Check out the complete trip video here: (For the trip commentary scroll to the bottom)
As we flew in to the beginning of our long trip to Alaska, the first thing we saw from the plane was Mount Rainier. What a beautiful sight as the mountain protruded right through the clouds. Chelle spotted it right away and I was able to snap a picture. Little did we know that would be barely anything compared to what we were going to see in Alaska!
We started off the trip in Seattle. Chelle had never been there and loved it immediately. The people are great. The streets are steep like San Francisco. The weather was nice and cool. There is definitely a lot of positive energy, and now can you beat all the fresh fish? We spent the first night with my old fraternity brother Greg and his wife Vicki: Great times! He recommended the Thompson Hotel which has a rooftop bar. Awesome place! Everything else was perfect about it; great location, amenities, atmosphere. All told, albeit it was short, but sweet, great time in Seattle. The next day we did get to spend some time at Pike's Place, and tried the Rainier Beer: awesome.
Now, the bus from Seattle to Vancouver (with the 17,000 pieces of luggage we brought!). Actually bus ride was fine! The bus would take us through customs which wasn't too bad right into Vancouver.
In Vancouver, stayed at the Fairmont Waterfront. Another beautiful city. We totally fell in love with it especially when we came back to it after Alaska. Had dinner with Judy and Harry's awesome friends and went to an Italian restaurant called Giordino's where Nancy had been going to ever since she was a child. Great people/friends : wonderful time.
Silver Seas made it pretty easy. They come up and they take the luggage right out of your room and it's in your room on the cruise ship once you get on-board. I would say the cruise ship was pretty quiet, easy to get around. Everybody has a suite. You're never really bumping into people. All the restaurants look like fine-dining restaurants, so you don't have any big cafeteria or ballroom which we like. As we left Vancouver, pretty cool. Got some great pictures of the city skyline along with Stanley Park. Of course, it was a bit cloudy and cool, but really nice (which I like!) Chelle and I had gone for another nice run in the morning. You constantly see the float planes taking off in Vancouver. They also have a ferry they call the sea bus that takes you from one side to the other. On the ship, there is some pretty cool art and sculptures. Chelle in particular liked the one with the hair dryers: She said she’ll do the same thing one day (and I bet she’ll do it even BETTER!)
The first night we had dinner at Atlantik and afterwards hit the bar: We pretty amazed and impressed at the dancing abilities and horizontal hip shakes of Harry!
The next day, just sort of hung around and checked out the ship and relaxed. The TV's in the room are actually built into the sidewalls, so you've got a mirror or a TV, and you have two of them. Of course, it took us a while to figure out that our TV was even there, the one in front of the bed. Chelle noticed a small red light, it looked like a beam when somebody's aiming for your head with a long distance sighting rifle, but then we realized, we’re safe! that was actually a TV. Turned it on, it skipped, didn't work right, but they finally did something eventually, and reset it, and it worked fine. In the meantime, I was able to actually time perfectly, the one TV to the other, so we could watch one and hear the other, and not have it skipping. Chellebug was quite impressed. Second night, we went to one of the upgraded restaurants which charges you a fee to go there, and I would say, it was not worth it overall. In fact, the group next to us, the guy, I don't know he might have been 40 but acted like a angry 12 year old, lost it, started yelling about how long it was taking, and he still hadn't got anything. He kept yelling 75 MINUTES 75 MINUTES AND I HAVE NO FOOD. Anyway, he decided he wanted to be our friend, but so sad that we didn’t bump into him the rest of the trip. The good news was, we did dress formal and wore our tuxedos that night, so we got some good pictures. I looked of course phenomenal ;). Harry and Judy looked very good and Chelle was beautiful as ever. That night we hit it hard and the drinking continued which made for the next day a little bit tough, especially for Chelle’s glorious upcoming biking experience.
So, uur first place to stop in Alaska was Ketchikan, and we paid for this clover pass bike ride excursion. Basically, you get some used bike that looks pretty rough. They put someone elses old water bottle on your bike, and you bike down a highway… literally. Speed limit is 55 miles an hour and you've got a small, maybe three foot wide bike lane. And this was after our guide told us that Alaskan drivers don't really care, so you might want to be careful and make sure you stay far to the right. So, I would say this is probably the first of a few experiences where life could have potentially ended prematurely on this Alaska cruise. Chelle was miserable the whole time, totally hung over, couldn't wait for it to end. And.. of course..she blamed me. Several times :/ And I would say, her negativity was off the charts, and it was actually hysterical after a while! We did get to see some of the highlights, including our guide getting so excited when he saw a pile of bear poop and proceeded to tell us what to look for when you get close and examine it. Anyway, we did a small hike in Settler's Park and then eventually the misery ended and we were on our way back on the bus to the cruise ship.
The next day we got to Juneau, which was actually beautiful, one of my favorite parts of Alaska. When you look at the town, it looks really cute. Like all the other Alaska towns: It’s a mining town. This one the mountains shoot straight up behind it all around. The city is the 2nd largest behind Anchorage with about 35,000 people, but it's only accessible by air and boat.
This was one of the best excursions, though, we've ever taken, where we took a short van ride to the helicopter landing area. We hopped on a helicopter, and our pilot, a young girl named Jennie -- which that made me nervous at the beginning, but she's quite confident, and right when she took off, we knew we'd be okay -- took us through a mountains, and that was the coolest part, how the helicopter is so smooth and actually pretty quiet. Although you do wear your headphones, so that's probably what made them so quiet! How you seem to close to the mountain, but you're actually pretty far away is cool stuff. She cut right through the mountain, the valleys, over some bodies of water, through some snow-capped peaks and eventually got us to the glacier.
There was a woman left of me that I think was in probably in stage three or four of Alzheimer's and kept asking me the same questions over and over again. She was in between me and Chelle, so I hoped and prayed that eventually she'd turn her way and start the 50 first dates conversation with her because I know Chelle would just absolutely love that.
We landed right by the glacier and there were two guys that basically live there for the season, three or four months alone. And they take you out on an airboat, and they take you right up to the glacier. I sat on the top at the beginning: Best part / no windows or anything blocking your view. Then I swapped it out with the Alzheimer's woman after that, which I was a little nervous for her, but she seemed to do fine. You're cruising along this water and you can see the glacier in the distance, and all of a sudden, you're right up on top of it. It was a really cool experience. After that, went back on the helicopter with Jennie and she landed right on the glacier and let us walk around a bit and then we flew back. A+ experience over the top.
We got back to Juneau and had lunch at Devil's Club Brewing Company at the recommendation of our new helicopter pilot friend Jennie, and it was awesome. They brew their own beer, so had some great beer and also some interesting food on the menu, but awesome.
In an attempt to educate ourselves at least some how, some way, we did go to Alaska State Museum in Juneau. And for us, it was a quick turnaround. Boring! You can only see so many mammoth tusks and seal skins and bear skulls.
After that, for the third night on the cruise, we went to dinner at Terrazza. Definitely our favorite. Harry picked the wine. It was a Brunelo and it was awesome. Food was great, and we decided that pretty much we should go there every single night the rest of the trip. We watched the sun set, which as we traveled north in Alaska is getting later and later, and this probably at this time was about 9:30 at night. It was hard to see at first, because the mammoth cruise ship with an indoor skydiving bubble at the top, “Ocean Of The Seas” was blocking it. But finally when it moved, the sunset opened up, and it was beautiful right next to the steep mountain. Next, we are on our way to Skagway.
Nothing too exciting here. We did hop on the train for excursion and it was pretty boring. And Harry in fact labeled it the White Pass Snooze because we did go through White Pass and I think we were all about to fall asleep! At the beginning was pretty exciting watching the train wind through the mountains, but the trip probably could have been about 10 times shorter! When we got back we decided not to bother with the town: I mean blink and you’ll miss it! Back at the ship we ended up at some cheesy reception in the Panoramic Lounge congratulating all the people that had had their umpteenth trip with Silver Seas. We did have a great sunset and we went and saw the opera. And I will tell you they had some pretty serious opera singers there. Although after having a “treat” from Judy and Harry I passed out quickly, actually during the show. Harry proceeded to win another blackjack tournament that night!
The next day we arrived in Sitka. And that was pretty cool. We took a Zodiac ride out to Fin Island. Our guide, Logan, had lived there his whole life. We saw some surprising whales, which they have not seen that before ever on a Zodiac ride. So it turned into to be a longer ride than normal. But the whales were non-stop. We ended up Fin Island. Saw some eagles on the way. Saw some stellar seals on the way that were actually hiding from the sharks up on a buoy. They gave us an awesome crab lunch on Fin Island. Did some s'mores, and then we headed back. We did go into Sitka and checked it out and it was a pretty cool town. Met a couple that started a salt company. We bought some salt, got some other things, and pretty interesting when we were in artist gallery. When you first walk in the person felt important to mention that all the art was from local artists. After he said it the eighth time inside of 45 seconds we definitely got the hint… and won't forget it, ever.
Then after that, we were on our way the next day through Glacier Bay, Alaska. And that was pretty cool watching this huge cruise ship cut through all of this ice and broken off glaciers. And some of them we watched dissolve right in front of us. And you could hear this loud crash whenever that happened. The main glacier we were supposed to see Hubbard Glacier, was not possible due to the conditions : never able to get close enough to see it so we pressed on. We finally arrived in Seward and from there we took a train ride to Anchorage. Arriving in Anchorage again was a piece of cake. Took our luggage right to our hotel, the Hilton Anchorage.
We started in Anchorage at the 49th Street Brewery, which totally awesome menu, great food. Harry and Judy met us there before they left to take the long red eye home. We got the Yak-adilla, which is basically a quesadilla made with yak. Pretty good stuff. Harry and Judy took off, happy to be home. By then, Harry's cold had become full blown, Judy was just getting hers, and Chelle was coming on with one too. Anchorage is a lot less cosmopolitan than I thought. Of course, I didn't think it was going to be New York City, but I also didn't expect it to be as rustic as it was. The other thing that added to the issue was they were experiencing record heat, 91 degrees that day, and the air conditioner, which they actually did have, which was rare in Alaska, was barely working. We did get a couple of box fans from the hotel to help us survive the night (The bus driver had told us all of Alaska was out of fans due to high demand!) Apparently, the trick is you get a bucket of ice and you put it right in front of the fan, and that seemed to work okay. Still, it was hotter than Hell. The next morning, we had awesome breakfast at this place called Green-Go, Mexican place, great huevos rancheros. Later that night, we want to paint the scarf. We each painted two scarves. I doubled up on northern lights, and Chelle did a couple of other ones. Of course, hers dominated mine, but she'll never tell me that, because she's being nice. We met Dave and Gina there, great couple. They're actually been in the business seven years, but are tired of it, and just want to sell it and move on. Gina and Chelle became quite close, and decided to go to an African art trip for next year. The next day, we checked out Anchorage Farmers Market, pretty interesting. Where else can you can go get elk, buffalo, or deer, or any other kind of meat burger right there, and at the same time, watch axe throwing. There were lots of arts and crafts, or as apparently Andy likes to call it, arts and crap. We did get a couple of things, but then moved on. It was a lot of fun, but again, hotter than you-know-what. That night, going by Chelle's friend, Kiki's, recommendation, we went to a bar called Chillkoot in Anchorage, and that was a total blast. They had a great band with a jazz tint. When they came on and played A-ha’s Take On Me, of course, that was the pinnacle of the night, and sealed the deal. Chelle had to pull me out of there, so we finally left back to the room for another night of sweaty sleep.
The next day, we did the Grand Denali flight seeing tour from Talkeetna. All I can say, it was totally amazing. Mike, our pilot, young dude that looked like Chelle’s Ex Mikey flew us there w/confidence! We flew around the tallest mountain peek in North America, and then landed on the glacier no problem. Got to walk around the glacier. On the way back, Rechelle got to be the co-pilot, so she got the best view of all on the way back. Pretty cool stuff. Definitely top experience -- no question about it -- in Alaska. To fly around and see that close up, the tallest peak, which is over 20,000 feet high, in North America. And also, they say, only about 5% or 10% of the time you get visibility like we had, which was amazing. We could definitely see everything.
When we got back, we were able to check out the town of Talkeetna. It's definitely a small, Indian-like rustic town. It looks like a stiff wind would blow over most of the buildings, but it had a lot of charm. Definitely touristy, but some good food. We did eat at the Denali Brewing Pub and still, it is amazing to me, how people can afford it up there, when a Halibut salad was $38. That was the pattern for Alaska, by the way. We did see a wooden spoon company, which I took a picture of for mom, reminding me of how she used to whack me in the butt with a wooden spoon when I was when I was younger until she finally had to switch to a metal spoon. We did not see any metal spoon shops there, however. We went to a place called High, and you probably guess what they sell! I will tell you, there is no shortage of those kind of stores in Alaska. I will admit, we stopped in, but I won't mention whether we bought anything!
We got back to the Denali Overlook Inn, which is where we're staying, but it was so hot, and our room faced the sun. That room was not cooling off, no matter what. We did ask for some ice to put in front of the fan they gave us, but she gave us an ice bucket the size of my pinkie. They were also very strange. I'm not quite sure what goes on in there, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were some bodies underneath the structure. However cosmetically It was a beautiful place, and I can see how it would be charming if it was cooler and the people that owned it were a little bit different. But we decided, rather than wake up in the morning and have breakfast with everybody, because they had one big community table, we would dash out ASAP before anybody woke up. It was hot, we were getting evacuation orders for the fires, and also there were bear-aware signs everywhere, because apparently bears like to get out of the heat, and so they float around everywhere. Well, we didn't want to bump into any! That night, we did have dinner at the Foraker Inn. It was unbelievable. I had the bison with curry sauce. Just amazing. And actually, oddly enough, the bartender there is from Sarasota. She used to work at the Selva Grill: Janine. After dinner, we had a couple of drinks with her and talked about our home town. In the lobby There was an 11 foot bear on display -- a real bear, obviously stuffed at this point, that was killed by a 10 year old girl, of which they're very proud.
We got to our place at Aleyska Resort in Alaska. It was a rustic little podunk ski-town. People were a bit strange in this place. They couldn't get us an early check-in. Looking around with the fires and the heat, and they don't have air conditioning, we went and had lunch. We looked at each other and we basically said let's get the hell out of here. Before we knew it, we booked flights, extended our hotel in Vancouver and left a few days early from Alaska. We went to Vancouver, where it was cool.
We loved Vancouver, the people are awesome, the city's got great energy, a great vibe, the buildings are beautiful. You could run in Stanley Park forever. The food is great, and everything is just so classy. And people are so classy and nice and genuine. So I definitely would recommend going back there and we definitely want to spend a month here sometime.
We went to a place called Glowbal Restaurant and Marco, our server, was awesome, also a music writer. Great food, great atmosphere, right by our hotel. We stayed at the Hermitage Hotel. Great place, would stay there again, no questions asked, next time we go to Vancouver.
The finale of the trip: QUEEN! The concert was pretty cool, but Adam Lambert just is not Freddie Mercury. I think it was worth the experience, but I don't think we would go again. The next day, we had all day to do some shopping before the Red-Eye home. We stopped and got a Tume backpack for me and then we each got a couple of computer bags from Briggs and Riley, same store, awesome high quality stuff. Took the Red-Eye home. As usual, Red-Eyes are miserable. Barely slept and every time after I take a Red-Eye I say the same thing: Never again!
Overall: Great Trip! Love spending the time with Judy and Harry and loved seeing things most people aren’t fortunate enough to see in a lifetime. We would go back for sure to Seattle and Vancouver. I think Alaska (other than the trip where you live off the bush and rough it) we are done with: We saw everything we wanted to see there. As far as beauty goes: Iceland and Norway are much prettier and would go back to both of those places in a heartbeat!