Juneau, Alaska

It may seem strange to schedule an Alaskan cruise in the middle of this extensive RV trip across the US. Well, I suppose it is but we didn't really plan it this way. Of course, if you read this blog regularly, you may have notice that we don't usually plan too far in advance.

I like to think of this cruise as a happy accident that sort of collided with our Crazy Bus Tour. When we found out that the cruise was definitely a "go" and the dates were confirmed, we just planned out last route out west to coincide with leaving from Seattle on July 9th. So in some ways, this last leg of our journey had a little more structure to it but we still tweaked our path along the way.

As I mentioned in our last post that this trip of a lifetime was a gift from Tom's Mother, Sue. We joined her and Tom's other two sisters' and their families for a 7-day cruise on the MS Westerdam from Holland America. Here is a snap shot of the itinerary:

As you can see, our first stop on the cruise was Juneau, Alaska. We lucked out with the weather again. It was 85 degrees and sunny the day we were in Juneau! We totally thought it would be cooler out on the water so we wore jeans and lugged our coats with us when we got off the ship. Big mistake but who would have thought it would be that warm?!?

We signed up for a photo safari excursion. Basically, it was a combined hiking and whale watching trip guided by a professional photographer who gave us tips on how to take better pictures. Our guide, Cam, was fantastic and a lot of fun to hang out with for five hours.

Tom & Kaitlyn at the Mendenhall Glacier.

First we took a mile hike through the forest to the Mendenhall Glacier. Of course, we forgot the bug spray and quickly found out that the mosquitoes in Alaska are the size of small birds! The scenery was gorgeous and the hike was fun. We saw a porcupine waddle across our trail but we couldn't get a good pic for you. Sorry!

That was the only wildlife we saw on the hike other than birds. Cam said we might see a black bear and if we do, not to panic and stay together as a group so we look bigger and more intimidating to the bear. Right. He also said if we were to encounter a grizzly bear we should slowly walk away and let him use his bear spray. Right.

Those two strategies seemed to have a lot of holes in them but we hoped for the best and hiked on. Andrew kept trying to run ahead and all I had to do was remind him to let us know if he saw a bear and he would come right back to hold my hand. Nice.

After the hike, we jumped on a boat in hopes to see some whales. We lucked out again because we came upon a group of five or six whales who were bubble net feeding which is apparently a rare phenomenon to observe in the wild.

Whales bursting to the surface while bubble feeding.

So from what I understand, bubble net feeding happens when a group of whales work together to trap a school of herring so they can eat them. One whale circles around the fish and releases a curtain of bubbles about three-fourths of the way around the school of fish. The herring won’t swim through the bubbles. Then, another whale makes a load noise scarring the rest of the fish into the bubble net. The fish start swimming up to the surface and the whales swim under the trapped fish. Then they swim to the surface with their mouths open catching a lot of the fish and finish by exploding out of the water as a group.

The pictures don’t do it justice. It was an amazing thing to watch. We were able to see them do this five or six times. We also watched them swim along the boats and flap their tails at us.

Whales swimming in Juneau.

We also saw eagles flying around everyday while we were on the cruise. Here is a pic we took while we were whale watching:

An eagle watching us watch him.

I asked the kids what their favorite part of the cruise was and they both said, "the whale watching!" I think I would have to agree!