Day 859

Everyone should go to Glacier Bay National Park at some point during their lifetime. There isn't anything as awe inspiring as seeing glaciers.

Unless you're talking about listening to a glacier pop and crack as it moves. And nothing as exciting as seeing it calve and drop into the ocean.

Except seeing humpback whales in their natural habitat. We ran into several pods as we left Glacier Bay today. Even more thrilling was to finally capture whales breaching. In all the trips we've made to Alaska I've never quite seen anything like these guys. Yeah, I kind of took a lot of pictures of them.

This last picture shows the part of just one of the pods of whales plus the remnants of a breach. They leave quite a splash for sure.

(If you think an Alaska cruise is out of your reach, it isn’t. We wouldn’t be doing this for the umpteenth time if it weren’t quite the bargain. Seven days, food included. $299 a person plus taxes. Go on vacation somewhere for a week or go on a cruise? It’s an obvious – you might even say financially sensible -choice for us. The trick is the timing. We book our cruise late, within a few weeks of the sail date, when they are trying to fill the ship and prices are rock bottom.)

Day 858

The picture I took of the ship today in Skagway should technically have Scooter in front of it. She got me all through another Alaskan town, from one end to another, in search of goodies. That good Thai food at Starfire, quilt fabric at the Quilt Alaska store, chocolate covered gummy bears from the fudge shop, and a new t-shirt at the Alaska Shirt Company. But one of my knees isn't doing so hot so it would have been a bit too hard to get off the scooter and walk some distance to get a really good picture.

Instead it’s just a picture of our ship docked in Skagway, taken while I was sitting on Scooter. But you do get to see some of the charms I've been picking up along the way that now decorate her handlebars.

Day 857

A venture into Juneau found Scooter gathering more stickers to adorn herself with and another bear visit. Lunch was at The Rookery Cafe, a local's hangout. A dungeness crab BLT and a turkey bacon sandwich with balsamic onions.

A stop for a couple pictures of flowers in bloom and all three of us (that includes Scooter) had a good day in Alaska's capital city.

Day 856

I wanted to start today’s blog with, The boy did good! But hubby insisted I say, Hubby did good!

Yep, he did. He made it to his salmon fishing trip. A man with cerebral palsy who can only use one hand, a man who, this time last year, was in kidney failure. A man who had been looking forward to this once in a lifetime adventure, an adventure that took confidence and bravery on his part.

Four salmon.

One was lost before being reeled in all the way.

One was a baby king salmon and had to be thrown back.

One was a silver salmon. A keeper.

One was a pink salmon. A keeper.

A hubby who had the biggest grin on his face all day. A keeper.

Today was his day and he took plenty of pictures to prove it. Lures, reels, rods, captain’s chair. A rock fish that was caught, tossed back into the water only to be snatched up quickly by a bald eagle. And of course, his salmon.