Cruisin' in the AK (Alaska, not Arkansas).

A few weeks ago Trevor and I went on a cruise to Alaska with his family. I had a.) never been on a cruise, b.) never been to Alaska, and c.) never left my baby for a week. I was up for the Alaska and cruise part, but the leaving my child thing took some convincing. And by some I actually mean a lot. Luckily Trevor kept telling me how irrational I was being and how Thompson wouldn't forget us or think we abandoned him forever. Although I had more separation anxiety than Thompson did, we had an amazing trip and I never realized how gorgeous Alaska would be.

Here are some of the highlights from our trip and about a million pictures to go along. So stop reading now if you don't want to read a long post.

We flew into Seattle where we got on our cruise ship pretty much right away. The first day and a half we just spent sailing and enjoy the gorgeous views. We also saw lots of whales, but mostly just their blowholes and a few random fins. Lazy things didn't want to jump out of the water for us I guess.

And if the view wasn't exciting enough, Gnomeo and Juliet was playing on deck.

We also got dressed up for formal nights, watched all the awesomely bad cruise entertainment, and ate lots of food. And I mean lots and lots of food. Really, it is disgusting how much a cruise encourages you to eat. And it is disgusting how much I gave into it. Trevor and I have decided not to eat for the next month. 

We got to Juneau on our second day and don't worry, we had a armed coast guard escort us in. Nothing says dangerous like a cruise ship full of tourists. Be warned Russia, Alaska is prepared if you ever come at us.

In Juneau we went to see the Mendenhall Glacier. We took a 2+ hour hike into the woods around the glacier.

Until we realized there was a 30 min. walk we could take that took us right up to the glacier and the giant waterfall from it.

The ice of the glaciers is SO blue. It's hard to tell even from pictures how vibrant and deep blue it is in some places.

Later that night we took a break from cruise ship food and went out to eat at the Twisted Fish. Trevor, his sister, and his cousin splurged on some Alaskan King Crab and then couldn't stop talking about how amazing it was for days.

After Juneau, we went to Skagway. Trevor's sister had a friend driving tour buses up there this summer, so she was able to give us our own personal tour.

We also took a train through the mountains. We went over narrow tracks and through tunnels in the mountains. It was kind of like a Disneyland ride, but with real scenery.

The train took us up into Canada.

We weren't stopping there and didn't need our passports since we weren't to getting off the train. Or at least we weren't supposed to. But while the conductor was busy switching the engine...

...Trevor jumped off the train and stole a piece of Canada. Only his brother and a freaked out Portuguese lady saw him.

After Skagway our ship cruised through Glacier Bay National Park. The Park Ranger who came on board to narrate the whole experience told us not to take pictures but to just look at it so we could permanently ingrain the beautiful images in our memory. That way, we could just close our eyes and always see it. His motivational speech was pretty amazing, but I went the picture route myself. In his words, "we came face to face with the ice age. Some of you even took a picture of it". He took his job pretty seriously.

Our final stop in Alaska was in Ketchikan. It was a cute little town and my favorite of the ones we stopped at, and I wished we had more than just a morning there.

We did have enough time to check out a few of their famous totem poles though.

We also got to see a professional lumberjack show.

One of the lumberjacks came into the audience to flirt with Trevor's sister/give her a piece of wood he sawed off. He was the same one who wore a tutu while climbing up the post in the picture above. I don't think she gave him her number.

After Alaska we had one more stop to make so that the cruise could officially be "international": Victoria, B.C. We were were there only 5 hours, from 7pm-midnight. Most of the shops in town were closed, so we first went to a park near the town. We found cute little ponds
and peacocks in the park.

Oh, and Trevor and Danika danced with some Canadian hippies.

In my short time in Canada, I learned a few things. First, Canadians have weird bushes.

We also happened to be there on July 1st, which, for you non-Canucks, happens to be the one and only Canada Day. This leads me to the second thing I learned about Canadians. They take their holiday very, very seriously. After we went to the park we headed into town and stumbled upon the whole population of Victoria.

 
All the people not wearing red were from our cruise ship. Seriously, people don't celebrate like this here. I never realized there were so many ways to make Canadian flags into dresses. Maybe I am just going to the wrong 4th of July parties, but I think Canadians have us beat when it comes to crazy pride in their country on their independence day.  Our pride comes in the form of the pledge of allegiance and "Bless the troops" bumper stickers.  Theirs comes in the form of barely clothing themselves in Canadian colors and drinking Canadian beer.

After partying with the Canadians, we headed back to Seattle. Since we had quite a bit of time before our flight and had never been to Seattle, Trevor's family was nice enough to check our bags for us at the airport while the two of us explored the city.

We went to an adorable antique shop, walked around Pikes Place Market (thanks Kalie for the suggestion!), ate Beecher Cheese macaroni and cheese, and stopped by Fran's chocolates, which is the fanciest chocolate shop in existence. 

They had the best and cheapest flowers at Pikes Place. I wish I lived there so I could get inexpensive fresh flowers all the time.

We had a great time, but we were definitely ready to come home to our little boy. Despite my fears, he didn't forget me. And he was even cuter when we got back than when we left him.