Biking prep for Holmes’ biking camp in a week. He’s getting eager for his camp coming up and it’s fun to see him gaining interest in practicing on his bike.

Lunch on Lake Union watching the boats and kayakers and paddle boarders and float planes go by! 

The bear’s face says it all. Influenza. The FLU. The world descends upon southeast Alaska daily through multiple cruise ships; looking back it’s not surprising. Xanna kicked it off in Sitka (someone’s gotta start), Frank and Meryl picked it up next on our way to Ketchikan (ER confirmed), and Holmes and I caught it at the tail end of our trip. Then, Meryl, Holmes, and I added strep throat to the list afterwards. Vitality will prevail at some point. Hat tip to Frank for holding down the home front. For the rest of the month, it’ll be a collage of moments between vacation pictures and summer fun beyond. The July Jumble!

And this was a small ship!

We took a Zodiac boat eco tour in Sitka and Xanna was our captain! Follow the leader style boating. Sure, we signed our lives away, and it was a pretty cool way to see the scenery.

We got to tour the aquarium and learn all about its salmon hatchery (clever on them, they added stuffies for dramatic interest) and how it grows food to feed its aquatic celebrities.

The Sitka town parade!

Votes submitted online! Winners published in the newspaper the next day! In this digital age, it took some explaining to Meryl about how the printed newspaper cycle works:)

We went on a boat! And a humpback whale followed us! No matter how hard I tried, I never seemed to get a good picture of it. But hearing it breathe was very cool.

We stared at the horizon, we ate a lot of chips, and we caught fish that weren’t salmon.

We all got sleepy trolling from cove to cove.

King salmon in the boat!