Author: Elsa

The little girls stayed back on the ship with their grandparents as we
headed off on a zip line expedition.

In Juneau we took a seaplane over the glaciers near the city. Glaciers
cover about 10 percent of the Earth's surface. It is hard to really
appreciate the size of these glaciers until you are in the air. We
flew over the Juneau ice field which is estimated to have snow and ice
depths from 800 to over 4,500 feet. You can sometimes see vibrant
spots of blue that occur because the ice has been compressed so much
that air bubbles no longer remain in the ice. The pure ice absorbs the
reds and yellows that are part of the white light that hits the ice
therefore reflecting back only a bluish color.

Our first stop after being at sea for over 36 hours and traveling 1126 miles was Glacier Bay.  It was incredible seeing these huge glaciers. The Marjorie Glacier was quite impressive. While there we were lucky enough to see the Marjorie Glacier calving. Calving occurs when the glacier expands and a piece of itself breaks off into the water. It is quite an awesome event that reminds you that these glaciers are truly moving. The Marjorie Glacier is a relatively fast moving glacier moving 6-8 feet a day. The girls however were not thrilled watching a huge chunk of ice move a couple inches.

The cruise ship we sailed to Alaska on was 4 years old. It was explained to us that Holland America only uses their ships for 10 years then they sell it off to a smaller non-American cruise line. After 10 years it is very difficult for a ship to pass the 100 point inspection required in the US. The Westerdam is 936 feet with a passenger capacity of a little over 1900. We were curious how it compared to other cruise ships. The Disney Wonder which we were on last year was a little larger at 950 feet in length and 2400 passengers.

When I was looking up the stats for the Disney cruise ship I came across the “Oasis of the Seas”. This cruise ship is currently being constructed for the Royal Caribbean cruise line. This giant of ships will carry 5400 guests with 16 decks. The ship’s design looks more like a Vegas hotel with amenities including an ice rink, a outdoor fountain amphitheater, cantilevered hot tubs, self-leveling pool tables, a Central Park area with grass, deluxe loft staterooms, and expansive shopping. Once a ship gets this large they are limited in where they can travel because they are just too large to fit through the Panama canal. I can’t imagine being on the “Oasis of the Seas” with our group. We would never be able to find each other.

Our first port stop on the cruise was the land locked city of Juneau.
Everything in Juneau arrives from boat or plane. It upsets some people
in Alaska that their capital is so hard to get to but they have been
unable to receive enough votes to move the capital to Anchorage.

According to our tour guide the first McDonalds to open in Alaska was
in their city. They hold the record for most burgers sold on an
opening day. They sold 17,000 hamburgers to a city with a population
of a little over 20,000. The drive thru line was at times 2 miles
long. Not a happy day for cows.

I just found this interesting since we were just there in Glacier Bay a week before. It was AP news.

A Coast Guard spokesman says a cruise ship that grounded for about nine hours near Glacier Bay in Alaska has been towed to safety.A National Park Service vessel was transferring passengers and crew members to a nearby port. A spokesman for Cruise West, which owns the ship, says the company was taking passengers to the Juneau airport.Officials say the 207-foot Spirit of Glacier Bay grounded Monday morning.The ship had 51 people onboard. No injuries were reported.A Coast Guard spokesman says it’s unclear whether the grounding was caused by human error or a mechanical or electronic malfunction.Cruise West says it will refund half the price of the cruise in cash and half in credit for a future cruise.

While in Juneau we ran across Harrison Ford and Calista Flockhart strolling the streets. Rumor is they came in on their large white yacht for a relaxing 4th of July getaway. Maybe they were visiting their pal Mel Gibson who has a house on Douglas Island in Alaska.

The girls handled this life boat drill a lot better than the one on the Disney cruise. For the drill in December both girls were panicked and sobbing. Dahlia refused to put the life jacket on or leave our stateroom until I agreed to put a sweater over her head so she would not see the water.

Our house was the meeting place before we headed off to Alaska as a group. We had fourteen people sleeping at the house. I really enjoyed using our house to the fullest but unfortunately everyone was here on a record setting hot day in Seattle. We, like many people in the Seattle area, have no air conditioning. It was a hot night.

The west coast just doesn’t have a clue about pizza. We have been in search for a good pizza out here either thin or deep dish. Unfortunately we haven’t had much luck. At the grocery store we found a a deep dish pizza in the refrigerator section from a small Portland company called “My Brother’s Pizza”. On the packaging the company explains they grew up in Chicago and moved to Portland. Frustrated with the lack of deep dish pizza they started their own pizza company. We chose the spinach and garlic deep dish pizza.

We were starving when we cooked the pizza at home but I paused to take a picture of it before we ate. After the first bite my hopes for good pizza flew out the window. It was horrible. The crust was dry and rather tasteless and the sauce was overloaded with fennel. I can usually scarf down any pizza but I couldn’t even finish one piece. Joe and the kids felt the same way. I guess we will have to wait till we visit Chicago to get good pizza.