Kodiak and Hubbard Glacier

Sorry about not posting yesterday. We were so tired! I took a nap yesterday afternoon for a few hours. Then I went to be pretty early yesterday around 8:30. Yesterday our excursion group met at 7:15. The boat docked at 7:00 in Kodiak and we were ready to get off as soon as we were able to. So we got off and found our tour guide. They directed us to get into a small minivan. I personally thought we should have been able to choose our own seats but nope, they made us crawl into the back. There were going to be 4 other people that had to squeeze into the van with us. Once we were all there, we drove across the bridge to the dock. We signed up for a Kodiak Wilderness Cruise. Our captain was Larry and his brother was his helper. His brother lead us to the boat and we got on. The boat was one that they take out on fishing tours. There were 2 double beds in the boat with a living area and a small kitchenette. THere was also 2 small restrooms. Then upstairs where the captain drove the boat, there was a small sitting area. We started off in the inside living area. Captain Larry gave us safety directions like all of our boat drivers have done this cruise. He informed us of where the restrooms were and he also informed us that if we went to the restroom, we would need to brown bag it. What he meant by that was that no paper could go down the toilet. We had to put that in a brown paper bag and fold it up there and leave it by the toilet. Needless to say, I was able to refrain for using the restroom while I was on the boat. Once we heard all of the safety instructions, we left for the open waters. Larry took us to see sea otters, birds, and sea lions. He really wanted to show us some whales but we never saw any. Our excursion lasted for about 4 hours. Then we went back to the pier to get back on the ship. There were tons of people in line to get back on the ship. We waited, of course, because we had no choice. The ship photographer was taking pictures of people getting back on the strip with a brown bear. Our turned out ok :) Once we got back on the ship, we found some lunch. They were having a salmon bake on the lido pool deck. We got our lunch and took it back to our room to eat. After lunch, I took a nice nap :) and mom worked on her pictures. I think we may have posted more pictures on the pictures site. If we haven't posted them yet, they should be posted soon. We went to bingo yesterday afternoon and Mom needed about 4 numbers on the jackpot bingo. On jackpot bingo, you have to get a bingo within 46 numbers or less. At about 35 numbers, she only needed 4 or 5 numbers. Then she was down to 1 number at about #62 and then someone else got the bingo and won about $500. It should have been us! Oh well. Dinner was good, and then we went to the spa. That was nice too. We came back to the room and just relaxed. We started watching the movie Extraordinary Measures but we both fell asleep. During the night, the ship blew its horn a few times. Mom said it was because it was so foggy and they didn't want anyone to run into the ship.

This morning when I woke up, I wasn't feeling so great. My throat is hurting and I'm really tired. I guess I'll try to drink lots of hot tea today. We had breakfast in the upstairs dining room. Then we went to the deck sale by the lido pool. Of course there wasn't anything I needed. Now we are hanging in the neptune lounge waiting for them to clean our room. The crew just had an emergency fire drill so its taking our room stewards a little longer to finish cleaning our room because they had to stop.

We just entered Hubbard Glacier area. Our park ranger just got on board and he is now narrating. I think we are going to head out to the deck to take pictures and see whats going on. Hopefully we will be able to find the picture people later on around 2pm to take our picture with the glacier in the background. If I don't update later today, I'll update tomorrow after our Juneau visit to Taku Lodge on a floatplane.

Oh and Aunt Carol….yes I can show you the teacher look, but let me warn you, it's not as easy for non teachers to get that perfect look., hehe! It's much easier to perfect when you have children to practice on :)