Olympic National Park

September 24, 2012--Monday

After getting groceries and doing some laundry, we headed to the Olympic National Park.  We choose the area that is the Rainforest part of the National park.  We throught this to be a very pretty area with trees and moss all around.

This area is called the Hoh Rainforest because the Hoh river runs through the park.



Sign at the entrance to this part of the park.

 

The Hoh River.

 

What some of the rainforest looks like.

 

Moss hanging off the trees in the forest.

 

Amy in front of some of the trees.

 

 

Don in front of one of the Big trees.

 

 

These trees grew from what they call "Nursery Trees".  When a tree falls over, tree sprouts out of the tree.  The strongest grow into big trees.  These three trees grew from the same nursery tree. There were many of these in the park.

Long tree trunks!

 

 

We hiked a little ways down this trail.  About a mile up the trail, we could hear Elk bugle to each other from two sides of the river.  There were pretty close but we never did see them.

 

The ferns really grow big in a rain forest.

 

 

Amy inside of one of the trees.

 

We enjoyed our afternoon in this national park.

On the way out of the park, we saw two black tail deer beside the road. 

 

 





First day off the ship

September 23, 2012-- Sunday----

We had no trouble disembarking the ship,,,, except I would have stayed if I could have!

We decided to take the ferry across the bay towards Oylmpic national park instead of driving the interstate down and around.
We had a pretty ride out of Seattle.

 

Our view of Seattle from the ferry.

 

Don on the Ferry.. notice he has his sweatshirt on because it was a little cool on the boat even though it was a beautiful sunny day!

 

 

 

Here I am on the Ferry.... I even had to put my hood up, but we enjoyed the ride more that a highway drive!

 

View of the shoreline across from Seattle.  Many people come across the bay on the Ferry for the weekend to visit this area of Washington.

 

Someone enjoying the beautiful day with a sail on the bay



Some views along the road towards Olympic National Park.  Pretty but very congested!!!

 

We drove to just past Forks, Wa.  Good weather was still with us even though Forks is one of the wettest areas in the United States.  Forks is a sad looking little town, hanging by a thread with the Twilight fame.  Everything was very expensive here. 

 

We camp at a State Park just outside of Forks.  We got the last camsite with electricity which is important because it gets pretty cool at night and we need to run our little heater.

This is a rainforest type camp and is quite pretty.

Tomorrow we will do jobs and go into the Olympic National Part.



Ketchikan

 

View of Ketchikan from our stateroom.  There were 4 ships docked there today.  We were here for only a few hours.

We first went to an area called Creek street. This is an old area of town that is now a shopping area.

 

 

Ketchikan was a typical Alaskan tourist town, but we still had fun looking around the town.

 

After we got back on the ship, we ate lunch at an outdoor "Salmon bake" they were having by the pool.    After that, I had a wonderful message and facial... so relaxing!

 

Next, Don and I participated in an Alaskan beer tasting on the ship.  We had a good time at that. 

 

We had burgers by the pool then attended a musical show later in the evening.



Sitka

September 20, 2012 

First thing I found out about our day in Sitka is that we would not be docking, but we would anchor in the bay and tender to shore.  We were the only ship in Sitka.

 

Our fiew from the ship as we were entering Sitka.

 

 

We walked to an area that had totum poles.  It is actually a National Park with rain forest trails.  We enjoyed the tranquiel walk through the forest.

 

A view of the forest trail we enjoyed.

We met a man walking the trail who lives in Sitka and he gave us some good information.

 

We walked back into town for lunch at good sea food place off the main tourist street.

 

 

 

 

We went back to the ship for a dip in the hot tub.

This was one of the days that the roof was open in the pool area.

Tonight was formal night and we had surf and turf...  steak & lobster, which was very good.

We went to another comedy show which was good.

 

 







Our Day in Juneau

September 19, 2012--

I woke up and looked out the window and saw that we had docked in Juneau.  We will be here all day.



 

We decided to ride a tram up the mountain just outside our ship.  The tram went straight up the mountain.

 

 

The cable of the tram we rode up the mountain.

 

 

This is the view of the ship from the tram..

 

 

 

View from one of the over looks on our hike on the mountain.  Wasn't a really long hike, but steep!

Views from the top were great!

 

 

One of the views from the top!!!

 

After the little hike we did up there, we went back on board for lunch then explored the town of Juneau for a bit.

We ended taking a tour of the Alaskan Brewing Company where we could sample the different types of beers they brew.

 

 

We had a fun day in Juneau.

 

Sailing through Tracy Arm

Tuesday,  September 18, 2012

After breakfast, Don and walked 1 1/3 mile on the outside deck.  It was brisk and foggy.

Later it cleared up and we now have a mountain view from our stateroom.

The way Alaska is, it can be foggy one minute and clear the next, then foggy again.  That is what happened by lunch time.  If it is still foggy when we get to the entrance to Tracy Arm, we won't get to go in.

This is a look at some of the fog.

It was still foggy when we got to the arm, so the Captain turned around and tried again and this time the fog had lifted.  We are going in!  They opened the bow of the ship and let everyone go out there for a look. 
Don and I stayed on the bow for a long time enjoying the views, waterfalls and cool weather!

One of the waterfalls we saw on this journey.

 

 

Lots of ice in the water as we sailed towards a glacier.

 

 



The blue in the background is the glacier.  This is as close as we got to it because of the ice.  We were in our stateroom viewing it as we turned to sail out of Tracy Arm.  The weather really cooperated with us on this day!

Things I liked about crusing

This is our first cruise and we loved the time we spent on board.  I will write about port of calls later.  This entry is about what I liked about the ship experience.

First of all, we had a really nice state room with a balcony.  It was nice to go out there and watch the ocean and scenery go by.  After the first two days, we had great views of the shore line.

The bathroom is also spacious with a separate shower and jetted tub.  It also had two sinks.

We really liked sitting on the Lido deck by the pool.  It was an indoor/outdoor pool area.  It had a retractable roof that they would open on warm in port days and close on cooler sailing days.

We loved the in room food service.  We did order dinner in the room one time and breakfast one time, but mostly ordered in room coffee in the mornings!  We would drink our coffee and look out at the ocean.

We walked the walking deck a few times which was a good way to get fresh air and spend some time.

We went to a couple of shows and they were good.  Two were comedy acts and one was a song and dance show.

Of course the food was good.  Everywhere we ate, there was good food.  We ate about 3 times in the main dining room.  Other times we ate in the other venues on the ship.

All in all we had a great experience on the ship.  !!

Views on the ship.......