... where I went to the WMH. This building was the brainchild of the heiress of the Winchester Rifle Company and is very difficult to explain! You have to see it to believe it, you can visit the web site at: www.winchestermysteryhouse.com
From San Jose to Yosemite. This place is amazing, carved out by Glaciers during the last ice age. Yosemite Valley, about 3,000 feet deep and just a mile or two wide, is known for its landmark rock formations.
El Capitan is a favorite for experienced rock climbers. Rising almost 3,000 feet above the Valley floor, it is the largest monolith of granite in the world.
Tunnel View is one of the most famous views of Yosemite Valley. From here you can see El Capitan and Bridalveil Fall rising from Yosemite Valley, with Half Dome in the background.
Flows all year and is often the first waterfall seen by visitors entering the park. In spring it thunders; during the rest of the year look for its characteristic light, swaying flow.
El Capitan and Bridalveil Fall
All I can say is that I am glad I wasn't here at 11pm on the 2nd January 1997!
Massive and ancient giant sequoias live in three groves in Yosemite National Park. This is the base of the tree ...
.. and here is the top looking up from the same point as the base was taken from!
This Sequoia tree was struck by lightning in it's early years and the way it has grown is unique - it has thick branches most of the way up.
This Sequioa tree "fell over" approx. 300 years ago. notice the people stood by it's roots?
This is the 2nd tunnel tree in Yosemite. The first was blown over in the 1960's. You are not allowed to drive through it these days, but you can walk through...
... and looking back from the otherside.
From Yosemite to the home of california wine making.
Lots of grape vines ...
... as I said, Lot's of grape vines around this part of the country!
Every so often you see a huge building, they look like very big houses, but are infact the winery. In the Northern Coast area of California there are over 385!
Grapes on a vine, taken during a winery / wine tasting tour
Okay, so it's actually wine in the barrels.
This is a picture of part of Downtown San Francisco, the tall pointy building is the Trans America Building. The dome is part of the local government buildings.
Yes, it is red. It's the gateway to the gold fields - according to the locals. Highway 101 runs across the bridge and takes you, eventually, to the Napa Valley - home of California Wine Makers.
Just to prove I was there and I haven't harvested these pictures off the internet!
This street is the bendiest street in the world!
Thanks to the steep gradient, the only way to put a road on this piece of hill was to make it switch back on itself several times.
Lombard Street - how crazy is this!
... reminds me to behave myself. The island you can see is the old state prison of Alcatraz.
The only way you can get onto and off the Island is by boat, or raft (but those three guys were never seen again after they escaped). I took the ferry! The building in the foreground is the prison officers accomodation block. The prison sits on top of the hill.
The prisoners named the rows and cross over links between the rows with common names (American place names of course).
Here's your cell, it is identical to every other cell in the prison. Well, unless you don't behave, then you get a 3 foot by 3 foot concrete "broom cupboard" without a light.
There are 3 floors of cells.
I should have behaved myself!
the headphones were part of the "audio tour", during which you are invited to step into an empty prison cell.
Sealions invaded the boat docks at pier 39's harbour, so the owners set out a series of Sealion Docks for them. They've been there ever since.
The last thing you expect to find in San Francisco is a Japanese Tea Garden. It's now a part of the city park, it was first created in 1895 by Makoto Hagiwara.
Some more pictures of the garden
it looks impossible to get over, but it is infact very easy to climb up and back down.
From a slightly different angle
Downtown Seattle. You can just see the monorail tracks bottom left hand side of this picture.
Built for the World Fair of 1962, the space needle stands at 605 feet tall. The Observation deck, at 520 feet, is accessed via elevators that travel at 10mph. The Sky City Diner is just below the observation deck, and with a revolving floor gives you a complete 360 degree view every 47 minutes. The monorail links the fair site to down town by a 10 minute ride. www.spaceneedle.com
On-board the Diamond Princess Cruise Ship, which "set sail" from Seattle at 4pm on Saturday 10th September. The rest of the day and Sunday 11th September will be spent at sea, heading towards Juneau.
Plenty of Islands and headlands to take pictures of as we sail out of Seattle.
2 days at sea, wonderful views, a balcony, a mini bar... what else is there to do?
We get close enough to the islands to see what the houses look like.
It's not often you get a chance to stop and watch the setting sun.
So I sat, watched, took a few pictures and drank a warm drink.
Back on land, by coach, to visit the Mendanhall Glacier. Okay so this is the face of the glacier that stretches back "a few miles" (understatement).
Alaska in September, it's a bit colder than a November Pack Holiday, and the clouds built up nicely ... can only mean rain..
Well the dirt / pollution is man made, but the blue under it all is natural.
Believe it or not, the majority of the coast line of Alaska (on the western side) is a protected Rain Forest. Which is great for the wildlife and tourist industry.
The National Bird of the USA. About half of the world's 70,000 bald eagles live in Alaska. So it's not really that surprising that one was spotted near the coach park!
Just when you got all excited about the bald eagle, what should appear ... a black bear! Spot the bear...
it stayed and roamed around a bit and then ran off when a resident walked his dogs round the corner.
with a few more hours to go before the ship left dock, it was a good opportunity to go on a whale watch safari. The weather closed in and it poured with rain. After 1.5 hours on a fast boat in choppy waters, we came across a group of humpback whales in a sheltered cove ...
a humpback whale can blow water up to 30 feet in the air! Here we can see a couple of whales.
Just looking at the pics isn't the same as being there trying to spot them surface or looking for the "blows". But these huge animals are very impressive to watch.
I'm amazed that any of these pictures came out to be honest, you can blink and miss the whole thing.
you stand and wait in the pouring rain for hours, in the cold. You watch as they tease you with 1/2 tail waves and pretend dives. Then you get what you think is the best picture, the picture you really want ....
Perfection! The whale deep dives for another 10 minutes.
Welcome to the City of Skagway, Alaska, first incorporated city in Alaska, incorporated on June 28, 1900 and gateway to the Gold Rush of 1898. Skagway is located in the Upper Lynn Canal and is considered the northern most point in Southeast Alaska, 80 air miles from Juneau and 110 road miles from Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, Canada.
This town hasn't changed, in appearance, that much since it was originally founded.
Most of the shops are tourist related these days. Alaska has become one of the top Diamond & Gold shopping places in the world!
Not that I'm facinated by bars and drinking ... it's the rich historical importance of these places you know.
... Skagway is famouse for a number of things, one of them is the white pass railway, another is it's rainforest and it's glaciers. So where better to do a hike. Clouds & mountains in the picture? Well, we had to get 14 miles in land to hike, so the fastest way was by helicopter ...
so we took off and went over the mountains, avoiding the clouds and flying over some very impressive scenery.
Far below, was the valley where the hike was due to take place. But first we had to land.
Once down on the ground, and a safe distance from the blades, it was time to prepare for the hike. The guide gave us all a bum bag with water and snacks. He also picked up a can of pepper spray, he did explain that it wasn't for use on us, it was incase we happened to disturb a bear or other wild animal.
With so much forest to protect, a series of paths had been layed out by the parks department that we were to follow ...
from the dark damp forests you walk into the bright sunlight of a meadow. With long grass and many flowers. I never thought that Alaska would be so diverse!
we followed the path, which mostly follwed the river. The water coming from the melting glacier not more than 6 miles away... our goal for the day was to be within 1 mile of the base of the glacier before having to return to catch the train back.
back into the forest, over streams and tree roots.
sometimes getting glimses of the river, others walking right by it's side.
clambering across rocks to stand in the middle of the river to take some good pictures.
We didn't actually see any bears that day, but we knew they were around these parts. This tree had been a victim, you can clearly see the bear claw marks on it's bark.
nearing the end of the journey, we could see the glacier that the helicopter had flown us over a few hours before.
the glacier, with the start of the river flowing quickly past.
After a quick walk back to the pick up point and a short wait. The train arrived, and we clambered aboard. Served with Orange or Beer Juice and a selection of salmon treats as we rode the Whitepass Railroad back to town.
Tracy Arm, the north arm of Holkam Bay, takes a general northerly direction for 9 miles, then turns eastward 13 miles to it's head, where two large glaciers, North & South Sawyer discharge into salt water.
It's a popular place, only one ship allowed in at a time, because of the width of the channel up the gorge. As we arrive at midday, we watch a sister ship leave.
It was bitterly cold, the wind was coming from the north. It was the sort of day where you have to have a whisky just to keep you warm inside.
Ice Bergs aren't just white.
Okay, so were taking this 288.33m long by 50 m wide cruise ship into Tracy Arm, which does freeze over, that has these huge ice bergs floating around ... Why am I hearing the music from Titanic?
This was the first view of the huge Sawyer Galcier and just around the corner ...
.. we got a glimpse of the southern part of the glacier. Unfortunately, we couldn't get in too close as the ice started to get thicker and the Captain decided it would be better to err on the side of caution.
As we were waiting for the ship to pivot round, using fore and aft thrusters, the crew performed a rescue drill. They also took the ships photographer with them to take photographs of everyone stood out on deck.
With the aid of a zoom lense, here's a closer picture of the massive south sawyer glacier. We were still several miles away from it!
It's amazing how interesting a piece of ice can be, knowing that 3/4 of it are under water and out of view. It was great fun watching the bergs as they came towards and drifted past the ship, the water was crystal clear and you could easily see the shapes under the water.
Here's an arty shot of a berg.
we were joined by a pod of porpoises, they swam with us for a few minutes and then headed off into the distance.
Ketchikan. Second largest of only nine towns in an area larger than many states, Ketchikan is the economic centre of lower southeast Alaska. A narrow strip of a town along the steep western side of Revillagigedo Island, it's few miles of roads aren't connected to anywhere else.
Home to some of Alaska's fishing fleet.
In Ketchikan's not-so-long-ago rough and tumble days, this is the place where the men and the salmon came to spawn.
Built above the mouth of the creek where the Salmon come each year to spawn and die.
It's the end of the spawning season, although this picture looks really nice (with the sun shining) in the creek below are thousands of dead or dying salmon. Ketchikan is the home to many large salmon canneries.
About 45 minutes walk from Ketchikan is the native village of Saxman. Here in the town we see an example of a totempole.
Here we see a float plane coming into land ...
... almost touching down. The planes have to share the runway with the cruise ships. I'm just glad it wasn't foggy!
Well when in Rome ... waiting to board the float plane in Ketchikan which will fly to Misty Fjords National Monument.
Nothing but acre after acre of Rain Forest! I forgot to mention that in Ketchikan it rains 364 days a year, looks like we'll be having good weather today then!
You fly for what feels like ages, with no signs of a road and then you fly over a settlement. Where's the nearest Tesco?
The scenery from up here is stunning!
This is the centre piece, it's the canyon like Boca de Quadra area. 50 miles of steep sided fjords and side channels, whose sides quickly rise to two- and three-thousand-foot peaks.
Did I meantion that we'd landed on the lake?
Well we did land and we had the chance to get out of the plane onto the floats to take pictures.
If you think I'm looking a little nervous here, you'd be right. I'm stood on the back of the float and my feet are starting to get wet!
Tourist flights into this remote area travel in pairs. Here's our partner plane on the lake.
Then it was a quick trip back to Ketchikan, along a slightly different route.
All passengers are reminded that the seat belt signs are on, that their chairs should be in the up right position and that the table should be safely stored ...
This was a perfect opportunity to take a picture of the Diamond Princess in dock, as we came into land.
From Ketchikan we sail round the outside of Vancouver Island, heading towards Canada and Victoria B.C.
There's not much out there but water and sky!
... The moon starts to appear
After backing into the dock, the passengers disembark for an evening in Victoria.
Victoria, is the Capital of British Clumbia. It was getting dark, and cold, so I've not got many pictures ... this is one of the Parliament building.
Well okay, we were all safely back on board the Diamond Princess when I noticed that the moon was "shining" although it looks like there is a break in the clouds, there were no clouds near the moon.
Back to Seattle, the final day of the two week epic journey. Time to fly back south to Arizona and warm up!
