Skagway, AK

Our second stop was in Skagway.  Though still cold, thankfully the weather was less rainy than Juneau because we had a full day of Alaska adventure planned.  

We may see bears - oh my!

After a short walk from the ship, we started with a boat trip to Glacier Point which provided for some beautiful scenery.

After stopping to admire the view and have a quick lunch...

We loaded onto buses...

To go to the meeting point for our canoe trip.  We all put on the provided rain gear which was better handled by some than others.  And then were put into groups for the 1/2 mile hike through the rain forest to the canoe spot.

They next leg of the journey was to canoe to the glacier. Not surprisingly, they gave our group our own canoe and thankfully we had an incredibly energetic guide who was thrilled to have kids to entertain.  Each canoe had a motor but we did have to paddle the first part against the current which was quite the effort for most in our gang.

It started raining and the temps dropped once you got close to the glacier but thankfully we made it and even found some glacier ice in the process.

We then stopped at a small island to get some pictures and shake out our legs.  At this point the kids were cold, wet and ready to get out of their adult sized rain gear.

We then did the trip in reverse, back to the beach we landed on.  Everyone was thrilled to get out of the rain and that gear.  We celebrated by picking some wild strawberries and taking a few more pictures of the gorgeous scenery.

It was then back on the boat to head to Skagway.  We made a quick stop on the way to check out a cool waterfall.

Once back on board, we all warmed up, changed clothes and laughed about the crazy adventure.  We then enjoyed the scenery and whale watching from the ship as we headed to our next port.

This whale swam around outside our balcony for close to an hour and delayed us leaving the port