Sunday, August 5, 2007

Alaska Trip Overview


Alaska was incredible! Don't think we will be able to top that trip for a while. Here is a brief overview of the things that we did.
Day 1 (Sat.) - We flew to Anchorage. On the way to our ship in Whittier, we took a quick tour of the Alaska Wildlife Center. We boarded the ship and got settled in. After dinner, we went to bed early. (Party poopers, I know!!)
Day 2 (Sun) - I got up around 6 am to see the glaciers as we travelled through College Fjiord. It was absolutely amazing. We filled the day with activities on the ship - ping pong, a show, ice carving demonstrations, fruit carving demonstrations, and of course, lots of food. It was the first formal night.
Day 3 (Mon) - We were still at sea. The ship stopped to view a glacier for an hour or so. We saw it cavving. Pretty cool! Today was Grammy Sue's 70th birthday. We all celebrated her birthday together at dinner. The chefs made her a chocolate cake and it was fantastic!!
Day 4 (Tues) - We arrived in Skagway. Steve, Josiah, and I walked around in the morning and did a little bit of shopping. After lunch on the boat, we and everyone else (all 38 of us) took a train ride on the White Pass and Yukon railway. We went all the way to Canada and back. The whole trip took about 3 hours. Steve and I and two of our friends, Scott and Deb, ate at Sabatinis which was a specialty Italian restaurant on the ship. It was phenomenal!! They brought us tons of food and kept bringing it. I topped off the dinner with an expresso creme brulee which was probably my favorite dessert of the whole trip.
Day 5 (Wed) - We arrived in Juneau. It was a bit misty this morning, but it cleared up before noon. That was the only bad weather we had on the trip. We stayed on the boat in the morning to make sure Mister had a good nap. After lunch, we were picked up in a van and taken to Era Helicopters. My friend Kristy arranged for us to be flown up to the Norris Glacier where she works on the deadhead flight. If you don't know what a deadhead is, it is an empty flight going up or back that is for the purpose of picking up or dropping off a group. But it only has a load one way. So we flew up on the deadhead helicopter and met Kristy on the glacier. She then took us on a three mile mushing ride. Then we spent some time visiting with Kristy and the dogs before our return trip back to the boat. We had our second formal night. Josiah wore a tie for the very first time! He looked so cute!
Day 6 (Thurs) - We arrived in Ketchikan. We went to the Great Alaskan Lumberjack show. It was pretty cool. They threw axes and climbed up poles. Overall it was very entertaining. I spent the afternoon shopping with our friends Scott and Deb, while Steve stayed on the ship with a sleeping Josiah. That evening, we went up on deck and watched the sun set. It was beautiful. Then we hung out in the lounge on the 18th floor of the ship. There were windows all around. It was pretty amazing up there!
Day 7 (Fri) - We were at sea once again. I went to a cooking demonstration with Deb in the morning. After lunch, we packed a bit, then spent the rest of the afternoon up on the front deck of the ship. It was a gorgeous day and the view was once again amazing! We had dinner with everyone. After dinner, Steve's sister took care of Josiah for a while and we had a little "date night". We finished packing, and then went to bed early.
Day 8 (Sat) - After an early rising and a very quick breakfast, we disembarked at 7:45 and took a bus ride to the airport. There we gathered our luggage, checked in, went through customs and found our gate. We flew from Vancouver to Chicago and then caught our second plane to Charlotte. We arrived home in Mocksville at approximately 10:30 pm. It is great to be home!! :)
If you want to see the pictures from our trip, you can check them out here.
(I had so many pictures I had to put them in two albums!!)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I LOVE Josiah in a tie! He looks so adorable. It looks and sounds like you guys had a great trip! Glad you're back safely!
-Ashley
P.S.-you look great in your new dress!

sarah said...

It took me two installments to read all of that material and i'm still not done perusing the pictures.

I am pretty jealous of your exciting excursion. I think it's the sinful kind of jealous. Ok, maybe not.

Isaac and I are definitely glad to have our mall friends back!!

Jude said...

Glad you had such a cool time!!! I am going to check out the other pictures now... we missed you at dinner tonight!