Icy

A week ago the three of us were able to go on a Glacier Cruise of Prince William Sound. Though it was sunny, bright, and beautiful in Anchorage when we left, it was rainy, cloudy, and dark in Whittier. We thought it was funny since when we drove to Whittier last October, we kept saying to one another it looks like a ghost town with a haunted/druggy house on the hill - totally CREEPY. Once we left the busy but still ghost-like town and headed out into the sound and fjords, it was breathtakingly beautiful!

The cruise we took advertises that it is the cruise of 26 glaciers. I didn't count them, but I don't think it was that many.. though it was still a LOT of glaciers! It was astounding to see these historic blue beasts. Here is a picture, totally untouched just to show you how much blue the camera picked up. And in person, they are even bluer. The captain said they are blue because of REFRACTED light - refracted being the key word. It is not magnified or reflected, it is bent. And of all the colors in the spectrum, blue is the easiest to pick up, so blue is the prevalent and most easily noticed of the bent colors. I'm no scientist, but it made sense at the time.

The larger pieces that were further away from the glaciers were very ... big. Our catamaran kept shuddering as we pushed through these ICEBERGS. The captain could tell some of the people were nervous, so he explained how our boat was specially made to hit these ice-giants and keep going. Our boat was built for hitting the ice and for speed. It was more adventurous than I thought it was going to be; I wasn't really expecting to be shoving full speed through the Titanic-sinkers!

Out on the dark, teal water, these icebergs glow so brightly. They almost look like sparkling gems:

Of the possible wildlife, we saw about 30 Pacific White-sided Dolphins, which the captain claimed to be the fasted animals in the ocean. They were swimming circles around us when we were going 30 knots! There were lots of sea otters with babies (how come I'd get hypothermic but those little babies don't??), fishing bald eagle, dall sheep, and these birds... I can't remember their name, but they're smaller than seagulls and they are predators rather than scavengers like the gull. 

Mark and I were hoping for a good family portrait on this water-vessel, but the guy who offered to take our picture didn't snap a very flattering picture of us... so here's one I grabbed of my boys when we were trying to get Mont to look at me. I think Mont likes his home-land. hah!

ohhhh my funny little boy. Not only is he quite a looker, but he is so FUNNY. I am seriously laughing all day with this boy; except on the face-butting occasions when my eyes are watering.. that's not too funny, but sometimes he thinks so.

This isn't a very depicting picture of him - not a normal expression of his - but I love how soft and well mannerly his hair is being in this picture.

He's still working on those gums, and at this moment he found Mark's jacket. Mark probably is going to laugh when he sees this picture of himself - probably, because it makes ME laugh! Mark is as funny a dad as Mont is a funny boy. I love these two:

Happy glass-ee-ayes to you too! (the couple sitting across from us were from Kent, England and I loved hearing them say "glaciers" the entire time)