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12 June - Fairbanks

6/13/2023

Well, sadly we're nearing the end of our vacation. Today we took a riverboat ride and visited a native village park where we saw some reindeer and another moose. In the evening, we went to a salmon bake and a play about the history of Fairbanks. The play was a lot of fun! Now it's time to pack up and head home.

Here's the paddle wheel boat that we rode on today.

While on the boat, we stopped by to see some sled dog training. In the first picture, you can see the dogs hooked up to pull an ATV. They are excited and raring to go. In the second picture, you can see the dogs zooming by pulling the ATV.

They were also training some puppies to get them ready to tackle the obstacles encountered by a sled dog. In the first picture they are practicing going over logs in the trail. In the second picture, you can see that they are still puppies and have forgotten all about training.

One of the houses in the native village. Looks like someone needs to mow their roof.

A native Alaskan modeling the latest in the local fashion scene.

Amy looks like a giant standing amongst those tiny pine cones. Of course, I like to call this photo "Amy pining for Tim."

At the village, we saw some reindeer.

This guy was keeping an eye on us.

And there was a big ol' moose.

Evidently, both reindeer and moose like photo bombing us.

Doesn't everybody park their plane in the river next to their log cabin?

Standing under the Alaska Pipeline. Sure hope it doesn't spring a leak about now.

I know we were pretty far north, but this is a little ridiculous. We stopped by Santa's house in North Pole.

The workshop inside Santa's house.

And we even saw jolly ol' Sant while we were here.

11 June - Train from Denali to Fairbanks

6/11/2023

Today we did a quick stop at the Denali visitor center and then hopped on a train to Fairbanks. The train was a double-decker with a seating on the top half (which had a really cool domed glass roof) and dining on the bottom half. Both the dinner on the train and the views were amazing.

Evidently, they let dogs drive in Alaska. I guess that explains the cracked windshield and banged up car.

Amy was moosing around in the Denali visitor center.

Ouch! He's stepping on my finger. You shoud have seen the funny looks we were getting in the visitor center when we posed for this picture.

Going for a short hike in the Denali National Park.

Our train from Denali to Fairbanks. The black part at the top is windows for the seating section on the second deck.

Here's a look at the glass-domed train from the inside.

Our train going around the bend in a mountain pass.

A look at one of the valleys we passed along the route.

While we were on the train, we saw two swans a swimmin. Don't know what happened to the other five.

And we travel on. Leaving one adventure and heading to the next one.

10 June - Denali

6/10/2023

Well folks, we had a fun filled, but very long day today. We started about 7:30 AM and didn't finish until almost 10:00 PM. As you can guess, we're exhausted. We started the day on a zipline and ropes bridge course. After a rather bumpy ride on a four-wheeler, we spent about an hour and a half up in the trees zipping and climbing. It was amazing. After that, we did a tour of Denali Park where we saw a lot of wildlife as well as the grand lady, Mount Denali, again. Finally, we finished the night in an Alaskan Prospector themed dinner theater. Both the food and the show was a treat.

This was our ride to the zip and rope bridge course. Just like the four wheelers, we were completely covered in dust after the ride.

The start of the zip line course. We had to walk up the bridges and ladders to get to the first zipline.

Here I am ready tackle the next obstacle on the course.

And here's the next obstacle on the course. That thing really shakes and swings a lot when you walk across it. Oh yeah, check out that plane contrail in the top right of the picture. It kinda looks like a smoke coming out of the top of the mountain to form the clouds.

Kurt zipping down the hill.

The frozen tundra in Denali Valley

Here we are posing in front of the Teklaneka River in Denali Park. We saw a bear cub nursing on a mama bear on the far side of the river. Unfortunately, it was a bit too far away to get a good picture.

Squirrel!!

Some sheep wandering the hillsides in Denali Park.

We saw a couple of moose in the park as well. The second one was nice enough to do a vogue profile pose for us.

And we saw some caribou as well. The poor gal on the right fell behind the crowd and appears to be calling out for them to wait up for her.

Denali is somewhere behind us in the super bright white clouds.

Looking across the valley towards Denali. As usual, she's hidden behind the clouds.

There she is. Denali peeking out from behind the clouds again.

Here's a wider view of Denali peeking through the clouds. This gives you a sense of how much it towers over the other mountains.

09 June - Seward to Denali

6/10/2023

Well, today we departed the ship and started the land-based portion of our trip. We pulled into Seward this morning and hopped on a bus to Denali. Along the way, we stopped briefly in Anchorage for lunch. Don't tell our cardiologist, but lunch was halibut fish and chips. The fries were cooked in duck fat and had truffle oil and parmesan cheese sprinkled on them. Yum Yum! Since we were on the bus most of the day, we didn't get very many pictures. However, we did get to take a few pictures of Mt Denali. Oh yeah, and we saw a couple of moose on the way up here. Of course, I didn't have my camera ready when we passed the moose, so no shots of them.

Not much of a view this morning as it was all cloudy and rainy. I think the ocean was as sad to see us leave as we were to leave the ocean.

The flat lands part of the drive between Anchorage and Denali. This is the stretch where we saw the moose. Of course, as I mentioned above, I had just taken this shot and put my camera away when we saw the moose.

Here's a shot of your two favorite explorers in the Alaskan flat lands outside of Denali.

Here's a shot of Mt. Denali. Denali is the big mountain peaking between the two layers of clouds in the middle. We were very lucky to see Mt. Denali as we were driving today. It is said that only about 1 out of 3 tourists get to see Denali as it is usually hidden behind the clouds. In the few minutes that we were taking pictures, it kept appearing and disappearing behind the clouds.

Here's a closer, albiet partial, view of Denali (in the background between the clouds).

Our hotel room here overlooks the Nenana River. We can open the windows and here the rapids.

08 June - Hubbard Glacier

6/8/2023

Today our ship sailed into Yakutat Bay. From there, we hopped from the ship and onto a smaller boat so that we could sail on up into Disenchantment Bay to see the Hubbard Glacier up close. The glacier was amazing. It is absolutely huge. It's hard to tell from the photos below, but the glacier walls are about 350 feet tall. We were lucky to see the wall "calving" several times. This is where large chunks of ice fall off of the glacier and into the sea. Finally, on the way back to our ship, we saw a bunch of sea lions hanging out on an island not far from the glacier.

We are really going to miss waking up to these beautiful views each morning.

Here are a couple of icebergs floating away from the glacier. The icebergs are created when they fall off of the glacier in a process called calving.

Oh, by the way, those icebergs are very tasty.

A view of the face of Hubbard Glacier.

The two of us with the Hubbard Glacier behind us.

A closer view of the compacted ice at the base of the glacier.

A close-up view of the ice towards the top of the glacier

Here's the calving in process. The spray at the middle of the picture is where a large chunk of ice fell into the water.

To get a sense of the size of the glacier wall, here's a shot of a rather large sailboat between us and the glacier.

Here's a herd of sea lions chilling on the rocks of a nearby island.

Our ship sailing amongst some icebergs. Didn't they see the movie Titanic???

Approaching our ship after visiting the glacier

07 June - Skagway, AK

6/7/2023

Today we were in Skagway. Our excursion started with a train ride up to White Pass Summit. It began at sea level and climbed to 2,888 feet in just a little over 20 miles. The scenery was amazing every inch of the way. After getting back to Skagway, we panned for some gold and got to see some sled dogs and play with the puppies. Sadly, we didn't strike it rich while panning gold, but we collect enough gold that we might be able to buy lunch one day with it. But the sled dog puppies more than made up for any disappointment we had with the gold prospecting. Finally, the views from the ship this morning and evening were amazing. That made it hard to narrow it down to just a few photos. So, we have a few more today than usual. Hope you enjoy them.

The view off of the back of the ship this morning. The ship's captain said that the fjord coming into Skagway is the largest in North America.

All Aboard!! Here's the train that we rode up to White Pass Summit as well as a shot of the two of us settling in to enjoy the ride.

Crossing over a river on the train after rounding a sharp bend. If you look about halfway down on the left, you can see the back of our train that has yet to come around the bend.

One of many valleys that we saw along the route.

That's the front of our train rounding the bend, crossing a bridge, and heading into a tunnel.

Three different views from the White Pass Summit.

Kurt, Pearl, and Amy panning for gold.

Amy and I with the sled dog puppies. The one I was holding thought my finger was a chew toy. But he was so cute that I didn't mind.

Here's a boot worn by dog sledders in the Iditarod.

Amy and I enjoying the scenery as the ship leaves Skagway along with an unobstructed picture of the view.

A panoramic shot of the sun going down over the mountains.

06 June - Sitka, AK

6/6/2023

What started out with a gloomy and foggy morning turned into a beautiful afternoon. Our excursion today began with a short boat ride to Fin Island where we had a delicious breakfast that included crab legs, salmon, and prime rib hash. After that, we hopped back on the boat and toured the local waterways looking for wildlife. We were fortunate enough to see several eagles, sea lions, otters, and even another whale, not to mention some amazing scenery.

This is the foggy, misty morning that we woke up to. I know it looks like a black and white photo, but it is a "color" photo that hasn't been edited.

By the end of the day though, the gloom had disappeared, and it was a gorgeous day to be in Alaska!

We were bear-ly off the ship before we encounted the first local wildlife.

Ol' eagle eye has his eyes on us.

Just two more of the several other eagles that we spotted.

Here's a cute little otter doing the backstroke across the sound.

Oh bouy! We saw more sea lions today. Evidently bouys are good hang-out spots for these critters.

We had another brief whale sighting today.

One of the passages between islands that we sailed through today.

To quote one of my favorite lines from Forrest Gump, "That's my boat."

Here's one of the eagles that was flying outside our stateroom when we got back to the ship.

And here's another one of the bald eagles flying outside our stateroom. You can tell he's a young eagle because the feathers on his head haven't turned white yet. It usually takes about 4 or 5 years before their head turns white.

05 June Icy Strait Point

6/5/2023

Today we went on a whale watching and seafood fest excursion. Evidently the whales wore themselves out yesterday showing off for Amy. We had a few sightings, but nothing too exciting today. We did see some other wildlife including a brown bear, eagle, and sea lions. Afterwards, we had some seafood boil that included crab, muscles, corn, and andouille sausage for lunch. For dinner tonight, we're going to the Chef's Table. This is a special 6 course meal and wine tasting onboard the ship. Yum. All of that good food makes up for not seeing as many whales as we had hoped to see.

I will never get tired of waking up to these views outside of our stateroom.

Thar she blows!! This guy didn't quite surface for us to see him. However, we did drive through the air he just blew out. Whew!!!! It is not a very pleasant aroma. Kinda smells like someone cut one in a fish factory.

Yep, that's a humpback

Tail of the whale.

A young brown bear along the shoreline.

An eagle soaring over our cruise ship.

Oh Bouy! Look at those sea lions!.

A sea lion swimming up to the boat to say hi.

After seeing all of that wildlife on our excursion, we found an elephant in our room when we got back to the ship.

04 June - Juneau

6/4/2023

UPDATE: Here's a video Amy captured of a whale playing beside their boat yesterday.

Today we were in Juneau. The temperature was a balmy 52 degrees today. We were lucky that the rain they had been predicting did not show up. Today, we decided to go on separate excursions. Amy, Kurt, and Pearl all went on a whale watching and salmon dinner tour. I went on a hike. I guess that after all of these years of people telling me to go take a hike, I decided to take their advice today. The hike was about 5 miles long and climbed over 1,000 feet. The hike provided for some extraordinary views of Mendenhall Lake and Glacier.

Here are the views that we woke up to this morning.

The "city" of Juneau. Even though it is Alaska's capital city, it only has a population of about 30,000 people. With 3 cruise ships in port today, the population more than doubled.

A couple of views of Mendenhall Lake.

And here's pictures of two of the many waterfalls that we saw along our hike.

Looking back down one of the many hills that we climbed.

Amy standing in front of part of the Mendenhall Glacier.

Me standing in front of a different part of Mendenhall Glacier.

Mendenhall Glacier without me or Amy blocking the view. The glacier is the brown and white stuff in the middle of the photo. This is just a tiny tip of the glacier. The glacier is huge and fills in between all of the mountain peaks.

We did encounter some wildlife on the hike. But don't worry, it was just a dog accompaning some other hikers.

02 & 03 June - Departing Vancouver & Cruising

6/3/2023

Well, on Friday morning, we boarded the Radiance of the Seas, departed Vancouver, and set sail up the Canadian coast. Well be on the ship all day on Saturday. Since we'll mostly be relaxing on the ship, I decided to combine the blog post for these two days. It was a gorgeous day as we set sail from Vancouver, but it was a bit windy as you can see in a couple of the photos.

UPDATE: We went to a sushi making class this afternoon. They provided all of the ingredients and showed us how to make sushi rolls. The best part is at the end, we got to the sushi that we made!!!

Sushi making class

All of the ingredients for our sushi making class.

Amy's almost final product. They wouldn't let us cut the sushi. The sushi chef cut the rolls for all of us. Guess it's not a good idea to give a bunch of amateur chefs a very sharp knife on a rocking ship.

Me and Kurt showing off our sushi rolling skills.

Me taking a picture of Amy taking a picture of me taking a picture of the sushi that we made.

Departing Vancouver

Departing Vancouver. You can see the park that runs along the shoreline. That is a nice place for a walk if you ever find yourself in Vancouver and wanting to go for a stroll.

Leaving Vancouver in our wake.

Amy thought she'd try out a new modern hair style.

No, that's not my comb-over sticking up in the wind. That's a part of Amy's new hair style.

About to go under the Lion's Gate Bridge, heading out of Vancouver and into the Burrard Inlet.

The view off our balcony on Saturday morning.

About

Alaska & Hubbard Glacier Cruise onboard Radiance of the Seas
---------------------
31 May: Fly to Vancouver
01 June: Vancouver
02 June: Depart Vancouver
03 June: Cruising
04 June: Juneau, AK
05 June: Icy Strait Point, AK 06 June: Sitka, AK
07 June: Skagway, AK.
08 June: Hubbard Glacier
09 June: Seward, AK -
Disembark ship.
9 June: Seward / Anchorage
/ Denali
10 June: Denali
11 June: Denali / Fairbanks
12 June: Fairbanks, AK
13 June: Depart Fairbanks

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