Our Life in Alaska and Beyond

The next day (which was also Robyn's 7th birthday! We celebrated with cake a few days later.) we drove with Mike and Kay to Whittier and went on a glacier cruise. It was fun driving through the tunnel, and then we had a gorgeous day on the water. We did the glacier quest cruise with Phillips Cruises & Tours and we saw so many beautiful glaciers and actually quite a bit of wildlife too! It was a fun time! Enjoy these pretty pics!

😍

We went on the "orca quest" wildlife cruise out of Seward with Major Marine Tours. It was a shorter one (four hours) and it worked out great for us! It was a little chilly, but we brought hats and gloves and stayed warm, and luckily the water wasn't too rough and none of us got sick either! We ended up seeing quite a bit of wildlife (including lots of orcas!) and it was so fun! We also were in Kenai Fjords National Park for part of the cruise. So beautiful! Enjoy these pics!

Resident orcas. I rented a telephoto lens which was so fun to use!

One of the last things Scott and I did on our couples trip to the PNW was go whale watching out of Port Townsend. I was really hoping to see orcas, and we did!! We saw a family of four, the T123s! This is a family of Transient (Bigg's) orcas, including 38 year old Mom T123 (Sidney), 23 year old son 123A (Stanley), 11 year old daughter T123C (Lucky), and 5 year old daughter T123D (Darcy). I love all the research being done, including how to protect these whales and their environment, and I love how this included our boat staff being able to recognize this group right away. We didn't see them do anything crazy like breaching, but it was still so fun to see them on this beautiful day. 

Our tour also included a stop at Friday Harbor for lunch. It was a really cute town where we walked and shopped for a bit. We got a NYC style pizza from the rudest chef/employee ever, but it was ended up being one of the best pizzas and salad we've ever had, haha. While here we also saw a group of three missionaries and I always laugh when I think about the first two easily riding their e-bikes up this pretty big hill, and then the third one huffing and puffing his way up on a regular bike, lol.

After lunch we got back on the boat for a bit and we saw some sea lions and a tufted puffin! It was a fun day, and luckily no one got seasick!

One of my favorite parts of this whole trip was hiking to Cape Flattery, the northwesternmost point in the contiguous United States, located on the Makah Indian Reservation. After driving to the end of the road, you hike down to the very most northwest point along the coast. It's a beautiful hike, and the big highlight was seeing a gray whale! Scott was absolutely ecstatic to see a whale, and he "already had a video going!" and he got a little clip of the gray whale spouting. Just past the edge of the coastline it was very foggy, so we didn't have great visibility, which made it extra special to see the whale. 

There are some cabins you can rent through the Makah Tribe, and I really wanted to stay there, but unfortunately they didn't have availability while we were there. I will plan to book earlier next time! There is also a Makah Museum/Makah Culture and Research Center that I really wanted to visit, but it was closed the day we were there. We will visit next time as well!