Alaska, The Beautiful (Part I)

08-08-08 was a day that Adam and I had marked on the calendar just like the rest of the world, but for a different reason. Yes, we were excited about the start of the Olympic games, but we were even more excited about going on our Alaskan cruise. We left on Friday afternoon and traveled for approximately 17 hours until we reached Anchorage, AK. This was certainly not a fun day--we took three different flights to reach our final destination. But the long hours and lack of sleep was worth it. We arrived at our hotel in Anchorage around 1am (5am EST), slept for a few hours, then headed off to check in for our criuse. We got to walk around down town Anchorage for a couple of hours while we waited for our transfer to the ship, which was docked in Whittier, AK.

Below is a picture of our cruise itinerary which was as follows:

Anchorage, AK; Whittier, AK (embarkation); College Fjord; day of cruising; Glacier Bay National Park; Skagway, AK; Juneau, AK; Ketchikan, AK; day of cruising; Vancouver, BC (disembarkation).

We took almost 500 pictures while on vacation so I had a tough time choosing just a few of my favorites to share with everyone. Here they are:

Anchorage Information Center: Aren't the flowers beautiful? This exact picture was sold as a postcard in all of the local shops.

Whittier, AK, our embarkation port. This small town is about an hour from Anchorage and can only be entered by driving through a three mile long tunnel through a mountain. The tunnel serves both cars and trains but is only wide enough for one way traffic. A strict schedule is kept and is held in place with a traffic light to ensure safety. The picture almost captures the entire town of Whittier--it's that small! See the pinkish building in the background? It's the home to ALL of Whittier's population!

College Fjord: We cruised College Fjord (pronounced fee-yord) very early in the morning on the first full day of the cruise. The picture below was taken as we were exiting the fjord, but it showcases all of the glaciers within the fjord. Each swipe of white up the mountains that you see is a different glacier. These glaciers are all named after east coast ivy league colleges.

Glacier Bay National Park, Margerie Glacier: First of all, let me just say that Glacier Bay National Park was AWESOME. I think that Adam and I both agree that this was the highlight of our entire trip. We truly were thanking God for His beautiful creation the entire day...we were in awe and overwhelmed that He created such beauty for us to take pleasure in.

The picture at the top of the blog page is also of Margerie Glacier, however the picture below allows you to see more of the glacier's detail. The face of the glacier is 250 ft. high from the top to the water. Because we were standing on the top deck of such a large ship, we really had to put things into perspective to understand just how massive this glacier is. Once we realized that the bushes we were looking at along the shore with our binoculars were actually FULL GROWN trees and the little specs of movement around the glacier were seagulls, we got it. Although it seemed that the ship was so close to the glacier, we were about 2+ miles away from it. I still am in awe when I look at these pictures! We visited four glaciers in Glacier Bay National Park, but this glacier is the only one that is advancing instead of receeding. We were also blessed to see this glacier calve twice! They call the sound of the ice falling off of the glacier Arctic Thunder. It truly is amazing!

Glacier Bay National Park, Lamplugh Glacier: This is the third glacier we saw during our time in GBNP. Look at the picture carefully... does it look blue? It is! In fact, if you look at any of the glaciers you'll notice that they all have a blue tint to them. This has to do with how tightly compressed the ice is. Notice anything else? Look along the bottom and toward the right and you'll see a waterfall. Just beautiful!






Glacier Bay National Park, Johns Hopkins Glacier: At this point we were about 5 miles away from the glacier. This particular glacier calves such giant pieces of ice that it is not safe to get close to it. Even at five miles, the view of the glacier was spectacular!

We've been home from our Alaskan adventure for almost a month now and we are still reliving the feeling of being surrounded by breathtaking beauty! With that being said, there is still so much to tell about our vacation, so stay tuned for Alaska, The Beautiful Part II!