Category Archives: travel

Places I’m going, packing, to do lists, generally more tips than the actual destination itself.

Vancouver to Seattle, Washington.

Posted on July 13, 2013 | Leave a comment

From the itinerary, “Our wonderful cruise ended at 9am as we arrived in Vancouver and hopped on a bus to take us to Seattle. We visited some special exhibits at the Century 21 Center (which I don’t remember) and took a ride up revolving Space Needle in Seattle.” I think just the restaurant revolves, but maybe we ate there (I can’t remember), I do not think the observation level revolves, I was up it a few years ago and I don’t recall the floor we were on rotating…

From my journal –

1 pm – Finally got to the motel, but one we were off the bus we found out it was the wrong one.
4:30 pm – Went to the World’s Fair grounds which was pretty dull and there wasn’t much going on [probably because the World’s Fair was decades before!]. Went up the tower (Space Needle) and took lots of shots.

Mr. Kuhn left his and Jim’s luggage back at the ship. Jim needs his luggage since it has his pills. [Jim was a guy in a wheelchair on the trip with multiple special needs, he wasn’t a senior and he wasn’t a kid.]

8 pm – Have had a headache and a sore throat but I’m feeling a little better.

9 pm – This Hotel (a Motel 6) isn’t bad for so cheap. It coast 79 cents to get a key that turns on the TV [I don’t remember that at all and I don’t think I ever saw it since]. We did get a “magic fingers” bed massage for 25 cents. No phones in the room, but I guess it does the job.

Jim and Mr. Kuhn must have gotten their luggage later but I didn’t journal that. I think Jim had the same last name as Mr. Kuhn but wasn’t a relative, or something oddly coincidental like that (maybe slightly different last names and they were related?).

The above are a few different panoramas of the Seattle, Washington skyline. I assume I took all of these from the Space Needle at the old World’s Fair Grounds (the middle one is of the Space Needle from the ground). These were made from scans of the slides I took on the trip and joined together with the AutoStitch Panorama app on my iPhone (although the second one from the bottom looks a tiny goofy in the middle, I wonder if these two pieces really go together). These all enlarge to huge so if you want to see more detail, just click. Obviously, the tall one in the middle is the Space Needle from ground level.

If you’re reading this post out of context, this is me re-journaling a trip to Alaska from when I was a kid. You might want to click the “trip to Alaska” link and go to the bottom and read them in order. I’m posting each entry on the same day that it happened years ago.

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Tagged Alaska Trip, photos, Seattle, Space Needle, travel, Vancouver, Washington

A day of cruising and relaxation on the ship

Posted on July 12, 2013 | Leave a comment

Another day without many activities on the boat. I have no idea why they wouldn’t have had the captain’s dinner or the costume party on one of these slow days.

From my journal:

10 am – I just keep having the same breakfast over and over: Pancakes, sausage, apple juice, milk and corn flakes. I with they would change the menu for breakfast once in a while.

I do have to get down to do some laundry today, not too much but enough to last the rest of the vacation.

The Sun Princess just went by, it is one of the “Love Boats” (it looks just like the ships on the TV series).

1 pm – Those “Love Boats” really get around, the Island Princess just sailed by too.

So not too exciting. I do remember that we played a bit of cribbage with the seniors (and some other cards), I bet it was on a few of these slow days. Here’s a few assorted photos that I don’t think I posted yet.

Glacier Bay.

The ship with some glaciers in the background.

Near the Mendenhall Glacier.

Near Juneau, Alaska.

So those were just a few photos from various points of the Alaska part of the trip since I didn’t have anything else for you today.

Alaska-6to8-81452712-SLD-001-0034 - Version 2.jpg

I really like this photo with the smooth reflection, but sadly the colors were WAY off so I converted it.

Alaska-6to8-81452712-SLD-001-0035 - Version 3.jpg

Another one that I converted to b & w.

The last few slides were ruined, they were at the end of the roll and must not have gotten developed properly. They looked very red/orange-ish, the shades looked mostly okay, so I just converted them to them to black and white and they look much better! That reminds me, I do have some black and white photos that I shot while in Alaska too (I’m not sure what portion of the trip), I really like how they came out, I’ll have to scan them.

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Tagged Alaska Trip, photos, Princess Patricia, travel

Easy going day as we head back towards Canada down the Alaskan coast

Posted on July 11, 2013 | Leave a comment

Today there was really not much to do, which I find odd since there were so many activities all the other other days. We crossed back into Canada at 2 and stopped into Prince Rupert around 6pm. The itinerary says we visited the “Worlds Largest Cold Storage Plant” but I really really don’t remember that (and I’ve got no note of it in my journal). I see from my journal we did go down and visit the engine room and wheel house of the ship.

Okay, so I’ve checked my journal and the photos and I appear to have zero photos from today, which is weird. I’m wondering if something happened to a roll and I have no pictures until the day after tomorrow (or if I’ve mixed something up in the order of photos?). Regardless, as I said yesterday, I have things that did not get posted so I’ll share some of those today.

A few more shots of the Glacier Bay area for you.

One of the ranger’s that came on board to talk to us about Glacier Bay.

I forgot to mention the size of the glacier’s yesterday. The Margaree Glacier is a mile wide, 200 feet tall and thirty-five miles long! That’s huge.

Me all dressed up for the Captain’s Dinner

A view off the back of the ship as we pull away from Glacier Bay.

Dressed up as Superman for the costume contest. I made this costume!!!

I did win a T-Shirt for this costume, it said “First Mate”! So yesterday was a super busy day: we had Glacier Bay, the Captain’s dinner and a costume party. Why some of these weren’t saved for the next few days, I’m not really sure.

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Tagged Alaska, Alaska Trip, Canada, Glacier Bay, glaciers, photos, travel

Glacier Bay, Alaska

Posted on July 10, 2013 | Leave a comment

I believe that this is the farthest north that we go on the Alaska cruise. We started our day with Mount Fairweather and Glacier Bay. Actually, I believe Mt. Fairweather is above Glacier Bay so we kind of saw both at once.

There are only two main glacier’s in the Glacier Bay National Park & Preserve. But they are huge and there is ice all over the place! Lots of photos today, very little narration except for a few photo captions.

Me with Glacier Bay in the background.

You can really see the parts of the glacier falling off in this photo (calving).

A few of the people on our trip.

Another photo where you can see the calving of the glacier!

Actually, lots more happened today, but if I talk about it, there’s more photos that need to be included and I think that’s enough for the day. I’ll squeeze them in with tomorrow’s post (which I think was a slow day) or I’ll create a part two later.

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Tagged Alaska, Alaska Trip, photos, Princess Patricia, travel

Mendenhall glacier and Juneau, Alaska

Posted on July 9, 2013 | Leave a comment

From my Journal –

Breakfast is always the same, I picked up a menu so people at home could see it.

I put the menu in an entry from a few days ago, so I won’t put it here again. What’s funny is that it sounds like I’m complaining about breakfast, but I think when I was younger I pretty much at the same thing every day. I know as an adult I eat the same thing (but this is a different same thing than when I was a kid), nine out of ten days I have: bacon, eggs, cantaloupe and orange juice…

Today we went into Tracy Arm to see our first up close look at glaciers.

We passed a large cruise ship while were were out there today.

I believe the pieces of ice that fall off are called calfs.

A big glacier!

Some of the people from our group. I wish I could remember their names!

In the afternoon we went to Juneau.

The chamber of commerce took us (the boys) out to the glacier and to the salmon bake outside restaurant.

A few photos from the Mendenhall glacier were stitched to make this huge panorama. Click to enlarge.

They actually took a nice photo of us out at the Mendenhall glacier and it made it into the Juneau Empire newspaper with a nice article. I’ll scan that later, just taking a photo of it would not do it justice. I just found this yesterday with the group photo from Banff that I mentioned a few days ago (I’ll get this scanned soon).

I’m not sure what the rest of out group did today, but the boys went to a fish fry.

I was reading about shopping in Juneau and just remembered, in Juneau I bought a ring. It’s funny I’ve thought about this ring many times throughout the years, but I’ve forgotten all about it as I’m been putting this information together about this trip. It was a little large but I really liked it, it looked like a school class ring and it was silver and have a black stone (hematite?). I wore it more when I was in college and I lost it about a decade later (I think in organic chemistry class), as I said it was a little big and I was always playing with it and I think I left it on my desk (at least that’s the last time I remember seeing it). I checked with maintenance and the office quite a few times afterwards hoping it would turn up. I’ve always hoped I was wrong and that it would turn up later that it’d fallen out at home and gotten mixed in with stuff, but it never did….

I also bought a little pewter polar bear, but I’m not sure where that is, I haven’t seen it in years. It’s either in another box of memorabilia or it got lost too.

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Tagged Alaska, Alaska Trip, glaciers, Mendenhall glacier, photos, Princess Patricia, travel

Ketchikan and Wrangell, Alaska

Posted on July 8, 2013 | Leave a comment

So it’s our first day in Alaska! We crossed the border sometime in the night and we arrived at Ketchikan in the morning around 7:30 am.. It’s a little grey out but it’s a town in Alaska!!!!! We were told it was the “Salmon Canning Capitol of the World”!

Ketchikan, Alaska. For reference, the line at the bottom of the map is the top of the United States.

Arriving in Ketchikan (on a really grey morning).

Downtown Ketchikan

The Ketchikan Community College.

Downtown Ketchikan

From my journal:

12:30 -The town was okay, there were a lot of shops. Got a scrimshaw spoon and two other spoons, a set of pottery seals and a really good kind of chocolate mint (called Meltaway Mint), hopefully I’ll have some left when we get home [I don’t think I did, sorry Mom]. Found some film for $5.70 which was not bad considering where we are [I think earlier I said it was $9 back on the U of BC campus].

3:00 pm – Just had lunch. Boy, that waiter sure has to put up with a lot. I’m surprised he hasn’t had a nevus breakdown!

5:30 pm – Been writing letters during lots of my free time, got about eight of them done to mail. It’s about time to get to Wrangell, I think I might skip dinner (I’ll get midnight snack later) so I can see more of the town.

Looking out on the water from town (or the dock?) but I’m not sure which town though.

Sign says: “Chief Shakes Community House”.

This totem pole is a little dark, but it’s zoomed in for more detail.

A is Ketchikan and B is Wrangell. If you went by ferry it’s 5-6 hours and about 90-100 miles (and about $37 in 2013).

I’m not sure if I’m including a map for all the towns along the coast, I think most are along that same peninsula/area along the coast, I don’t think we got into the big part of Alaska at all, just along the side of British Columbia, Canada. I haven’t been reading ahead in my journal or itinerary as I write all this (I like the surprise!).

From my journal:

Midnight – Wrangle was another small town. The Wrangle Narrows looked okay, but I didn’t get any pictures [I think we are on board watching a movie, we paused it as we passed through to look, but that was it]. We went to shakers island to see the indian relics, but they had just closed. I had those letters written and left them unsealed so if I wanted to add something, I could. But when I got back to the boat Jeff had mailed them (he said he added some to the letters and changed some, but I think he was kidding).

I comment on the size of these small towns, but they don’t seem so small to me now (I think I’d been used to the big cities that we’d traveled to). These towns are huge metropolises compared to the places I go to in Costa Rica, maybe that’s why they don’t seem so small to me now? Or in my head, did I remember them even smaller?

I’m sure we did a lot more that that, but it was a ways back so I only remember so much and I only took so many photos. I definitely take more photos these days, I probably take more on a bike ride at the park (where I go all the time) in a day than I did some of these days on the trip!

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Tagged Alaska, Alaska Trip, photos, Princess Patricia, travel

All around and about the Princess Patricia

Posted on July 7, 2013 | 2 comments

So we left Vancouver yesterday evening and we’re on our way to Alaska aboard the Princess Patricia. From the itinerary we’re in the Seymour Narrows and Johnstone Strait and then through Queen Charlotte Sound and the Grenville Channel. I probably wouldn’t have gotten any of those correct on a quiz (or a map!). We’re still in British Columbia for the whole day since I know from our itinerary that the first stop tomorrow morning is one of the first towns on the coast of Alaska so we must cross over in the middle of the night.

Princess Patricia Information

I must have been up late last night since after breakfast I went back to bed until noon. I’m liking the food! For breakfast I had pancakes, sausage and corn flakes; for lunch pork (chops?), french fries and apple cheesecake. Today we have to fill out our “name bingo” cards while collecting the names of other passengers.

Menus I saved and the passenger list. The passenger list also had the ship info (above) and the ship’s officers and how to understand the insignia’s on the uniforms.

A breakfast menu (with a little breakfast on the menu!).

You can see the lunch menu is labeled “Day 4 L” in the lower right corner, so that must be the standard fare for the fourth day.

I appear to have not taken any photos this day. That seems weird. I’ve still never found the photos from the 110 camera that was mentioned in my journal earlier (in Calgary or Edmunton). I do have a few photos of black and white (the rest of the trip was color slides), but they’re of Alaska so that’s not it. But it’s a half a roll, it’s like I shot half and took it out of the camera to put color in (which I’ve done before).

From my journal:

5:35 PM – In the solarium right now, the view is great, it’s on the top floor of the ship and you can see all around. The view is great, the clouds above the trees on the mountains can’t be more then 400 or 500 feet above water levels. It’s real neat. [How did I not take any photos?!?]

7 PM – Just finished going to the captain’s cocktail hour. Drank a couple of ginger ale’s. A few of the guys got a little drunk for the champagne. [Not sure if they snuck it or it was offered since we were at sea?]

The movie for the night was “The Champ” which I said was just as good as the first time I saw it.

The coolest key of the whole trip!

We must have been a little loud because at midnight I wrote that Mr. Kuhn kept coming in the room (“a million times”) to tell us to go to sleep so we could get up in the morning.

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Tagged Alaska Trip, Canada, photos, Princess Patricia, travel

Vancouver and on to Alaska

Posted on July 6, 2013 | Leave a comment

So we ran around the Vancouver area today. I can’t remember what all the photos were but I’ll try to piece it all together. We did get a tour of the University of British Columbia campus (I really don’t remember this part). I did go over to the registrar’s office and get a college guide and a course book. I also found another arcade(!) which is really funny that I’ve mentioned this a few times in my journal, I really don’t recall playing any arcade games the whole time.

So I have no recollection of the guy below playing the accordion, but it’s in my journal with his name and the notation that he was supposed to be playing the bagpipes (and he told some jokes).