Tag Archives: Alaska Trip

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.

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, 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).

Sandy Stewart playing the acordian.

This might be Stanley Park.

The above are just some assorted shots of Vancouver. Not even sure where I took most.

From my journal:

“5PM – Just saw the Cleveland Dam, it’s pretty neat. Earlier we saw the Capilano Suspension Bridge and went across it.”

I’m going to guess this is the Caplilan Suspension bridge!

Some of our group posing for me.

That’s me!

Here’s the Cleveland Dam.

Alaska-1to5-81452705-SLD-001-0172 - Version 2.jpg

Looking down from the top of the dam.

This was in the middle of the dam photos, I’m guessing it’s looking down the river(?)

From my journal (with no photos, sorry):

“Stopped in Chinatown for about fifteen minutes and drove through Gas Town with is all gas lamps.”

Leaving Vancouver behind.

Speaking of the ship:

“9:15 PM – The ship sure is dinky. The rooms are pretty small too. The food ain’t bad on the boat.”

Sunset on the ship.

We boarded the ship at 7 PM and at 8:30 PM it set said through the Inside passage on it’s way to Alaska.

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Tagged Alaska Trip, Canada, photos, travel

To the University of British Columbia

Posted on July 5, 2013 | Leave a comment

Today we left Kamloops and headed over to Vancouver. It was a pretty normal day and I talked to my mom on the phone; multiple other days I’d made notes that I couldn’t reach her (where were you mom?!?) I probably wrote it down so I didn’t get in trouble for not calling, answering machines were still pretty new sparse back then. Plus, I helped some of the seniors with their luggage; while that was something listed as something we would do, it wasn’t an everyday thing (I even mentioned whose luggage it was).

Taking a break on the way to Vancouver

From the trip itinerary it says we’d see Fraser Canyon, Hell’s Gate and the Alexandra Suspension bridge on the ride (but honestly I really don’t remember any of that, I’ll have to see what I have photos of).

You’ve got window glare (sorry!) but I wanted to show those structures to prevent the road (or rails) from avalanches (I guess?)

We stayed at the University of British Columbia (the rent the empty dorm rooms out like a hotel) and it really made an impact on me. I liked the campus and I really liked the way that the dorms were set up. I even went over and got a course description guide while I was there.

The dorms are rented out in the summer and the rooms are really tiny ($9 adults and $7 for kids). The bonus of this was that for the first time all trip I’ve had room of my own, so this was extra enjoyable to me! I’m an only kid so sharing a room, let alone with strangers wasn’t really something I was used to.

Walter Gage Residence at U of BC

So the way our dorm, the Walter Gage Residence, was set up was that each floor had four “wings” and each wing had eight rooms: a bathroom, a living room/kitchenette, and six small (private) bedrooms. It seemed to me the building was kind of new at the time. I even sketched up a diagram, I’ll take a photo and add it.

The layout was great (this is one of the four wings), you had “roommates” but you had your own room and a common area. You can see the building is kind of square so the drawing isn’t to any kind of scale.

This the single room layout and that’s the door at the top. You can tell that I really liked the room setup here, I even added the shelves and lamp.

This is from Roger’s Pass which we would have passed through today (I think). It came in a nice sealed case.

I mentioned in my journal that I’d gotten a lot of those commemorative coins, which is what I was thinking the other day, but I think I only have three of them. I’ll have to look in other places but all of this Alaska trip stuff has been in the same box for years.

Here’s the important part: We board the ship headed to Alaska tomorrow!!!

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Tagged Alaska Trip, Canada, photos, travel, Vancouver

From Chateau Lake Louise to Kamloops!

Posted on July 4, 2013 | Leave a comment

Unfortunately, we didn’t get enough time at Chateau Lake Louise we were up at 7 am and out of there by 10 am. I did get a chance to take a few more pictures before we had to take off. It really was a beautiful area!

There is no question that he was posing for me!

I do have a copy of the final group photo somewhere, I believe he gave it to us as an 8″ x 10″ in black and white. I’ll have to find it, I’m hoping it’s with a few other items I can’t find that I think I know where they all are. But I’ll probably have to scan it to do it justice.

This is a group picture we were trying to take before leaving. Obviously we aren’t ready, I’m not it it yet!

I’m not sure which portion of the background is the glacier? But I know a portion of it is. Maybe most of the middle “mountain”? I didn’t actually take a photo of the hotel, but you can see part of it at wikipedia (From the description, it looks like they added onto it)

I liked the room key here, it kind of folds up to be less bulky!

Here’s a few more photos of the area(?) and on the way to Kamloops. Even with these photos in chronological order, it’s still hard to tell when events change sometimes. With my digital camera I quite often take photos of signs so that I know what something is. But what I really want is GPS built into all my cameras so I really know exactly where I took my pictures. That also makes for some fun options to have software automatically place them on a map. WIth that said, these photos are from between Chateau Lake Louise and Kamloops (and maybe Vancouver, but hopefully not).

A train bridge in the distance.

A little glare on the window for this one, but I liked the view!

Kamloops was pretty small but I really remember it being a tough town (I know I mentioned something about Calgary, but I didn’t remember that and it was before I was here!). It was a regular town (not a tourist town and not a big city at all), but I remember making fun of it in a variety of ways: “Kamloops, the only place the 24 hour A&P closes at 11pm”, we thought that was hysterical. We also thought Kuhnloops would be a good nickname for Mr. Kuhn, I guess Fruit Loops mushed with Kuhn and the town Kamloops made it all funny. We were kids, okay?!?

It was really hot, I wrote that “it hit 96 degrees here today” and while that was Canada, I’ll assume that was in Fahrenheit. This was our least fancy (not at all fancy) hotel all trip. I don’t need “fancy” but this one stood out as “not like the others”…

One very “not vacation” thing we did was to go see Raiders of the Lost Ark which I’d said in my journal that “Raiders was just and good and the first time!”.

It wasn’t very much of an Independence Day but we were able to cope :)

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Tagged 4th of July, Alaska Trip, Canada, Chateau Lake Louise, people, photos, travel

Chateau Lake Louise

Posted on July 3, 2013 | Leave a comment

Today we left Calgary on the bus to head to Chateau Lake Louise. The itinerary says “After leaving Calgary, gradually, the foothills gain height as you rider and almost before you know it, you are in the mountains”. He wasn’t kidding. I took a lot of photos on the ride over

The above are mostly pictures from the ride and I’m sure in a few you can see the reflection from the window. But it pretty much matches the description that Mr. Kuhn mentioned in the itinerary!

10am
Got to Banff National Park.
Went to visit the “bee-u-tiful” Banff Springs Hotel and took pictures.

12:30pm
Lunch after riding on the bus some more at A&W.

2pm
Arrived at the Chateau Lake Louise.

I’m pretty sure that I wrote “bee-u-tiful” because that’s how Mr. Kuhn said it. Mr. Kuhn was a great guy that ran the trip and a bit eccentric at times but he put on a great trip.

The above pictures are from the area around the hotel. The latter ones (certainly from the vertical ones on) are from the hike up Mt. Victoria. That last one would be where we stopped to get tea (probably Coke for us!) at some point on the hike.

3:15pm
Hiked up to the tea house and waterfall four-and-a-half miles up Mount Victoria.

8PM
Had a great dinner in the Victoria Dining Room. Wore my jacket and borrowed a tie from Jeff.

I don’t know what was a great dinner to me back then? Hamburgers and ice cream? Also, I can’t remember why I borrowed a tie from Jeff, maybe I liked it better? Did I not take one? I’ve actually found a few pictures of Jeff and friended him (I think it’s his Facebook that I found) so that I could send him some of the photos (but he hasn’t responded!).

The Chateau Lake Louise was a beautiful location to stay at, it seems to me the rooms were pretty tiny (as many old hotels are) but it was great location and I do remember climbing way way up while were were there. It was beautiful and great to be in the forest climbing around and taking pictures.

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Tagged Alaska Trip, Banff National Park, Canada, Chateau Lake Louise, photos, travel

Tag Archives: Alaska Trip

Glacier Bay, Alaska

Mendenhall glacier and Juneau, Alaska

Ketchikan and Wrangell, Alaska

All around and about the Princess Patricia

Vancouver and on to Alaska

To the University of British Columbia

From Chateau Lake Louise to Kamloops!

Chateau Lake Louise

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