August 29-31, 2017 Anacortes,North Cascades NP, Grand Coulee Dam, WA

We drove the RV into downtown Anacortes & walked around. We like this place-a cute downtown & great Marina all within walking distance of each other. We checked out a boat charter place for future reference because there is great boating here. We saw 2 Kadey Krogens docked at the Marina; we think this is where the fall Krogen NW Rendezvous is going to take place in a few weeks.

Alpine RV Park is our stop for the night-not a great place. It consists of a dried up grass lot with really old worn out bathrooms & a creepy manager.  There are a few permanent residents here, the manager being one of them and 2 transients & electricity. Thank goodness we only had to stay one night.

The Picket Glacier Range

North Cascades National Park in Washington is a unique place boasting the most glaciers of any other park outside Alaska.  Most of the park is inaccessible by road so we only saw a portion of it. There are mountains, rivers, lakes & dams. We were able to see a small glacier from the Visitor Center. The main river flowing through the park is the Skagit which is a beautiful deep aquamarine color caused from the glacial runoff. Interestingly, at Mt Rainier NP there was a milky white river which they said was that color from the glacier runoff.  So not all glaciers melt the same color runoff.

Skagit River glacier runoff

Gorge Dam-we saw Salmon

After stopping at the Visitor Center, we hiked to a waterfall and the Gorge Dam.  We saw deep gorges and fairly high Mountains along our drive. One day is not enough to do this park justice but I was still under the weather and couldn't do much hiking which is how to tour this park.

Diablo Lake

Ross Powerhouse

We stayed the night at Pearrygin Lake State Park. Our campsite was right on the shore of pretty Pearrygin Lake. The next morning we drove through a cute western town called Winthrop, still in Washington. The buildings looked like something out of a cowboy movie set.

The Grand Coulee Dam was on our route & Doug was thrilled to see one of the largest concrete structures in the world. It contains nearly 12 million cubic yards of concrete. The Dam is the largest hydropower producer in the United States, enough power to supply 2.3 million households with electricity for one year.

August 27,2017 Vancouver, BC Canada

We disembarked from the cruise ship after Craig & Cheryl left to catch their flight back to Ohio. It was a very easy, efficient process. We walked to our hotel, The Auberge @ $350/nite (Canadian) was very nice, as it should be for that much. We had a corner room on the 12th floor with big windows looking out to the city. It just so happened there was a movie being filmed on our street: Dead Pool 2.  The street was closed off to traffic & there were cameras & big tank type vehicles.

The architecture of the city buildings is impressive. The harbor is a bustling place with cruise ships, yachts, freighters, kayaks & lots of sea planes. The city has an awesome bike & pedestrian trail system along the entire coastline & into the city streets. We rented E-bikes & rode the shoreline trail, where we took in beautiful scenery & beaches with lots of people & a huge community pool right on the shore.

Granville Island was across the harbor from us & looked very interesting with markets, shops & restaurants. There is a ferry that goes across but we ran out of time.








The next morning, we got up @ 4:30 AM in order to catch the Amtrak Cascades train back to Edmunds WA.  The scenery was pretty once we got close to the US Border because we rode along the shoreline & bays of the Straits of Georgia & Juan de Fuca. We grabbed an Uber ride from the train station back to the Lake Pleasant RV park where our RV was waiting. After unpacking, we drove the RV 80 miles to Anacordes, WA & checked into Pioneer Trail RV Park.

August 26 2017 our last day @ sea

We hated to see this day arrive-our last day on the Noordam, our Holland American cruise ship & our last day of our Alaskan Land & Sea Adventure. In the morning, Cheryl treated all of us to a slot tournament.  Jan made it on the board for a while then was bumped off. We were invited to the Mariner Luncheon, since now all four of us are frequent floaters.  Lunch was delicious & we were given a Norwegian collectable tile.

We spent the afternoon in the Crow's Nest, our favorite bar & place on board. It's a great location to watch the scenery out of their big picture windows.  The Crow's Nest is on one of the top floors & is located in the bow of the ship. Once we entered the Canadian channel that runs next to Vancouver Island, the scenery was Amazing! The temperature warmed up 20 degrees as we got closer to Vancouver, the sun came out & the skies turned blue.  We saw a large group of porpoises swimming right toward us, what a spectacle. Doug & Jan were heathens & didn't go to church with C&C & right after C&C left, a pod of Orcas showed up swimming alongside the ship.

Our last night on board, we enjoyed a delicious dinner, collected the last of our signature shot glasses to complete our collection & said our good-byes to our waiters & drink master. After dinner, we moved to the theater to watch our last stage show, which was the comedian & magician's encore performance. We closed the night @ the piano bar where we sat at the piano with the talented Mike who sings & plays pretty much anything & was funny too.  We loved singing along! Now that was the end of our night but I have a sneaky suspicion C&C hit the casino one more time!

A trip of a lifetime with lifelong friends.
Thanks for the memories

August 25, 2017 Ketchikan, Alaska

Our last stop is Ketchikan, the rainiest city in the US of A: 160 inches/year on average. So it wasn't surprising that it was raining while we visited.  We walked around the harbor on the nice wide boardwalk which took us to nearby restaurants & shops.

While we were in Ketchikan, we splurged & booked the excursion: The Deadliest Catch, Crab Fishermen's Tour.  We boarded the fishing trawler, the Aleutian Ballard which was made famous on the TV Discovery series: Deadliest Catch. During the second season of the show, the Aleutian Ballard was hit by a 60 foot rogue wave.  The boat was knocked down, the crew had to abandon ship but the boat did survive. Now it has been revamped to serve as an educational & interactive adventure.

We cruised along the inside passage, watching commercial fishermen haul in their catch of salmon.  Our crew demonstrated pulling crab pots & picking up bait traps with their pullies, winches & booms.
They showed us different varieties of crabs, fish & octopus.  Cheryl, with some persuasion, was even brave enough to hold a crab.