Our Annual Washington/Oregon Road Trip - Pearl Jam

Pretty much every year since we’ve been together, Justine and I have done a road trip down to Washington State and Oregon. This year was no different, except that we managed to arrange the trip around a couple of major events - Pearl Jam playing a live show at home at Safeco Field, and the Whitecaps playing their annual away game in Portland. So we decided to take those two events and add a stop in Hood River for a few days of camping and road riding.

 

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Ketchikan, Alaska

Today was our last port day, as we were headed down to Ketchikan for our last stop before heading back to Vancouver. We didn’t have any formal shore excursions planned, but instead decided to wander and see what we found. En route, we had a chance to see a fair bit of wildlife, and we were “chosen” to be part of a tour of the bridge of the ship. Once in Ketchikan, we did the walking tour and saw lots of very cool totem poles, as well as explored Creek Street and some of the historic areas of the town.

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Juneau Alaska - Whale Watching and Hiking

Our second port stop was in the capital city of Alaska, Juneau! We ended up really liking Juneau. We had a full day to explore, from first thing in the morning to a n evening departure, and we made the most of our time. We explored the town for a bit; booked a whale watching trip that fully lived up to expectations; explored some more; took the gondola to the top of the local mountain and did some hiking, and even managed to relax and have a beer on a patio. It was a full, fun day!

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Alaska Cruise - Days 2 and 3 - Icy Strait Point Bear Watching

Day 2 was spent completely at sea, as we headed north past Haida Gwaii and up towards Alaskan waters. It was a good day for us to explore the ship, as we were a long way from land most of the time. We did have some nice mountain views from time-to-time, but generally, it was a relaxing time. Day 3 brought us to our first port of call at Icy Strait Point, where we had booked a shore excursion to go looking for Alaskan Brown bears (grizzlies). As you can see, we had success…

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Alaskan Cruise - Departure on Canada Day!

Justine and I were on vacation last week - a real vacation where we were able to disconnect and relax. We were booked on the Celebrity Infinity for a week’s cruise up to Alaska. We had four stops - Icy Strait Point, the Hubbard Glacier, Juneau and Ketchikan. It’s going to take me a while to get through the photos and posts, so you’ll have to bear (literally on one day) with me. This first one is going to cover my thoughts on the cruise in general, a bit of an over view of the ship, and some photos from the departure from Vancouver.

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Vancouver Wildflowers

The city has been working on a new bike path that starts fairly close to us. One of the things they did was plant a wildflower garden along a big stretch of the trail. We had noticed it a few days earlier while out for a ride, so we decided to wander back and have a look…

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Stockholm and Toulouse

A catch up post from my last trip to Europe. I ended up with part of a weekend (Friday night/Saturday) in Stockholm after our meetings, then was back to Toulouse for a week in the office. This post will be all photos, as I have a huge number of new photos to go through and expect it’s going to take me a long time to get caught up…

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