Skagway: The Disneyland of the North

Skagway feels much like Mainstreet in Disneyland. Cute, albeit touristy shops, quaint storefronts and lots of ice cream parlors. Dr H and I managed to find both a bike shop and a brewery in Skagway though, so our couple of hours in Skagway were well spent :) We also took the White Pass train from Skagway, and it was beautiful!

Engines of our White Pass Train

Note the little trestle bridge

View down from Trestle Bridge

Really old Trestle Bridge- We did not go over this thankfully

I love the way the background looks like a green screen

Dr H and an antique snow blower for a train. It is Huge!

Skag-Disney. This old storefront is covered in driftwood.

 Seriously some of the best fish and chips ever. Plus good beer.

Skagway lost some serious points when we found this little joke of a store. It's very existence kind of made me want to shoot myself in the face. I can't articulate just how little I respect this woman. Hate me if you must....

That's right. A Sarah Palin Store. 

Wishes Granted! Juneau!

Here is the Mendenhall Glacier we saw in Juneau,  and the trip through the Tracy Arm up to Steven's Glacier. Just beautiful!

Mendenhall Glacier

Yep, those are icebergs in a lake

So wish I was in that little canoe!

Glacial Waterfall

Waterfalls along the Tracy Arm

There is a glacier back there.

Steven's Glacier behind little island with iceberg

And a couple of photos just for fun. Even though they are a bit embarrassing.

Towel Elephant

Amazed Chipmunk

Long Time Coming... Ketchikan and Beginning of Cruise

Here are the much anticipated photos of our Alaskan cruise. The trip was awesome and the scenery idyllic. The southern Alaskan coastline is just gorgeous! Rather than make one huge photo journal, I have decided to break these posts up by site visited. So here is Ketchikan!

Best part of the Cruise: Room Service

View off of balcony north of Seattle

Ketchikan

Just what every red-blooded American needs

My future house

awww

very old brothel

More Gardens: Native Plant Garden

Weed Eating

Native Plant Garden Beds

Garden Beds Prepped and Grass Cut

Tools

I just can't get enough manual labor! I love it! :) With the help of my dear Papa who was visiting us all the way from Puerto Rico this past week, I have put in a new Native Plant Garden in the Dishman Hills Natural Area. Getting this garden ready to be planted involved a fair amount of weed wacking, hand-tilling and swear words. The planting though, was a total success. I had a class of around 25 second graders join me in planting on Wednesday morning, and their excitement and pleasure in getting to play in the dirt made all the hard work completely worth it. If you are around the area, go check it out! And pull a few weeds while you're at it.

A Camping I Went

I spent all last week up in the Colville national forest at an outdoor ed. camp with our school district's 5th graders ... and now I am tired. And very very happy to be home!

Run As Fast As You Can

That old Lewis Caroll quote is ringing true for me this month. It has been all go go go in my little corner of the world, but all that effort is basically just to keep from sinking under the mountain of work that is constantly growing. Luckily, a lot of the work is actually quite fun. Here are a few snapshots of some of the things that have been going on around here.

New Garden Beds

Back Garden Complete

Chickens in their Natural Habitat

Our Girls are Growing Up: Gretta

First Garden Bounty

Biking Sites

Biking

Scenic Tour

This winter we had record snowfall on the mountains surrounding Spokane and it is now melting and turning into record water levels in the Spokane river. Here are some of the sights I saw while on a little bike ride yesterday.

Catch-Up

Ack I'm behind on this blog. So behind, in fact, that I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed by the thought of trying to catch up. So...I won't really try. Here is a photo essay of some of the prettier things that have been going on.

Heavy Machinery

Moving a massive pile of dirt

Bloomsday with the Ladies

Sporting Bloomsday Shirts

Bloomsday Shirt and Bright Red Hair

z

Getting ready for eggs

Yard Work- tools

Irrigation and Garden Beds

Blooms

growing

starts moved outside

cabbage

May oh May

May has kicked off with a turmoil of activity over at our homestead. Dr. H and I completed a 12K race here in Spokane called "Bloomsday" (Dr. H ran, I walked in my new minimalist shoes), we jump started our composting system, our worm bin is up and running, and our chickens are happily pecking at dirt in their run. My vegetable starts are steadily growing and we have a batch of homebrewed IPA fermenting in the closet. It has been a long time coming, but I think Spring may actually be in sight...