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I am waaaaaay too lazy to describe every stop I made. So I will post a ton of photos, talk about some of them, and if anyone has questions about any of the others, speak up!

I will say this- from Skagway to part of Canada, there was an insane amount of snow on the ground. It slowly got less and less, until there was none, further north.

Ok. Photo time.

For most of the driving, I was alone and didn’t see many other people. Sometimes, though, I saw other people. What’s going on behind this outhouse?

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Day 4: Skagway

Every single night I have been on vacation (including Seattle) I have passed out diagonal on the bed with the lights on and all sorts of electronics and papers all over the bed. This night was no different.

The view from my balcony, above, let me know that there was potential for a nicer day than yesterday. Unfortunately, my camera now would not even turn on, so iphoneography it was gonna have to be.

I didn’t have time for a sit down breakfast so I ran to the great outdoors and filled up a plate with scrambled eggs and potatoes. Unfortunately I realized the potatoes were actually hash (with meat in it) so I only ate half my plate. It was time for priority disembarkation (I love this!) so I skeedaddled over there and I was the first one off the ship.

Upon leaving the shop, many stones are painted with the names of ships and captains that have been here before.

You will also pass the white pass railway train, a popular tour.

But we are going to take our own tour.

Off it was for the maybe 1/2 mile walk to Avis where I had rented a car for around $150. The process was smooth, the people were nice, and soon I was on my way.

I made a map ahead of time and saved it with a bunch of pins to my google map. The destinations were by and large from Murray’s Guide. (http://*****************)

I have AT&T and I have roaming turned off, so pretty much one I left Skagway, there was no service. Which also means that my map looked like a big green blob, but not to worry, there’s really only one road and if you have pins on your map, you will know where to stop! You just might not know why unless you match it up to the guide or have your locations saved offline.

This next part is going to be very picture heavy.

First stop, gold rush cemetery. This was the first cemetery in Skagway, with a lot of famous locals of the gold rush buried here. It’s a weird right hand turn that doesn’t seem like you are going the right way as you cut through a sort of industrial area, but you are.

The grave “stones” are mostly made of wood, many are reproductions, and many of them are surrounded by fences that look like baby cribs.

Soapy Smith, a local mobster, and the man who killed him are all here.

There are also some unknowns buried here, one a hapless bank robber who accidentally blew himself up with dynamite. They say all that was left was his head.

More graves:

https://instagram.com/p/BiYYlhZh3Sb/

https://instagram.com/p/BiYalHCBg_L/

https://instagram.com/p/BiYbCvQhRBb/

Up a ways from this hilly graveyard is Lower Reid falls. You can’t get all the way up, but it’s a nice, bucolic view.

https://instagram.com/p/BiYZgjEBzxk/

https://instagram.com/p/BiYYlyKh-bH/

Back in the car I go.

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I also have the UBP and plan to take full advantage of it, including Bloody Marys at breakfast--but how does that work? Can you get one at the buffets, or do you go somewhere else to get it and bring it back? I didn't see Moderno listed as an option for breakfast, but since that's where you went, I'm obviously missing something. :confused:

 

 

 

Also, how's your camera today???

I don’t know if you can get it at the buffet but you can bring it to the buffet! Moderno is for haven (and maybe suite?) guests for breakfast. I am just a lowly plebe, but they gave me a lot of extras for setting up the meet and greet so I get breakfast there and I have been using it!

Spoiler alert: my camera eventually recovered, let’s hope it stays that way.

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Dailies for day 4 (Skagway.)

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Back to my room.

I found this waiting for me. It was a nice little pick me up.

Then, I went to send my photos from my camera to my phone.

This is where the potential tragedy occurred. My camera did not work. It turned on, but none of the buttons work.

I literally only bought this camera 6 months ago, as an upgrade from something else that I JUST gave away. Canons, particularly the rebel series, do not have much in the way of weathersealing, Dr. Google told

Me, and I just jacked my camera in the rain getting terrible photos. My whole next day was set up to be a camera heavy day, and now I had none.

I opened everything up, blowdried it on cool, considered calling the concierge for a bag of rice, and cried a little. I spent a lot on this trip, I really didn’t want to spend another $1000 to replace a very new camera. I also have plans for a fun shoot next weekend and I really didn’t want to be an iphoneographer.

I drowned my sorrows in pasta (I never eat pasta,) wine, and this, which made me feel a little better.

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It was about 6:30, and I literally had the whole place to myself. If only it wasn’t so gross out.

I got my camera out of my bag and took a few photos. I setup my tripod, and wanted to take some long exposure, vanilla frosting type photos of the falls. It was not raining hard, but an exposure more than a second or so pretty much guaranteed droplets on my lens, messing up the photo. I didn’t bring a lens hood and I don’t know how much the one I have would have helped since it was windy.

(Falls at different exposures)

I took some selfies, but these too were often ruined by droplets.

The glacier was so covered in mist, i couldn’t get a good shot.

Anyway, after a bit I headed back. I had intended on calling a cab, but on my way in I ran into some people I knew from the ship and they mentioned uber had finally gotten to Juneau.

I checked uber and it was like $60. I remember the regular taxis being a little cheaper. So I prepared to call them.

One of the tour operators mistook me for one of her people. I explained I wasn’t, and she asked how I got there. I explained, and explained my intended way back, and she invited me to ride home on her bus, so I did, for free.

I felt like I was wet on the inside and the ship was a site for sore eyes.

So, after our whale watching tour, captain Steve gave us a gift bag in commemoration of the first tour of his first season.

It was very nice and I look forward to the book.

He kindly dropped me off close to the glacier. I assured him I had some numbers for cabs and that I could get myself back.

The weather was absolutely miserable. I walked to nugget falls, which is a mile each way. 15 minutes if you are fast, 30 if you are slow. An even, gravel path for those without great footing.

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Did I miss where you've explained this cryptic statement? Don't leave us hanging!

Coming up shortly.

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Captain Steve!

Bald eagle!

Sea lions!

Whales!

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Disembarking in Juneau, Captain Steve picked

Me and 2 others up and told us a little about the city on our way to Auke Bay. The Juneau Capitol building is one of only 2 in the states without a dome.

We want to think of eagles as majestic but there were at least 3 dozen here waiting to eat from the dump.

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More

Wandering day 3 photos:

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More wandering on day 3 with photos:

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Ok, day 3: Juneau. Now with photos.

Writers note: the internet is really sucking. I am going to just Catch up without photos and then sometime when I have better internet, heck, even 4g, I will post photos.

The weather is grey and cold and wet. The rocking has stopped.

I have a nice breakfast of eggs in moderno, with a Bloody Mary, and explored the ship some more before my facial.

I have a facial in the morning. I go, and don’t have to fill out a consult form because they have the one I did already. The one that says do not sell me any product.

I hate when people giving facials (or doing hair) give you a science lesson. A. It’s often stuff I already know, and B. It’s often geared towards selling stuff later. C. It’s not usually accurate, or at least it’s skewed towards B. If I never hear the word “toxins” again I’ll be happy.

She had an accent, and I was uninterested, so I couldn’t understand a lot of what she was saying but there is no “teenager” layer of the skin. I just let my eyes glaze over and shook my head as quickly as possible so we could get on with it.

The facial felt amazing, and my skin looked and felt great after. Microdermabrasion, massage, oxygen, some sort of probably BS red and blue light, extractions, I don’t care, it felt good.

She does not try to sell me anything, besides another facial, but does bring me a box of all of the things she used on me to “show” me.

Sure, like I just wanted to “show” my grandma the new Jem doll at ChildWorld in 1986.

I got on the defensive and got out of it pretty easily.

I wandered the ship some more.

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Loving the information and photos. Do you find the need for hiking/snow boots? How many layers of clothes? Cell phone connection in US ports? TIA

I didn’t bring any, but if I had, my Skagway trip would have been a little different. I’ll get there, but I drove up to the Yukon, and there was a lot of snow. Ironically not up there, but just north of Skagway.

A reasonable winter coat was fine over my regular clothes, today if it wasn’t rainy I would probably skip the coat all together and Just wear a hoodie over my clothes. Tomorrow is going to be 66 in Victoria and I expect to bring a hoodie only because I will be on a bike.

Cell phone connection in ports no problem. At least for me with AT&T. You lose that pretty quickly outside of Skagway.

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I know it’s weird I am answering IG questions here, but the IG people came from here, and the internet is really sucking for anything graphical.)

The hot tubs are hot!

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and thanks, about your kind words about my photos. I have a bad habit of barfing all over Instagram! I basically queued all the photos up this morning and it’s taking all day to actually post them. The videos- faggeddaboudit. Shame, I have some awesome time lapses.

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Well I got impatient so I went to Instagram. Your pictures are great and it's bringing back so many memories! :loudcry: I love seeing all the snow.

 

 

 

Oh I loved having the spa access for Alaska--I'm a wimp and it was too cold for me to get in the public hot tubs. On our cruise, they were pretty crowded too.

Fair assessment! Today I was enroute to the spa and I said “F it! I want to be outside!” It wasn’t that windy (except for the gust that made my card go flying...) but your mileage may vary, (ymmv, as the kids say.)

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Add me to the class of '78, taking an Alaskan cruise to celebrate! It'll be my first cruise ever, on the Pearl leaving July 29, so I'm loving all your pictures and commentary! Keep it coming!!! (y)

Yay! 40 is the new 28, I am convinced, and 28 is probably my favorite age for no real reason. My boyfriend sometimes talks about how he wishes he was born in [insert variable year here] but I think we were born in the best time ever. Old enough that we have solid pre-internet roots and young enough that we can be cutting edge with the internet (I invented Instagram in my head when i was a kid, and I am so happy that it is a thing now. I will never get over that we live in the future, forever.)

Disclaimer: a bad influence bartender named jamesmichael (confirmed) got me drunk by suggesting delicious libations. I am currently drinking something called the getaway that I highly reccommend.

To be Continued! Sadly without photos! For now... (dun dun DUN!)

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I hope the trip is going well. I read somewhere that weather in Juneau was pretty yucky. Can't wait to hear all about the whale watching (and if you got to go).

Oh god. It was awful. It didn’t stop me from doing anything I wanted to do, but the visibility really diminished the magnificence of the glacier and falls. Well, and something potentially terrible happened, but I haven’t gotten that far in the story yet...

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Ok, day 3: Juneau.

Writers note: the internet is really sucking. I am going to just Catch up without photos and then sometime when I have better internet, heck, even 4g, I will post photos.

The weather is grey and cold and wet. The rocking has stopped.

I have a nice breakfast of eggs in moderno, with a Bloody Mary, and explored the ship some more before my facial.

I have a facial in the morning. I go, and don’t have to fill out a consult form because they have the one I did already. The one that says do not sell me any product.

I hate when people giving facials (or doing hair) give you a science lesson. A. It’s often stuff I already know, and B. It’s often geared towards selling stuff later. C. It’s not usually accurate, or at least it’s skewed towards B. If I never hear the word “toxins” again I’ll be happy.

She had an accent, and I was uninterested, so I couldn’t understand a lot of what she was saying but there is no “teenager” layer of the skin. I just let my eyes glaze over and shook my head as quickly as possible so we could get on with it.

The facial felt amazing, and my skin looked and felt great after. Microdermabrasion, massage, oxygen, some sort of probably BS red and blue light, extractions, I don’t care, it felt good.

She does not try to sell me anything, besides another facial, but does bring me a box of all of the things she used on me to “show” me.

Sure, like I just wanted to “show” my grandma the new Jem doll at ChildWorld in 1986.

I got on the defensive and got out of it pretty easily.

I wandered the ship some more.

Soon it was time to go out into the pea soup. Priority disembarkation is awesome.

Here’s where I do my sales pitch. Although I have no stake in things.

If you have not booked an excursion in Juneau, and want to, please consider Alaska Humpback Adventures.

I was actually their first client. But that’s not to say Captain Steve is inexperienced, far from

It.

Steve’s brother in law started Harv and Marv’s, and he was a customer favorite captain under the new owners. He has branched out and opened his own company, piloting the Merlin.

The Merlin fits 6 people besides the captain. I had 2 others on the excursion with me, which was amazing. I am really bad at seeing quick things. Like, it was always a joke that something happened right in front of me and I didn’t see it. Steve made sure I saw the action. You don’t get that kind of focus on a larger tour, and there is absolutely no advantage to a larger tour- the little boat can go everywhere the big boats can.

He showed us several bald eagles, buoys full of sea lions and some swimming ones. 3 humpback whales, that we watched multiple times. There was even one that came up every 4 minutes, which is quick!

I had my camera with me and he was focused on me getting shots.

Steve clearly loves what he does, he got as excited as the rest of us about each whale sighting.

He was totally professional, totally nice, very knowledgeable and shares that knowledge. He lives a really interesting, meaningful life and it was interesting to talk to him about that. He lives off the grid on a remote island and has several adopted native children (some Are adults.) he does local ministry and helps out the community. As an atheist (me) I found myself in awe of the good he does in the name of religion. Being a good guy is not a reason to book his excursion, but all of the other things about the service you get from him is. I guarantee you, there is no better. Check out Alaskahumpbackadventures.com. Tell him lisa sent you. (Or don’t- I don’t get anything out of it )but his tour is great and I saw some great things with my eyes (and some ok things with my camera. It’s a bucket list thing for sure.

We stayed a little longer than the excursion was supposed to be- because we all agreed to. We had 2 of the 3 whales all to ourselves.

It was cold and rainy and grey, but I almost didn’t notice. There were binoculars and snacks aplenty.

After the tour was over, Steve gave us a very sweet gift, as we were his inaugural tour.

He and I had prearranged for him to drop me near mendenhall glacier on the way back. I don’t know that this can happen all the time- I am early in the season- but it can’t hurt to ask.

I took the hike to nugget falls. A couple people on here have asked me via Instagram and here how long it takes- Instagram is being really slow because the internet sucks so it’s hard for me to answer there- but it took me about 15 minutes to get to the falls. I walk fast- about 4mph. If you walk average, it will take you 20 (3 mph) and if you are slow, (2mph) then 30 minutes.

When I got to the falls, there wasn’t another soul there. I spent about 30 minutes taking photos with my tripod, some longer exposures, some timed photos of myself, and some regular photos. The otherwise Impressive glacier played second fiddle because of visibility. Honestly, for a whole

Area that should have left me very awestruck, it was kind of mediocre because of the weather. It was pea soup. What should have taken my breath away was sadly, just ok.

I walked back to the visitor’s center area, and got ready to call an uber. Uber has recently taken on Juneau. It was a $60 ride back to the port. A tour bus driver told me not to worry about it and to jump on her bus. Score.

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Ahh, here it is!

So, so that this post is not just a photo of me, I’m going to share a few observations.

1.) I am not sure the spa pass is worth it on this trip. The outdoor hot tubs are mostly empty and kind of nicer!

2.) pet peeve, and not the room steward’s fault. I hate that they shut the curtains every time they make up the room. I always want to see out the window. I want the light to wake me up.

3.) canon’s DSLRs are not weather sealed. Bring a weather package if cameras don’t grow on trees for you.

4.) i have only cruised once before with unlimited beverage, but in my experience, and in that of everyone I have read, after awhile they play kind of loosey goosey with your card. And if you get a drink that has coffee in it, they don’t charge you for the coffee. Not so here. They take the card every time here, and when they were selling boozy coffee and hot chocolate at glacier bay, they charged a nominal fee for the coffee part.

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Wow, this is getting hard to keep up on! Images take a long time to upload on this internet. It really sucks. Tip: I wouldn’t bother with the streaming premium package. It’s not like you can actually do it.

Anyway, heading back to my room, it smelled like sour milk. Someone got sea sick and they were cleaning it up.

Day 2 towel animal:

Dailies for day 3:

Anyway, this is how i spent most of the rest of the night:

You are going to have to imagine me in a hoodie hanging out at dusk on my balcony. I have tried uploading this photo like 100 times.

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wait, is this a 3 day cruise? no!

Whoops! I meant rest of the night!

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Our chef was very cute and fun.

I was beyond full and had to get out of there, so I did. I decided the rest of my cruise would be spent relaxing in my room, and on my balcony.

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After the spa, teppanyaki. The man next to me did not understand that I ordered tofu. He said scallops and shrimp are not meat, and also not animals. That was literally the only time he interacted with me besides sneering at my tofu.

I’ve been here before- they don’t press their tofu so it’s not my favorite, but it’s serviceable. The veggies and fried rice and such are nice.

Note: I am a miso snob. Most miso soup you get included in meals at japanese restaurant are gross. They did a good job with this.

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