Juneau, AK Day 8

We had two min highlights for our day yesterday. The first was our whale-watching and wildlife quest in the fiords around Juneau. We saw Stellar Sea-lions, many bald eagles, and the main attraction, the humpback whales. We actually saw around 8 different whales, but the most spectacular was a cow and calf. The calf had a bit of an Elvis personality and was breaching the water right off the front of our boat. For those that don't know, humpbacks are not like Shamu the killer whale. They don't normally breach, but this young fellow of about 8 months was showing off. He jumped completely out of the water 3 times! That quite a feat for a whale that weighs about 16 tons. The naturalist said that they are born weighing 2 tons, which would be the equivalent of a human giving birth to a three-year-old! Mom produces 100-150 gallons of milk per day, without eating! It was a sight to be held, and one we will not forget.

The second attraction was our nightly program on board the ship after we left port. His name was Sideshow Bert, and he sure made us laugh. He juggled 3 machetes, 3 flaming fire sticks, a medieval battle axe with an apple and a 12 pound bowling ball. He also got up on a rolling balance board and juggled, as well as on top of a unicycle. Being from Texas, and speaking some Spanish, we found his jokes humurous. He constantly referred to everything as "the una cycleta del muerte, or the flaming torches del muerte." Most of the crowd was up there in years, and I don't think they got the del muerte joke (it means of death.)

Today we are docked in Ketchikan, and are supposed to take a float plane up to the Misty Fiords National Park and land on a glacier-fed lake up there. It should be a show, as long as Stan doens't loose his cookies on the trip!

Tomorrow will be at sea, so we will probably not be able to post until we dock in Vancouver on Sunday.

Haines/Skagway, AK Day 7

We pulled into the dock at picturesque Haines yesterday. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but the town that carries my maiden name is not much of a town. We took the White Pass/Yukon Narrow Gauge Railroad up the mountain into British Columbia. There were several beautiful waterfalls, glaciers, and alpine flowers. We went over a wooden bridge and through two pitch-black tunnels to get there. That was the darkest we have seen since we left Texas. Alaska currently has about 20-22 hours of daylight, with the longest day of the year coming up on June 21.

Today we are in the capital of Alaska, Juneau. We are taking a whale-watching tour this afternoon and hope to see some Humpbacks. (Actually, we've already seen quite a few on our ship, they just have white hair on their heads.)

Anchorage, Seward, Glacier Bay, AK Days 4-6

We have not had Internet access for the last few days. Actually, we have, but as frugal teachers, we weren't willing to pay .75 for one minute of access on the ship...

We left Denali by motor coach and it took all day. The scenery on the way to Anchorage and Seward was the most beautiful I have ever seen! I would love to come back up here and stay in a cabin for awhile. We boarded the ship in Seward and didn't get a chance to look around.

The next day we spent on board the ship cruising the coast. We saw lots of glaciers and snow, as well as some humpback whales from a distance.

The following day, yesterday, was spent in Glacier Bay. We got to see an enormous piece of ice fall into the ocean. The park ranger said it was the size of a residential house, about 250 ft long. It was spectacular! The water was a beautiful turqouise blue and it was very peacful. After dinner, we saw an amazing violin/fiddle player on the ship. He danced while he played every song, and even went out into the audience and balcony! He told jokes, and even played the violin upside down on his head! We stayed up late to try out the midnight German buffet, but alas, no sauerkraut (not that I would eat it anyway.)

Today we have docked at our first port, Haines. I'll try to update again tomorrow in port at Juneau.

Denali National Park, AK Days 3 and 4

Lions, Tigers, and Bears, Oh My! Not really, but caribou, moose, and bears anyway.

We took the McKinley Explorer train down to Denali. It is a dome-topped train car and the view were pretty awesome. That night, we took a covered wagon tour into the woods and had dinner with local history provided by a Serbian college student of all people. He was very knowledgeable, but how strange to hear about Alaska from someone that's not from here! Almost everyone that is here working in Alaska is not from Alaska. I guess that tells you something about how people feel when they visit...they don't want to leave!

We had a great tour of the park yesterday. We got to see two big bull moose cross the road right in front of us. Then we saw a mother grizzly bear and her cub playing on the hillside and cross the road right in front of us. We were also extra lucky and got to see several Dahl sheep cross the road in front of us, so we got some great pictures! Last night we took a last minute flight-seeing trip to Mt. McKinley. It was really cloudy all day yesterday until early evening, so we were able to take the last flight. We didn't get to see the mountain, for it makes it's own weather and was cloudy, but we got more great pictures of glaciers and the Alaskan mountain range.

Today, we are on a full-day trip down to Seward to board our ship for the cruise.

Fairbanks, AK Day 2

I'm sure all 2 people who might be following this blog are at least slightly curious about how we did at the gold mine yesterday, but not so fast. I'll give you a hint and tell you that our total involves the sixth digit! We started the day on a sternwheeler riverboat tour that took us past a dog sled kennel, where we got a brief lesson on how the dogs are trained for the iditorod race. We also stopped and got off the ship for about an hour at a recreated series of Athabascan villages. One was set before the Eurpoean influence, one was set after, and one was a little more recent. Fun fact: reindeer and caribou are genetically identical. The only difference is that reindeer have been domesticated.

We had a very long day of geology, natural history, archeology, and just plain fun.

We ended our bus tour at Gold Dredge #8, where we saw the true meaning of "work." After that we went over to the El Dorado Gold Mine and tried our hand at panning for gold, also much work. We sat on the bench and worked steadily at sloshing out the rocks and sand as we bent over a large trough of water. It sure is hard on the knees and lower back!! After about 30 minutes-that-seemed-like-30-hours, we finally had some help finishing up sloshing the pans. (For those that have never done this before, you have a very strong urge to be VERY careful because you don't want to slosh out your gold!) We took our little flakes out of the pan and took them into the store to be weighed. I thought I might actually make some money because mine flakes had weight to them and they rattled in the canister. I heard people ahead of us getting totals of $40-$60 worth. Eventually, we ended up getting mine weighed, and the total was....

$6 for 2 grams of gold. Stan wasn't so lucky, as his little flakes didn't even register on the scale. Then, true to the American dream, we spent $40 to buy a locket-type necklace to show off the $6 worth of flakes!

We ended the day at the Museum of the North, which is on the campus of the University of Alaska at Fairbanks. It was very interesting and we took several pictures, and completed our knowledge of the Alaskan interior, but to our bodies it was 12 am Central when we left the museum, so we were exhausted.

Today, we are taking the dome-car train down to Denali National Park. There should be lots of wild animal viewing...

Fairbanks, AK Day 1

We arrived in Fairbanks at 8 PM Central time (5 PM local time). We decided to try out some local cuisine at the Thai House. It was really good! Afterward, we decided to head over to a local ice cream shop we heard about (Hot Licks), but we had to take the bus. On the way, one of the stops was at the local Wal-Mart. I believe we witnessed something slightly unusual...
As we pulled up to the bus stop, I looked over and saw a military truck complete with the canvas roll-up roof. There were several soldiers that were loaded metal folding chairs into the back that they had just purchased at Wal-Mart! We thought it was a little unusual just to see the vehicle. We are now sitting in the hotel lobby making use of the wireless and it is 11:30 PM Central time and broad daylight. They say the official sunset is 12:30ish and sunup is abou 3:30, but the hours in between are more like twilight, not dark.

Check back tomorrow to see if we strike it rich on our Gold Dredge Tour!

Science part II

This week, in order to celebrate Nurse's Day, we were allowed to wear scrubs and tennis shoes to work. I don't own any, so I went over to my sister Amy's house to borrow some from her since she is a nurse. I picked out a cute polka-dot top that has a modern look to it. It is brown with turquoise, pink, lime, and pale yellow dots that sometimes overlap. When I walked out to the dining table where the kids were having breakfast that morning, Joshua pointed to my top and said "Momma, your shirt has molecules on it." It's a good thing I teach Science...