Call on the Calls: July 2011

After spending the night at Maria and Stan's home, we flew out on July 16 for a cruise from Seattle to Alaska. Now how do I share that wonderful adventure with just a few pictures and words?! If you want the longer edition you'll have to wait for the DVD. Callie and Elizabeth didn't seem to mind getting their pictures taken often and posing for me so I was able to try for some of those shipboard poses you see in magazines. With two beautiful granddaughters the quality was only limited by my photography skills and some very foggy dark rainy weather.

It was so much fun to finally sail up Puget Sound as we left Seattle.

Time to meditate and ponder on this adventure to Alaska.

The Crow's Nest in the bow of the ship was a favorite and relaxing place to hang out. . .

reading, talking, playing games and just watching the beautiful scenery go by.

The girls are coming down from the basketball court. They had a hard time resisting all the free ice cream cones. Oh, well, I might as well admit it. I had a hard time too, especially the waffle cones filled with strawberry ice cream.

We wondered how soon the land would disappear over the horizon as we leaned on the railing at the stern of the ship.

Sunday was a special day on board ship. We had our own "church service". Each of us shared a favorite story or verses from the scriptures. It was a testimony builder to see how all of our thoughts centered around faith and our love for our Savior and His love for us. What a special time to share with our granddaughters. Later that evening, it was fun to dress up and enjoy a five course dinner with delightful table companions from Canada. Afterwards we strolled about the ship finding choice places to take pictures.

Isn't Callie beautiful lovely young woman. . .

and her cousin, Elizabeth, is also!

In the individual pictures of the two girls, I experimented with a large mirrow to catch reflections.

On deck the wind was blowing and it was cold but we ventured outside for a quick picture.

Our day in Juneau started out with a big disappointment for all of us--our helicopter ride to the glacier was cancelled due to the fog and rain. It was obvious why they couldn't fly but we had looked forward to landing on a snow covered glacier and then mushing our own dog sleds. Instead we took a trip to Mendenhall Glacier, a stream filled with salmon fighting their way upstream to spawn and to a salmon hatchery complete with a fish ladder. You can tell by the way Callie is all bundled up how wet and cold it was. Brrrr. . .

This very same view of Mendenhall Glacier is in a book we purchased.

Some salmon can navigate these ladders in two hours and others took two weeks.

There were so many salmon that they were practically on top of each other. Where they came out of the ocean to begin their climb up the ladder was just as thick with fish as in the holding tanks.

We ended our day in Juneau with a four hour whale watch boat trip. It was wonderful! I took over 500 pictures of whales. Unfortunately I did not get a picture of a lifetime when a young male whale leaped completely out of the water. It was such a surprise that everyone was caught off-guard including the naturalist on board the boat. She said that such a leap rarely happens and we were very fortunate to see it. We came upon a large pod of whales that really put on a show for us. Note the different designs on the tails. You can identify individual whales by the markings and colorations on their tails. The water was almost gray in color due to the fog and rain as well as the time of day--late evening.

I was real pleased with this picture with the water streaming off the tail.

Look closely. There are two whales. One is diving so you see the tail and in the foreground is another whale who is just surfacing.

The baby whale is right behind his mother's tail.

The next day was spent sailing up to Hubbard Glacier which is 13 miles wide where it meets the ocean. Because our ship was classified as an icebreaker, our captain was able to take us up to within 399 meters of the face of the glacier. We could hear the popping, groaning and thundering of the ice as it cracked, split and calved falling into the ocean with a geyser of a splash. Note the number of ice floes in the water which was almost brown in color from glacier silt.

Our next port of call was Sitka where we took a semi-sub ride in the morning and then the girls and I went to the raptor center, hiked through a forest and ended up at a display of totem poles. A diver brought sea-life right up to the windows of the sub.

Sitka is a peaceful small town on an island that is not frequented as often by tourists as the other ports we stopped at.

The raptor center is known for the rehabilitation of bald eagles in particular. They heal these majestic birds, train them to fly and hunt again and if possible release them back into the wild. While on this trip we literally saw hundreds of bald eagles. Many of them were standing on the banks of creeks ready to make an easy catch of a salmon dinner. Apparently this is very common both for the eagles and bears to wait for the spawning salmon and with great ease catch their food.

Ketchkan was our last town to visit. The girls were excited to shop so after a ride on the "duck", an amphibious vehicle, we made a quick visit to Creek Street and then spent the rest of our time shopping. Creek Street is famous because it is built on stilts over a creek bed where gold was found.

We spent the next evening in Victoria, Canada in port and then sailed on during the night getting into Seattle early the next morning where we disembarked. We made a quick tour of Seattle, rode to the top of the Space Needle and visited Pike's Place Market. So ended a wonder trip with two sweet granddaughters.

Thanks to Callie and Elizabeth for going with us. We love you.

Cheryl delivered a little "big" boy on June 17. He weighed in at 10 pounds and 8 ounces! Ben is one proud Dad who gratefully describes the miracle of Chase's birth. I have to admit with my new camera and the freedom of taking multiple digital pictures I racked up hundreds of pictures of this precious baby in just a few days. I have weaned it down to just 114 pictures--of course that is just pictures of him by himself. Becoming a more effective photographer was one of my goals so I do have an excuse!

It is amazing how much a baby can change in just a few days.

Chase was just minutes old in this picture.

A couple hours later and you can see slight changes already. Isn't he precious?!

At six days old, Chase was alert and ready for a real photo shoot. Cheryl and I had fun posing him and taking loads of pictures. The only sad part of this is that I won't be around to take any pictures for a while. Why does Utah have to be so far away!