Alaska here I come

On June 27, my friend Pat and I flew to Seattle, Washington to go on a quilting cruise.

Quilt Seminars at Sea had a trip planned for Alaska this year,  It was on my bucket list that my husband and I wanted to go to Alaska some time this summer.  When this trip came up I wanted to make sure I was going.  I asked Pat if she would be interested, and she said yes.  

What a trip we had.

Here is the Space Needle from the bow of our ship, Holland America's Westerdam.

Pat and I decided to start the trip with an Alaskan Beer.

This was one of the classes I was going to be taking.
Stevii Graves was going to show us another way to applique.
The Forget-Me-Not is the state flower for Alaska.

Pat was going to be working an a landscape with Cindy Walters.  Pat was going to be working on one of these patterns.

Naturally, we were going to be checking out any quilt shops that would be in the ports of call.
Here is one of the quilts at Changing Tides in Juneau.

Here is Pat with one of our new friends, Sandy.
Juneau was our first port of call.
Amy from Quilt Seminars at Sea works with Holland America to set up fun excursions for us.
We got to visit the town for a couple hours before hopping on our bus to visit another shop and then go on a whale watching tour.

Eagles were everywhere. This one was hanging out by the quilt shop we were visiting.
The locals call them "Beach Buzzards".

That is the Mendenhall Glacier in the background.
It looks like it is in a bowl.  The mountains did still have snow on them.

We saw humpback whales, several mother's with their baby.  None were willing to jump out of water for us to see.
The tour we were on guaranteed us, we would see whales.
Even  if they only came to the surfaces was fun.

The scenery was spectacular.  None of us could get over how beautiful every where was.

We saw Stellar Seals.  What a riot it was watching them.  These guys were considered teenagers, and just being lazy.
There were several more that were attempting to get on the buoy.  Even our boat circling did not stop them.

Another view of the glacier.
While we were on the boat, they served us appetizers, of course that had to be salmon.
We were out about two hours and enjoyed every minute.
The weather wasn't bad.  We had had rain earlier when we were in town.  Not a lot of sun, but it was not cold either.

What a beautiful ending to our first port of call.
I hope you have enjoyed a bit of the beauty.
Mary