The Best Vacation Ever

Last month I had the Best. Vacation. Ever.  Hubby and I took a cruise through the Inside Passage of Alaska. We looked at glaciers calving. We listened to nature guides and national park rangers. We hiked and floated down a river in Skagway, did a really awesome hike in Juneau (and since it was on my birthday, I think it was also the Best Birthday Ever), and took in the sights in Ketchikan (Totem Heritage Center, Salmon Fishery and Married Man's Trail, which coincidentally, was from a residential area to what used to be the red light district). Then we'd get back on the ship, get dressed and have nice dinners. 

So I've decided to share some vacation photos. First we have a picture of a moose nibbling the shrubbery in an Anchorage backyard:

 And this is a picture of the Hubbard Glacier, with a boat in the picture for reference:

 These were some of the gigantic dandelions we saw in Skagway:

 and this was a ptarmigan in the Canadian Rockies:

 More of the Canadian Rockies:

 We passed a sign while hiking in Skagway:

 Here's a close-up of the post. A bear used it as a scratching post, you can see some of its fur stuck in the gouges:

 This is a bald eagle flying overhead. It was amazing how loud its wings were:

 The next day we hiked up to a summit of Mount Roberts. This is when we reached the snow line:

 These are pictures of bear prints on the trail we took.:

 And this is a picture we did not see until we had finished our hike up, go figure. Part of the trail

 There are very pretty stained glass decorations around the pier by the cruise ships:

 and totem poles here and there:

 This one is a replica of another, and in front of the Totem Heritage Center:

 A wall decoration and a boat:

 Look closely at those totems in the picture. The one on the right was commissioned by a woman who'd married a white man (that's a white man with a top hat on the very top of it); the ones on the left I think were to commemorate the tribe meeting white men for the first time. They used a picture of Abraham Lincoln as reference. These cracked me up.

The week after we got back, Hubby got so sick he was bedridden for days and I was extra busy. Things are better now, and thus, I can post.

And last, but not least, I think because these pictures were taken with my cell phone,

A picture of a bear print with my hand as reference,

 The insane number of shoes I ended up packing for said Alaskan cruise (high heels for formal nights, lower heels for "smart casual" dining nights, sneakers for exercising in the fitness center, hiking boots for hiking, Crocs for hot tub/swimming situations, and Birkenstocks for general hanging out on the boat):

 Another picture of a giant dandelion, this time with Hubby's hand as reference. A man's hand. And look at the size of that thing. In Anchorage at 11pm it was still light, so all of that extra sunlight sure seems to prolong the growing up there.