Alaska!!

My husband and I just got back from a seven day cruise to the Inside Passage of Alaska. We left from Seattle, went to Juneau, Glacier Bay, Sitka, Ketchikan, Victoria and then back to Seattle.

It was absolutely amazing. We went on a couple of excursions and saw humpback whales, a gray while, sea lions, harbor seals, sea otters, porpoises, a grizzly bear, bald eagles, and lots of birds I couldn't identify.

I took lots of whale pictures. I think seeing whales was the best thing for me. Coming from landlocked Texas Panhandle, I was just taken aback at how beautiful they were.






We also saw a grizzly bear, sitting on a small island eating grass. The naturalist on the boat told us he was probably not long out of hibernation and was trying to get his system restarted. The waterfall in the background is coming from Redoubt Lake feeding into Redoubt Bay outside of Sitka.


We saw a lot of bald eagles and some nests. Wow, those nests are huge. We saw one eagle down in the water, evidently fighting to get a fish out and saw a lot just soaring. It was hard to get a picture of those; this was was easier to catch.





We saw several glaciers, although we had to miss the Johns Hopkins glacier because of fog. We stood out on the bow of the ship and we could hear the ice popping and cracking. We even saw one glacier calve, losing a chunk of ice that we think was about the size of a Suburban. It truly sounded like thunder! And, arent' the colors amazing??





And, of course, I bought yarn. Thanks to nice ladies at Knitters Review, I had an address for Skeins in Juneau where I found some DK wt. for socks from Rabbit Ridge in Anchorage. In Sitka, we went to an Arts and Crafts center where I found yarn that had been dyed in Sitka, Raven-Frog Fiber Arts. I bought some merino/silk to make a stole in a colorway called Kelp. This seemed appropriate - we went out to kelp beds to look for sea otters in Sitka. Then in Ketchikan I found a store that had both yarn and beads - Alaska Bead Shop. I found some Lorna's Laces in a colorway called Baltic Sea - of course, I wasn't in the Baltic, but I saw all those colors in the seas we were in. And, I met some really nice people. It is so nice to travel for thousands of miles and still find something in common with the people you meet. The ladies in Alaska Bead Shop were especially knowledgable about the different yarns, and they had a lot of yarn!

So, now I have to get back to the real world, but I am determined to get back to Alaska again.