July 16th
Ugh! I am not a morning person--so I was really dreading this day. We had to wake up at 3:30 to catch the ferry at 4. I don't sleep well when I know I have to wake up early. We stayed up talking with Savann and Alex until about 11, so we were pretty tired. I could actually hear the ferry coming into town during my very light sleep.
Either Garrett or Alex must've been up then too because they took this picture of the ferry as it passed in front of their house. It looked pretty with all of it's lights on, though. Savann and Alex were crazy and got up with us to help us take all of our luggage to the ferry terminal.
When Garrett's family moved from Idaho to Alaska, they took the ferry up so that they could bring their cars to the island. Living here during his teenage years, Garrett rode the ferry a lot when they had to go to different islands/towns during sports competitions or school functions like debate. He and I rode the ferry up to Petersburg the second summer that we came up here to live. So, it was really important to Garrett that the kids experience the ferry at some point during our trip.
This is us boarding the ferry that morning. I hung back to take the picture, so there are other people in the picture.
Crazy how light it was at 4 am!!
This is on the ferry checking into our "cabins". We had to get 2 rooms and they weren't close to each other at all. Maggie, Noah and I took one room and Garrett, Lydia, Paige and Bella took the other room. Look how tired Noah looks. After we got into our rooms, we put our stuff away and went and walked around. We knew it would be a little while until the kids were ready to go back to sleep.
Looking out into Petersburg.
We left the kids in their jammies.
One last picture in Petersburg...
I took Maggie and Noah back to our room right away, so we could get some sleep. It took a little while, but eventually we all drifted off. We were still sleeping around 10:45 when someone knocked at our door. It was Lydia. Apparently, they had a little party in their room, then slept a little bit, got up and headed to the restaurant for breakfast. Since breakfast was closed at this point, they brought us their leftovers to eat.
After eating, we headed outside to find the rest of the gang sitting on a bench and watching the water.
After awhile, we went inside and played some cards and had some snacks. Playing slap jack or war.
At the front of the ferry, looking out into the ocean. At this point, we were pulling into Ketchikan, so we were also watching float planes taking off and landing. I think Lydia was pretty bored. When we finally docked, we got off to walk around and to get some lunch.
This is a view of the Columbia ferry --the one we were on.
Here's a little info about the Columbia, from the Internet.
| The Columbia has been the flagship vessel for the Alaska ferry system for over thirty six years as a mainline ferry, which means it serves the largest of the inside passage communities such as Ketchikan, Wrangell, Petersburg, Juneau, and Sitka, Haines and Skagway. The M/V COLUMBIA is the largest vessel of the Marine Highway fleet. Launched by Lockheed Shipbuilding in Seattle in 1974, the Columbia is 418 feet long, with capacity for 625 passengers and 134 vehicles (20' lengths). It is also the fastest vessel, operating at a service speed of 17.3 knots. Its 91 total cabins include 60 four-berth units, nine 3-berth units, and 22 two- berth units. The Columbia boasts both a fine dining room and a cafeteria. | |
| The Columbia’s amenities include a hot-food cafeteria; dining room; cocktail lounge and bar; solarium; forward, aft, theatre, laundry services; gift shop. Year Built: 1974 Length (ft.): 418 Service Speed (kn): 17.3 Passenger Capacity: 600 Staterooms- 4 berth: 44 Staterooms- 2 berth: 56 ADA Staterooms- 2b: 3 Total Staterooms: 103 Total Berths: 294 Vehicle Quantity: 134 | |
After lunch and before we boarded again...
After getting back on, we all hung out in our rooms, reading, watching movies and trying to nap.
The view from our window
Bella taking pictures of herself on someone's idevice.
Each of our rooms had the double bunkbeds. They were really nice rooms. When you travel on the ferry, you don't have to purchase a room. You can bring sleeping bags and sleep on any chair, couch or bench that you can find. It's kind of weird. There's also a place on one of the decks where you can pitch tents and sleep out on the deck or bring a cot and sleep on there in a sleeping bag. It is really chilly out there, so I wouldn't want to do that.
Later that evening, we went to the cafe for dinner. Most of the voyage for the 2 days is pretty calm. You go through the 'inside passage' where there's land or islands on either side. It's when you get out into the open ocean where the boat starts to swing and sway. Right around this time that we headed for dinner was when we started out in the open ocean. I get really sea sick, so I brought my last seasickness patch that I took on the cruise with me. So, I was fine. For the kids I brought some dramamine and I gave that to them when it started getting rocky. Everyone seemed fine except Paige. She wasn't feeling well at all. I'm not sure if she ate anything or not. After dinner, Garrett took her outside on the back of the boat. It seems that is the best place to be if you feel sea sick.
A beautiful view of the sun setting that night.
He's such a good dad!
This is where people pitch their tents to sleep.
This is about 10 o'clock that night...when they came back in, we all went to bed.
July 17th
After getting up, we all ate breakfast in the dining room.
They have a theater on board and throughout the day, they would show movies. They were showing quite a few kids movies, so the kids watched Frozen after breakfast.
Lydia and Bella.
Garrett was somewhere reading, but I liked being out in the back since it was rocking a bit more. So, most of the kids came with me
Then we all went and watched Monsters University in the theater. And then went and had lunch. Afterwards, we played more card games and read. Next to the theater is a little kids area where they can build with big foamy blocks. So, they played in there for a little while. It was pretty much "hang out all day and do whatever you wanted."
It was really windy outside, cold and beautiful.
After dinner, they were letting people down to the car deck to get things out of their cars, or to care for their pets or to get any luggage from the luggage racks. So we went down to get the rest of our luggage. We only had a few bags with us in our rooms, since we knew there wouldn't be enough room in our rooms for ALL of our luggage. (We must've had at least 8 suitcases) So, we repacked, rearranged our luggage and got everyone to bed.
Down on the car deck bringing up our luggage. I think they were watching all the dogs that were down there getting walked.
July 18th
Since we were landing in Bellingham this morning at 8, we really needed to be one of the first off because we had to catch our train to Portland at 8:30. We got up at 6 and got everyone ready. We didn't have time for breakfast. They were letting the people off first who had trains to catch, so we had to be down on the car deck with all of our luggage at like 7:30. That sounds like we had plenty of time, but really there was a time change in the night, so it was like we were getting up at 7, so we didn't really have that much time.
Luckily, the train station was right across the street from the ferry terminal. I wish I had a picture of us, but each of the kids was rolling a suitcase and I'm sure Garrett had a couple, plus we all had backpacks and stuff, so we were loaded down. We all had to walk across the street rolling suitcases--I'm sure it was a pretty funny sight. We made it in time and was able to get checked in. Right before the train came, Garrett was able to buy us some muffins and waters for our breakfast.
Waiting for the train as we put tags on all our bags.
The Train!
Finally settled and eating muffins!
Lydia looking out the window
At one of the stops, Paige and Garrett got off to take pictures.
The train ride took about 7 hours. We read, watched movies, I blogged. Paige was so cute...she was watching a movie with headphones on and whenever a song came on, she would sing out loud...and I mean loud. It was otherwise fairly quiet, but it was so funny!
Lydia and Noah
another view out the window
I love these two pictures of Noah looking out the window.
Almost there and ready to get off!!
Union Station in Portland!! We made it! We had our friend and neighbor Dave Carter drive our car to pick us up at the train station. It was so hot back in Portland. We had gotten used to the cooler weather of Alaska!
Getting our luggage and then we were headed home!!
It was a long 3 days, but kind of a relaxing way to travel!
