Happy Monday! I’m starting the week with Holly and all of you! I hope you’ll link up with us for Hello Monday!

On Thursday, I told you that my plan was to share all of our Alaska trip before I am am back to school full time. There’s no better way to get that done than sharing another day with you today! Our last day of excursions was in Ketchikan. I was excited to spend some time in Ketchikan because I’d seen some great things about the town and some of the shops. The weather was absolute perfection! It was sunny and warmer. We were prepared for rain, because Ketchikan gets a lot of rain, but we didn’t need to be.

Jeff, Jack, Luke, and my brother-in-law Zach booked a salmon fishing excursion. My dad, mom, sister, niece, and I were booked to go to a state park and the lumberjack show. We were all set for the day and double checked that everyone was booked in the same excursions at the same time. However, we woke up with a little speed bump. Maggie, my niece, woke up and wasn’t feeling well at all. My sister dashed off the ship as soon as we docked to get some medicine for her. The fishing crew had to leave earlier than the state park crew, so they headed out while we took our time.

The state park group had some time to figure out what we were going to do. I spent some time talking to tour guides and some local Ketchikan-ers and figured out the state park was 30-45 minutes away and there wasn’t an easy way back if Maggie needed to come back. I also found out that the lumberjack show was rather close to the cruise ship docks. After a bit of back and forth, we decided not to go to Totem Bight State Park. It was a lot of walking and learning mixed with nature, and we weren’t sure Maggie would be up for it. That gave us a few hours in Ketchikan. We visited Woodlands Clothing company. I stumbled across their Instagram feed and decided we needed to go. The actual shop was small but the merchandise and customer service were great! If you find yourself in Ketchikan, I highly recommend a quick stop in there. We also spent a lot of time in the Tongass Trading Company. It had a good selection of tshirts and souveniers, but it felt more like a souvenier shop. As we were walking around, I saw this cool eagle carving and grabbed a picture.

We went to the Alaska Fish House for lunch. I had a salad with salmon but the others got the tacos. It was all delicious. Dylan Dryer was in Ketchikan on the Today show last week and had lunch here too! After lunch, we walked next door for the Great Alasksan Lumberjack Show. It was fun! Basically, there are two rival lumberjack camps that send two lumberjacks to compete in different activities. The crowd gets split in half to cheer for the two camps. The lumberjacks were very talented and it was fun to watch their competition. When the show was over, we hopped on the city bus to get back to the ship. It was a low key day, but fun.

The salmon fishing crew had a very exciting day! The guys got assigned to a smaller boat so they were the only people on it with the captian. They took turns fishing while they were on the boat. Luckily, everyone caught something. However, they were only able to keep one fish. It was king salmon season so they could only keep king salmon that were over 28 inches long. Jack and Jeff caught a few that were half an inch too short so he was a little bummed. Zach caught a salmon and a cod that weren’t keepers either. Luke caught the salmon that was big enough to keep. It was HUGE! The fish was 38 inches and 28.2 pounds. It was almost too big to keep because they had trouble getting the fish in the cooler on the boat. Luckily they got it in and kept it. When they got back to the marina, the fish was big news! It was the second biggest fish that anyone in the marina had caught that season. Luke worked really hard to reel it in. Jeff, Jack, and Zach all helped him hold the fishing pole at some point but Luke did the reeling. He was so excited! We elected to have the fish fileted, frozen, and shipped home so we could enjoy salmon for dinner a few times. Little did we know just how many dinners we could have. We have a lot of salmon to enjoy this year!

The lumberjack show group and the fishing group met up getting on the ship. As we were boarding, we saw a few boxes of fresh salmon on ice. Luke could’ve chosen to get the fish sent to the ship for our dinner, but it was too big to do it. There is no way the 9 of us could eat the whole thing in one sitting. We did have a delicious dinner and it was another formal night.

A few of us went to the comedian after dinner. He was funny and had another show a few hours later. Since we were going to the second show, we hung around on the ship. We saw the sun getting ready to set before heading back to the theater for the second show. We didn’t stay long because it was the exact same show. It was pretty late at that point so we headed to bed.

For your reference, we were on the Discovery Princess and our itinerary for the trip was:
Saturday 6/27 – board the ship in Whittier, AK
Sunday 6/28 – day at sea, Hubbard Glacier
Monday 6/29 – day at sea, Glacier Bay National Park
Tuesday 6/30 – Icy Strait Point/Hoonah
Wednesday 7/1 – Juneau
Thursday 7/2 – Ketchikan
Friday 7/3 – day at sea
Saturday 7/4 – disembark in Vancouver
Sunday 7/5 – Vancouver and red eye home

We had a great final day in Alaska! It was fun to look back at the pictures to share with you! This is my last week of full summer before teachers go back to work in my district. I am going to work a few mornings but am hoping to spend a lot of time reading poolside in the afternoons! Come on sunshine!! Holly and I are trying a new linkup. I hope you’ll join us below for Hello Monday if you blogged today! Have a great day full of sunshine and books!