Vacation . . .

Of course, just as work gets super busy, my thoughts turn back to our recent vacation--yep, I wish I was there!

Someone commented several days ago that I hadn't said much about our vacation, and that's quite true.  It's hard to know where to start when we saw so much.  There were drawbacks to cruising and I don't know if we'll do it again anytime soon, but we sure did get to see some beautiful country that we wouldn't have seen otherwise.

My favorite excursion was out of Ketchikan when we took the Misty Fjords tour via a double decker boat.  Hubby and the other passengers on the lower level had clear views of the beautiful scenery through plexiglas in a warm cabin while those who ventured up the stairs found themselves on an open deck--with a hot chocolate and coffee "bar" just steps away.

At some point mid-trip, I headed upstairs to check things out, and the lure of hot chocolate was simply irresistible.  I found, though, that it was very difficult to maneuver a cup of hot chocolate as well as a camera--in fact, I was an utter failure at it.  Rather quickly, the lid of the cup popped off and hot chocolate spilled everywhere, including all over my camera.  How embarrassing!  To this day, the automatic lens cover sometimes sticks closed on one side until a gentle little flick assists it in opening it all the way.

And really, to be fair, I should mention the downstairs passengers were also offered coffee and hot chocolate . . . as well as little breakfast pastries.  I think that's one of the things I enjoyed about the trip--not only was there a lot to see, but we were given a lot of tasty little tidbits along the way too.

Anyway, I want to share with you a few of the photos I took on that excursion, both pre- and post-chocolate incident:

 

This looks kind of like a lot of the snow and glaciers we saw, but this is a waterfall--there are several in the next photo too.

There were a ton of little birds nesting in the cliffs and flying around, but it doesn't look like any showed up in this photo.  Cool rock formations, though!

See the bald eagle?

Besides the coffee, hot chocolate, and pastries, they also served us a bowl of clam chowder on the return trip, and I think it was the best I've ever had!  (For those who didn't like clam chowder, there was chili.)  I thought I might write to them to ask about the recipe, but I haven't remember to do that yet.  Our last food treat was a snack of smoked salmon on crackers.  While we ate and enjoyed the scenery, we enjoyed a film about the salmon industry in Alaska.  And throughout the trip, there were people who told us about what we were seeing and the history of the area.

The Misty Fjords excursion was the most expensive of the three we took, but it was the best too!  If you're ever around Ketchikan, check it out!