the flashlights on our phone to be able to see what some flower colors were. 

The next morning we woke up in Seattle! 

Mike and Colleen picked us up ahead of schedule, as is typical of Rexroads ;) We spent most of the day walking around downtown, experiencing the space needle and Pike's Place Market. It's a fun city!

There's our ship at port...ready to take another group out that afternoon!

This is a green screen picture of the city but still a fun way to remember our fun time with Mike and Colleen!

The market was incredible! I would've bought some of everything if I lived there!! We limited ourselves to cherries and mango. 

A bit overpriced but tasted as good as it looks!!

Can you spot the salmon in the air? 

The flowers were equally beautiful!

We enjoyed some seafood for lunch, accompanied by some "very hungry" seagulls who loved fries!

Colleen bought us these sweet Seattle bag which shows many of the places we experienced! Such a thoughtful gesture!

Sunday we enjoyed sleeping in and relaxing at their house, reading, and soaking up the sun. Their cat is a precious floofball that is a retired show cat. She's super soft!

We flew out at 11pm for a red-eye flight through Newark to Charlotte, then were picked up by my dad to drive back home. In theory, red-eye flights maximize your travel time.....if you're sleeping, which we were not. It left us feeling like zombies the next day, but grateful for an incredible trip and glad to be back with the kids!

Here's a fun highlight video of our trip:

The kids had fun sharing time with grandparents while we were gone. We were able to use our limited internet package to text a few times throughout the week to check in and send and receive a few pictures. The time change made it a bit of a challenge, but we knew they were in good hands!

They loved on cats at the library!

They went through Massanutten on their way to PA with their cousins and enjoyed the water park, bumper cars, the Sight and Sound production of David, and stayed overnight in a train car!

A fun coincidence for their train car to be labeled with Alaska while their parents were miles away in Alaska!