On day two the first thing we did was make very certain we knew what time the ferry was leaving. We had time in the morning and a rental car, so we drove 20 miles up the coast to the Shrine of St. Therese. This is a beautiful wooded retreat owned and operated by the Catholic Diocese of Juneau, dedicated to their local Saint Therese. There are gardens, cabins and a small chapel on a wooded island connected to the mainland by a causeway.
The garden we enjoyed the very most was the Labyrinth garden:
Joshua is very into mazes right now, so he walked through the entire Labyrinth without cheating. I decided to give it a try and it was very relaxing and meditative. The lesson of the Labyrinth is that we need to walk all the way through our trials. There are no shortcuts. I like that analogy for childbirth too...that the only way to get to the end of labor is to go through it and surrender to it. Someday I want to build a Labyrinth like this in my yard...it is a lot of exercise for such a small space and a place to ponder.
Here are some of the flowers surrounding the Labyrinth garden. The flower on the top is the Forget-me-not, the Alaska state flower...which also happens to be my favorite flower.
Toby love to collect things...including feathers.
We were absolutely amazed by the little chapel on the wooded island. It was magical and peaceful and spiritual and kind of unreal. It felt like a movie or England...
There were 12 stone relief sculptures around the chapel, circling the island that depicted the trial, crucifixion, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ (see the top, right picture with Brent and Toby). It was a spiritual mecca. Each sculpture had a passage explaining the picture. I was very pleased that Joshua took the time to go through each sculpture in order, read and ponder the message. He is a very spiritual boy.
A place for quiet reflection...
Well, that was it with Juneau and we were off to catch our Ferry! The ferry was the Alaska State Ferry. It is quite nice...much nicer than the Washington ferries that we have been on before. You can actually catch this ferry down in Bellingham, Washington and take it all the way north to Alaska (it takes several days). It's no fancy cruise, but there are nice clean observation decks, a movie theater, private state rooms with beds that you can rent, a cafeteria, and even a open air deck on the very top where you can pitch a tent and camp out! We only took the 5-6 hour ferry ride up to Haines and Skagway.
Toby could not sit still on the whole voyage. He had to explore every nook and cranny of the ferry! Joshua on the other hand, was happy sitting on the observation deck reading books and doing mazes.
We saw WHALES on the ride...lots of them. We saw a mother humpback with her baby breaching for 15 minutes over and over again. We also saw several pods of Orcas. Brent was really pleased that he was able to capture the tail of an Orca with our super slow stone-aged camera, but it is so zoomed out that you can hardly see it...so I will just spare you the strain on your eyes!
Finally, as evening drew nigh...we arrived in Skagway!
Skagway...with its beautiful port of large cruise ships and on the bottom-right picture you can see the Temsco building and helicopters where several of Brent's siblings have worked over the last 14 years! Brent was so excited to finally get to see it all since he never had the chance to work here. And BEST of all...we had our beautiful and lovely sister LIZ waiting for us right off the dock!
We checked into our room at Sergeant Preston's Lodge and begin preparations for several days worth of Skagway adventures!!
Toby could not sit still on the whole voyage. He had to explore every nook and cranny of the ferry! Joshua on the other hand, was happy sitting on the observation deck reading books and doing mazes.
We saw WHALES on the ride...lots of them. We saw a mother humpback with her baby breaching for 15 minutes over and over again. We also saw several pods of Orcas. Brent was really pleased that he was able to capture the tail of an Orca with our super slow stone-aged camera, but it is so zoomed out that you can hardly see it...so I will just spare you the strain on your eyes!
Finally, as evening drew nigh...we arrived in Skagway!
Skagway...with its beautiful port of large cruise ships and on the bottom-right picture you can see the Temsco building and helicopters where several of Brent's siblings have worked over the last 14 years! Brent was so excited to finally get to see it all since he never had the chance to work here. And BEST of all...we had our beautiful and lovely sister LIZ waiting for us right off the dock!We checked into our room at Sergeant Preston's Lodge and begin preparations for several days worth of Skagway adventures!!
1 comments:
Sergeant Preston! I like!! :-)
Looks like such a blast. One day I hope we can see that vast land up there! I'd love to see the aurora borealis again....we saw it once in MN and it was soooo cool! Did you see it on your trip?