the beginnings of the 2011 summer adventure!

Just got home from my vacation to Boise, Idaho, and Alaska.  We'll cover this in increments, it would take forever otherwise!

I flew to Boise on a Wednesday to spend a few days with Carl and Billie.  Carl was busy getting his 4-wheeler ready for an upcoming adventure, and here he is on it.

He has a trailer he can pull behind it, and it all fits into the trailer in the background.  Pretty nice setup.  He was scheduled to go this past Saturday, so I imagine he's out there having a grand ole time.

He went with Billie and I to visit a few garage sales, and we all found little treasures.  Carl grumbles a bit about going, but he managed to snag some good finds.  ;)   We got home, and Billie fixed up some tuna sandwiches.

That night she made some enchiladas (I got the recipe and made some yesterday), and Rich and Leeann came over to join us.

  Leeann brought some hot brownies, so our dessert was hot fudge brownie sundaes!  Yum!

Saturday morning I left Boise and went to Seattle, meeting up with Tammy to start our cruise to Alaska.  This was my first-ever cruise, and I was impressed with how smoothly everything went on getting everyone on board.  Especially after we got off the next Saturday morning and realized they would be loading up again that afternoon.


After our introduction to the world of hand sanitizing (upon entering the ship, and on entering any eating area) we enjoyed a late lunch buffet, and later our safety drill prior to departure.  Then the cruise got started!  On the top deck, there was a party underway as the ship took out of port...music, swimming, dancing, a nice breeze swirling around.  A nice taste of things to come.  :)

And this was our first sunset at sea.

We were at sea all day Sunday,  We went through the inland straits, so there was always land in sight on one side or the other, if not both.  I'm thinking that helped make the ride smoother, and neither one of us had any problems with sea sickness.  The scenery was beautiful, always something to ooh and aah over.

Then Monday morning we pulled into port in Ketchikan, Alaska! 

I liked all of the 4 ports we pulled into, and since Ketchikan was the first, it all looked so amazing.  I've never spent much time around cities on the coast, so seeing the boats was a novelty that I enjoyed.   As soon as we docked, we made our way to the pier to begin our first excursion.  A tour bus took us down the road a bit to see the lighthouses, eagles, and totem poles from a small boat.  Nice little side trip, my only disappointment was that we didn't go to shore to see the totem poles.  But, Pollyanna that I am, the eagles were plentiful and the lighthouses were nice.

This is the pier where we boarded for the tour.  As we walked down the plank and looked into the water below, there were huge starfish, though I didn't get a picture of them.

In this picture, the bare tree has an eagle almost half way down.

And these are houses built on logs in the water.  They're no longer occupied.

Guess you can tell it was raining.  Ketchikan was the area with the most rain.  But at least it wasn't cold, just wet.  :)
Back in town there was a neat little quilt shop among the tourist shops, and naturally I paid it a visit and contributed to the local economy.  I picked up 12 fat quarters which will work nicely into this year's vacation quilt. 

That's it for now.  I'll be back in a day or two and the adventure will continue.