Alaska Cruise - Part II

Day Three of the cruise we sailed through Tracy Arm Fjord. We had to look up what exactly a fjord was.... a long narrow, deep inlet of the sea between high cliffs, as in Norway and Iceland, typically formed by submergence of a glaciated valley. To make it simple - Fjords are made by moving glaciers cutting through the land and then filled in with sea water. (I'm all about teaching you things on this blog)

One of our first sightings of an iceberg!

The morning was pretty dreary looking. Super dense fog when we first woke up, then just regular fog. Slowly we were able to start seeing how close we were to land, how green the water was, and all the bits of ice in the water. (Remember this is fresh water from glaciers mixing with the salt water sea, hence green water - still beautiful looking)

Unfortunately (or fortunately), Brock was napping when we reached the end of the fjord and completely missed the glacier viewing. Kade stayed up until he fell asleep on my back and then transitioned nicely to his crib - thank goodness for our balcony stateroom!

A little waterfall to the right of the glacier.

It was a cloudy day, but even so, our camera phones just don't do this justice at all. This was simply beautiful.

You almost forget how big our cruise ship is compared to the mountain-side until another boat trolls along for scale.

See all the little icebergs floating in the water?

Another dinnertime was upon us! The boys must have gone through 8 orders of chicken nuggets this cruise.....

I snapped only one picture of my meal this week - it was a pasta dish with salmon, shrimp, scallops and mussels.

After dinner we spotted another cruise ship passing us in the night. Pretty with all their lights on.

The following day we docked at our first port of call (and most northern) - Skagway, Alaska! We decided to make the most of the childcare there and dropped off both of our children at Camp Carnival to walk around the town by ourselves.

 Skagway was a really cute little town. It felt very western with the wood-planked sidewalks and storefronts. It started out as a mining town and grew as the White Pass & Yukon Route railroad was built - linking Whitehorse, the capitol of Yukon Canada, to the seaport town of Skagway during the Klondike Gold Rush.

We did our own little walking tour and window shopped.

We returned to the ship to retrieve our children and feed them lunch (such good parents are we!), then decided to bring them out to see Skagway.

Brock got his first real view of how big this ship was!

Brent & Brock almost under the letter "C"

Brock spotted the White Pass Train as it left the station from the port. I thought about doing that excursion, but didn't think three hours stuck on a train with my two children sounded ideal.... then again, we opted for a three hour excursion stuck on a boat the following day....  I digress....

Anyway, after walking around the town with my grabby three-year-old, we discovered a playground!!

Oh, thank god, a playground!!

Brent didn't like the ground material they selected at this place - chopped up pieces of old tires. Perhaps it's good for snow?? It was rather strange and I didn't think that was necessarily good for children either..... but we were only there for a bit.

We stumbled upon the Junior Ranger Station and Brock pretended to sift for.... a fish?

Kade found fox fur.... Brent's future hunting partner.

 The sun ended up coming out on this day (and continued pretty much for the rest of our trip)! A nice warm summer Alaskan day of 58 degrees! :)

Because we had crossed in to Alaska, we were now in Alaskan time - one hour behind Pacific time - and one hour makes a difference for dinner for my children. Brock did not have a nap and ended up falling asleep at the table - good thing we had a nice booth on one side of our table.

I believe this is when I texted my mother the above picture, which she responded "Well now you and Brent enjoy dinner". Ha - we do have two children. This was what the other one was doing at this point......

Shortly thereafter the waiters came out singing and dancing which appeased Kade long enough for us to finish our desserts and out the door we went for bedtime!

My silly boys - they slept good that night!