A day in Juneau

Cruising into Juneau provided us with some pretty views. The town is really cute, all of the building's colors popping against the backdrop of greenery. And I loved the tram gliding up into the mist. Today our shore excursion started with a trip to the Mendenhall Glacier, followed by some whale watching.

It dawned on me that the bright yellow rain jacket I bought for the trip - to be easily spotted in a crowd by the husband - made me resemble the Gorton's fisherman. I remember their fish sticks from back in the day.

I must admit that the last time we went whale watching in Juneau with the girls, we saw an impressive display of these massive creatures feeding. They used the bubble net strategy and we had some amazingly close views where we could clearly see their baleen. This time we had to be content with the humpbacks blowing or spouting off in the distance, plus some dorsal fins. Everyone on the boat oohed and aahed when we spied the occasional tail. But that was about it.

Our silver lining on the rather disappointing whale watching tour was that the boat sold local beer for the husband, while I was oh-so-happy to get my hands on a Diet Dr Pepper after being relegated to mediocre-to-me Diet Cokes on the cruise ship.

Glacier Bay day

We had toured Glacier Bay back in 2014 when we took the girls on a more southern Alaskan itinerary. I found this northern route to be a better option because we saw so much wildlife. Unfortunately, the only bear I saw after the grizzlies in Denali was the towel bear our stateroom attendant left on our bed. But we were lucky to spy lots of otters (in the hundreds), seals and whales on the cruise through Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve.

We sailed by our HA sister ship, which made for a pretty picture. We also spied a couple other smaller vessels on our cruise route. The closer we got to the glaciers, the more layers I had to put on to stay outside. They were serving hot cocoa when they opened up the bow on our deck for several hours, so we definitely enjoyed that.

We continued to see cascades dotting the landscape, places where water was flowing from the melting snow down the inclines. It was really picturesque.

In the pics above, you can see where we spied humpback whales in the water. In the pics below, those specks of dark on the ice are otters. Some were seen swimming surprisingly close to the cruise ship. Bonus - we saw lots of otter mothers with their babies, and they were so stinkin' cute. 

There were the glaciers, of course. But they just weren't as thrilling to see as the critters. We ended our time outdoors with afternoon tea, a wonderful way to cap off our visit to Glacier Bay. 

Setting sail

After two nights at the Denali Lodge, we took a bus ride to the small cruise port in Whittier to board our Holland America ship, the Nieuw Amsterdam. We were in side-by-side signature suites with our travel buddies, so we had the stateroom attendants open up the balcony divider to make it easier to communicate and watch the scenery go by.

Our first two days were spent cruising. I couldn't help but giggle at our first glacier spotting in what's known as Disenchantment Bay. It got this rather sad sack name when Spanish explorer Alessandro Malaspina sailed into the bay in 1792 thinking it might be an entrance to the legendary Northwest Passage. He dubbed it "Puerto del Desengano", Spanish for bay of disenchantment. I found it quite ENCHANTING, actually. The largest tidewater glacier in Alaska, it was a sight to behold. The Good Lord used every shade of blue at His disposal when creating this gorgeously stark landscape. My phone camera pictures certainly don't do it justice.

In the pic above, I'm getting in some practice with the binoculars provided in our stateroom since we were told there would be critters like whales, seals and otters to be seen as we cruised into Glacier Bay the next day. It was a tad crisp on the balcony, so I was happy to wrap up in the fleece blanket they also provided in our accommodations. Once again, we were blessed with clear weather and were able to take in the glorious sights of the 49th state.

Denali tundra tour

We began our first full day in Denali with a tundra tour. I was gonna say at the crack of dawn. But with only about 4ish hours of a somewhat darkened sky at night that far north and so near the summer solstice, it meant we set off to spot tundra critters at 7 am when the sun had been up for hours. Lo and behold, the driver pointed out another great view of Mt McKinley off in the distance and told us (again) how lucky we were to have such a clear view of the tallest peak in North America. 

We started the critter spotting tour a bit slow with a lone caribou. I circled the caribou in both pics because you might have missed it otherwise. The day before, we had already seen several moose on the train ride to Denali, including a mama moose with twins. Unfortunately, I wasn't quick enough to snap a pic of them. Further down the tundra trail, we began to see arctic ground squirrels, which I initially thought were prairie dogs. 

Finally, we were treated to the sight of a mama grizzly and her year old cub. We initially spied them in the brush. We were thrilled when they came closer to the road, eventually crossing over. Then they put on a show, scratching around looking for something to eat. They had beautiful fur and didn't seem fazed by the two buses full of us park tourists with our cameras, trying to get a pic or video.

Cruise tour began in Anchorage

We flew to Anchorage in the middle of June to begin our Alaskan cruise tour with Holland America, meeting up with our friends P and R for this big adventure. We only had one full day to check out Anchorage before heading to Denali on the fancy pants train, so we hit the ground running. One of my favorite activities was touring the Alaskan Aviation Museum. That's where we got to see lots of the float planes I found so intriguing.

Our train ride to Denali National Park on the McKinley Explorer the following day was amazing. We rode on the upper level with walls of windows to the beautiful scenery. After a whistle stop in Talkeetna, we enjoyed a tasty lunch in the dining car below. Our train tour narrator told us how lucky we were to be able to have such clear views of the highest mountain peak in North America at 20,310 feet. Covered in snow, I initially thought it was just a large cloud formation.