Sitka, AK

Got up this morning at 3:00 a.m. to check-in at the ferry at 4:30 a.m. for a 6:30 a.m. departure.  Lots of sitting around, waiting for the next thing to happen.  I did doze a little on the ferry.  Not sure if Barry did or not.  One thing on the ferry, called the Fairweather, was a monitor showing where the ferry was at all times.  I will post a picture of it.  The ferry is the blue blob heading south, although we find it hard to keep track of directions with all the curvy roads and not sun, just cloudy daylight.  After two days of some sunshine and not rain, we are back to cloudy and rain.  Guess it's fitting since we are in the middle of a temperate rain forest.
Also will post a picture of the light house we saw during the ferry ride.  It is called the Five Finger Lighthouse because it's on the Five Finger Island.  One brochure says it's available for rent during the summer season.  That would have been fun to do, but too late for us this summer.
We arrived in Sitka at 11:00 a.m. and got settled into our motel.  We then ate a meal as breakfast on the ferry wasn't much.  Took a drive around Sitka to see how far all the historic buildings were and decided to park back at the motel and walk the town.
First site was the statue of a pioneer outside the Pioneers Building.  The place was first built for homeless men and then a wing was added for women.  We don't know what its being used for now, but liked the statue.
We then headed towards the Russian Orthodox Church.  It's a practicing congregation today and was started shortly after the Russians settled in this area for the fur trade.  It's suppose to be the first Christian church in Alaska.  We couldn't get in, but will try again tomorrow.  Supposedly if the priest is in the church, anyone may go in and see the sanctuary.
Right across the street is the earliest Lutheran church in Alaska.  The czar asked the Finnish Lutheran church to send a pastor over to serve the many Finnish shipbuilders Russia had brought over for the ship yard.  The pastor wasn't allowed to evangelize amongst the natives, but only to serve the workmen.  It too is still a thriving congregation, ELCA.  The picture is part of the original altar rail of the first church.  The first and second church both burned.  The third and current church was built in 1967, after the second one burned in 1966.  Seems the fire started with a hardware store and leapt over to the Russian Orthodox church, then over to the Lutheran church.  The firefighters found the water lines were frozen and had trouble fighting it.  Many of the artifacts were saved from both fires and are on display in the church entry.  There was a couple there from Cleveland, Ohio, who are spending a month volunteering at the church as the welcoming committee to all the tourists who come through.  They were told to expect 2000 on Wednesday & Thursday as those are cruise ship days.  It's nice to be here on a non-cruise ship day, however, some things are closed or not working because there's no crowd.  But it's nice not to battle the crowds.  We did that at Juneau.
Our last stop was the National Park Association that maintains the historic residence of the bishop for the Roman Orthodox church.  It's call the Bishop's House - bright yellow with a red roof.  It has been restored to what it was like in 1823, when the first bishop, Saint Innocence, was sent here to run the congregation - then he was just a missionary, who later became the bishop of Alaska, then much later a saint.  The house is quite large and two stories.  It served as a seminary at one time and a boarding house for Tlingit children attending school in Sitka.  The second floor chapel (the picture you see) is still used on special occasions with the Park services' okay.
Well, enjoy and talk to you tomorrow!

Juneau Day 3

Got up this morning to another day of no rain.  Actually have sunny skies!  Beautiful day!!
Found an ELCA church yesterday, so worshipped at Shepherd of the Valley at 9:30 a.m.  Perfect timing for our helicopter/glacier tour at 12:45.
Before church I took a picture of the mountain view outside out motel.  Wanted to have one mountain top with the sun shining and no cloud cover!  That's the first picture I posted.
Then there's Barry standing by a wood carving in the motel lobby - that's his next project :-)  I didn't take time to figure out how to right the picture, so you'll have to tilt your head.
The third picture is of the surface of the glacier.  It's not at all like I thought it would be.  Guess I thought it would be smooth like ice, but it's very rough, dirty, with water standing.
The fourth picture is of our helicopter pilot standing on the Hole in the Wall glacier.  He was kind enough to take a picture for each of the couples on the flight.  He took on of us that I posted.  Seems surreal to be standing on a glacier!
The next photo is of water flowing on the surface of the glacier.
Then both Barry & I took turns drinking from the glacier water.  I posted Barry getting his hand full of glacier water.  As expected, it was COLD and very good.
The final picture is of a not so very deep crevice with water running through it.
Enjoy and talk to you tomorrow!

Juneau Day 2

This was our first full day at Juneau.  We went to the Juneau Whale Watch this morning.  It was a better day than when we did a whale watch last year off Massachusetts.  The weather was great, 'course we were dressed for it to be cold and we were just right.  But the sun shone most the time and there wasn't any rain.  Out of the pictures I took of the whales I have posted a fluke, one humpback diving and then two humpbacks diving.  One whale came within 20 feet of the boat.  Scared the heck out of most of us, including the captain.  Unfortunately I had already put the camera away thinking I gotten as good a pictures I was going to get.  WRONG!  But I may not have gotten a shot of the whale that close as I was so surprised.  All in all it was a great hour and a half on the water.
Then when we got back, there were three bald eagles on the beach, so I posted that picture.  Wish I could have gotten them flying, but didn't happen.
After the whale watch, we did a city tour & glacier stop.  I've posted a picture of the Mendenhall Glacier and then a "selfie" of us in front of the glacier.
We then took a tram to the top of Mt. Roberts and took pictures of the view from on high.  Posted one of them.
We finished off the day with a meal at the Red Dog Saloon.  There was a sign about the service that I posted.  The saloon had sawdust on the floor a couple of inches thick, lots of animal heads, signage, and a country western singer.  The food was good, too.  The story goes that during the territorial days, Gordie Kanouse would meet tour boats with his mule and wore a sign saying, "follow my ass to the Red Dog Saloon."  The saloon is now owned by a group of local residents.  It was a unique place to visit.
That's it for now.  Enjoy,

because we certainly are!

Juneau, AK

Made it to Juneau at 11:00 p.m.  It's been a long day.  We started with a Fourth of July parade at Skagway.  They ran the parade twice and it was done in 40 minutes.  We then did some shopping.  Barry found a license plate (a tourist one) for his collection.  There were a lot of nice art pieces, but we passed on them.  Got a Christmas ornament as a memento of Alaska.
We then had lunch at a saloon/brothel.  At least it was a brothel in the early 1900s.  It's been restored and keeps the same theme.  The food was good and the atmosphere memorable.
After lunch it was time to get lined up for the ferry to Juneau.  When they started loading the vehicles, there was a tour bus that loaded first.  It got high centered on the dock.  They had to get a fork truck to get it lifted up to free it.  It stead of loading at 3:00 we didn't get on board until 4:15.  That made our arrival time at Juneau 10:30 instead of 9:30.
I don't have any pictures to share today as I didn't take the camera to the parade and there was so much rain and fog the scenery on the ferry ride wouldn't have turned out well.
That's it for tonight.

2nd Day Skagway

We got up early today to take a train/bus tour from Skagway, AK, to Carcross, YU.  It's actually the route we drove down yesterday, but today someone else was driving and explaining the things we were seeing.  I am going to post seven of the 44 pictures I took.  The first shows the engine of the train as we took a curve up the mountains.  Then there's one of the many glacier fed streams coming down the side of the mountain.  Some of the streams are like waterfalls.  The lakes they feed into are very deep.  The guide said one is up to 1,000 feet deep in some parts.  The streams that are formed were flowing fast because of the rain that's been falling.  Oh, it rained all morning so some of the pictures taken through the train window didn't turn out due to the rain on the window and the fog.
The third picture shows the train entering one of the two tunnels.
Then there's the "ghost" bridge.  It's a bridge that didn't get completed so it just ends.  The fog really makes it look "ghostly."
We stopped at the village of Bennett, by Lake Bennet, for a lunch of beef stew.  It was a gold rush town that started as a tent city in 1897.  A minister came and set up a church in a tent.  A year later, he got a church building built.  That's the fifth picture.  We could hike up to it for a closer look, but with the rain and the trail was filled with water, Barry & I chose to stay on the train.
We went on the train to Carcross and then got on a bus for the trip back down the mountains.  On the ride down, we stopped at Emerald Lake.  It's called that because of the green tint created by the glacier silt that the streams bring down.
The last picture was an other glacier waterfall/stream.  This one is special because it is on the Continental Divide.
We met a couple from south Texas that have been traveling since June 11.  They are going on to Fairbanks and Denali National Forest.  They are driving a pickup.  Then there was a family with four children ranging in age from 11 to 2.  The three old kids, when asked if they would be quiet while the guide talked, responded with a resounding "NO!"  And they weren't quiet.  'Course it was a hard trip for the kids to be quiet as it was a total of 8 hours.  That's a long time for anyone to set and be quiet.  The guides did a good job of staying on track despite the interruptions and we were able to hear what they had to say.  Most everyone was patient with the family.
I will probably be late with the blog tomorrow as we take the ferry to Juneau at 3:00 p.m. and don't arrive until 9:30 p.m.  That's 12:30 p.m. Nebraska time.
Here's the pictures:

Skagway, AK

Made it to Skagway at 2:20 Alaska time.  Mountains were awesome with the usual curvy roads, inclines, and rain.  But the views are break taking!
I start off the pictures with the cabin in the woods we stayed at located at Watson Lake, Yukon.  Then as we were heading out of town we saw the Sign Post Forest.  I posted three of the 7 pictures I took.  It is amazing all the signs in the "forest."  We did located two from Nebraska and posted one of them.  It is one of those quirky things you don't find in the Triple A books.
Next is a picture on one of the many mountain lakes followed by a different lake that had a great reflection of the mountains and sky.
It was good to see the Welcome to Alaska sign and couldn't resist a picture on the snow that seemed to be on the same level as we were.  It was amazing how high in elevation we were, but the road brought us back down to sea level at Skagway.
The last picture is out side our motel door.
That's it for now.

Watson Lake, Yukon

What a day!  Five-hundred fifty-five miles and over 10 hours of driving/riding.  We are definitely in the Canadian Rockies.  Beautiful scenery, wild life at every turn (the challenge is to get stopped in time to get the picture).  We are staying at a little cabin in the woods.  It's a bed & breakfast owned by a couple from Switzerland.  There is their cabin and then two others.  Very nice.  Glad I found it on the internet. 

I did about an hour and 1/2 of the driving, but just can't handle the curves and downward sections.  Barry takes the curves like a pro and down shifts at the right time on the downward sections.  Not too many RVs on the road.  I thought there would be more.  Actually the motorcycles out number the RVs.  Met a couple at one stop that have been living in Alaska for two years.  They knew Lincoln, etc.  They were originally from Wyoming and were moving back.  Wanted to be near family.  Guess that's about it for tonight.  Hope you enjoy the pictures.  I took more, but decided not to overwhelm the blog.

Talk to you tomorrow from Alaska!