Cruise in Review: Victoria, British Columbia

As I mentioned in the last blog, we left Skagway, Alaska around 5 pm and cruised for about 40 hours before we reached Victoria, British Columbia.  We were ALL ready to get off the ship for awhile!  The cruising was pretty smooth, but it's nice to get off the boat...While we were sailing we got to see this amazing rainbow as we ate dinner that was over the whole boat (the picture doesn't do it justice)...reminded me of God's promises to us...

 

We started walking through the town and saw some interesting street musicians...the mime had a sign that said, "Coin Operated" as soon as you put money in his box he started playing....

 

Victoria is too big a city to just walk around so we hopped aboard this open aired tour bus to drive around a bit.  We were only in the city for a few hours, so we felt we made the most of the time this way.

Victoria is named for England's Queen Victoria and is a beautiful city.  One of the trademarks of the town is it's hanging flower pots and flower beds.  Our guide said that many people come to Victoria to get married and it also has the largest retirement population of Canada.  So he said, "Victoria is the home of flower beds, newly weds and nearly deads!"

Victoria is home of one of the tallest totem poles in the world, 128 feet...

And is home of the second largest China town in North America, second only to San Francisco...

 

The picture below is the Canada's  narrowest street called Fan Tan Alley, only about 3 feet wide, it was an alley that lead to opium dens, brothels and other areas of disrepute, now it's just a tourist attraction in China Town...

We returned to the ship for our last night at sea, we went to the show on board, "Le Cirque Bijou" which means circus of the Jewel, the name of our ship...after the show, they had all of the crew and  stewards and service people come out so we could let the know who much we appreciated them...our captain, Kenneth Harstrom, a Swede of all things, gave a short talk and then we gave them all a standing ovation!  Particularly the "washy washy" people, who were the people standing at the entrance of every eating place to squirt some rubbing alcohol on our hands so that we wouldn't transfer germs to each other...one guy in particular would stand with a guitar and sing familiar songs, but include the words, "washy washy" in them to remind us to wash our hands...it was really funny!

and came into Seattle the next morning...this was our last towel animal...a mouse...Paula liked it so much she kept it...shhhh, don't tell anyone!

 

When we got off the boat, our good friend, Leslie Urie was there to pick us up, we spent the day with Leslie and Richard and two of their children, Joshua and Sarah, again we played cards and Settlers together, it was a great time...we got to visit our old friend Gus again AND we also got to get our laundry done which was paramount as we were to set off for Turkey the next day!  Thank You  Urie's!!!!

That night we spend a very short night at a hotel close to the airport and set off early for Turkey...a little bleary eyed, but excited! Turkey, here we come!  More later, thanks for tuning in!!!

 

Cruise in Review: Skagway, Alaska

Wednesday, June 10 we woke up to what you would call, "Real Alaska Weather", cloudy, rainy, windy and cold...Up to that point, we had had sunny and beautiful days...but that was okay, because our excursion for the day was a 4 hour train ride up the White Pass & Yukon Route railway, so we would be in a train all morning.

 

 

Back in 1896, some local prospectors stumbled upon a nugget of gold while exploring up in the Klondike, it triggered the Klondike gold rush of 1898 when it was estimated that over 100,000 prospectors "stampeded" up this trail to make their claim on a piece of land, hoping to strike it rich...some did, most didn't and by the early 1900's, it was all but over, but this trail that runs 130 miles up from Skagway into the Yukon will forever be remembered for those who sought their fortune.  The train we took runs up the pass until we enter just over the boarder into Canada (about 2 hours) then reverses its course and we come back into Skagway.

 

The picture above is called the "ghost bridge" because it has been abandoned since the 1960's because it was not strong enough to support the trains anymore...the day we went as we got up in the upper elevations the clouds enveloped it and it really felt like a "ghost bridge"!

We came back down and explored the town...there was one of old trains that made the run back in it's day and a "snow blower" used on the front of the train to remove snow from the tracks...

 

From Skagway, we left in the late afternoon for an almost 2 day float back to Victoria, British Columbia in Canada...that night we got a new towel animal, a frog!!!  Thanks for tuning in!!

Cruise in Review: Tracy Arm

After we pulled out of Juneau, we traveled back a ways to a fjord inlet called "Tracy Arm".  Chunks of ice break off the glacier and float out of the inlet, some are small, others as large as a three story house... As you can see, our "selfies" didn't always turn out the best...but the people in Alaska loved my "lumberjack" shirt, they said I fit right in!

On one of the floating chunks of ice in this fjord was a beautiful bald eagle, the first pic is the full distance between the boat, the eagle is on the left side, a little black dot on the ice berg, but the second is a zoom in shot...

 

 
There were parts of this inlet that only gave our enormous cruise ship maybe 50 feet of clearance on either side as we made our way through, it was amazing to see our big ship in this narrow passageway...
 

 
At the end of Tracy Arm is Sawyer glacier which we parked right next to for a while.  We stayed out on deck most of the time we traveled through this passageway, but we had reservations at Cagney's steak house on board, so we watched the last part from our window in the restaurant, it was amazing to enjoy these views AND eat an fantastic 18 oz rib-eye!

 

  

 

When we got back to our cabin, we had yet another towel animal...an elephant!:)  We kept the monkey hanging from our ceiling for the whole trip...just couldn't take him down!

And so we travel on to Skagway, Alaska...thanks for tuning in!