By We are celebrating July 4th in Sitka, our first port. I began the day by enjoying room service. Sometimes I get tired of eating meals by myself in a cavernous restaurant, so I indulge in room service. I also get overwhelmed by the plethora of choices in buffets, on which cruises and all inclusive resorts thrive. Selecting a croissant and fruit with some coffee via room service is blissful simplicity.
Now it is time for my first excursion. I swear the excursion list was 50 pages long. I truly experienced FOMO – wondering if I selected the ‘wrong’ excursion. I was able to relax a bit and tune out this feeling by telling myself this was my inaugural/exploratory Alaskan trip with more to come (presuming I enjoyed it).
Today’s excursion was a tour of the wildlife rescue facility and a hike through the Tongass rainforest. I apparently had rainforests on my mind, because I also selected a hike through the rainforest for my excursion in Ketchikan…but I’ll get to that later. The Alaska raptor center was our first start. The tour was educational and fun. They had several eagles in the prep mode for return to the wildlife. Unfortunately there are quite a few birds that are permanent residents because they wouldn’t survive in the wild. The funnier part of this tour was a junior raven who lived in the wild, but liked to come by the center to pester the birds (ruffle their feathers, so to speak). His name was Jake from State Farm… seriously.
The Tongass rainforest is a MASSIVE national park, over 16 million acres! It is a temperate rainforest – not too hot or cold. I enjoyed our guide’s talk about Sitka and the rainforest. Lots of facts that zoomed in one ear and out the other. Thank goodness for google, so I can read up on things I missed!
Sitka was the original capital when Alaska was part of Russia. There is a nifty Orthodox church in town with a typical Russian onion dome. It’s mostly a fishing town (with I suspect tourism/cruise ships being the other big industry). Our tour lasted most of the morning. Two thumbs up from this girl! I didn’t stick around for the 4th of July parade…in retrospect I wish I had, but I returned to the boat and was in for a real treat – the
The joy of cruising is you can cruise any way you like – do you want to sleep the whole time? go for it! Spend your time in the spa? why not!? Hike? Shop? Eat? Drink? Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! After a french lunch with some white wine and rich food, I was lulled into a nap.
Next up – dinner with the solo gang and a 4th of July party in the atrium! At this point I am already getting tired of eating! Tonight I only had a small salad and a small bowl of pasta. And dessert. There’s always room for dessert. Unfortunately no fireworks (Alaskan’s don’t want to hurt the environment), so our party was singing and dancing as the boat sailed on to the next destination.
Following the party, I needed to cool off. In the elevator (on the way back to my room) I met two lovely ladies from Cary NC (we bumped into each other on the next two excursions). Overall another fabulous day!
Happy 4th!
Next up is Skagway
