Two and half weeks of vacation. Zero caffeine. Success.
The family and I just got back from a two-part summer vacation. During the first week, we enjoyed a pleasant Alaskan cruise with my husband’s family. The boys and I then extended our fun by traveling and camping along the Pacific Coast from Washington to Oregon to California, then back again.
Our journey began in Seattle, but I’ll focus on that in a later post. Our first Alaskan destination was Juneau. Though the captain promised sunshine and warm weather, we arrived to find rain, fog, heavy clouds, and cool temperatures.
In fact, fog became the norm for our vacation, so much so that it became downright amusing. But that’s to be expected of the Pacific Coast in July.
Fireweed
At least I can say that the worst of the rain for the whole vacation happened on this day in Juneau for us. And by that, I mean it poured substantially the whole day. My hiking boots took 3 days to dry out.
Because our helicopter flight was cancelled due to the poor weather, we instead visited Mendenhall Glacier and went whale watching in Auke Bay. Whales and glaciers don’t mind the rain!
Mendenhall is a 12-mile long glacier that extends from the Juneau Icefield. Nearby are the powerful Nugget Falls. My son and I got fully soaked right down to our toes during our hike to the falls, but it was worth it.
The real cold and wet fun came when we went whale watching in Auke Bay. Several humpback whales were in sight. These three stayed close together, feeding and taking breaths in near sync.
A visible fluke indicates that a whale is diving deeper into the water and likely will stay down for a few minutes.
Across the bay, a solitary humpback breached several times. Oh how we wished our boat had been closer!
Even across the bay, the sight was thrilling.
On the way back, our boat passed a channel marker that serves as a popular resting spot for bossy Stellar Sea Lion juveniles. The sea lion in the water kept trying to get on the platform, but those already on top kept pushing him back off.
Though our plans for the day had to be modified because of the weather, we still had a great time. Next up, glacier calving!
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Wow, stellar pictures of the whale breaching! That MUST have been thrilling. A trip to Alaska is on my must-do list — don’t know about the camping though. 🙂
Pam, you’d love Alaska. I highly recommend it! We didn’t actually camp in Alaska (thank goodness, because it rained so much) — we did that under the redwoods of California. We had to keep it simple because we flew into Seattle and rented a car — there’s only so much gear you can take!
You take the best vacations (& photos.) What amazing memories.