Following our stop in Skagway, we had two days of scenic cruising to enjoy. Monday took us through Glacier Bay National Park, which – and I’m sure you’ll be surprised to find this out – is full of glaciers.

The color of the water is the most striking thing. It’s deemed “dirty” because of all the silt collected by glaciers, but it’s this gorgeous teal color that I’m sure deserted islands everywhere would KILL to replicate.

The amount of ice in the water was just UNFATHOMABLE. You probably could have made an entirely new glacier out of all the ice just floating offshore. And while I was ecstatic to be away from the Central Valley heat, I’m not going to lie – I was a little chilly.

We spent the entire day just hanging out on the balcony, enjoying the magnificent scenery (and some complimentary hot chocolate from room service!).

This, my friends, is my kind of vacation.

Sunday was our cruise’s last Alaskan stop, in Skagway. Warning: I took over two hundred pictures in town and on our excursion, so get ready for a photo dump.

Skagway is a tiny town dominated by railway lines and harbors, and I was pretty impressed by some of the art on the rocks near the harbor. All of these are seals of ships that have come through the harbor, or variations on that theme.

(The skull is my favorite, in case you had any doubts.)

Also, there were payphones EVERYWHERE. You know, just in case you need proof as to how old school Alaska is.

We did our shopping / touristy crap in the morning, since our excursion wasn’t until that afternoon. Dan was SO EXCITED that there was a Sarah Palin store … until we found out it (and the Barack Obama store next door!) was closed. Because it was Sunday. Fail.

Side note: How did we miss that giant sign that reads “HOT NUTS?” That’s a joke and a half just waiting to happen.

Our Skagway excursion was a jeep tour over White Pass and into Canada. (Yes, we went to Canada on September 11. Because I’m proud to be a ‘Murrican.) Here is a picture of Dan looking excited to drive a jeep. At this point, he still thinks we’re going off-roading. (I thought we were, too. Apparently, we were both wrong.)

In spite of the fact that the excursion wasn’t quite what we thought it would be (aka. four hours of highway driving rather than four hours of off-roading), I still had a blast. We stopped at some beautiful places and saw some amazing things, including Bridal Veil Falls:

… mountain top glaciers:

… the Valley of the Inukshuks:

… and Lake Bernard, just outside Fraser, British Columbia:

Part of the reason I got to snap so many pictures was because we were the last jeep in our column. This meant that Dan could slow down (or even stop) for me to take pictures out the window without upsetting any of the crazy Midwesterners in the other jeeps.

But our tour guide made stops, too, like this one, at Lake Tushi at the border between British Columbia and the Yukon Territory. Dan took the opportunity to skip rocks in the EXCEPTIONALLY beautiful lake:

… but then got pissy when I made him take a picture with me in front of the Yukon sign. (He hates pictures. This particular excursion was a NIGHTMARE for him, based on my camera-wielding tendencies alone.)

We did some brief off-roading outside of Carcross, Yukon Territory, before stopping to eat salmon spread and drive back to Alaska. (This was the portion of the excursion that left Dan unsatisfied. Then again, I also had trouble understanding why we had driven two hours to off-road for ten minutes, but, you know, I’m on vacation, and I don’t really care.)

We made it back from our excursion (which took almost SIX HOURS) just in time to get back on the ship and collapse. I don’t even think we went to dinner in the dining room that night, because we were so exhausted from just running around. Luckily, we had the next two days of “scenic cruising” to relax (AND TAKE MORE PICTURES! HOORAY!), which would turn out to be a terrific way to end the trip.

Our first steps on Alaskan soil were into Ketchikan, a tiny town on a tiny island in the middle of nowhere. Literally. Remember the Bridge to Nowhere fiasco? That bridge was to Ketchikan. BUILD THEM THE GODDAMN BRIDGE ALREADY. I mean, the freaking Wal-Mart is the main attraction in that town. That’s no kind of life to live, people.

Another fact about Ketchikan: One of the most interesting things in town was the wording on this sign, located on the pier immediately as we deboarded the ship. Private Hummer Tours, huh? They must get a lot of business from the mens, if you know what I mean.

And yet ANOTHER fact about Ketchikan: They have all kinds of shit that doesn’t belong there, like this motorized cable car that is clearly from San Francisco. Someone must have done poorly in their middle school geography course.

On the plus side, because Ketchikan is on an island, Dan and I opted for a mini-cruise around it. (Yes, we seriously got off the cruise ship to get onto another cruise ship. Stop looking at me like that.) On this mini-cruise, we saw all kinds of neat things, like BALD EAGLES:

… and FLOATING GHOST TOWNS:

… and TOTEM POLES:

But really, the best part of the mini-cruise was the scenery. I mean, where else are you going to see things like this?

Later that afternoon, we were enjoying some wine out on our balcony when we had the pleasure of spending some quality time with yet another famed Alaskan mammal: The Humpback Whale. We were fairly close to shore, and there must have been an entire pod no more than a hundred yards from the side of the ship. One whale in particular seemed to be feeling especially brave, and at his closest, was probably no more than twenty or twenty-five feet from the ship. (You’ll note that there are no jokes in this paragraph. This was a completely amazing experience that legitimately excited and awed me.)

And for those of you who liked the animals in this post, get ready for tomorrow, because you are going to actually melt from adorableness and ridiculousness. Just you wait.

We spent the next morning preparing to depart for our cruise. Our frenzied packing was interrupted only by my need for Starbucks and Dan pretending to be a world famous boxer.

Boarding the cruise ship was significantly less rigorous than I remembered. In 2003, for my Grandma’s eightieth birthday, I remember standing on line, outside, in the Florida sun, for HOURS before they let us on to the ship. And this might be an exaggeration, because I was eighteen at the time and had no sense of time / loved to complain, but I definitely remember being miserable. Then in 2007, we went on a cruise for Bubby’s eightieth birthday. (Are you seeing a theme here?) We got there obscenely early, which could be because I was traveling with my parents, and sat around twiddling our thumbs while old people around us complained and threw up all over the place. (Yes, that really happened.)

This boarding process, on the other hand, was comparatively delightful. The lines moved quickly, the border agent hardly glanced at our passports, and we were on the ship and into our stateroom within an hour of arriving at the harbor.

And let me tell you about this stateroom. Because it was big and beautiful and – most importantly – BALCONIED.

Getting a room with a balcony was the single best decision we made when planning our wedding / honeymoon / anything ever. We spent so much time out there watching wales, looking at glaciers, and enjoying the cool Alaskan air with some FREE (!!) hot chocolate, courtesy of the ship’s room service. If you guys ever go on a cruise – especially one that offers “scenic cruising” like ours did – do yourself a favor and get a balcony. You can thank me later.

Probably my least favorite part of the cruise was our mandatory safety training. Everyone has to do this on every cruise ship they ever get on, even if they’ve done it a million times before. It’s like hearing the safety shpiel on an airplane, except at least you can ignore those. Cruise safety trainings require that you actually get your life jacket, go downstairs to your meeting point, and stand around while they make announcements you can’t really hear or understand. But at least I looked stylish doing it?

We ended the evening with dinner in the fancy shmancy dining room, where we thoroughly enjoyed watching the couple next to us eat their dinner in silence. They had pretty clearly had a fight earlier in the day (maybe because someone forgot to reserve a room with a balcony? I’m just saying!) and were completely non-communicative, with the exception of the time the dude stood up halfway through the meal and said “I TOLD YOU I’M NOT HUNGRY” and left.

(But don’t worry. He came back later to continue sitting at the table in silence. Also, to play Angry Birds on his phone. Stay classy, dude.)

Unlike some of our fellow passengers on the cruise, we decided to be smart and fly to Vancouver (where we were boarding the cruise ship) the day before we were scheduled to set sail. Not only did I want to spend some time in the Great White North (which, incidentally, could be our fifty-first state, given how Americanized it is), I didn’t want to risk our flight being delayed and us missing the boat as a result.

What I discovered on this trip is that people are stupid about leaving their beautiful Apple products unattended in airports:

… and that Canadian forms come in two different languages, one of which I can’t read.

Also, did you guys know that pretty mountains are pretty, especially from thirty-five thousand feet?

I specifically reserved our hotel in downtown Vancouver so that we could be within walking distance of EVERYTHING. I wanted to be able to walk to dinner, walk to stores, and – most importantly – walk to Starbucks. And ohhh, was there Starbucks. So many, in fact, that they apparently ran out of room and had to put two right across the street from each other.

One place we did walk – besides Starbucks – was to the Twisted Fork, a charming French restaurant with a hipster twist. And because they sell mussels for half-off on Tuesdays, I was able to convince Dan to order a plate and share them with me. This may not seem like a big deal, but considering Dan’s hatred of all things fishy, I consider it a small victory.

There was a ton of stuff to see downtown, including this hot dog man, who I would have shoved into my purse and brought back to California with me if he had been slightly less gigantic:

… British Columbia’s “Walk of [Not-]Fame,” featuring a bunch of people I’d never heard of before:

… and tons of street artists and musicians, including this guitarist:

… and this dude, who was just chilling on a bench tagging old vinyl records:

Vancouver is one of those cities that requires its own vacation. There was so much going on within just a mile of our hotel (including an Explosions in the Sky show that I would have loved to catch), and there was no way for us to see and do it all. If you guys ever have a chance to visit, I highly recommend it. (Also, take me with you.)

Because I know you all are just DYING to see our honeymoon pictures, I’m going to post them, one day at a time.

(Are you ready? Because it’s going to be a long week and a half.)

I didn’t expect our honeymoon to be as long as it was, which is stupid, because I could have just looked at a calendar. As many of you know, we opted for an Alaskan cruise. However, the cruise didn’t embark until Wednesday, which means that because we got married on a Sunday, we had some time to kill before we got on the boat.

Dan took it upon himself to reserve the hotel room for the wedding night. I’m not going to lie – it made me totally nervous. Having stayed in a number of hotels with Dan (primarily on that road trip we took last year), I know for a fact that his standards for hotels are considerably lower than mine. And while that’s fine for a night in Buttfuck, Nebraska, I didn’t really want to spend my wedding night at the local Microtel.

But guess what? My husband (yes, it’s still weird to say that) came through, and we ended up in a beautiful, historic room on the Delta King.

For those who don’t know, the Delta King is a legit riverboat from the early 1900s that’s docked in Old Sacramento and serves as a floating hotel and restaurant. We had a great view, a room with charming Victorian details, and a bartender who knew how to make a Mai Tai. I was pretty pleased with Dan’s choice.

What Dan didn’t know was that Labor Day weekend also happened to be Gold Rush Weekend in Old Sac, which meant that the streets were littered with handlebar mustaches and horse manure. I was in heaven. You guys are going to think this is totally weird, but I grew up around horses, and I love the way they smell. I seriously can’t get enough of it. And this is why I took every opportunity to make new friends.

People I didn’t want to be friends with: THOSE GOSH DARN CRAZY SUFFRAGISTS. Look at them, trying to extend voting rights to women. THAT’S JUST BLASPHEMY, I SAY.

After we had our fill of the Gold Rush, we headed over to Tower Cafe (a regular haunt during our State Fair weekends), where Dan showed off his ring and I showed off my “OMG HOW AM I GOING TO EAT ALL OF THIS” face (not pictured).

We spent most of the rest of the day watching the Giants win on our room’s cable TV (just because the Delta King is old doesn’t mean it can’t provide me with baseball!) and enjoying some adult beverages (and bread, because I was getting super drunk) on the decks outside our room.

Man, between the ponies, petticoats, and booze, I’m wondering if we shouldn’t make Gold Rush Weekend an annual trip for our anniversary. Thoughts?