Category: Earth

Occurrences in nature, like earthquakes, newborn baby pandas, the San Andreas Fault, the beauty of wildlife, and volcanoes are what I’m thinking of here. In each instance, the age-old question arises, “Has nature been the predominant influence or humankind?” Earth would be just fine without us, but we can’t survive without a healthy Earth.

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Alaskan Cruise Day 3 Juneau, AK

Arriving at Juneau was a beautiful sight from the balcony of our stateroom.

McCaulay Salmon Hatchery was our first stop in Juneau. McCaulay raises fish to be released into the wild. The video shows seals “having dinner” (our guide said) with an eagle looking on.

Eagles are seen so frequently in Alaska that two of our tour guides referred to them as “pigeons”.

Glacier Gardens, Juneau, AK
Glacier Gardens has a unique plant design. Dead trees are used to provide nutrients for other plant life. Glacier Gardens is a mix of human-inspired and natural growth. It was hard at times to tell where one began and the other ended.

This video, taken from Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center, shows H2O moving at three different speeds; lake, waterfall, and glacier.
Mendenhall Glacier, Juneau, AK
When I walked down to the lake for a closer look, I thought, “So this is what God does when you leave Him alone.” I felt like crying.
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Alaskan Cruise Day 4 Skagway, AK

We crossed many streams along the train ride. The mix of mountains, vegetation, and water was hypnotic at times. I can understand how someone could spend extended periods of time here. I must add to that, our guides had a lot of warnings at every excursion about berries and such that would be within our grasp that we should not touch; poisonous. And, of course, watch out for bears.
Some streams passed by so fast you had to stay alert or miss them.
U.S. Customs Office, White Pass & Yukon Route
In the distance is the U.S. Customs Office, 12 miles from the U.S./Canadian border. Why is it located there? Our guide informed us that someone decided winter weather at the actual border gets too bad to have it any closer.
This did nothing to help with my fear of heights, but I wasn’t very concerned. The scenery was too good.
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Alaskan Cruise Day 5 Glacier Bay

Glacier Bay was a day of cruising where the only earth structure I don’t think I saw was desert. The pictures that follow were all taken from Norwegian Encore July 21, 2022.

Norwegian Encore Teppanyaki Dinner. We had a menu of about eight food items, different mixes of beef, poultry, and seafood. The cook started by cracking the eggs for garlic fried rice. He lost control of an egg that almost hit my wife when it broke.
The egg serpent was slain.
The odor of the room switched from purely fresh garlic to the additional scents of beef, poultry, and seafood.
The most amazing thing was the cook got everyone’s order right. I had the seafood dish; scallops, shrimp, and calamari, or as the cook called them, rubber bands. All very good! We were also fortunate that our cook was the better singer of the two that night.