Posted my Blog.....

on Facebook.  Don't have thousands or even hundreds of friends there, so now I have to make this interesting so friends will tell friends.

First, I am going to talk about my camera.  Ever think you could be in love with one ?  Well I am, to the point one can be with an inanimate object.  I have a Sony Alpha 700.  It really doesn't matter what kind of camera body anyone has, they pretty much function the same.  But the lenses !!  I had bad lens lust when I first got this camera.  Spent a bunch of money of fancy Zeiss lenses, plus a few cheap Minolta (Sony bought Konica/Minolta) and some standard Sony lenses. 

Well, guess what ?  All I have left is one Sony and 2 Minolta lenses.  Who needs all those lenses anyway.  I am not a professional that needs a 1000mm lens or anything like that.  One basic 18-250mm Sony, a 50mm and a 210mm (Beercan it is called and makes beautiful brokeh, the blurred out background)  both Minolta.

Enough about that.  To see some of my photo's go to www.pbase.com/michelep and you will see my galleries.  I am putting two here (for those with no interest in seeing all the other's of mine) to demonstrate the wonderful brokeh that can be achieved.

Questions, please ask.  Remember I am not a professional.

Michele 

Still Bad !!

Let's see, catching up since January....we are going to have a new Grandbaby in November. Went on vacation to Florida. Finished our bathroom. My Goddaughter got married. That's it !! I do lead a boring life. Haven't scrapped in forever because my craft room was taken over by my hubby when he remodeled the bathroom. Now it's time to get back and catch up. I totally forget how to use SCAL...Denise helped me out before. I am sooooo BAD !!

Pic of my Goddaughter....isn't she so beautiful ??

Back to Seattle

Qwest Stadium home of the Seattle Seahawks

8/3/08 Like I said after our first time in Seattle we all said, "We hate Seattle". Well, we did the after cruise trip and we changed our minds. I really wanted to get to the Space Needle and we did. We got to go up to the top. I was thrilled. We also visted the dreaded Market, but it was earlier in the day and it wasn't so crowded. We saw much more on this brief trip.
Our cruise has ended. We went took a late flight on 8/4 to Newark and then drove home to PA. So officially it ended on 8/5 at 2:00 AM. Boy were we exhausted !!!

This trip was my life long dream and though the dream was fulfilled, I was left a bit empty. I think I would have rather just fly to Alaska and spend more time there. But all we did I enjoyed and overall even the "group" has become a fond memory instead of a thorn in my side. Funny how time changes our perceptions.

Victoria, BC

8/2 Last stop on our cruise. We didn't get there until 6:00PM and we had to take a shuttle bus to get into the city. By the time we finished dinner the line of people waiting for the bus was long. It took 3 buses before we could get on. So we didn't have much time.

Victoria is a beautiful city from what we saw. There was a celebration at the Capital Building, we were told it was honoring Firefighters.

The city had that European feel to it and truly is a place I would like to go back and see more.

Next stop, Seattle.

Ketchikan here we come !!

8/1 We arrived in Ketchikan at 6:00 AM and had only until 1:00 PM to check this place out. We book the Lumberjack show and to be honest I thought it was going to be hokey. Boy, was I wrong !! It was so much fun.

But first we walked around town doing some shopping and checking out Totem Poles, which Ketchikan is noted for. It was a cool town with nice little shops.

Then onto the hunky lumberjacks. OK ladies, I am not a young woman, but man were they cute !! Hey, I may be old but I can still look.....LOL The things they do are hard !! The put on such a fun show for us. We laughed and were amazed. The divided the audience into USA and Canada (we were Canada) and we rooted for our teams. The audience really got into all this and added to the fun. My friend Gloria jumped into a picture I was trying to get of the guys. Doesn't she look happy ??

Back to the ship for Victoria, BC the next evening.

Glacier Bay

7/31 we woke up in Glacier Bay. No getting off the ship here. I guess my expectations we so high about this place because everyone I talked to that had been on a cruise to Alaska said, "you have to go to Glacier Bay". I should have asked if the whole bay was full of glaciers. There are 3 big ones there. After seeing glaciers two days before I wasn't as happy as I would have been if I didn't see any.

But we did stop about a mile away from Marjerie Glacier, which was the first one I saw that had a big ice wall. The others sloped back. It was cool hearing the roaring thunder before a chunk of ice fell off. They told us this glacier is a mile long. Pretty cool to see.

On to Sgagway

7/30 we arrived in Sgagway. Our shore exersions were to go to the Davidson Glacier and on the White Pass Train. Once again the weather was beautiful.

We took a fast Catamaran out to Glacier Point. We almost didn't get to go because there was a problem with the boat, but after waiting about 1/2 hour we were on our way. We landed on an Alaska Beach. The people are very proud of their beaches, but they aren't what you imagine on any coast shore. They are very narrow, not very wide and full of rocks. Yes, some of the rocks are small, but I wouldn't want to sun bath on any of them without a chair !!

From there we took a school bus up an old logging road to get to a spot where we put our gear on. This consisted of rubber boots, life vest and a extra jacket. They also had rain slickers, but we didn't need them.

We treaked through 1/4 mile of forrest before coming to a "beach". We went in a canoe that held 10 people and our guide, Ransom. He was very knowledgeable of the glacier and off we went rowing. Now for those who don't know me, which is everyone reading this, I don't row. I don't do any type of outdoorsy stuff. But I did notice the motor on the back of the canoe, so I went along with the thought that we had to row out to the glacier. We got really close and spent some time snapping photo's.

When we got back to the beach we picked wild strawberries to eat. Overall I really enjoyed this trip.

The train ride was relaxing, but not to thrilling. It was cool that we stopped on the Canadian side and the tour guide talked about the gold rush. I didn't know the gold was really in Canada, not Alaska. It was amazing to see what those people went through to get to the "promise" of gold. It seems only the rich got richer during this time.

Downtown Sgagway is about 4 blocks long. We did a little shopping then back to the ship exhausted.