Vancouver Departure

We are in Vancouver to begin a month long adventure. We are taking a Viking Cruise ship up the inside passage to make multiple stops in Alaska and then on to Japan. This sounds like a strange combination, but these ships work an area for a season and then move. This process of “repositioning” means multiple days on the open sea. We have done this type of trip once before and while some think the consecutive days at sea is a waste, we enjoy the calm and these trips end up being less expensive.

We have been to Alaska multiple times before and have explored the area in very different ways. Our first trip we drove and pulled a pop up trailer over the ALCAN highway. It was a very interesting way to explore back in the day as the distance is great and part of the road was gravel at that time. Lots of broken windshields and headlights. We did not have that problem, but the propane line under our trailer was punctured in multiple locations and that was the end of that way of cooking.

We made two trips by driving to the west coast (Bellingham, Washington, and Port Rupert, CA. This a ferry trip so your vehicle is in the bottom of the boat and we slept on the floor of the community room as a way to save money. This was a great way too see the Inside Passage and we expect the views on this trip will be similar. I wish I would have saved more of my photos from these trips.

The other trip was by plane up and the Canadian railroad on the way back to Winnepeg. Kim (youngest daughter) and Jim were working on a whale watching boat out of Ketchikan for a few months after college and this is where I captured so many black bear photos.

Vancuever was clear today which I guess runs counter to the stereotype. The photo opportunities walking the deck were great.