Alaska trip

I had been waiting for almost a year for this trip.  For my 17th birthday,
my grandma took me and my twin sister Madie on an Alaskan cruise.
We spent three days driving to Seattle, cruised into Alaska and Canada for
7 days and then spent 4 more days driving home.

This was in Skagway.  We actually saw a grizzly
bear, but this one was easier to get a
picture with.  We also saw some cute otters.

This was our ship, docked in Victoria, Canada.
We did a lot of eating on the ship!  We also went to shows, went on the two crazy waterslides on the top of the ship, and spent lots of time looking at the ocean!  So fun.

The most incredible part of the trip was how blue everything was.
The water, the sky, the glaciers.
I had no idea how big glaciers were, or that they could vary
so much in size and color.
We were lucky to have all clear days.  One of the tour guides joked
that while most states have snow days where school and work
are cancelled, Alaska has sun days.  It's so rare that they think
they should be able to sluff work and school to enjoy it.

This wall of rocks was painted with each cruise ships name
and captain.  There are a lot of cruise ships going in and out of
Skagway.

The whales were so cool to watch but hard to catch on my phone.
Most of my pictures are the tail end of the whale going back
into the water!  If you look close at these pics, you can see the little splash
where the whale just disappeared.

When we docked back in Seattle, we made sure to visit
the Space Needle and Pikes Place.
We followed Highway 1 to San Francisco,
stopping to see the Giant Redwoods and some
beautiful beaches on the way.
Then it was home to Utah.
It was a trip to remember!