Glacier Bay

This cruise had a great itinerary. We left Seattle late Sunday and Monday was a full day at sea, allowing us ample time to get acquainted with the boat. The ship has lots of activities so you are never bored at sea, and we wound up playing Wii tennis on a giant movie theater-sized screen.

Thursday was the second of our two sea days for the vacation but we spent the majority of it on-deck absorbing the amazing vistas of Glacier Bay National Park. It was breathtakingly beautiful with all-encompassing mountain ranges, peaks lightly shrouded in clouds, crystal white snow, slatey grey rocks and burnished brown.

The thing that I found most surprising during this trip was that Glacier Bay didn't meet my expectations. I thought we would cruise down this shiny waterway, crystalline white and turquoise blue mountainous glaciers flanking both sides of the boat, but instead, we saw mostly brown, green and grey. Again, this was one of the times when you have no concept of how big everything is that you are seeing -- only how small we all are.

The end of the waterway put us in front of Margerie Glacier, where I felt like we were this ghoulish audience waiting for her to calve. While it would have been astounding to witness this natural phenomenon, I think it would have been accompanied by sadness for me. The glaciers' longevity and fragility bring a sense of personification to these ice structures and a significant break would seem too personal, too severe. Like watching a living thing withstand a traumatic event.

Tomorrow we are ziplining over the rainforests in Ketchikan, one of the highlights of the trip for us thrill-seekers!