November 21, 2012

  • I am Thankful for Family

    So, with what we call "Franksgiving" coming up (and I wonder what he - my hubby - will be giving?)  I am revisiting my vacation post.  It was the last time my family got together.  I have an amazing family.  We pretty much get along and enjoy each others company.  I purchased a lot of items in Alaska just for this holiday - mostly smoked Alaskan salmon.  We'll be revisiting our trip - the pictures are amazing, but not as amazing as seeing that stuff in real life - and I am mooley excited.  Don't know what 'mooley' is?  I guess I'll have to explain in a different post.

     

    My parents decided that they wanted a family trip to commemorate their 50th Anniversary.  They chose to go on a National Geographic/Linblad Explorer Cruise in south east Alaska with the family.  My parents, my family, my sister's family, my brother's family, my father's brother & his wife, and my mother's brother and his son attended.  There were 19 of us on a boat that has room or about 60 passengers.  To the rest of the guests we were known as "The Family."  Very mafia(ish) if you ask me!

     

    Here we all are (sans the sick uncle) on the bow of the Sea Lion.

     

    On our second day we went to South Sawyer Glacier.  Here we saw harbor seals galore and really cool icebergs:

    I love the color of this ice!

    The girls get their own 'pet iceberglets'

     

    and this contrast from the red iron of the mountain to the blue ice was beautiful.

     

    The next day was our only foul weather day.  The mood fog looked like this:

    We saw humpback whales in the fog, which was cool, but the pictures aren't good enough to post.

     

    By the way... we were told that in the three months of summer, there were 10 sunny days.  We had five of them.  I credit my parents for this as they live a charmed life!

     

    On the fourth day in the morning we saw Orca:

    It was a pod of five whales, one male, two female and two calves.

    On the fourth day, in the afternoon we took a zodiac out to view the wildlife:

    Sea Otters are usually very shy.  Today, however, we were studiously ignored.

    Don'tcha just love the size of those feet!

     

    Stellar Sea Lions - love to lay in a huge pile and complain.

     

    A curious boy checks our our zodiac.

     

    In the afternoon we saw more humpback whales:

    The neatest part about this encounter was that we were in an area of about 40 whales that were trumpeting back and forth to each other surface feeding over an area of several miles along the coast.  Even the naturalists on board were impressed.

      The whales were so close it was amazing!

     

    We call this a rain-blow.

     

    Day 5 is Glacier National Park.  John Hopkins Glacier calved for us very frequently. 

    There was a noise like thunder with each calving and a huge set of waves that accompanied the bigger ones.

    John Hopkins Glacier is one of the few glaciers that isn't receding.

     

    I admit I can't remember where this was taken, but it was so beautiful I had to put it in.

     

    The next two days were dedicated to looking at nature.  It was explained to us that because the salmon were running, it was a good time to see all the wildlife - and boy was there wildlife!:

     

    Mergansers

     

    Tufted Puffins

     

    Mama Griz & her two cubs

    These guys were great fun to watch.  Mama would fish and babies would play with the fish.

     

    finally a pod of 9 humpback whales 'bubble-net' feeding.
    This was really amazing as a microphone was put underwater and we listened to the calls of the whales as they coordinated their feeding efforts.

     

    The trip was an incredible experience.  I thank my loving parents for the adventure of a lifetime.

    The happy couple

    Thanks again, Mom & Dad, I love you!

     

    P.S.  I tried to get these pictures to be larger than you see them, but I don't know how to do that.  I'm sorry for it, but if you know how, let me know, O.K.?

     

Comments (13)

  • What a wonderful experience! Such a great idea for the whole family to go on the vacation. The pictures were beautiful. Thanks for sharing them.

    Congrats to your parents! May they have many more wonderful years together!

  • What a fabulous experience, I'm sure.  An Alaskan Cruise is one of the top 3 things on my Bucket List.  Your pics make it even more enticing to get me there.  Thanks for sharing them.

  • Wow, what beautiful pictures. And I just loved looking at them. If you want to make the pictures bigger, before you put the picture, there is a drop down menu which asks if you want the picture small to large to custom. So there click on it, and select large. Or if you cannot do that, once you put the picture, just click on it, and then you will have the dots on the four corners, drag your mouse to the size you want. Hope that helps.  

  • I loved these Alaskan photos---very nice family!!!!

    My wife wants to do this one day.

    Frank

  • WOW!  this was wonderful.  thank you for sharing both the adventure with your parents and the fabulous photos of it.  belated congrats to them.  

  • wonderful! agreed, thank you for sharing. a trip like that is on my bucket list, as they say ;)  i have a brother that lives/works at basically the North Pole, for a round engine airplane company. (the planes that fly over fires, for instance). so, i have been to Alaska, but would love to do the water version. very cool. 

  • I knew if I waited long enough I'd run into someone who had actually taken one of the National Geographic trips I dream about taking - thanks for sharing - Happy Thanksgiving!

  • Those pictures are amazing!  Thanks.

  • wonderful pictures, wonderful trip. thanks for sharing--karen

  • Wow! This makes Alaska seem almost attractive. Is there anywhere in Alaska where the temps average in the mid to upper 80's?

  • It is so cool that you have enough family to crew a ship! Thank you so much for sharing such a great adventure.

    Sail on... sail on!!!

  • @skanickadee - Thanks, it was great fun!  My parents live a charmed life.
    @Parker_Texas - Thank you.  It is worth being on a bucket list!
    @angys_coco - Thanks, I knew someone could tell me!  Maybe I'll try and fix it with corner dragging.
    @ANVRSADDAY - It's not as warm as Hawaii, but it was beautiful!
    @promisesunshine - It was funny because whenever something was happening all you could hear were the clicks of cameras.
    @Bels_Kaylar - I've been telling the young 'uns in my life that they should work at the fish canneries to make great money over the summer.  The water version was great, but the big ships don't do the area justice because of the restrictions upon them for their size as to where they can go.  When we left, the airport had a big ship leaving and those folks saw 1 whale and no glaciers.  End of wildlife adventure.  But they did gamble, see shows and go shopping!
    @mlbncsga - It was pricey, but it was amazing.  Those folks worked really hard to make sure the trip was what we wanted.  They altered course to go to the whales.  Very cool, and really worth it!
    @ata_grandma - @lifeontheWink - Thank you, I really enjoyed it, and having my whole family there made it extra special.  I actually have a lot of photos, I know, I know - this is surprising.
    @Aloysius_son - um, not to my knowledge - not even during the summer.  However Sitka has an average temperature of 25 - 30 degrees in the winter because of the ocean being right there.
    @dreadpirate - We are definitely a crew.  Grew up on a 38' sailboat that slept 6 and first crossed the gulf stream at age 13 (my brother was 6) to get to Bermuda.

  • These are amazing and TY so very much for sharing them.

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