Icy Point Straight and Mom and Dad's Anniversery

When you live your life following a paycheck, it's sad that you don't get to spend much time with your family.  Luckily we were able to have our folks onboard and were also able to catch up with anniversaries.  My folks, Don and Marlene Blanchard, are very humble unassuming people and they really didn't want any kind of notice for their 50th, or 55th wedding anniversary.  So we did the next best thing, a piece of cheesecake with a candle and a song.  My wonderful husband spent so much time taking pictures of the cruise while the rest of us played a lot.  But, the one we missed was the crew surrounding our folks and singing a cornball anniversary song.  It was so nice sharing this with them.  

 The Radiance has everything a bigger boat has, just on a smaller scale.  This is the Centrum.  There were extra restaurants.  Bob and I really enjoyed the Izumi Japanese restaurant.  The Windjammer was the big buffet for breakfast and lunch.  Then for dinner, we had reservations for 7:15 every night.  This turned out to be too late.  My father did the best he could to stay on Tulsa time and that meant he would have been fast asleep at 10:15.  So, we only did the dinner with them twice, then we did our own thing and they went to the Windjammer buffet.

One of our stops was at Icy Point Straight.  Next time we go there we need to take the whale watching cruise, I heard they sighted the bubble net feedings that we got to see on our last Alaska cruise, in 2005.    The other thing the city is famous for is having the world's longest zip line.  I had no takers in my group for that activity.  Plus, it seemed that we had a pretty loaded schedule of excursions, later on. 

What must it be like to live in a picture postcard, 3 months out of the year?

Ketchikan is a picture postcard city.  Alaska has strict guidelines when it comes to building or rebuilding the streets.  They must resemble the old time facades and it looks authentic, I guess...smile

The Lumberjack show had lots of dangerous tricks!

The totem of shame.  (below) Seward himself was considered a cheapskate by the tribes and he was placed atop a pole with nothing adorning it,  

Onboard ship, there were all kinds of things to do for entertainment.  My folks, being the grand gamblers that they are, won 600.00 (mom) and dad, undisclosed amounts.  I guess that's why I'm such a risk taker, it's part of my genes...smile. 

Then on to another beauty beyond belief destination, all the while relaxing in our room watching the new elegant world roll by.