Alaska, day 8

The last day of our cruise, day 8, took us to Whittier.

Whittier is a small town of about 250 people. Yes, you read that right, only 250 people live there. And, no joke, they all live in this apartment building.

Whittier is a unique town, as there are only 2 ways in and out: Either on the water or through the tunnel. The tunnel opens on the hour for the people on the Whittier side, and on the half hour for the other side. And it only stays open for 15min and then you have to wait for the next opening an hour later. So you better not be late getting in line, lol.

Traffic waiting in line to go through the tunnel
After we left Whittier, we went to a tour of the Portage Glacier.

The small boat we were on got us very close to the glacier. It was breath taking.

The Portage Glacier, up close

The Portage Glacier on the way out

Ice chunk floating in the water

After that part of the tour, we got back on the bus and made our way to some wild animals :) We saw Elk...

Adult Moose...

Cute, not-so-little, baby moose...

Brown bears...

and Grizzley bears...

This bear liked me :)

There were so many animals there, it was great...

Us with the Bison

We then all got back on the bus and we were taken to Anchorage, where we got to walk around, shop and browse throughout town. It was a nice, clean town...and we got some great deals there too, lol. Then we made our way, via shuttle bus, to the airport. This was a HUGE mess. Frank, being the smarty pants that he is, remembered what crap we had to go through the first time at the airport in Philly with Mady's boarding pass, so he said something right away. At first they argued with us, that since she didn't have her own seat, she didn't need a boarding pass. Well, after a few minutes arguing and a phone call to the security area, they finally said we were right. I wish we were wrong. The process of printing out a boarding pass for an infant that doesn't even have a seat took longer than the flight was going to! How hard is it to print out a piece of paper that says "it's ok for this baby to get on the plane". Holy crap people. Litterally 45min later, we were finally ready to go. Mady was pissy too, as she was in the stroller the whole time and totally ready to get down and run around.

She was going insane!!

The flight home was a long, overnight flight, and then a shorter early morning one...

Frank fell asleep with the baby...

So i ate his breakfast cookie :)

All in all, our Alaskan cruise was a wonderful time! I am so happy that we did it, and i will always remember the things i saw there. And i'm so glad that we took Mady too, because one day she will be able to look back on these pictures and see what a wonderful time we had.

Thank you all for sharing in our vacation with us, via pictures. I hope you enjoyed seeing our life for a few days. I hope to be able to share many many more vacations and experiences with you all very soon.

Love,

The Stiffies