Our stop in Ketchikan ranged the hours from 7:00am -12:30 noon. We were off the ship so early that the carpets in the elevator hadn’t even been changed yet! LOL! Ketchikan is considered the “Gateway to the Inside Passage” because of its extreme southern location. When we stepped off the ship, a group of historical…
I smiled. Lighthouses are one of my favorites. Seeing a small one sit on the edge of a tiny island as the ms Westerdam glided into Sitka Wednesday morning brought my attention to the number of little land masses rising just above the water. It seemed like they were everywhere you looked. Cabins and houses…
John Muir lived from 1838-1914. As a Naturalist, he made four trips to Alaska where he was the first Euro-American to explore Glacier Bay and document what he found there. On those trips, he had a young missionary by the name of Samuel Hall Young as a companion. Young wrote the book Alaska Days with…
Juneau, Alaska was our first port of call and the northernmost point we would travel to on the In Touch Cruise. The Westerdam docked at one o’clock in the afternoon, giving me plenty of time to enjoy the morning activities, have lunch and head to the gangway. We stayed in Juneau until 10 PM, so…
According to today’s title, you may have thought it meant a story about a whale or maybe the whale’s physical tale – either way, you’re correct! Orca whales were seen off the starboard side of the ship all morning and into the afternoon as we sailed toward Alaska. If you would have told me that…
Dink. The crew member handed back my passenger ID card as I stepped onto Holland America’s ms Westerdam for the first time. The feeling of being on a ship again was exhilarating! Pulling my carry-on luggage behind me, my mom, sister and I weaved around the hallways of the ship to our stateroom. This was…
The PA system fizzed on the aircraft, alerting flyers that the pilot was about to speak. “Ladies and gentlemen, we are currently flying over Washington and if you look out the windows on the left side of the aircraft, you can view Mount Saint Helens…” “Ooos,” and “Ahhhs,” followed, but that wasn’t the only…
The grey clouds hanging above the hotel seemed to grow darker as noon approached. The moment I stepped in the shower, the tornado sirens blared their warning of woe. Not exactly a good day for an outdoor Gospel Sing, eh? But over the years, both the fans and proprietors of Beacon Park learned to conquer…
The last night of the Indian Creek Memorial Day Weekend Gospel Singing featured a line-up with The Kingsmen, Whisnants and Brian Free and Assurance. For me, the three days we spent in Georgia went by too quickly and I tried to keep the thought of packing up and driving back home at bay. Like each…
The golf cart zoomed from the grass lot downhill to the tent. This afternoon, the sun kept its warm rays shining down on us as a cool breeze wafted our way. There was already a line of folks waiting to enter the tent and the concession stand had quite a lengthy line as well. It…
