Alaska!

Why was my post last week so short?  I said I'd explain this week, so that's what I'm doing!

Last week I was on a cruise to Alaska.  It was wonderful!  Not my first, but I enjoy them all.

For one thing, I saw wildlife from the ship and on a few tours.  What wildlife?  Well, one of our tours was to a bald eagle sanctuary.  We didn't see a lot of eagles, but we did see a couple of youngsters who had mostly brown feathers, and then there were some adults with the traditional and revered white head and sharp beak.

Then there were the bears on the shoreline at Tracy Arm, plus the blue ice from the glaciers and pads of white ice where a lot of sea lions hung out, including a youngster who kept prodding his mama.  Other birds flew over us or barged into the water.

One of our tours was in an area where the rivers were so shallow our tour guide, the head rafter on our raft, had to keep getting out to push the raft, and also got some of us to get out and stand, in the boots lent to us for the tour, in what there was of the water.

From the ship, we saw several whales blowing in different locations, and a fair-sized pod of small dolphins or porpoises breaching just a bit to breathe.

Onboard, I got to pet some sled dog puppies, plus watch a very well trained dachshund obey commands of his owner, the ship's magician.

Then there were the night-time shows, including that magician, plus the ship's usual entertainers and more.

And the food.  I won't get into that, but there was a lot, and a lot of it was good.  Plus, we were traveling with several friends, which was also fun.  

So, yes, I'm back, with memories and wishes for more.  Do I intend to do more cruising? Absolutely!  To Alaska?  Sure, but to other locations, too.

Oh, and by the way, I did bring some writing work to do on the ship.   I succeeded in getting some editing plus a small amount of writing accomplished.  I'm digging back into my writing this week.  And that will hopefully include starting to flesh out the idea for a new mystery series that I got while traveling!