All dressed up

A couple of days before our departure, we realized that we're supposed to dress up for dinner on the ship. This threw us into a bit of a packing tailspin and led to a few moments of completely unwarranted grumpiness. But when it came time to dress for dinner, I think we polished up real nice.

To be clear, it was only the adults who were grumpy.

Hazel was especially thrilled to wear her new suit.

She and Luke made an adorable pair.

We bribed them to let us take a bunch of smiling photos by promising to take a few silly photos at the end.

So dapper.

Once again, Juniper didn't make it till the end of dinner.

Mendenhall Glacier

While in Juneau, we also visited the Tongass National Forest where we saw the Mendenhall Glacier.



The glacier was big and beautiful, and surprisingly blue. (Perhaps not surprising to others, but I didn't know how blue glacier ice is.)

We did the short and very easy Nugget Falls trail.

Despite the warm clothes, it was spring in Alaska, and the flowers were in bloom.

At the end of the trail we saw the Nugget Falls. Waterfall plus glacier plus mountain backdrop made for some awe inspiring scenery.

Also great rocks for scampering!

We ended our visit to the park with the obligatory photos of various combinations of people in front of the glacier.

Whales!

No burying the lede on this one. We saw humpback whales!

We went on a whale watching trip out of Juneau, trading the big cruise ship for a much smaller and faster boat.

Captain Jack was straight out of central casting. We were told that he pioneered whale watching trips back in the 90's and that he's the best at finding whales. My rational brain may suspect there is no causal link between grizzled appearance and whale locating prowess, but just like a fancy label increases one's actual enjoyment of a bottle of wine, I have no doubt that Captain Jack increased our actual enjoyment of this excursion.

These sea lions were the first big animals we saw. They would usually qualify as the main attraction of any nature outing, but this one had bigger things ahead.

Environmental regulations prohibit boats from approaching closer than 100 yards. The strategy is to find an area with lots of whale activity, get as close as you can, then park and hope they come to you. We were incredibly lucky that a pod of four humpbacks surfaced about 15 feet from our boat.
 

They were close enough that we could see their blowhole muscles expanding and contracting.

Blowhole, hump, then tail. We never saw the whole whale at once, so even this close it was still hard to wrap your head around just how large these animals really are.

We were also lucky that while we were waiting on the whales, there was a group of really active sea lions very close to our boat. Again, it's hard to believe that these were not the most amazing animals we saw on our trip.

These photos are all Aaron's but Juniper was also documenting the trip.

 

She was a delightful mix of amazed, inspired, and content after we saw the whales. Her goodwill bubbled over into extra snuggliness.

Lucky to see such amazing animals and lucky to share the experience with family.

On the boat

Juniper and Hazel both put these Pullman beds on their lists of top best things about the trip. (We learned the difference between a Murphy bed--comes out of the wall--and a Pullman bed--comes out of the ceiling.)

They really enjoyed spending time in our tiny, efficient stateroom.
 

The adults were more interested in getting out on the open decks of the ship and enjoying the magnificent views...

...despite the cold.  Which some of us felt more than others.

The kids were also big fans of this terrific Rube Goldberg device that moved colored golf balls along several tracks, with sound effects, surprising bounces, and even a little mechanical putter. On more than one occasion, our kids spent a good half hour entranced by this device.

Child-free Rebecca seemed vaguely baffled by our determination to sign up for the early dinner seating at 5:30. Juniper demonstrated why by falling asleep in the dining room before the meal was over our first night on the ship.

Seattle

We recently returned from a West Coast trip that included time in Washington, Alaska, British Columbia, and Oregon. This will be the first of several posts from our vacation.

We were in Seattle for less than 24 hours, but that was enough time to check out the terrific playground at Seattle Center.

Seattle Center's main attraction may be the Space Needle, but our family got much more enjoyment out of the cool slides...

...and giant fountain.

 At pools, we're always reminding the kids to walk, not run. Here, they could run as much as they wanted.

 And splash.

Sadly, not without consequences. They discovered that sopping wet clothes are not so comfortable for a cool and shady Seattle evening.

The next morning, we had breakfast at the Pike's Place Market. We sampled a variety of summer fruits and even got to see some fish throwing. (I assume that tradition has its roots in genuine efficiency, but now it seems to be just a tourist attraction that results in a mangled fish no one will ever buy.)

In addition to tasty food and good coffee, there was a giant piggy bank for making donations to a local foundation. Equally good for climbing and riding.

After the market, it was on to our cruise ship.

The kids briefly checked out the views of the departing city, were pretty interested in the other boats, and then moved on to the better entertainment of exploring and clambering.

Goodbye, Seattle!

Albemarle County 4-H Fair

Aaron and the girls are up in Virginia for what's become their annual Camp Gramps: a week of work in the Gale Force 9 office for Aaron and fun with Gramps for the girls. Today they all went to the county 4-H fair.