Seattle

There was an option for express check out where you carried your own bags off the boat. Since we were going straight to the hotel and then off to enjoy Seattle we decided that would be the best option. We got up bright and early and headed off the boat to catch a bus to our hotel. When we arrived at the hotel only two of the rooms were ready. We loaded up our luggage in the rooms and headed out to find some breakfast.

We headed towards the market and figured we could find something to eat down there. We walked around and ended up eating in this little restaraunt next to the aquarium.

 After Breakfest we walked around the market. We came up to the World Famous Pike Place Fish Market. The Pike Place Fish Market is best known for their habit of hurling customers' orders across the shopping area.

A typical routine will involve a customer ordering a fish, with their fishmongers in orange rubber overalls and boots calling out the order, which is loudly shouted back by all the other staff, at which point the original fishmonger will throw the customer's fish behind the counter for wrapping.

We also saw Pike Place Market's unofficial mascot, Rachel, a bronze cast piggy bank that weighs 550 pounds, has been located since 1986 under the "Public Market Center" sign. Rachel was designed by local artist Georgia Gerber and modeled after a pig that lived on Whidbey Island and was the 1977 Island County prize-winner. Rachel receives roughly $6,000–$9,000 annually in just about every type of world currency, which is collected by the Market Foundation to fund the Market's social services.

After walking around the market, we headed to the underground tour. We got our tickets for the tour and had a little time to kill. We walked around Pioneer Square. The boys found a place to play chess in this little outdoor park area. We all watched them play while we waited for the tour to begin.

Seattle has a very interesting history. Seattle's first buildings were wooden. In 1889, a cabinetmaker accidentally overturned and ignited a glue pot. An attempt to extinguish it with water spread the burning grease-based glue. The volunteer fire department responded but they made the mistake of trying to use too many hoses at once and the water pressue dropped dramtically. They never recovered from the drop in water pressure, and the Great Seattle Fire destroyed 25 city blocks. While a destructive fire was not unusual for the time, the response of the city leaders was. Instead of rebuilding the city as it was before, they made two strategic decisions: that all new buildings must be of stone or brick, and to regrade the streets one to two stories higher than the original street grade.

When they reconstructed their buildings, merchants and landlords knew that the ground floor would eventually be underground and the next floor up would be the new ground floor, so there is very little decoration on the doors and windows of the original ground floor, but extensive decoration on the new ground floor. In 1907 the city condemned the Underground for fear of pneumonic plague. The basements were left to deteriorate or were used as storage. Some became illegal houses for the homeless, gambling halls, speakeasies, and opium dens. Only a small portion of the Seattle Underground has been restored and made safe and accessible to the public. In 1965, an Underground Tour was established and customers were able to go on a tour of what was left underneath the city. Over the years the underground structures have been steadily refurbished to be more visually appealing. I will say this was probably one of the more interesting things we did in Seattle. 

After the Underground Tour we walked to the aquarium. I love aquariums so this was the agenda item that I was most excited about. It was a small aquarium but there were a lot of interesting exhibits. There was a Giant Pacific Octopus along with this cool archway that had jellyfish floating around in it. We also saw River and Sea otters. I have always seen River Otters, and didnt know that Otters could be huge. Sea Otters can weigh up to 100 pounds. We walked around took a lot of pictures  and just enjoyed all the animals.

There was a Spill Exhibit by Daniel Beltrá. The exhibit includes 16 aerial images of the Gulf spill. The exhibit was very interesting to look at and see all the pictures of the recent spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

After the aquarium we headed over to the Space Needle. My mom wanted to see the Olympic Sculpture Park which consists of a 9-acre outdoor sculpture museum and beach. The park was unfortunately closed for a private party. I tried to get as many pictures from the outside as possible. Maybe if we ever go back we will be able to walk around the public park.

We were a little disappointed that the park was closed but we continued on to the Space Needle anyways. The Space Needle was built for the 1962 World's Fair. We got in line to get the elevator to go up to the top. The elevators travel at 10 miles per hour and the trip to the top only takes 43 seconds. My mom went up to the top but didnt walk outside, she stayed inside sitting down at a table. The views were amazing and the weather was perfect to see everything.

After the Space Needle we were all pretty beat. We headed back to the hotel to eat some dinner and crash for the night. We ordered pizza from a place the hotel recommended and played card games in the hotel room.

The next day we got up early to eat some breakfast and head out to the Music Experience Project before we had to head back home. The Music Experience Project is a museum that is dedicated to the history and exploration of popular music. The museum contains mostly rock memorabilia and technology-intensive multimedia displays. The EMP Museum showcases rare artifacts from popular music history and allows the visitor to experience music through interactive exhibitions like Sound Lab and On Stage. The Northwest passage was dedicated to the history of Seattle music, including Jimi Hendrix, Heart, and the grunge music genre. We spent quite a bit of time walking around this museum. The different exhibits were interesting and there was so much to look at that you walked through the space a couple of different times so that you were sure you didnt miss anything. If we ever go back to Seattle this museum will definately be on our list of places to see again.

While walking around and shopping Clayton found a license plate with his name on it. In Texas I guess Clayton is not a very popular name because we can never find anything with his name on it. Since we found it, we had to buy it.

We had a blast in Seattle and on the cruise and would do it all over again if we could.

 

ALASKA

Clayton and I went on a trip to Alaska with my family. This trip tops the list of all time favorite vacations. We left bright and early Friday morning and headed to Seattle to board the ship.

Clayton took one of the coolest pictures of the mountains from the plane. The window had been down most of the trip and he happened to open it and saw this outside.

We waited at the airport for my brother so that we could all board the ship together. My mom was a little stressed but we all made it on the boat with some time to spare.

Here is a look at our stateroom. The bed took up most of the room but there was a small desk and a love seat packed in. It was nice having a large window to look out of and to be honest the room wasn't that bad, there were a lot smaller rooms on the boat.



Next we had to line up at our Muster Station to go over the emergency procedures. This is where we first learned of the very bad stomach virus that can run rampant on a cruise ship traveling to Alaska. We did not realize at this moment how clean we all would be throughout the cruise but we would soon learn our fate. The hand sanitizer was brought out and every where you went there was a crew member sanitizing every person onboard. You also encountered these employees as you were getting off and on the boat at port. But even though these employees annoyed just about everyone on board, there was not an outbreak on our ship and for that I am thankful.

The rest of our first day was spent looking around the ship, eating and going to the first show. We were all pretty tired and crashed out early.

DAY 2: CRUISING

The boys played in a Ping Pong tournament. Clayton lost in the first round but Matt just missed a medal placing in fourth.

I will say the person that won the tournament took it pretty seriously; his wife video tapped the championship game.

It was nice being on the boat with no land in sight, the water was beautiful and the views were unbelievable.

I will say the weirdest thing was that the sun was out for about 18 hours, we would be walking around the ship at 10 or 11 at night and the sun would be setting.

DAY 3: JUNEAU

We arrived in Juneau and the views even from our room were amazing. After we got off the boat we ventured into town to do some shopping before our first excursion.

Matt found a hat that he was thinking about buying. He decided his money could be spent on other items. The shopping was not what we had expected. There were Jewelry shops every where.

We headed back towards the boat and got on a bus to head out to the first stop of our excursion, Mendenhall Glacier Park.

The glacier was an unbelievable sight to see.  





I found a piece of ice laying around and picked it up.

We all gathered together and got someone to take a family picture. I guess because of the cold weather the camera lens had a spot on it and the spot happened to be over Diana.. So dad took another one of mom and the kids.  

The kids went on an adventure and climbed up on top of a rock not using the path. Mom was right behind us until she saw a lady fall and get all muddy. She then realized it might not be the best idea and retreated. We made it to the top and took a kids picture.  

Up next on our excursion is Zip lining.

The people that worked at the Zip line place could not believe how tall Matt was. They also thought he was hilarious. They handed out all of the gear and everything Matt was handed was very very tiny and had to be loosened up and everything that I got was huge, we probably should have traded.

We all had a blast on the 5 different Zip lines and my mom even smiled most of the time. She said that the first one scared her the most but after that she had fun.

The weirdest part of the day was that most of the people on the excursion with us were from the Houston area. One girl thought that we all knew each other and didn't want to get in on the group picture since she thought we were taking a family picture.

On our way back to the boat the bus driver pointed out a couple bald eagles. Clayton and I ventured over to one of them and got as close to it as possible to take some pictures.

DAY 4: SKAGWAY

We arrived in Skagway in the morning and the kids decided to head into town. From the boat we took a short walk along a marina. Clayton was determined to find a fire station in Alaska. We stopped in a store and asked one of the employees where the nearest station was, they directed us a couple of blocks up.

The directions were not spot on but we started walking around and eventually stumbled on the station. We all walked in and met a couple of the firefighters. There were patches from all over hanging on the walls. Clayton traded a Houston Patch for a Skagway patch and talked a little about the call volume and other fire fighter stuff. Matt, Diana, and I got a little bored and walked outside to sit down and enjoy the cool weather. We walked around town a little more did some shopping and ate lunch at a local restaurant. After lunch we walked back to the ship to drop off what we bought and get ready for our excursions. 

On the way back to the ship I some how lost my SeaPass. When we checked in to get on the boat Matt asked if we could get back on the boat without our SeaPass. The woman checking him in said No that an individual would not be allowed on the boat without his/her SeaPass. This caused me to go into full panic mode. Clayton and I walked back into town, retraced our steps, but were not able to find my SeaPass. We walked back to the boat and asked the security guard if anyone turned in a SeaPass, surprisingly someone actually turned one in and I was able to get back on the boat. After the whole ordeal, Matt and Diana had found out that I could get back on the boat as long as I had my passport. O well now we know for next time.

The girls had signed up for a glassblowing excursion. The experience was really cool, mainly because I think glassblowing is interesting. We got on a bus and as we made our way to the excursion sight our tour guide talked a little about the city. We each had an opportunity to create a Christmas ornament. I choose to make a blue and orange ornament. It actually turned out pretty cool. We had a lot of fun making our own Christmas Ornaments and watching the other workers making various other items. What was really cool was they shipped our ornaments to us, and mine had arrived at the house before we even made it home. We also had a chance to explore the gift shop and gardens. You had to look closely in the gardens to see which plants and flowers were real and which ones were glass.

The boys signed up for a Yukon Jeep Excursion. They said it was amazing and they had a great time. I think this picture is pretty funny because of the height difference between my Dad, Matt, and Clayton. Clayton is not a small person but compared to my very tall Dad and Brother he looks quite small.

My Dad was able to drive the Jeep for the first part of the tour. There was a caravan of Jeeps with CB radios in each one. The guide was able to communicate with the Jeeps along the ride.

The boys encountered a slight problem, their Jeep broke down and they had to split up and ride with other people.

A bear was also encountered during the tour. The guide told them that when the bears come out from hibernation their stomachs take a while to start working again. The bears eat dandelions to jump start their stomach but since it takes a while the flowers ferment in their stomachs and they act like they are drunk.

The boys had a great time exploring the country in a Jeep. The girls were a little jealous, we wish would could have done both.

One of the interesting facts that we learned about a tradition that originated back in the gold rush days. Skagway was "the end of the line" for the ships carrying men and supplies to Alaska. With virtually no means of communications, and no port agent or authorities to keep track of the ships coming in and out of Skagway, the logo on the wall was a way to tell other captains that you had made it safely to that point and had headed back. Sometimes a new logo would be painted, other times just the date of arrival was changed. Now when a ship arrives in Skagway for the first time it is a tradition for the crew to go up and paint a sign/logo of the ship and the Captain's name. It is said the higher up the sign is the more liked the Captain is.

DAY 5 & 6: CRUISING

We woke up early on Day 5 because we were cruising through Tracy Arm Fjord. It was weird waking up to ice floating in the water. We had ordered room service the night before and when it arrived we took our food to my parent's room. They had a balcony and we were able to have an uninterrupted view of the Sawyer Glacier. This is where we first saw seals; we were not able to see this but some people reported that they had seen baby seals born on the ice while we were cruising through. This was probably one of my favorite sights of the whole trip. 

  Day 6 was mostly spent being lazy around the ship.

We were pretty close to land and were able to get some shots of mountains from the boat. 

We also took a family picture before Dinner. The photographer surprised all of us when he asked my parents and my Aunt Edda and Uncle John to sit on the floor instead of us or my cousins.

DAY 7: VICTORIA

Like the other ports, the kids walked around the city and did some shopping before we headed out to our excursion. Victoria was a very pretty city, and it felt the most normal out of all the ports on the cruise. Both Juneau and Skagway are tourist cities where the cruise ships are relied upon to keep the city in working order. Victoria was a normal city that cruise ships visited along the way. The shops would take US money but would give you your change in Canadian dollars. It was the weirdest thing. After we walked around a bit we went back to the ship to drop off our bags and catch a bus to our excursion.

We went on a whale watching excursion, after we got out on the water we realized that we would not be seeing any whales. The people that had gone out in the morning had not seen anything and none of the other companies had any luck locating any whales. The girl that was leading the discussion on the boat mentioned many times that the whales were further out then we were able to go in the time frame of the excursion. We did see some seals and a lot of seagulls. We ended up sitting inside the boat on the way back and talked with some people we had met on the ship. By the end of the trip we were wanting to rename the boat from Orca Spirit to Seagull Spirit. We should have gone with my aunt and uncle in Juneau; they saw a whole lot of whales.   

My parents went to the Butchart Gardens, and they had a great time. The Butchart Gardens is a National Historic site of Canada. The Gardens are still privately owned by the family, and offer 55 acres of wonderful floral display. Butchart Gardens are the inspiration for the gardens at the Canadian Pavilion in Epcot at Disney World. My parents said they enjoyed walking around and seeing everything the gardens had to offer. They also visited Craigdarroch Castle.

We all had a lot of fun on the cruise. The time flew by and we were not ready to get off the boat on Friday. I will leave you with our towel animals we had throughout our cruise. Up next Seattle.