Alaskan Cruise

This last week was spent with my family on a cruise to Alaska. It was a lot of fun. All of my brothers and sisters were there with my parents which was nice since it has really been 4 years since we were together (Skyler left on his mission to Croatia before Seth returned from his in Brazil - but only by 2-3 months). We stayed up late most nights, ate more than was good for us, and played a few games.

We stopped in a couple of cities (Ketchikan & Juneau), an island (Icy Straights), and saw the Hubbard Glacier. The glacier was really neat - I didn't know those colors of blue existed outside of a Crayola box.

Icy Straights (village of Hoonah), we went down the world's longest zip line (just opened this year). It was a thrilling 90 seconds of beautiful forest scenery down a 1.2 mile line that droppes 1300 feet (at no time do you feel like you are free falling).

We saw the Lumberjack Show in Ketchikan and window shopped in both cities. We collected all of the free promotional gems, etc. you get just for going in the shops and had fun not spending any money.

Also during the cruise, there is an on-board art auction. I enjoyed just looking at the pieces and learning about the artists. I won the raffle for a supposed $500 piece of art not once, but twice during the cruise (there were 3 auctions). The first piece was painted by Krasnyansky and is entitled Street of Old Prague.

The second was painted by Tarkay and is entitled Blissful Moments.

We like the Krasnyansky a lot better than the Tarkay, but Jenny is not ready to give it up to ebay yet. Also, she fell in love with a Bellet entitled "Le Pianista" which is currently going for about $2,350 - $4,000. The auctioneer wanted us to buy on the spot and offered it for us at $2,200. When we said we didn't have it, he responded "that is what credit is for." I told him him if it was worth owning, then it was worth saving up for. I guess Jenny has a savings goal now.