Thumbs up! Let's ride!

Yup, that's me with the thumbs up! I'm ready to drive my first ATV - and what a place to do it! I just wish there were some pictures of me riding through the water - and all the other places that I never thought I'd be driving an ATV. (I'm not known for being too risky...) I LOVED it!
We had this great view - and then we rode down to this river and back. A fun adventure!

Here we are checking out some scenery.

Okay, look closely. This is a FRESH grizzly bear track. You can even see the claws in the mud. The guide said those tracks were not there 2 1/2 hours earlier when they had been here. There was a grizzly in the area that folks were trying to capture. That's as close as I hope to ever be to a grizzly, huh?

That's me with my arms up. My machine was the smaller red one in the fore ground. Check out the mountains in the distance.

Copper River Princess Lodge

Our first lodge was in Copper River, Alaska and we loved it. It wasn't very large and the views of the Wrangell - St. Elias mountains were spectacular. And the Copper River salmon was delicious!!

The chairs in the lodges were positioned facing the windows and the views... These are the windows that face the mountains. Can you see the mountains in the reflection?

I think this is Mt. Drum.

Here is our group at dinner at Copper River. We were much more casual than our attire on the ship. That was quite fancy and very proper!

Our favorite thing - the glaciers.

All of us on the trip (there were 10 of us) agreed that seeing the glaciers, hearing them breaking off and seeing them fall into the bay, was probably the highlight of the trip. One day we cruised Glacier Bay and another day we cruised College Fjord where many glaciers bear the names of major colleges. The ship spent a fair amount of time broadside to the huge Harvard glacier. It was 3 1/2 miles wide and 200 feet high. Here Wally is on our balcony looking for seals, otters and whales as we were nearing the glaciers. . We saw seals and otters and only one quick sighting of a whale.

This is college fjord. Those white "rivers of snow" are glaciers that end into the fjord.

This is the grand Harvard glacier. It is hard to comprehend the size; we felt like we were right up near it - until we realized how long it took just for the sound to reach us after we saw the glacier "calve" - and note the boat in the water there - it was not a small boat and perhaps it can help you understand the size of this glacier. It was much wider then this picture - this photo perhaps captures 1/3 of the width of the glacier.

Here we went out on deck to view the glacier.

If you look closely you can see some of the ice streaming into the water. Even that little bit made a loud sound. But when larger chunks broke off and fell, it was amazing! We saw that and you could hear everyone watching ohhh and ahhh in awe. The falling ice would also send out significant waves on the water.

Where to start?

We have returned from a wonderful vacation to Alaska. It is hard to describe and hard to choose which pictures to post. I don't want to overdo it so I will try to be somewhat concise. Above is a picture of our room. Rooms on cruise ships are not know for being large and we chose a room with a balcony. We were very pleased with that decision.

Our first port was Ketchikan. A fine little town. It was wet but didn't dampen our explorer spirit!

The next port was the capital, Juneau. On the walk towards the very nice governor's mansion, JoAnn and I saw a bear! No kidding! This is a close-up with my zoom lens. Apparently the authorities were trying to capture him as there had been other sightings of this 1 year old but he is still enjoying life on the lam.

Our favorite port was Skagway - really cozy, rustic town. Very clean, very friendly.

Here is a view of our ship while docked in Skagway. The wide section high in the front is the "bridge" where the captain and others guide the ship.

Update from Alaska!

Hello from Copper River! We are at the Copper River Princess Wilderness Lodge. We are enjoying this beautiful state and have seen lots of sights. The cruise was grand and the glaciers were amazing - we saw (and heard) them breaking off and falling into the bay just like on travel videos! Now we are on land and today we went on a good 2 1/2 hour ATV riding venture. The sights were spectacular. We also saw fresh grizzly bear tracks - I'm not kidding either. The guide was cautious and said folks have been trying to find the fellow to get rid of him. Also there have been numerous black bear sightings here at the lodge; the latest was at 11:30 a.m. this morning on one of the walking paths. I'm not sure I'll be walking alone here!

Tomorrow we head to the Denali Princess Hotel and the following day we will be rafting. (floating, no big rapids.) The weather has been cool but the rain held off when we visited the towns of Skagway, Ketchikan and Juneau. Last evening the skies cleared and we saw the mountains - and today was gorgeous. We hope it will be also nice in Denali so we can get a glimpse of Mt. McKinley.

Be glad I can't post pictures...... I have TONS.

Land of the Midnight Sun

Well, this blog will be quiet for 2 weeks as Walter and I head off to Alaska! We are going to Minneapolis tomorrow (Friday) and flying west early Saturday morning.

Here are a few scenes to let you picture what we hope to experience. We will be cruising from Vancouver, B.C. and stop at Skagway, Juneau & Ketchikan on our way to Whittier. We will cruise through Glacier Bay and College Fjord. We'll be on the Sapphire Princess - and we have a room with a balcony, so I really envision morning coffee on the balcony! (probably bundled up)

Maybe we'll see where this kayaker went...

We definitely expect to see this quaint town!

After we complete our cruise in Whittier, we will then take a land tour for 6 nights. We will be in Copper River; near Denali National Park; close to Mt. McKinley and finish up in Anchorage to fly home.

Hopefully we can post pictures in August of our trail rides, ATV venture and wilderness raft trip. See you in August!

p.s. I'm going cold turkey - no internet - it's too expensive on the ship to use so I am just going to resist.... !!

Backyard picnic

Today Walter and I decided to put up the old screen room that we have used camping. I think it has been quite some time since we used it. Sara and I have a memory of trying to both put it up together at a campsite before everyone else arrived - that must have been at least 9 years ago since it was while they were engaged - and it was so windy that we had such a hard time getting it up. We struggled and laughed and through sheer determination DID IT. Girl power!

Anyway, we invited Norman & Martha and Daniel & Meghan and children over for a picnic supper. It was a warm sunny evening and not too windy.

Sean Patrick got the seat of honor in the high chair!

Preston wanted some attention from Grandpa reading a book. He did have some cute jean shorts on but they kept sliding down so he just stepped right out of them. Funny!

Sean Patrick is getting bigger, of course. He now has two bottom teeth but I didn't manage to get a picture of them.

Happy Birthday to my big brother

Happy Birthday, Monday, July 21st, to my brother John. I'm sorry that I missed the big hoe-down party this weekend as I really love to square dance! Have a wonderful birthday today!

Getting Sam (or is it Barney?) ready for a wagon ride.

The sisters pose with the birthday boy.

A year ago in Cody, Wyoming.

A nice way to spend an evening

Dinner with good friends is always special. This was no exception.

W gets on line!

Something new in our household! W is now the proud owner of his own notebook computer and has joined the computer generation! I guess he knew it would be hard to share my computer so he opted to get his very own (thank you.) So now he can turn on his computer, log on, check some websites and log off. Not bad! Together we even downloaded google earth. Very cool.

More grandchildren photos...

Well, here we are attempting a photo of Walter and me with our 8 precious grandchildren. It's not quite as funny as the last picture with the 7 when most of them were not cooperating and we just sat down fast and took three pictures. This was the best one. I think I'll try lollypops as bribes next time. The children who cooperate get a lollypop. Hm... maybe not such a good idea. Lots of tears with those who don't get that lollypop... I've have to think of something else...

Taking another good look at Tobias. We just love him to pieces already.

Sean Patrick wasn't so sure what the deal was here - Hannah decided to sit down back to back with him.

A view of some of the backyard fun at John & Sara's.

Aunt Martha visits with Sara and Tobias.

The grandma's hover over Tobias and his mommy.

The grand-daughters were the only ones really interested in baby Tobias. Brooklyn was old enough to really hold him (though there is an adult arm in there) and Hannah also loved to hold and touch him. The boys... well, not so much...

On Saturday evening we were outside at John & Sara's and we set Sean Patrick in this basket. He seemed to like it.

Preston and Daddy try to make faces for grandma's camera.

Preston decided that if that basket was good for Sean Patrick, it might be good for him as well.

Hannah thought she should join Preston then, but he wasn't impressed with that AT ALL.

Brooklyn and Timothy get ready to chow down.

Sean Patrick and Josiah are 3 months apart and are now getting closer in size. I was trying to get them to look at the camera at the same time but I had to take two - here is Sean Patrick looking at grandma and...
here is Josiah looking at grandma.

Another cute Josiah photo. He is so photogenic!

Hannah is pretty used to the camera as well. I asked her for a smile and she quickly turned to coooperate. Cute.