trippingpara

Skagway (cont.)...

Here are a few more shots from a bit earlier in the day:

Here the first White Pass Train sits awaiting the load of Carnival passengers to board. Notice the Carnival Legend and Carnival Splendor in the background. I believe only those that booked through the ship got to board here.

Those that booked privately board here. This is the main White Pass train depot in the city center. There's also a great little coffee shop inside. This is where we got our caffeine kick before we headed out. Good stuff!!

The time zone change as you enter into Canada. This is right before the Canadian Customs and Frazer train stop. As you can see in the background, it is at mile marker 36 (an important thing to track when doing this drive!)

The Frazer train stop. This is the end of the line for the White Pass Train.

The White Pass Train pulls into Frazer.

A rather unnerving sign. You will see these all throughout your road trip up the Klondike Highway. Thankfully, there was nothing to fear at this time of year. Notice all of the buses in the background. Those are for all of the White Pass Train passengers that are continuing on via bus into the Yukon. That is what we would have done had we kept our original excursion with Carnival. So glad we decided to drive it instead!!

To be Cont...

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Loving this review!! Do you have to take your passport with you if you rent a car? We were planning on the train ride, but the rental car looks like it might be a better option. Thank you for the time and beautiful photos!

Hi JC4ME, glad you're enjoying this review and thank you for the kind words, I really appreciate it! If you are going to rent a car and do this drive then yes, you will need your passport as you will cross into Canada. In fact, you will cross into two different provinces of Canada (British Columbia and Yukon Territories). If you don't have your passport, then it is very important not to pass the U.S. Customs building that is only a couple miles outside of Skagway. If you do, you won't be able to get back into the U.S. even if you didn't cross into Canada. The 12 miles of the White Pass summit is essentially a no man's zone in-between the U.S. and Canadian custom buildings. If you go into that area without a passport, you're going to be there a long time before they are able to sort things out for you!

Friday, August 31st

Skagway, Alaska

We originally had purchased the White Pass train with bus ride from Carnival. After reading about how another cruiser had rented a car and drove the same route, we quickly changed our plans. I cancelled our excursion with Carnival and rented a car with Avis.

We docked a little early and headed down to Deck 2. Disembarking this morning was much easier. Not many people were trying to get off right away so we found ourselves walking down the rainy pier within minutes of leaving our room. We were sitting right next to Carnival Splendor and we mixed in with their passengers offboarding.

Avis is located right in city center which is about ¼ mile from the railroad pier where we were docked at. As I mentioned earlier, it was raining pretty good, but we were decked out head to toe in rain gear, so it didn’t bother us at all. We made a quick stop at the train station’s little café and grabbed some coffee for me and a latte with expresso for Lady Trip. We then crossed the street over to the Avis building (note, their office is no longer at the Westwood Motel but is now across the street in their maintenance shed).

Safely buckled into our car, we headed out for the Klondike Hwy. What a drive!! It was rare for us to go more than a couple kilometers before stopping to grab some photos. The scenery was INSANE!!! The morning started very overcast and rainy but as the day progressed, the clouds cleared and the sun made its stunning debut.

Bridal Vail Falls. Apparently this is a great place to get fresh glacial water coming down from the mountains. Ahh...not today!! This was roaring and I got drenched taking this shot, the spray was so hard and bad.

It was neat that the U.S. Customs crossing and the Canadian Customs crossing were about 12 miles apart. Apparently, the weather is so bad on the White Pass summit that each country had to put their customs crossing on the opposite sides of the summit. To get an idea of how much snow they get on the summit, the markers for the plows were mounted into the side of the mountain. The markers back at home are only a couple feet high. These were like 20 feet high! No frickin’ way you are getting me on the White Pass summit in the middle of winter!!!

Holy friggin' snowfall Batman!!

Anyways, the drive was incredibly beautiful. Plenty of waterfalls, majestic mountain peaks, turquoise lakes, and alpine forests abounded everywhere. At one point, I was so engrossed with the view while taking photographs, I found myself hiking several hundred yards away from the highway down a hill into a grassy meadow on the shore of a gorgeous little lake when I noticed that I was standing in a berry patch. Which I then remembered is one of the favorite meals for bears. It was at that point that I noticed a large pile of scat a couple feet away. That was one very large butt that made that pile and it was not a butt that I wanted to run into. It seemed like a perfectly good time to beat feet back up the hill to my car. Thankfully I made it back without depositing any of my body parts into a future pile of scat!

Here's a few shots for your viewing pleasure...

Summit Lake, Alaska

Bernard Lake, Alaska - Note the train tracks on the opposite side of the lake. These are the White Pass train tracks that we would have taken on our original excursion. This photo was taken just before the Fraser station where you exit the train.

Looking out towards Teepee Peak

To be cont...

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Juneau (cont.)

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, so we grudgingly started our trek back down to base camp, removed our crampons and helmets and awaited our winged chariot back to civilization. Just as we heard our helo on the other side of the mountain ridge, it started to rain. Perfect timing! Our ride back was quick and uneventful. The weight of our long trek up and down the glacier walls was starting to hit everyone, so we all just sat silently and watched the amazing world of the Mendenhall Glacier field sail by us.

After deplaning, we changed back into our regular clothes and caught a ride back to Juneau. Since Lady Trip is a HUGE dog fan, we had to go down to the end of pier to see the statue of Patsy Ann. If you never heard of Patsy Ann, take a couple minutes and Google her. It’s a really cute story. When I was researching Juneau, I found out about her and knew that Lady Trip would want to see her.

Lady Trip and Patsy Ann

Downtown Juneau

We then strolled over to the nearby Red Dog Saloon where we had to have their infamous Duck Fart shot.

The infamous Duck Fart shot

If you’re going to Juneau, do yourself a favor and pop into the Red Dog Saloon even if it’s just to pop in. The whole atmosphere there takes you right back to the rowdy gold rush days. All the bartenders and waiters are dressed in gold rush era clothing, the floor is covered in saw dust and the piano player was hysterical (and pretty damn good too!). The food was really good as well. I had a reindeer sausage roll and Lady Trip had the fish basket. Very tasty!!

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We had a great time there and even ran into our friends from Florida that we had met at breakfast earlier in the cruise. So, we ended up sitting right next to each other, shared some Duck Farts together and had a lot of laughs. With new friends or old, you’ll have a great time in this old saloon. By this time, it was getting late and nearing our boarding time of 10:30 pm so, we started heading back to the nearby pier. Of course, we had to stop in to a couple of the shops that were still open for some souvenirs. And that’s about it for tonight. Until next time…

Next up: Skagway and our adventures in the Yukon!

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Some more shots for ya...

We hiked for about 2 hours up and down the glacier walls including a tight crevice that opened up into a dark blue ice room complete with a waterfall pouring into it. There are no words that can ever describe the beauty of that spot. It was incredible!!!

The water is so clear here, you cannot tell that we are standing in about a foot of water and there is a waterfall directly behind me.

To be cont...

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Juneau (cont.)

We got ourselves all kitted up in proper cold weather hiking gear including harnesses, crampons and ice axes.

Just chilling. Seriously, it's cold here!

Our chariot

Base camp

One of our guides mapping out our route.

Here he comes, climbing down to us.

After a brief training on how to use the equipment and how to navigate the various terrains of a glacier, we headed out. A glacier is an incredible sight to behold. It's terrifying and breathtaking at the same time. It was fascinating to learn that the dirt and rocks that you see on the surface of the ice actually came from underneath it. The pressure of the glacier is so intense that it forces dirt, rocks and even large boulders to squeeze their way up to the surface as the glacier slowly grinds forward.

To be cont...

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Juneau (cont.)

While we were waiting, I saw people leaving the ship from our balcony, so we grabbed out stuff and headed down to Deck 3 to get off the ship.

Holy crap, the line to get off was huge!!! Tiny Tim remembered me from winning the bingo the day before (we’re also from nearby towns in New England) and he waved us over to him and snuck us in with the tour groups that we being led off separately. Within minutes, we were off the ship and heading for our excursion meeting area.

Turns out we were a bit early so, we headed down the pier a bit and did some shopping while we waiting for our bus to come in. It finally arrived so we headed out towards the airport for our helicopter ride to the glacier. At the airport, we got ourselves all kitted out in cold weather hiking gear. Pants, coats, gloves, ice boots, gaiters, rappelling harnesses and even a fanny pack. Now, no respectable person can go hiking across a glacier without a fanny pack!

Our pilot was an amazing woman that has lived all over and done a ton of widely ranging jobs before she decided that she wanted to fly helicopters. She flew us around a bit and pointed out some bears and mountain goats roaming around the mountains near the glacier before we finally landed at base camp on the Mendenhall Glacier.

Our first view of the ice shelf that we would be landing on.

That little speck of orange is our base camp.

To be cont...

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Thursday, August 30th

Juneau, Alaska

Okay, so maybe I over did it a bit at the Alchemy Bar last night. Nothing a good pair of aspirins couldn’t cure!! Lady Trip and I talked it over as we slowly got ourselves ready for the day and decided on the Helicopter and Glacier Hike excursion. I always wanted to fly out and land on a glacier and hike across so it was the closest we could get to the excitement level that we had for the previous bear excursion.

The Splendor on their 14 day journeys cruise out of Los Angeles follows us into the Inner Passage.

After grabbing a few photos from our balcony, we went down to the shore excursions desk when it opened (we had to wait an additional hour since we had changed our clocks back the previous night to Alaskan time). The same manager was working the desk as yesterday when I read him the riot act. Not overly proud about that, but it is what it is. Thankfully, he remembered us and was very cool about it. I apologized for getting a little overheated and he looked at me like I was crazy. “No worries man, it’s your vacation. You want it to be special and we aren’t helping you with that. Let’s see if I can do better today for you,” he said. He was definitely not acting the same way as he did last night. He again reminded me why I could not do his job.

We signed up for the Glacier Hike and then headed up to the Lido Deck to get some breakfast at the Blue Iguana. Love, love, love their breakfast burritos!! Anyways, we did some shopping and then went to the Military Appreciation event. It was pretty nice, nothing major but nice to be around so many of my fellow brothers and sisters in arms. At the end, they called all of us veterans up on stage for a photo. Here's a shot off of Adam, the cruise director's Facebook page (thanks to whoever took this photo).

Afterwards, we just hung around watching the scenery go by and waiting for the call to disembark at port. For some reason, none of the announcements were coming into the cabin anymore. I heard that no announcements can be made outdoors in Juneau so I’m not sure if that had something to do with it.

Next up: Hiking across a glacier

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Thanks for the review.

Hi riclop - you're very welcome!

Great review. Thanks for sharing. Amazing pictures.

 

 

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Hi MrFunInTheSun - Thank you so much for the kind words, I appreciate it!!

Really enjoying your journal and especially the photos. Looking forward to more. :D:D

Hey tandemcruzr, thanks for joining me brother! Glad to hear that you're enjoying it so far. I know it's a long one and it's been a bit of a slow go so far. For some odd reason, my employer seems to have a problem with me writing and working on photos while I'm at work. I'm gonna have to have a talk with them about that! Please be patient, I'm trying to get them up as fast as I can!

Wednesday, August 29th

Sea Day, somewhere in the North Pacific

This day was filled with some very highs and some very lows...but we'll get to that later. Let's start at the beginning...

Wow, sleeping in. It is definitely NOT overrated!! Our bed is very cushy. Which is normally not a very good thing for us. Lady Trip and I both tend to lean towards a firmer bed but we both slept like babies.

What a sight to wake up to!

Anyhow, we got up and did our morning routine and headed down to the main floor of Truffles Restaurant (MDR) on Deck 2 for Sea Day Brunch. We opted to sit with others (they ask you when you enter the restaurant) and were promptly seated at a large table. We weren’t able to talk to everyone since the table was rather long and nobody wanted to shout back and forth. We did, however, get to chat with a really nice couple from Florida and a nice couple from Oklahoma.

After breakfast we went back to our cabin and made our war plans for the day. Or I should say, Lady Trip made our war plans for the day. Nothing really was tripping my trigger, so as a smart husband, I told Lady Trip “whatever you wanted to do honey”.

First up was the cooking demonstration in the Nouveau Restaurant (steakhouse). They put on a pretty nice cooking show (and a carving demonstration as well). They serve you little samples of the 3 meals that they prepared. Absolutely delicious but thankfully they were small samples as we were still stuffed from breakfast. The demonstration was pretty short and we headed off to our next event which was the art auction. I normally avoid these things like the black plague but Lady Trip really wanted to check it out and they were providing free champagne so there was that.

This was surprising long. And boring. Let me clarify that, it was rather boring for me. Due to my schooling, I am often staring at art. A lot! So, I really did not want to spend an hour and a half of my vacation staring at art some more. There were some very beautiful pieces but just not my thing. Lady Trip seemed to enjoy herself and she bought a small piece for our spare bedroom so she was happy. Happy wife, happy life, yadda-yadda-yadda.

We then made our way up from the Firebird Lounge to the Follies Lounge one deck up for the CLUE! murder mystery show. It was…interesting. It was short and cheesy. I thought you would finish the game up then. I was surprised to see that it goes throughout the whole cruise. Again, Lady Trip was really interested and that’s all that matters!

Immediately following the CLUE! show was bingo. Lady Trip loves bingo so we bought their bingo fanatic package and some drinks. The first game was not even close for me. The second round I actually got to stand up (briefly) but didn’t win. The third round was the big money round. You had to fill both the “I” and the “G” column. About five minutes later, I was shocked when I realized that I had one square left and was now standing up. There were three people in total standing up. It was agonizing as they pulled ball after ball but not the one I needed. I was straining my ears at every ball waiting for someone to shout out that they had won. No one had it yet. Tiny Tim, the host called the next ball…G49…I didn’t even have to look at my card. BINGO!!!!

They came over and verified my card. I looked up at the giant screen and it was all red and in big print…WINNER. I couldn’t believe it. Since this was the big money round, they escorted me up on stage. After introducing myself, Tiny Tim offered me $500 to walk away or I could pick one of 5 envelopes sitting on the floor. Each envelop had an amount in it ranging from $200 to $1000. As a well-trained husband, I immediately looked out into the audience for my wife. The crowd was shouting out various answers…”take it,” “take the money and run,” “go for it,” etc. I finally found my wife and she was waving her 5 fingers. I looked over at Tiny Tim and said, “deal, I’ll take the $500.”

We shook hands and then he said, “well since we have an extra $500, let’s divide that up. An extra $150 to the winners of the first two rounds and an extra $150 for you for a total of $650. SWEET!!! That will help cut down our bar tab! Tiny Tim then proceeded to open each envelope. There was a $200, $250, $300, $400 and $1,000 card which happened to be the last one he opened. He then asked me which envelop would I have chosen. I pointed to the first one he had opened, which was for $200. I looked up and Lady Trip was sitting there with a giant smile and patting herself on the back. Listening to the wifey - always a smart move!

With the winnings in my account and a smile on my face, we made our way to the lobby for a map trivia. While we were waiting, we met a very nice young couple from Texas (a lot of Texans were aboard this cruise!). We’ll call them Mr. and Mrs. Aggie (they had both attended Texas A&M). We ended up hanging out with them for a couple hours and bumped into them later on again at the Alchemy Bar and hung out some more.

It was a great day until we went back to our cabin to find a slip of paper in our mailbox. “Uh-oh” said Lady Trip. Yep, bad news. Our floatplane flight out to Admiralty Island to hang out with the grizzly bears feasting on the salmon run was cancelled. I’ll skip the word for word torrent that spewed from my mouth for purposes of family ratings. Let’s just say, that the words I used were definitely not meant for anyone under the age of 21 and anyone easily offended. It was not pleasant.

That was the excursion we were looking forward to the most. I had even rented an expensive zoom lens just for that purpose. I was livid. It usually takes a lot to get me worked up but they did it. I had no idea that Carnival would actually cancel excursions if they didn’t get enough people. The manager at the Shore Excursion desk told me that it does say that on the website. I looked again when we returned home and nowhere on the website does it state that there is a minimum number of participants required. There were a couple of other excursions that got cancelled as well for the same reason. Lesson learned!

Before the cruise, I had found the same excursion from the company that was providing the service to Carnival and they required a minimum of 2 passengers to operate the tour, but it actually cost more than Carnival was offering it for, so I ordered it through Carnival. I figured if the tour company operating it only required 2 then so would Carnival. I guess I was wrong. They must have agreed to a higher minimum in order to get better pricing. We went down to the Shore Excursion Desk and the manager there was less than pleasant about it. Granted, I was not being the friendliest either, but his attitude was definitely not helping matters either.

Needless to say, I needed to walk away and take a breather before we figured out what we were going to do for Juneau. Luckily, we weren’t docking until 2 pm the next day so we had some time to figure it out. So, I did what any normal Irishmen would do…drink!!!

Next up: Juneau, Alaska...

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Following along! Thanks for this detailed review. I've been trying to convince DH to do an Alaskan cruise one day, but he hates the cold...we're from Florida and his idea of cold is in the 50s. But I'm working on it! Maybe when our teenage kids are in college, we'll finally get around to planning this for real.

Hi nessz79. Thanks for joining us! Before last year, whenever I thought of a cruise I always thought of palm trees swaying in the breeze, the gentle sounds of the surf and my toes in the sand with a drink in my hand. I never would have thought of heading north. But we did the eastern side of Canada last year, Alaska and western Canada this year and we are doing the Baltic in 2020. The experiences up north are just as great if not better than what you experience in the Caribbean. And to top it off, there was only one day that was "cold" and that was in Glacier Bay. Even when we were hiking across the glacier, we were very warm. Trust me, keep working on your DH, it is soooo worth it!!

What a quiet Carnival ship...??? They must have all flown in that day or were exhausted from Seattle sightseeing.

 

 

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I know, I was so surprised! It did seem to pick up a bit more at night later into the cruise though. There was one night that the dance club was packed! I was surprised to see that and it had every age range there and they were all getting down!

Tuesday, August 28th

Seattle, Washington

It’s embarkation day. I woke up with a battle of emotions raging in my head. I didn’t want to leave Seattle. We were having such a great time visiting my sister and brother-in-law but we were so excited to officially start our Alaskan cruise.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, Mr. Time made the decision for us. It was time to head out to the Cove Smith Cruise Terminal at Pier 91! We made a quick stop at a huge liquor store to load up on wine for the cruise. Thankfully, Lady Trip-sis just happens to be a bit of a wine connoisseur and knows quite a bit about the local wines. They were able to recommend a couple great wines and surprised us by grabbing a couple bottles for us. They are so awesome!!!

But the time came that we had to say our goodbyes. Not being big on drawn out goodbyes, they slowed the van down enough to open the side doors, kick our luggage out and allowed us to tuck and roll without too much damage or injury. We’re such a loving family! Seriously though, we pulled into the lane marked for private vehicles, unloaded and grudgingly said out goodbyes and headed over to the cruise terminal to check in. We dropped our bags off and headed upstairs to check in.

Since we had a suite, we had priority access so we hopped into the priority line and were checked in in less than five minutes. Super quick and easy! We had arrived around 10:30 am and we boarded the Legend by 11:15 am. We were one of the first ones aboard the ship. Our room was ready but our luggage was not (suite priority does not include luggage priority). Since our room was ready, we were able to drop off our carry-ons and head up to the Lido Deck to grab some lunch.

I think we were the first ones there as they were just putting the food out in the buffet. Yummy! Hot and fresh! We sat down and scarfed down our food and headed out to explore the ship. For some reason, I was really struggling with figuring the Legend out. Usually, I have a mental map of the ship and can figure out where I am and where I want to go. Here, I just wasn't able to do that. I had to keep looking out the window to see which direction the ship was going so I could figure out which way was forward and aft. This was also compounded by the fact that some areas were closed off for the crew’s use during embarkation.

We made a few pitstops at the various bars that were open and of course, we had to break in our in-cabin bar as well. Can’t forget about that one!!

Before we knew it, it was time for muster drill. We made our way down to the 3rd deck to Muster Station “C” which was outside. While waiting, the captain called out several cabins for still not being at the muster drill. A few minutes later, they started the drill. It was almost impossible to hear what was being said. The longshoremen were still loading the ship just feet away from us, so there was no way to hear the announcements over the racket from all of the forklifts and cranes moving tons of equipment and stores onto the ship. I just pray that we don’t need to actually use any of the information that was supposedly provided to us during that drill!

Afterwards, we headed up to the Lido Deck for the Sail Away Party.

Seattle sails away into the distance as we depart Puget Sound towards the open Pacific Ocean.

Like I had read before, it was pretty quick. Even though it was actually pretty hot out in the sun, it quickly cooled down once the ship started sailing. We eventually made our way back down to our cabin to enjoy our wrap around balcony and watched Seattle sail into the distance. We then showered and got dressed for our reservation at the Nouveau Steakhouse.

As I stated earlier, the food and service there was phenomenal!!! As I sit here hours later, I am still stuffed!!!! (Yes, I actually do write this journal during our vacation) Anyhow, we finished our desert, drank our coffee and headed back to our room to refit and refresh ourselves for the rest of our night. Next up, the Welcome Abroad Show followed by the adult’s only comedy show of Tim Young.

The Welcome Abroad Show was…well, not very entertaining. Adam, the CD was trying very hard to be funny. Sometimes, his jokes hit and other times, not so much. We left about half way through to head downstairs to the Firebird Lounge to make sure that we got a seat for the comedy show. We keep forgetting that this is an Alaskan cruise not a Caribbean cruise. The nightlife is VERY different here! We got to the Firebird Lounge about 20 minutes before the show. Normally, the place would already be filling up on a Caribbean cruise. Here, there were only about 15 people already sitting there. The rest didn’t show up until the show was set to start at 10:30 pm. Even then, there were a lot of open seats available.

The comedian was quite funny and his skit seemed to be completely off-the-cuff as he primarily just interacted with the crowd. He was quick with his retorts and was really good. We’d go back and see him again. The drink service there was definitely lacking and I finally gave up waiting for the waiter who kept walking around aimlessly and went to the bartender myself.

Nonetheless, we still had fun and I absolutely loved the décor of the Firebird Lounge. It was based on one of my all-time favorite fairytales, The Firebird, a famous Russian fairytale that I read when I studied in Moscow.

When the comedy show ended, we walked around the ship to see what else was happening. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. The only life to be found anywhere was primarily in the casino. A few people were dancing in the Red Frog Pub to the band, Murphy’s Law and a couple were also dancing in the Medusa’s Lair dance club but that was about it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Carnival ship that empty at 11:00 pm. Especially when the following day was a sea day!!

Wow, so not used to this! Anyways, we decided to follow suit and headed back to our room. Of course, the fact that we had a small bar going on in our room also aided in that decision!! Until next time…

Next up: Sea Day

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I too agree with the White Pass train in Skagway. There are quite a few different whale excursions in Juneau and Victoria that are really good. We did the Eagle Wing whale excursion in Victoria and it was incredible!! You can also fly over the glaciers in Juneau as well and you can take a sightseeing flight over Misty Fjord National Park in Ketchikan. We went with Island Wings in Ketchikan. They were very good and they pick you up at the pier too.

Cruised Multiple times . First time looking into an Alaskan Cruise. Interested in a round trip Cruise, Inside Passage. I thought that might be better as Due to issues, feet, lower back, I would NOT be able to get off and go hiking etc. So any one who has done this type of cruise, feed back please. Hints, to do, to stay away from. If you have done Alaska with both Carnival and another line. Any comparisons ??

Hi KNowme1st. I just got back from Alaska on the Carnival Legend, round trip from Seattle. It was an awesome cruise and I highly recommend it. There are tons of excursions that you will be able to do that do not require hiking or excessive walking, etc. There were a very large portion of cruisers on our ship that had mobility issues yet I saw them all getting off the ship to do excursions either with the cruise line or on their own. It's sorta tough to give you ideas or hints on what to do since we do not know what you like, dislike, etc. I would suggest though, if you go on Carnival make sure to look at all of their Alaska itineraries since they have different routes which create different times in port even though they often go to the same port. For example, we went on an 8 day cruise with included a full day in Victoria which is often just a couple hour stop on a 7 day cruise. If you're interested, you can look at my review that I'm currently writing on my Alaska cruise for an idea of what the 8 day roundtrip from Seattle cruise on Carnival is like.

I almost forgot that I'm writing a review here! Where was I?...

Oh yeah, we spent about an hour slowly meandering down a trail before turning around and heading back to the peak for lunch at the Summit House Restaurant, the highest restaurant in Washington State. Surprisingly, the food was excellent!! Not sure why, but I wasn’t expecting it to be very good. I just expected it to be overpriced. It was a bit on the pricey side but it was very good too, so combined with the incredible view, I guess you could say that it was worth it.

The Summit House Restaurant

After lunch, we went out and hiked down a different trail. The beautiful thing about Crystal Mountain is, the view constantly changes. Almost every step you take changes the view. It was incredible! We were also lucky having some great company with Lady Trip-sis and her hubby, Sir Tripalot. Laughs and smiles were a constant event during our hikes, making it that much better.

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, so we finally decided to call it a day and pack it in. We put our borrowed hiking poles back and hopped onto the next gondola down. Once we arrived back at base camp, a quick trip to the gift shop and then we loaded back into the van and headed back to Seattle.

One of the many farms we passed on our way home.

Luck was again in our favor and the traffic was great. Before we knew it, we were back in Kent. But before stopping at Lady Trip-sis’ house, we made a quick stop at the nearby Lake Meriden. It’s a fairly decent sized lake that is only blocks from their home. A pretty nice little piece of paradise in their backyard. We are soooo jealous!!!

Once we were back at the house, we spent the rest of the evening, chatting, joking and generally enjoying each other’s company. Of course, Rooney got a fair share of petting too. Even though she constantly knitted my hand, arm, leg or any part of my body that she could fit into her mouth. I never knew that greyhounds did that. Apparently, it is normal behavior for them when they are excited. I guess that’s some weird kind of compliment?

Anyways, the day was drawing to a close and the crisp mountain air and sun was starting to take its toll and yawns abounded. As we said good night and headed to bed, the sad realization sunk in that this was our last night with them. We had such a great time and it was so hard to leave.

Next up: Embarkation...

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...and yet some more shots from Crystal Mountain...

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Here are some more shots from Crystal Mountain, Washington...

Lady Trip-Sis and Lady Trip sharing a laugh. Probably at my expense...

A lone hiker passes us on the trail

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Monday, August 27th

Seattle, Washington

Uggh, I don’t want to get out of this bed!! It’s soooo comfy!! But then again, I don’t want to miss out on Crystal Mountain. Lady Trip-sis had told me all about her previous trip to Crystal Mountain so I was pretty pumped to go there. And to top it off, the weather forecast was calling for an absolutely beautiful day.

After our morning routines, we petted Rooney the greyhound goodbye and loaded up into the van (no Maggie, the Mini Cooper today) for our trek south into the mountains. It was about an hour and a half drive there. Of course, we stopped at Kelly’s Coffee on our way there for some great go-go juice and donuts. The scenery on the drive was great and a terrific way to pass the time.

Rooney, the Greyhound

Before we knew it, we were pulling up to Crystal Mountain. Since it was still fairly early in the morning, the parking lots were practically empty. We pulled into a spot, got our passes, grabbed some hiking poles that were free to use and hopped onto the gondola for our ride up to the summit. Unfortunately, Crystal Mountain does not offer the ability to “surf” on top the gondola, so we had to ride inside like everyone else. Oh, the humility of it all!

Here we go again! Back into the clouds.

Lady Trip on the ride up.

The ride took about ten minutes and we were extremely bummed to find the summit fairly socked in with clouds when we arrived there. Our main purpose for coming here was for the fantastic views of Mt. Rainier. The weather report for the mountain was saying that the clouds would be parting shortly. We opted for patience and hopped that the report was right.

And our patience paid off. A bit longer than the report stated, but Mt. Rainier did come out to play. Slowly but surely, a white, snow capped peak started to appear through the clouds. We opted to start hiking down one of the trails while the clouds slowly dissipated. We were hiking our way along the trail when suddenly she appeared in all her glory. Woah!!!! She’s beautiful!!!!

Thar she is!

Mount Rainier as seen from the peak of Crystal Mountain which is roughly 14 miles away

One of the overly friendly chipmunks runs up to Lady Trip and begs for some food. Please do not feed these guys. I know that they are super cute, but M&Ms do not make good food for them.

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I forgot to mention that we ran into an Internet celebrity while we were at the Space Needle.

That's Maxine the Corgi otherwise known as Mad Max, Fluffy Road. Unfortunately, every time Maxine would look back at me, I didn't have my camera ready. It was funny to watch her flop her head back to look at you. Check her out on Facebook and Instagram. My God, I don't believe I actually know about stuff like this!!

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Seattle (cont.)

A couple hours later, we left Chihuly and walked over to the fountains for a quick photo or a dozen and then over to the Museum of Pop Culture (otherwise known as MoPop). It is quite the quirky place. Just look at it and you can tell its strange! The building itself is very oddly shaped and inside is no different. It was designed by the famed architect, Frank Gehry (who is widely known for his unusual buildings). It covers everything about pop culture from TV and movies to music with a focus on Seattle based artists. There are special sections on Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Jimi Hendrix as well as areas featuring Horror, Sci-FI, Fantasy and now there is a special feature on Marvel comics.

The giant musical tornado that dominates the main lobby.

A replica of Pearl Jam's recording studio. I've been in a few recording studios in my days and they are one of my favorite places to be.

One of David Grohl's drum sets during Nirvana's "Nervermind" tour. I used to have the exact same Tama drum set back then too. Even the same stands and Zildjian cymbals. Except my kit had a whole lot more drums. "More drums, more drums!" shouts Animal from the Muppets.

I'm not afraid to admit that I was a big Devo fan growing up. In fact, I still am a Devo fan! "We're through being cool!"

It wasn't all about music. There were large sections devoted to T.V. and movies. Here are some prop heads from the Walking Dead series.

At the end of the day, it was interesting. Not super cool, but interesting. Glad we went but not sure if we’d rush back there again. That really wrapped up our day. The rest of the evening was again just sitting around, chilling and relaxing. Just some good ol’ family time spent together. Until next time…

Up next: Last day in Seattle and Crystal Mountain/Mt. Rainier...

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This Pic here is just breathtaking!! Thanks for doing this review. Alaska is on my bucket list!

Hey cruzin Phillis. Thank you so much for such kind words. I hope you continue to follow along, Alaska is amazing! Glad to hear it's on your bucket list, it really deserves it's place there!

Seattle (cont.)

Being a student at RISD (Rhode Island School of Design), I am well acquainted with Dale Chihuly since he studied there and was a professor in the glassblowing department there as well. If you’ve never heard of Dale Chihuly or any of his work, please Google him. His work is A.M.A.Z.I.N.G!!!!

This was my favorite exhibit. I would love to have a room like this in my house. This piece is called the Persian Ceiling.

This view reminded me of a dragon with a ball at the tip of it's tail (which was outside the building)

The exhibits were also all around the outside of the building. You could walk around for hours and keep finding new things hiding in the grass and plants.

Next up: MoPop...

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Seattle (cont.)

We had timed tickets already purchased for the Space Needle as well as tickets for Chihuly Gardens and MoPop. We walked down the street to catch the Seattle Center Monorail over to the Seattle Center. The monorail is a great way to get across the city, especially if you want to see Pike Place Market and the Space Needle in one day. We parked at the Westgate Center (which is only 3 blocks away from the Pike Place Market) and also happens to be the starting point of the monorail. There are only two stops on the monorail, the Westgate Center and the Seattle Center, so it’s pretty much impossible to get lost on it!

One of Dale Chihuly's art works sitting near the base of the Space Needle.

The Space Needle, Chihuly Gardens and MoPop were all right next to the monorail station at Seattle Center. After climbing down the stairs from the monorail, we strolled over to the Space Needle and quickly hopped on the elevator all the way up to the top.

Downtown Seattle from the top of the Space Needle. Note the tall black building in the background. That is the Columbia Center and is the tallest building in Seattle and has an observation deck that is taller than the Space Needle. Many people say that is the better one since it is taller and less crowded. Don't know, never got to go there.

If you didn’t know, the Space Needle has undergone a $100 million renovation that is almost finished. If you have even been there before, it is completely different looking. The outside portion now has no roof and glass walls that you have to photograph through and you can go down a couple flights of stairs to a new area that revolves around the tower and the floor is made of glass.

Lady Trip standing on the glass floor in the Space Needle. The floor also rotates around the central base of the needle. It's a little unnerving at first.

Super cool! I believe this glass floor area will become their restaurant shortly. They are still doing some minor construction work on both floors, but they are fully open and do not impede on your visit there.

Looking down on MoPop

The Armory. A collection of restaurants and open meeting area. The Tibet Festival was going on there when we visited. Love the artwork on the roof! I spent about half an hour staring at it trying to figure out how the artist got it to look so 3D!

We then made our way back down and crossed over to the Seattle Armory to grab some lunch. We ate at Quincy’s, a sit-down fast food restaurant inside. Note, when you’re at the top of the Space Needle, the building that has the giant spiders crawling across the roof is the Armory. Anyways, after lunch (which was quite tasty by the way), we headed over to Chihuly Gardens.

Up next: Chihuly Gardens

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