Cruising in Alaska!

As predicted, we have had little internet access on the ship. Satellite internet access is $0.65/minute, and notoriously slow. So I'm in a library in Juneau, where Erin has shown me where I can get free internet access. I'll have to post pictures retroactively, once we hit our next B&B with wireless or internet access.

Our last day in Vancouver was bright and sunny. A perfect sail away day. We had a spot of trouble getting to our ship (it wasn't parked with the other cruise ships, which we knew, but getting into the shipping docks was another matter altogether. Couple that with driving a huge Lincoln Town Car, and much stress/laughter ensued).

We finally got aboard in plenty of time, and watched the Millennium sail away from Vancouver. Spent that night cruising in Canadian waters, and awoke the next day to find our ship embedded in fog but still in Canadian waters. The sun finally cracked through the clouds about mid-afternoon, leading to a perfect sunset that night.

A note about waves/motion sickness/cruising. One can DEFINITELY feel the boat moving in the waves, when we are not cruising in Inner Passage channels. Poor Beth didn't feel very well yesterday until we got back into the narrows and the waves stopped. I very happily and luckily put on an anti-nausea patch and have avoided any seasickness. These patches rock.

Yesterday, we docked in Ketchikan and got to take advantage of the first sun they had seen in 3 weeks (and barely avoided a big rain storm that had rolled through the area the previous day). The town itself is not much to write home about. Very geared towards tourists, and all of the shops sell the same crap to the 10,000 tourists who dock there daily.

Zip lining, however, is always worth writing home about. Very similar to our zipping experience in South Africa a few years ago, though several of these individual lines were much longer than those we did in Safrica. I managed to get myself completely turned around on the last zip, and then my glove got stuck in between the cable and zip contraption, so I ground to a halt about 2/3 of the way across and had to pull myself in. Whew! I figured that work out entitled me to eat a lot of nachos back on the boat. Which I happily did.

Mom and Dad took a small float plane over the Misty Fjords, and they both raved about it. Even Mom, who doesn't love small planes, said it was much more beautiful and stunning than scary, and even landing on the water wasn't that scary. We may try a float plane to the Juneau icefields when we come back.

Today, we're visiting ERIN!! Yay! She is bubbling with excitement that we're here to visit her, and we've enjoyed our day so far, visiting Glacier Gardens, the Alaska State Museum, and now off to explore Juneau a bit. We're saving the big Mendenhall Glacier for our return in a week and a half, when we'll have a car.

So far, this trip has been great. The scenary from the boat is gorgeous, even with the fog, and we've seen a few whales while we were eating dinner and several bald eagles nesting in the trees (and a few flying around while zipping, but no bears). They feed you a LOT on the boat, so now I understand why people gain weight while cruising. We're trying to take the stairs everywhere so we can avoid that fate but still enjoy the food.

Tomorrow, off to Skagway where Beth and I will don more helmets and protective gear and cruise down the mountain on our bikes. We'll explore the town a bit (guessing more cheesy tourist shops), and then do a hike and float in the mountains.