Hey look at that, I came back! I'm updating!!! Wow.....My new goal is to finish this TR before the 1 year anniversary of us taking this trip
So now it's Saturday and we are in Ketchikan, our southern-most stop in Alaska. The ship does not dock until around 11am so that afforded us a nice, leisurely breakfast at Cabana's out on deck. The sun was shining and it was going to be a gorgeous day! Good thing, too, because our excursion was ALL outside!
We watched us dock from our verandah:
Our excursion that day was a back country jeep (where you drive your own jeep in a convoy), ending with a canoe trip across a lake for some food and a short nature walk.
Photo of the 4 of us (dh drove) before setting off:
Two things of note with youngest dd: 1-she is still wearing her hair from the disasterous BBB visit and 2-she has a sour-puss on because she declared the jeep was 'absolutely filthy' when we got in(it was, you go through some rough terrain on this trip).
So as mentioned, there is a lot of off roading with this trip. Extremely bumpy roads, pot holes, steep terrain. The beauty of nature cannot be beat, however:
Photo of dh by the jeep:
There's a photo of me by the jeep, too, but I think I look fat so you're not going to see it
Now, as I have mentioned (twice now) it was quite rough and unfortunately it proved too rough for both of our girls. One of whom ended up throwing up into a plastic bag and the other dd jumped out (we had pulled to the side) and threw the bag into the back woods of Alaska. Sorry environment....that probably won't biodegrade for a while but it was NOT staying inside that jeep.
Near the end of our ride the roads were much smoother and we arrived at the lake for our canoe:
That, by the way, is the only photo you are getting of our entire canoe journey
Yep, another photo fail!!
DD9 chose to stay behind because she was DONE at this point, having thrown up on the side of the road etc. Poor girl. I had offered to stay back but our lovely guides said another mom, who was a nurse, was also staying back so they stayed back together. Turns out they had a wonderful time, skipping rocks in the water, chatting about various things and going on their own nature walk!
DD9 didn't miss the canoe at all so I'm glad she was ok.
It was a decent paddle across this lake and we tried desperately to beat the other canoe
DD7 managed to splash me quite a bit
Once we got to the other side (the water, by the way, was like glass!) there was a huge campfire to make smores, some lovely little nibbles, coffee, water and hot chocolate - it was a lovely little spread. Once we'd filled our faces our guides took us on a nature walk (maybe 15-20 minutes tops) to explain some of the unique foliage to the area before heading back to our canoes for the paddle home. I think both canoes were considerably slower at this point as we were all a bit full and tired
A short jeep ride back (on mostly-non-bumpy roads) and our bus was waiting to take us back to town.
Hello beautful:
It was only about 3 or 3:30 by this time (all aboard was not until 7:45pm) so we got the girls something else to eat (esp DD9 who had missed any food on the canoe trip) and then we dropped them off at the clubs, letting the CM's (and the kids) know DH and I would be getting off the ship again to wander around downtown for a bit. He gave them his cell phone and we had a little date afternoon....
we had a wet day also, so really just took a van to the glacier, checked it out, and then walked around the town a bit...we had also hoped to do the tram, but no dice. 
So let's hope everyone is pleasantly surprised when it does actually get finished and hopefully it's before the end of THIS summer 
Lovely scenery photos and the canoe trip looks like it would be fun....assuming you hadn't been barfing the entire journey there. 
now you're talking my language. 
