Alaska

Thursday

Well my brother Brandon got off of his mission in St. George Utah on Wednesday August first and we all got to see and talk to him!  Keaton and I couldn’t see him yet because we were still in Utah.  But on Thursday Keaton finished his final early and we got to leave and go up to bountiful and get chipotle burritos before going to our uncle Byde’s house!  He drove us to the airport and there was like no security, so we got like right through everything.  We flew to Seattle and Keaton took a nap on the way but I had a real nice lady next to me that really liked to talk.  So I pretty much chatted with her the whole flight!  Crazy!

Plane we took across the bay to Vancouver

Once we got into Seattle we had to get our boarding passes, and then wait for like two hours before we got onto our next short flight to Vancouver just across the bay.  We ate some snacks and watched airplanes come and go in rocking chairs in the huge food court and atrium of the Seattle airport.  Then finally boarded our small double prop plane that only held like sixty people!  I think it was a Q400 model.  The flight was only thirty-eight minutes long, and when we got into the Vancouver airport the border control lady was not happy at all!  She spoke to me in French then English and I thought I responded politely that I only spoke English and she was just having a fit the whole time she was asking me questions and stamped my passport and I got away as fast as I could!  Weird!  We waited in the lounge for the rest of the family to come in, and saw some strange people in there waiting as well.  The worst of which was a middle aged woman nursing her baby girl and wasn’t covering herself up!  Just out in the open, not caring about privacy or modesty!

Seattle airport, waiting for our tiny plane to Vancouver

Finally the family came in and we all regrouped and said our first hellos to Brandon then got our stuff and went out to catch our shuttle to the hotel.  We crammed all of our luggage into a twelve passenger van with the back bench taken out and then all nine of us plus the driver when there were only seven seat belts!  A little crazy!  That night I was the only one that got into the hot tub.  Everyone else was tired and I guess didn’t want to move anywhere but to bed. 

Friday

Friday morning is when the real fun began.  Brandon talked me into lifting weights with him at seven in the morning.  After that we went to the continental breakfast which was actually pretty decent.  Then we all got Sunday clothes on and helped ordain Keaton to the office of elder with a stake representative that came to the hotel.  Kind of a cool experience because all of the older brothers got to participate because President Peterson from our home ward planned it all out for us.  Very cool experience.

Then all the boys minus Justin went down to the pool and hot tub for about an hour.  We went back and watched some of the Olympics; I think it was women’s one hundred meter dash qualifications.  Then two van taxis came to take us to our boat.  My driver was from the Philippines and had studied to become a priest!  That was kind of interesting.  Then we got there and saw our boat!  It is huge!  We waited in security lines and got weird looks from so many people because we were such a large group.  When we got onto the boat we walked around outside on the decks to explore a little and then started watching little bush planes take off and land on the water.  Brandon really enjoyed that. 

Unloading at the cruise ship

Moving luggage to the ship

The boat really is huge!  Thirteen decks, several restaurants, a nice gym/workout area, indoor and outdoor pools, two outdoor Jacuzzis, and one indoor.  A movie theater and a performance theater mini golf, rock climbing wall, two self-leveling billiards tables supposedly worth eighty thousand dollars each, an incredible atrium with balconies from deck two to deck thirteen, and our rooms were cool!  A full bathroom, with a couch, TV, two twin beds plus a drop down bunk from the ceiling.  We were pretty happy with our stay on board.  One of the best things for me was that our room was on the inside of the boat so when you turn the lights out it really is dark!  It made it easy to sleep.

The Atrium

Outdoor pool deck

The first day they delivered our luggage to us and what a blessing that was because it would have been a night mare to try to find our rooms the first day while dragging around all of our luggage!  Especially with two thousand other people trying to do the same thing!  When we finally departed we went under a bridge that crossed the bay, and we were literally like two foot away from hitting the bridge!  Kinda crazy because the bridge has to be well over one hundred feet above the water, probably even two hundred feet!

We ate lunch at the Wind Jammer Café which is like all you can eat buffet.  All the boys went and played mini golf. Then we swam and got in the amazing Jacuzzis!  And let me tell you they really were amazing!  The best that I have ever been in!  Perfect amount of bubbles and a fantastic temperature! 

The Wind Jammer

Under the bridge

We traveled up what is called the inside passage.  It is a passage between the mountains and islands that border Canada and Alaska that are very near the shore.  So we basically cruise in an ocean filled valley off of the coast of Canada and Alaska!  For the majority of our trip we could see beautiful lush mountains on either side of us. It was very impressive.  And the water was so calm and beautiful!  It was like glass!

The inside passage

Me, Brandon

That late afternoon we performed a safety drill, just to go over what to do if we had to evacuate to the safety rafts.    That night we had a formal dinner, and I had a Black Angus steak!  It was very delicious!  After dinner there was an opening show with singing and dancing and a standup comedian that was pretty funny.  And afterwards the brothers and I went swimming again!  Talked to a guy that worked on Ohio class submarines which was pretty cool.  Then we got some pizza at the snack bar while Nathan went to a teen thing.  It was a pretty fun first day!

Our room server Norm, was very creative!

Saturday

I woke up at like 7:30 to work out with Brandon only to find that he had already gone up without me!  So I go up there and meet him and we work out for a bit, change cloths and then go down to the formal dining hall to try out breakfast.  Surprisingly we didn’t get very good service and had a forgetful waiter and the food took forever to come out.  It was really frustrating especially for my mom.  But I did end up eating herring and an omelet for breakfast.  Got to try new things you know and I continued to do so throughout the trip!  After breakfast we all went outside to the rock climbing wall and mom, dad, Keaton and I all tried the wall out. Brandon did the best, which surprised me actually.  Brandon and I kept talking while Keaton and Dallin played basketball with other kids from the boat.  Then Brandon and I played shuffle board then knockout (with basketballs).  Just good relaxing times on the boat!  

About to Rock Climb

We ate lunch and played mini golf for a bit.  Then in the late afternoon we had dad’s fiftieth state presentation.  It was pretty cool, because he reviewed basically all of the family vacations we have had and talked about what states we visited each trip and how we finally got to Alaska our fiftieth state!  i missed like four or five while i was on my mission, but close enough!  That evening we got in the Jacuzzis again and watched Grease Lightning on the outdoor big screen. At the formal dinner that night I had duck scallops with berry mousse and pineapple papaya soup!  It was fantastic. 

That night we went to see the show called The Piano Man, where the onboard singers and dancers sang and danced to classic piano artists compositions.  Composers like Elton John, Billy Joel, and Styx for example.  They did a pretty good job.  I was glad that I knew all of the songs that they performed.  After that, Keaton, Brandon and I all went up to the café and got pizza and tried to spy on Nathan at one of his teen dances.  But we were tired and went to bed shortly after.

Sunday

We got to Ketchikan during the night and when we got up we could see the port.  Initially Justin and Melissa went off on shore to call the babies (my twin nephews Andrew and Isaac staying with her parents).  We went through shops in Ketchikan just to look around.  Ketchikan is a city that can only be accessed by boat or plane.  There are no roads that lead there, which also means that all of the cars have to be imported. 

After shopping we hiked up above the city and went on a trail in the Alaskan rainforest!  Typically when I say rainforest one would think of like the jungle in South America, but I am not kidding when I say that this was a rainforest too!  Huge green trees, tons of moss, water running everywhere, and huge trees!  It was wonderful! 

Hiking up the road

Hiking up the trail

Gorgeous forest

Crazy branches in the trees!

We eventually got back to the boat for lunch, and then went back on shore for another nature hike at the other end of town.  We saw many very big red salmon and many different totem poles too.  We through some small shops in town and had a lot of fun with some walkie talkie games.  You see, each boy in the family has a nickname for something stupid or memorable they have done in their childhood.  Mine, for example, is “cactus butt” because when I was three or four years old I accidently sat down on a small cactus when playing in the mountains on a camping trip.  So on the walkie talkies we would only refer to each other by our “nicknames” and it was really fun. 

Brandon, Melissa, Justin

Once back on the boat we all took a good nap before dinner.  That night was business casual, and we all looked really good.  I ate a ton of food that night, the highlights being Cranberry Mango Soup, Jalapeno Potato Soup, and Banana Bread.  That night we had a short little Family Home Evening or Fireside about Brandon’s mission.  It was good for him to talk to us all about it.  The whole time we could see the gorgeous country of the inside strait outside mom and dad’s balcony door. 

Dallin was exhausted

Dallin, Keaton, Nathan on the board walks

At dinner, mom ordered "nothing" for dessert and this is what they brought her!

Near dusk the boat moved into a wall of fog.  The moon started to come out on the water’s edge and it looked a lot like the light of Captain Nemo’s ship the Nautilus preparing to charge us!  Kind of creepy to think about.

Monday

By morning we had arrived at the tiny town of Hoonah, often called the Icy Point Strait.  There was not anything nearly as our boat in the entire little town.  The dock didn’t even reach out to our boat.  We took little rescue boats called tenders to the shore.  Tenders are small round submarine looking boats that can hold up to one hundred and twenty people.  They are stored on deck five and have little crane devices to lift them up and into the boat or set them down into the water.  That was cool to see for me. 

Tenders

Little water falls everywhere!

Our Dad!

Another awesome towel creation from our room service man!

Anyway, the main tourist attraction there was this really long zip line.  They created a store out of an old salmon packing house that still had the packing machinery and such.  We signed our waivers and got on our bus that took us up the mountain to ride our zip line! We drove into the clouds and were above them for several hundred feet.  Just as in Ketchikan the rainforest was so dense and beautiful!  We watched ten or so people go before us, so we had mentally prepared sufficiently before taking off!  The zip line is five thousand three hundred thirty feet long, and has an elevation drop of over thirteen hundred feet with a maximum speed of sixty miles per hour!  Don’t worry!  I videotaped the whole thing so that you could experience it too!

It was an awesome view on the way down!  When we start they ordered us from lightest to heaviest for some reason.  And once our harnesses came back up the lines we went and got strapped in.  We had to put our feet on our gate door. And then they said one, two, three and the gates opened and we were falling!  We didn’t get out of the clouds for several seconds before we could start seeing the country.  And we got going fast!  The wind was blasting us and twisting us in our harnesses!  Finally at the end there are like twenty feet of springs at the end of your line that slow you down and catch you in a pretty abrupt stop!  It is really fun! 

Bus up to the top of the mountain for the zip line!

We are in the clouds!

Dallin, Justin, and I

The Clouds

After the next group came down, (only six at a time go), we walked around the bay and to the town.  On the way we saw gray whales, eagles and jelly fish!  We followed the whales for a while because they were going up and down, back and forth along the shore!  Once to the town, it was a little… small, to say the least.  We ended up coming straight back and got back on the boat, and took a nap before dinner.  At dinner, I ended up getting the Rigatoni dish and Strawberry Bisque.  All the boys played basketball, then some mini golf, watched a bit of T.V. and went to bed.

Humpback hales!

Warm Chocolate cake with chocolate sauce on the inside, and Strawberry Bisque!

Rigatoni!

Brandon's steak

Keaton ballin'!

Brandon

Justin

Tuesday

 We arrived at Juneau during the night and were excited to see another new place!  We got some bus tickets and went up to see the Mendenhall Glacier.  It is a huge wall of blue ice that appears to be falling out of the valley into a melted lake.  It is accompanied by a rather large water fall created by natural springs and snow melt. There is a beautiful nature trail that we walked that takes you much closer to the water fall and glacier and though it was raining a little, it really was just magnificent.  Also there at the p[ark was  some raised board walks where you could walk through more nature stuff and look for animals.  Recently, they said, many different bears had been spotted.  Well we got really lucky and saw a small black bear!  He got close to the board walk and the ranger told him to go another way and the bear listened!  He ended up eating one of the super abundant red salmon’s that were everywhere in the river and on the banks.  We also saw an eagle perched and then take flight too!

Touching a piece of the glacier

When we had had our fill, we went back to the boat and ate lunch, then went back into the city to look through stores.  This city had one major strip of stores that you could walk up and down basically.  I found a great coupon with which I bought myself and ULU knife with cutting board and bear claw salad scoops!  And I only paid ten bucks!  I will attach a picture so you can visualize what they are.  But the cutting board is cool too because it has a bowl like indentation in the center so you can chop and dice with the ULU and it will fit the blade better and keep whatever you chopping from getting pushed away!   So an ULU is a native knife to Alaska, picture an axe head and take the blade off of that axe head and put a handle across the back of it.  That is an ULU, using a rotational cutting action it is razor sharp and easy to chop and dice like I said!  So far I have used it many times and I love it!

Similar to My ULU, I use it for everything!

My claws are cooler than these but you get the basic idea.

That night the whole family got into the Jacuzzi.  At dinner I ate Indian food.  Afterwards we all got together to play Wits and Wages.  It is a game where there is a question with a fact answer, and we all make a guess and put the guesses on the table.  Then put some of our chips on the guess that we think is right and if ours is, then we get a certain amount of chips back on top of the ones we bet.  It was sort of fun, but got really frustrating after a bit, because we thought the answers were off and others thing like that.  So to blow some steam, the boys all got hot chocolate and went and played mini golf while drinking it.

Wednesday

Today was Skagway, our last port before the end of the trip!  Brandon, Keaton, and I ordered room service for breakfast and it was good, but not as good as the options upstairs at the buffet.  Skagway is a tiny town, basically run off of tourism.  We walked into town and rented two Buicks and then proceeded to drive them into the valley.  We took Highway 2 from Alaska to British Columbia and the Yukon Territory and it was an absolutely gorgeous drive!  The mountains are so immense and beautiful, with crystal lakes at their bases.  It was so clear you could see reflection of the mountains above them in the water!  We saw places where avalanches had occurred and also a place where tourists had built their own little rock towers with loose rocks by the road that had been left by glaciers. So we of course had to do the same.

Rock Towers

Keaton is a dog

I love this picture so much and it only capture a fraction of what it truly looks like!

Tired and weird brothers

The wild flowers were very pretty, and we got to see a moose also!  At one point we tried to move this huge rock into the lake, but it was just too heavy and big, plus we had to go on.  Perhaps if we had had more time we would have gotten it into the lake!  That night when we got back it was formal dinner time again.  All dressed up we ate in the dining hall and I got some Thai chicken.  We looked so good that mom wanted to take some fun pictures of us riding in the glass elevators.  

Avalanche detectors

A towel bat!

Self leveling pool table

Thursday

Bright an early in the morning we were supposed to arrive at the Hubbard glacier.  Brandon and I got up at 6:30 to be some of the first to see it.  That should be easy for us, but after six days on a cruise be treated like royalty, it was immensely difficult!  But the worst was that we hadn’t gotten to the glacier yet! We were a little late I guess.  But after a half hour we saw ice chunks in the water.  Then in another twenty minutes or so we arrived at the glacier.  It was ginormous!  At least four times as big as the Mendenhall glacier!  They said that three hundred feet of it was above the water and over eleven hundred feet underwater!  And that is was like three miles wide!  The whole thing is estimated to have a surface area of one thousand acres!  That is a huge piece of ice! 

Early, icy cold morning

When ice chunks fall off of the glacier they call it calving.  Basically, it is silent everywhere because we are in between two mountains, floating in the water with all the engines and stuff turned off.  Then you hear these crystal clear and loud cracks in the ice and a few seconds after that these huge sheets of ice fall into the water! It is really cool to experience!  One piece that fell off was large enough that it went under the water and bobbed back up out of the water several feet like a miniature iceberg!  We were able to catch one of these calving’s on video too!  We were so interested in the glacier that every single one of us had been up in the buffet for breakfast but had brought many things back to mom and dad’s room because they had a balcony.

The boat had a glacier expert on board and he kept getting on the intercom and explaining he glacier and why it formed and stuff.  At one point he got the entire boat to yell at the glacier while the boat blasted the fog horn to see if we could get any bigger pieces to fall.  I thought that that was interesting that they would encourage that.  After that we were back on the ocean and it was cold, we were a lot further north now.  So we played phase ten, and mini golf with hot chocolate.  That night the finale show had a really good juggling act that we all enjoyed a ton!  He could get six pins going too!  While he was eating and apple!  That night we got packed up for the morning departure.

Mom and Dad like theatrics!

Friday

We had an early breakfast and then de-boarded the ship.  We were in Seward which is about two hours outside Anchorage.  We rented one car, and our good friend Claudia Ashton drove down from anchorage to get us as well.  We shopped a little and threw the Frisbee.  Then went and saw the Exit Glacier.  It is receding a foot a day.  They had signs along the road, measuring where the glacier had been in years past and it used to be enormous!  It was a nice hike up there.  

Just outside anchorage we got to a wildlife conservation zoo.  It was actually really cool.  Big grizzly bears that were semi trained!  They sat up and clapped hands, and laid on their back in the water just like Baloo in the Jungle Book!  There were also caribou and elk and bison and moose!  It was very cool!  Most we saw had full racks and everything!

On the way back mom bought us some bakery goods that were each huge and rather expensive in my opinion.  We ate dinner at a delicious burger place by the river in anchorage.  Then mom dad and Brandon and I went to the anchorage temple for a session.  Claudia was so great to us!  She really is wonderful!  I ended up flying out that night to get back to salt lake the next day.  I was really tired, but The Avengers was on the screen so I stayed up and watched that and then still got a few hours of sleep.  All in all a fantastic vacation!  Thanks mom and dad!