So, if you’re unfamiliar with this West Virginia holiday of sorts, Bridge Day is when they close the New River Gorge Bridge for six hours so you can walk across it, rappel down it, and jump off it.

We went for walking across the bridge and taking pictures.

We’re almost there!

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Saturday we took a nice scenic drive to Blackwater Falls State Park. Oddly, despite the number of times we’ve visited the park over the course of our lives, we’d never actually hiked around the park, so that’s what we did this weekend.

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Route 50, Cheat River.

Noon:

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This made my day.

Our trip to Blackwater Falls State Park this weekend was gorgeous, with plenty of color in the trees.

I must say that Michael and I had a perfectly lovely day. (More pictures in the coming days.)

Michael had a conference in Phoenix, and as usual, I went along to take a mini vacation while he did work-like things.

I was less thrilled about things when I discovered temperatures were going to be 96-106 during the time we were there.

The conference was (as most of his conference have been) in a resort. The resorts tend to be nice enough, however, with the exception of San Antonio, they’re usually self-contained and NOT within walking distance of anything. The Pointe Hilton Tapatio Cliffs Resort wasn’t out in the middle of nowhere, but with temperatures in the upper 90s every day, I wasn’t going to be walking anywhere.

However, it was set in a Mountain preserve. So I got up at 5am local time every morning, and walked around the preserve as the sun came up, which was really quite lovely. Being me, I didn’t walk far by myself, but did manage to force Michael up early one morning so I could feel safer hiking further than I did by myself. (Michael: I’m not going to carry you out of here if you break something. Michelle: You don’t have to carry me, just keep me company.)

I’m glad I was able to do so, because the area was so very different from any other place I’ve gone before. The hills were quite alien looking, when compared to my rolling green Appalachians.

Sunrise:

Find the Gambel’s Quail (Callipepla gambelii)

This was the view out the plane window, as we were coming in to land at Pittsburgh.

Here’s a summary list:
Alaska: Anchorage
Alaska: Potter’s Marsh
Alaska: Parks Highway and Denali National Park
Alaska: Kenai Peninsula and Seward Highway
Alaska: Exit Glacier and Seward
Alaska: Whittier
Alaska Botanical Gardens (Anchorage)
Alaska: Glacier Bay
Alaska: Skagway
Alaska: Mendenhall Glacier, Juneau
Alaska: Whale Watching, Juneau
Alaska: Ketchikan
Alaska: Inside Passage to Vancouver
Vancouver
Vancouver: Stanley Park Rose Gardens
Seattle

Our trip ended with a visit with Jeri in Seattle. We walked around the city, went on a hike, and saw some beautiful falls. It was a very nice, laid back conclusion to our trip.

Oh yeah, we went to the aquarium. No offense to Seattle, but I don’t think I’d go out of my way to go to the Seattle Aquarium again.

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We spent almost two full days in Vancouver. Through the cruise ship we bought what turned out to be a two day pass on a sight-seeing bus, so we got off and on and looked at things that interested us at our leisure.

The first place we went to was the Classical Chinese Garden. The garden itself was fascinating, unfortunately, the tour guide we ended up with with far less so. So we wandered around a bit on our own, enjoying the peace in the middle of the city.

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After Ketchikan we continued along the inside passage towards Vancouver, British Columbia.

Here is our last sunset in Alaska:

Luckily, on the last day of our cruise, there was still plenty to see. In addition to the wildlife here, we also saw dolphins and porpoises and sea otters.

The ship went through the Georiga Straight, which is–as you might be able to tell from this picture–a rather narrow and windy passage. These pictures were taken from the bow of the ship, looking at the passage we are about to go through.

Alas, our last night aboard the ship.

The last Alaska stop on the cruise was Ketchikan. Apparently Ketchikan is a good place for fishing, but what interested me was that it is a temperate rain forest. So of course the excursion we (yes, Michael had some say in the matter) chose was a hike in the rainforest.

Hike was used very loosely here. It was really a very casual stroll in the woods.

Living in a land lock state, one thing that was new (and thus fascinating) to me was the preponderance of float planes.

The idea that they best way to get from one city to another is by a plane that takes off and lands on the water was a completely bizarre concept to me. I’m not sure we have a body of water upon which you could land a float plane.

The rainforest hike was easy, but still very pretty. I would have liked to have taken more time in the woods, but, when you’re with a group, you’re stuck at their pace.

And there were a LOT of bald eagles.

And Kingfishers. I was very pleased that this picture turned out so well, since I couldn’t see the birds at all clearly, since they were so far away.

Part of the land on which this park was built, was an abandoned lumber mill. I found the equipment fascinating. (Not that we don’t have lumber mills in WV. It’s just I don’t get to walk through abandoned machinery very frequently.)

When we wandered around town, we not only got to see a fish ladder, we also got to see lots of moon jellies! I love watching jelly fish. I find them so relaxing.

The cruise ended in Vancouver, British Columbia, so we spent some time wandering around the city. One thing that I particularly loved was the rose garden in Stanley Park. Needless to say, I spent a lot of time there, both taking pictures AND smelling the flowers.

There are more pictures if you click through.

As I said yesterday, Juneau was probably one of the most amazing days of our entire vacation. The second part of our excursion with Gastineau Guiding, was whale watching. We saw that most of the excursions guaranteed you would see a whale on your tour, or they would give you $100, which I thought was nice.

What I didn’t realize was that this meant we would see a LOT of whales.

It was, quite honestly, astonishing.

Before we even got on the boat we were seeing bald eagles.

I have to admit that bald eagles aren’t my favorite bird, but seeing them up close was impressive.

We saw Harbor Seals sunning themselves on rocks:

And we saw whales.

This baby whale kept launching himself into the air, again and again. It was so CUTE! (Yes, that’s right. Cute.)

We also saw bubble net feeding, which was extraordinary.

And of course, we saw them diving.