Saturday, September 15, 2012

Our Alaskan Cruise

To celebrate our 50th Wedding Anniversary
we flew to Seattle and toured the city on
Wednesday August 29th.  On August 3oth we met our tour
group at the airport and boarded a bus for a beautiful
drive to Vancouver.

 

 
On August 31st we boarded the Royal Caribbean Cruise Ship
"Radiance of the Seas"
for a cruise through the inside passage of Alaska to Seward.
We traveled 6000 miles by land, sea and air.
 
 
Seattle
 
 
 
 
 
 





The First Starbucks


Pioneer Square

The Smith Building

Washington State Ferry Building


Lake Washington

Floating bridge across Lake Washington

Salmon



 

Friday, September 14, 2012

Vancouver

 
 
 
 
 
 
Vancouver is a beautiful city.   It is one of the warmest
and wettest cities in Canada.  It has a mild climate.  The
highest temperature recorded was 93.9 on July 30 2009.
 










We boarded our Cruise Ship on August 31st. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 

Leaving Vancouver
 
 


 
 

 

Ketchikan, Alaska

 
 
Our first port was Ketchikan Alaska
 
Ketchikan is the Salmon Capitol of the World. 
Ketchikan is in the Tongass National Forest which is the
largest national forest in the United States.

 
 
Downtown Ketchikan
Ketchikan is known as Alaska's first city.
They say Ketchikan is the only city that is 10 miles long
and 3 blocks wide.

 
 
 Ketchikan gets about 153" of
rain per year. The record rainfall is 202" in 1949.
Our guide said that Ketchikan didn't get too
much snow in the winter.
 
Our ship docked right in town

 
Downtown Ketchikan
 
Our guide said that some days there are
7 cruise ships in the harbor.
 
 
 
 
 
Ketchikan has the largest collection of totem
poles in the world 
 
 
 
Our guide told us that this totem pole
was a gift from a man to his wife
for their Anniversary.  Totem poles cost about
$5000 per foot.
 
 
Our guide said that totem poles tell a story.  The person or animal
closest to the ground is the most important person on
a totem pole.  Just opposite of our saying,
"low man on the totem pole."
 
 
Ketchikan Creek




 
Pat wishing he had his fishing pole!


 
 
 
 
 
The Salmon were spawning so the creek was full of salmon.
 
 

 
How would you like to carry your groceries
up these stairs?   Our guide said these stairs are
considered like a street.  The city clears the snow from the
stairs just like they would a street.  Our guide lived at the top
of these stairs.
 


 


 
We took this duck tour through town.

 
Front of the duckmobile

 
These duck whistles were on the roof of our duckmobile.
They said in case of emergency they would fall down from
the ceiling and we could blow them!
 

 
After our tour through town we floated right out into the bay
in our duck tour vehicle!
 
 
 




 
Leaving Ketchikan