Alaska Cruise 2006

Thanks to Charity, I was able to make my dream trip to Alaska come true. This was our favorite restaurant. Sitting by the window was our favorite table. The food was awesome but we only gained 2 pounds each for the week! (I even had dessert two times a day. I should have taken a picture of the stairs - we think walking the stairs burned the calories. We never did take the elevator once. We were on deck 5 and it seemed like all of our events were on deck 12 or 13 with our favorite restaurant on deck 7.) We left from Seattle and returned there.
There were 350 chefs on board the ship. This was a cooking demonstration.
Views from the ship - inside passage.

Just off the shore in Juneau, Alaska - our first stop.
This was a stroller like we had never seen before - 6 children.
These dandelions are so tall and beautiful. Alaska's state flower is the forget-me-nots but we didn't see any of them. All we saw were these beautiful dandelions in every port.
This is Mendenhall Glacier just outside of Juneau. Charity and I took at city bus within 2 miles of the glacier and then walked the rest of the way. We were so excited to see the glacier. (The bus was $1.50 each way so definitely cheaper than the cruise tours.)
This was the most beautiful lake we saw. The water was just like glass. This is the cleanest water I've ever seen - even cleaner than the Carribean. You can even see the sky reflecting in the water at the bottom of the picture.
This is a picture of Charity and her favorite sight - Mendenhall Glacier.
Chunks of ice were floating in the water from the glacier calving.
Charity's favorite dessert!
Sunset on the inside passage.
I just loved the beautiful views with the clouds so low on the awesome mountains.

Another glacier on the inside passage.
Close up shot of one of the glaciers.
Inside passage....
Have you ever seen so many seagulls?
This is a picture from the city of Junea. We were leaving as the day came to an end. We estimated that we had walked 10 miles this day.
Our cruise ship in Juneau. There were often 4 cruise ships in port - more than 9,000 tourists each day!
Downtown Skagway - my aunt's favorite city.
We took a tour up to White Pass.
This is a bridge going up to White Pass.
White Pass...
We went into Canada on our trip so this is a picture of us leaving Canada and coming back into Alaska.
Going down White Pass toward Skagway.
City of Skagway from a view point above the city. Skagway is long and narrow so this is only about 1/3 of it.

Isn't this so beautiful? This is sunrise on the inside passage of Alaska. It was 3:56 a.m.

Charity really liked the totem poles at the Totem Bight State Park in Ketchikan. This was the meeting place for the tribe. The door is in the front center to go inside.
I thought Ketchikan was the cutest city. I really enjoyed looking at it from the cruise ship. I wish I could have taken a panoramic picture. Can you tell we're in Victoria, B.C., Canada for this shot. Charity was excited to see the double decker buses even though we didn't ride on one.
It was amazing to see the planes land on the water - here in Victoria and also in Alaska.


This was the last picture as we departed Victoria on Casey's birthday, June 3rd. What a beautiful sight and a great time we had in every city!