Alaska

Our big vacation this year: an Alaskan cruise! We’ve been thinking about it for a while and since this was one of those milestone birthday years for mom, we decided to go for it.

We spent 3 days in Vancouver before embarking. Our first evening we took a water taxi over to the Granville Island Market to pick up some local munchies. While Tyson was running around chasing birds, he fell face first into a bench. Our next stop was the ER. Welcome to Canada! Luckily it was just a small cut and a black eye, which the doctor said made him look like a typical Canadian kid with a hockey injury. It definitely impressed the lumberjacks the next day up on Grouse Mountain. Meanwhile, the sight of snow impressed Tyson, the view overlooking the city impressed Travis, and mom and I were impressed with the large glasses of wine at lunch. Since we were there for Father’s Day, I gave the boys their (now annual) set of matching shirts…chosen appropriately for our location. The following day we toured the city – Chinatown, Gas Town, and Stanley Park.

The next day it was all aboard the Disney Wonder! Tyson had one goal he was laser focused on – the water slide. As soon as we downed our first boat drink and hurried through lunch, Tyson and I were in our bathing suits. I was so happy to find out the water was very well heated and they even had warm air blasting on the stairs going up to the slide (love that Disney magic).

The first couple days we were “at sea”, but on the Inside Passage. Every time you looked out there were mountains, trees, waterfalls, lighthouses – one post card view after another. We spent a lot of quality time on our veranda. For mom’s actual birthday, we enjoyed the spa in the morning and then had brunch at Palo (the adults only restaurant). That night was dinner at Tiana’s Place, where they had a live jazz band and Tiana herself mingled among the diners. Tyson was smitten, especially after she promised him a dance later in the week. In the morning, the boat headed up Endicott Arm – a fjord that dead ends at Dawes Glacier. As we approached, we started to see small icebergs in the water, one of which they brought up on deck. We parked in front of the glacier for a while and were lucky enough to see 2 big calvings (where large chunks of ice fall off into the water).

Skagway was our first port. We had an early start for our excursion to Liarsville, a replica tent city from the gold rush. We hiked up a small (not so easy) trail and feasted on a breakfast cooked over a campfire while we heard stories about the miners. We did get to try our hand at gold panning and even had a few post-breakfast roasted marshmallows. We returned to town for a bit of shopping and lunch on the boat before our next adventure – the White Pass Railroad. This train follows the path miners used to get to the Yukon Territory. The train climbs over 3,000 feet in less than 20 miles. The scenery was spectacular!

Juneau was the next port. We split up for our whale watching excursions – Trav’s was photography focused and ours was a science adventure. Both stopped at the Mendenhall Glacier, but while Trav was learning about scene composition, we were in a nearby creek looking for bugs. None of us saw bears (apparently common in that area), but we did see piles of “evidence” of their presence. Then on to the whales! On our boat, each of the kids was assigned a duty – identifying species, charting, documenting, and Tyson was selected to be the photographer. He took his job very seriously and did manage to capture a few shots of a whale tail! We did choose to go with Trav’s shot for the photo album. We all rendezvoused back in town at Tracy’s King Crab Shack for some of the biggest crab legs we’ve ever seen.

Last port was Ketchikan. We first went to the Totem Heritage Center to see some of the original totem poles from the area. Next was the Bering Sea Crab Fisherman’s Tour on board the Aleutian Ballad from Deadliest Catch. It really was the actual boat seen on the show that they retrofitted with seats (and a gift shop) for tourists. Although we did not go out to the Bering Sea (thank goodness), they showed us how they pull up the crab pots. At one point, they started throwing fish in the water. About 20 bald eagles started circling and diving right in front of us. It was breathtaking. That tour was the highlight of the whole trip! Afterwards we walked around town. I did buy some salmon, since Ketchikan is the salmon capital of the world (per their giant sign). I do love salmon and I ate A LOT of it on this trip. There were days I had it at breakfast, lunch and dinner. I had it raw, smoked, cured, candied, baked, and grilled. I even had smoked salmon infused vodka in a Bloody Mary! Mom was on the opposite end of the salmon spectrum. She tried to learn to like it before the trip but ultimately ended up only being “salmon tolerant”. Luckily there were plenty of other food options…

We had one last day at sea before returning to Vancouver, where we immediately flew back home. It was an unforgettable vacation! Click here to see the photos.