Jumping June & July - Visiting Friends and Alaska Cruise

With June and July well behind me and August moving forward quickly, I am trying to get caught up on our busy summer.
We left for our Alaskan cruise on July 9th.  We stopped to spend a night with our friends - Bob and Susan.   

That evening we enjoyed an Italian dinner together at Johnny Carinos.

It was fun to have a chance to be together and get caught up on each other's lives.

The next day, we visited more of our friends - Dick and Heidi Cameron, Sharon and Nolan Taggart and Karen and Bill Young.  It is always fun to return to Idaho and visit with those we know and love there.

Our next stop was La Grande, Oregon to visit our friends Lloyd and Mary Royer.  they served with us on our second mission to Russia.  They were awesome missionaries and served in the city of Krasnoyarsk.  

We began our visit with lunch together and lots of visiting.  Then we decided to drive up to their cabin which is in the beautiful mountains above La Grande.  Lloyd wanted to show us his latest project of finishing the walls on the lower level.  As we parked the vehicle and got out, we all noticed smoke coming from the roof of the cabin on one side.  To our horror, we discovered that the roof was on fire.  In this remote location, there was no powerful water system and no emergency fire service.  Hal and Lloyd tried their best to douse the powerful  flames with buckets of water and a hose that was hooked to their water tank while Mary and I removed everything we could on the lower level of the cabin. But, efforts to put the fire out were to no avail.  The forest service was called, but they would only put out fire on the trees in the area to prevent a forest fire. 

With broken hearts, we could only watch as the cabin burned.  Lloyd had spent years building and working on this project.  The time, effort and money lost was staggering. This was their place to get together with family and friends and to escape into the beautiful mountains.  We mourned together and did our best to comfort them.  How we wished we could have done more.  We know that happier days and times will come for the Royers and that our friendship with them will always continue - they are truly wonderful people.

We spent that night with the Royers and then left early the next morning for Seattle where we would board our ship for the cruise.

The Norwegian Pearl

Sail away -leaving Seattle

This cruise was with Hal's siblings and their spouses.

Ann and Wayne

Larry and Linda

Paul and Cynthia

Mike and Karma

Dixie and Roy

Louise and Jim Cook

Jim has been a friend of Hal, Paul and Mike since childhood and he and his wife love to cruise with the Mickelsen brothers and wives.

Our first stop was Juneau and we were greeted in port by two bald eagles that were perched on this nearby structure.  Paul and Cynthia and Ann and Wayne went with Hal and I to go whale watching.  It was a cool rainy day but we promised them that it would be fun and an adventure.  

Ann and I looking for whales

We did see many whales from a distance and close up.

They are such beautiful creatures and so large!

It is exciting to see them dive with the tale up and down they go!

After whale watching, Ann and Wayne took the bus back into Juneau and Paul and Cynthia and Hal and I boarded the bus to go to Mendenhall Glacier.  By then it was early evening and, as we left the bus, the bus driver told us that the last shuttle of the day would pick us up at 7:10 PM.  We quickly did our sightseeing of the glacier and took some pictures.

Beautiful Mendenhall Glacier (Paul is in the background)

With the drizzling rain, by the time we viewed the glacier and were ready to catch the bus back to the ship, we looked like drowned rats (especially me!).

We hurried to the bus stop area and waited and waited but NO bus came at 7:10 or 7:20, 7:25...would we miss our ship and have to spend the night in the rain at the glacier?  Finally, after 7:30 PM, a bus from a different company than we were with came to pick up some people with another group. A kind ranger ran to their bus stop and asked the driver if he would give our group a ride into Juneau. He said yes, and what a relief - we had a ride back!  So, yes we did have fun that day and we also had an adventure!

After some wonderful cruise food and a good night's rest, we were ready to go the next morning when we stopped in Skagway.

Here, we boarded the White Pass train to see the
route of the former gold seekers during Alaska's
Klondike gold rush of the late 1800's.

After over  an 1 1/2  delay (the engine on the train ahead of us broke down) we got underway.

You can see some of our group aboard the train.

The scenery was beautiful and made the wait worth it.

Our train was very long and we could see the cars behind us as we rounded curves.

We saw many rivers and streams and gorgeous trees and mountains!

In 1922, George Buchanan, a wealthy coal man from Detroit, began sponsoring trips to Alaska for young boys to mine gold.  At milepost 8.8, the grateful young men painted this slogan on the rock face of the canyon.

This photo shows some of what is left of the original trail that the early gold seekers followed with horses and supplies prior to the railroad being built.

This is literally Alaska's "bridge to nowhere".  Actually, it is the old bridge of the White Pass route that has been replaced with a newer, more modern bridge today.

Near the summit, as we crossed into Canada were we saw these flags representing two nations and their states and provinces.

These beautiful purple Fireweed flowers were all along our route.

More pretty views of the mountains, rivers and the trees.  

Our next stop was Ketchikan.

Our group went to the Lumberjack Show and did some shopping in town.

Another highlight of our trip was Glacier Bay.

We saw several beautiful glaciers.

This is Margerie Glacier and we could see it up close from the ship.

We watched and listened as it "calved" as large peices of the glacier broke away and fell into the sea.  

Victoria B.C.was our final stop.  We took a tour of the city and area.  One of the highlights was going to the overlook point for a view of the harbor and city. 

We could even see our ship in the port.

Dixie and Roy at the observation point

         
          Linda and Larry                                                Karma and Mike

      We also saw Totem Pole Park and of course the beautiful Empress Hotel.

 You have to love all the gorgeous hanging baskets of flowers in Victoria!

Hal on the deck of the ship with Victoria in the background

After our cruise, we drove to Seaside, Oregon.  I have many memories of Seaside because our family vacationed here when I was a child.

 Larry and Linda and Ann and Wayne joined us in Seaside and of course went to dinner at Norma's our favorite place for fresh seafood.

I ordered the fresh halibut and Hal had
the fried clam dinner.  We also both enjoyed the clam chowder which is some of the best I ever had!

 I love all the beautiful hydrangeas that we saw there!

The next day we drove along the coast and stopped at several view points.

A post card view!

We stopped for lunch at a highly recommended local seafood restaurant in Newport Beach.

We both ordered the crab chowder which was loaded with fresh crab and so delicious!

We also shared an order of crab cakes and fresh shrimp.  The seafood was so good!!

We drove home through Oregon and into California and Reno, Nevada then home.  It was a great trip!