Alaska Cruise - Day 6:Ketchikan Lumberjack Show

The night before, I had this INSANE idea that while in Alaska, we should watch the sunrise. Each night, we got a schedule of everything for the next day which included the time of the sunrise and sunset. It said that the sun would rise at 4:45, so we set our wake up alarm call for 4:30. Amazing, when the phone rang, we woke right up, put on our hoodies and headed outside.

Two things.

1) It was already light outside.

2) It was cloudy so we couldn't actually see the sun.

Watching the sunrise at 4:30 in the morning!

After first we were bummed because it was cloudy. Then we remembered that in Juneau, they told us the sun only shines 44 days of the year. And we realized that since leaving Vancouver, we really hadn't seen a lot of the sun. So we concluded that we did, indeed, experience a typical Alasakan sunrise.

Arriving in Ketchikan.

Ketchikan was by far, the prettiest town we stopped at in Alaska.

This was the day that the guys were going Halibut fishing and the girls were going to oogle the guys at the Lumberjack show. The guys had to be off the ship two hours earlier then us for their excursion. So I kissed Josh for good luck and then decided to walk around the deck of the ship a few times. After making almost 4 laps, I looked up to see Josh walking towards me.

When the guys got off the ship, their guide met them. We had booked this excursion privately so he was holding a sign that said "O'dell, Ercanbrack, Christensen." When they walked up to him, the guide told them he had bad news, they weren't going halibut fishing today. Josh said that Andrew said "So, we're going salmon fishing instead?" The guide then told them that the weather on the ocean was to rough. The winds were sustained at 60 miles an hour with gusts up to 80. It wasn't safe and they wouldn't catch anything anyways. He told them he would refund their money and the guys headed back to the ship.

Josh said as they were walking back, he could hear other passengers from the cruise ship arguing with their tour guides. They had paid money to fish and/or see wildlife and by golly, that is what they were going to do.

It was hard to see them have to cancel because right in Ketchikan, the weather was nice. But later a few things happened that helped us know they made the right decision.

1) That night, Randi overheard someone on the spa complaining. They had gone an a wildlife sightseeing excursion. The sea was rough and they all ended up sick and there was inlets they couldn't even get up to look for wildlife.

2) That night, once our ship sailed out of port and back into the ocean, we hit rough water and nearly became sea sick again.

3) The next day, Josh over heard a few guys talking. One guy aksed the other how the fishing was. The guy went on and on about how horrid it was. The water was so rough they never even got there fishing lines in the water. He was mad because the ship wouldn't refund his money. So the first guy asked, "Didn't they offer you a refund before going, but you refused it?" The second guy stammered for a minute and then declared that it didn't matter. He should get his money back because he didn't catch anything.

Since the guys now had nothing to do, we added them to our excursion, The Lumberjack Show/Rainforest Sanctuary.

Josh and I, along with Randi and Todd, decided to sit on the very front row. When they start the show, they explain that it is two different teams and half of the bleachers cheers for one side and the other half for the other side. Josh and I shouted ourselves hoarse from all our cheering.

One of the lumberjacks carved a bunny with his chainsaw. There was some dramatics when he "accidently" cut the ears off.

While pouting, he used the ears as a chair.

Then they choose a boy from the audience to take the chair home. He told the lumberjack he had a brother, so they found a second chair for him.

When each team one an event, they kept score by taking a wood chip to their side of the audience. All my loud cheering paid off because I got to hold the first chip for our team.

Getting a picture with my favorite lumberjack and my wood chip.

Josh saw this shirt and told me to get it.

The show was awesome and even the guys enjoyed it, even though it wasn't fishing.

Alaska Cruise - Day 5: Dress up night

Day 5 marked the last night we had decided to try one of the upgraded restaurants, Cagney's Steakhouse. We also decided it would be a fun night to do our own formal dining.

Just about every night, the ship had professional photographers. Since we were dressed up, we thought it would be fun to do a few shots. Our photographer was hysterical. He ended up being the funnest person we met that worked for the cruise ship.

He ended up taking 13 pictures of us. Josh didn't care for any of them because they made us take our shoes off. I watched that night, and I think everyone that used the white background had to take their shoes off. The other back ground choices were a burgandy red, brown or in front of the stair case. The staircase was the most popular, but I just didn't love it.

As I mentioned, Josh didn't love the pictures, but I did. I finally told him that since we hadn't done any professional pictures since I lost the weight, I was going to buy some. Then I sent him back to the room so I could decide which ones I wanted. For saying I wasn't going to buy any pictures while on the ship, I ended up buying several. In the end, I came home with 10 pictures I never planned on purchasing. But they did have a deal for every four pictures you bought, you got a fifth one for free. So I used that as an excuse to buy a few extras.

One of my favorites.

We both got a kick when the photographer meowed at me. Then he quickly apologized by saying "I sorry. I no see my wife for 7 months!" He said funny things like that through the entire session, which really only lasted probably less then 15 minutes.

As we were putting our shoes back on, the photographer looked at Josh's boots and told him to go back on the white background. In his Philipieanan accent he said "you come back with your boots. No, no, leave them off but bring them." Then he spent a good minute getting Josh's boots exactly where he wanted them.

After that, I had to get a picture too. As he was getting me in the position he wanted, he saw the feathers in my hair, so he made sure to lay them across my cheek.

My other favorite.

After pictures, we headed to dinner. I think everyone else loved the steakhouse, but for me, the smell of the oysters made me sick and I had to leave the table while Josh finished them and his lobster bisque.

This was the only picture I had ever planned on buying. I wanted a shot of the entire gang on our dress up night. We had so much fun together and I will think of so many happy memories when I look at this picture.

Then Todd wanted a picture with the rose in his mouth. So Andrew decided to hide under the napkin on his head. Josh, well I'm still not sure what he was thinking. He said he couldn't think of anything else to do. I think I like my sister's answer best, "he thinks you are deliciously hot."

Alaska Cruise - Day 5: Glacier Bay

Day 5 was another sea day. What we didn't realize was that we were going to get to sail into part of Glacier Bay National Park. The park is pretty strict when it comes to cruise ships, they only give a contract to a few cruise lines and then they only let one ship come in a day. When we booked our cruise, we had no idea how lucky we were because our ship had a day to sail into Glacier Bay.

Since it was a sea day, I decided to start my day off in the spa. So I had a gorgeous view as we pulled up to the first glacier.

As we got closer, I decided to go back to the room and get ready for the day. Then all my work was undone when we went to the top deck for a picture. I think that was the coldest I was the entire trip.

After that, we stayed on the lower decks that seemed to have slightly better wind break. And after a while, the wind even calmed down.

We went up two different inlets and saw three glaciers total. This first one is hard to see because it has so much silt and dirt on it. Its the only one I heard the measurements on and can still remember. Its a mile and  half across and 26 miles deep. Like would be like me leaving my house and driving to work! I think they also said it is 200 feet above the see and another 300 feet below, but that part I can't remember for sure.

The glacier starts at the left of the picture and runs almost all the way over. Towards the middle, a mountain started behind the glacier.

We did see a few smaller chuncks break off and fall into the water, but I wasn't able to get a picture of that.

Looking straight off our ship as we sail through the chuncks of ice.

We saw a harbor seal! It was so fun to watch him swim up the side of the ship.

I had decided before the trip that I wouldn't buy all the professional pictures. I wanted to, but there was also other things I wanted to spend my money on. This was one of the days I decided a professional picture would be fun. Josh had been wearing his baseball cap because the wind was so bad, so I made him go change into his cowboy hat so we could get a nice picture. Then we also took off our coats for the picture. The photographer joked that no one would believe we were in Alaska. What he didn't know is we are used to cold winters in Utah, so to go without our jackets for a few minutes was no big deal to us. After taking the picture, Josh told the photographer "one more" and he leaned in for a kiss. So of course I had to buy both of them.

For lunch that day, we decided to try the restaurant that was just outside our room, the Blue Lagoon. It ended up being our favorite place. A few days later, we were there again. As I sat down, I looked out and saw a whale that had breached a little as it rolled. I freaked! Our waiter ran over to see if I was okay and I finally managed to exclaim "whale!" Then our table was surrounded by every one else in the restaurant. We ended up seeing six different whales. The last one even had a fin break through the water like he was waving good bye to everyone. It was the highlight of my trip. Seeing them in Juneau was cool, but seeing them one night while eating dinner and having one wave at us was the frosting on the cake.

Eating lunch in the Blue Lagoon.

Alaska Cruise - Day 4 :Skagway Liarsville & Red Onion Saloon

After getting off the train, we went to Liarsville for a Salmon bake, a quick show and gold panning.

For the skit, they recited and acted out "The Ballad of Blasphemous Bill" by Robert W. Service.

You can read the poem HERE.

After the show, we tried our luck at panning for gold.

Our last stop of the day was the Red Onion Saloon. To read the description on paper, it sounds like a wild time. It even says children under 16 not allowed. We read some reviews, and most people had a great time. One person complained it wasn't family friendly. We spent months joking about it. "What did they expect? Its a brothel house, not a nunnery!" The guys would joke about stuffing dollar bills in their tops. So us girls would joke about flirting with the lumberjacks we would be seeing later in the trip.

In the end... total disappointment. The wildest it got was our tour guide saying her name was Ida Dunhim. We got a quick (and very crowded) tour of the upstairs where the brothel used to run back during the gold rush. Then we went down stairs, and it was over. They have a restaurant downstairs, but we had just come from the salmon bake in Liarsville so we weren't hungry. Maybe if we had stayed to eat it might have been better.

 I will admit, I am a VERY JEALOUS wife. I had some great anxiety leading up to this. But that morning, I woke up determined to have a good time. So for me to say that even I was disappointed I think says a lot about how let down we all were.

That is rhubarb and its only half the size of what it will be by the end of summer.

We saw Sarah Palin in the store and Josh had to get a picture with her.

After our excursion ended, we had time to sight see and do a little shopping. I'm glad we bought our souvenirs there because we never got another chance. I bought some books for the nephews, some rhuberry jam for our parents, a nice drinking cup, two magnets and a necklace.

While waiting on the first day to board the cruise ship, they handed us a coupon book. As we looked through it, I kept seeing this pretty necklace of the state flower. It was the one thing I wanted to buy for myself. I thought it would be easy to find since it was in the coupon book several times.

It took 12 stores! Most stores didn't even have something like it. At one store, they had a very cheap one that was scratched up. Then at another store, we found a diamond one in three sizes. The smallest was $50 and it was teeny. The biggest was $100. I didn't want to spend that much, so I decided to try to the end of the street. If I still didn't find one, I'd think about coming back.

Finally in the very last store, I found exactly what I had been looking for. Later, when we ran into Todd & Randi, I showed it to Randi and she loved it too. So we went back to the store so she could buy one too.

We had to be back on the ship that afternoon. Since we had a little bit of time before dinner, we decided to finally open our red wine.

Dinner that night was in the Summer Palace.