Quirkblog

Next to the dock in Skagway is a huge cliff face that has been painted with hundreds of flags and signs from the ships that have visited over the years. I took a couple dozen photos of the cliff from our cabin balcony. This weekend I assembled them into a big composite photo. The little banner at the top is a link to a ~600k jpg image. The full sized TIFF file weighs in at just over 250 MB. I’m trying to decide if I should do a poster sized print of it…

This is the second of a series of shots of a huge section of ice collapsing off of the face of Harvard Glacier in College Fjord. I took four shots of the collapse, which I put together as a short movie. Click on the picture to view it.

One of the cool souvenirs that we got in Skagway was a set of playing cards from the White Pass & Yukon Route depot shop. They’re a reproduction of the playing cards that they provided to passengers in the early 1900’s. The cards all have photos of various landmarks in the area. I suppose if you’re too busy playing cards to actually look out the window, you’ll at least have some idea of what you missed.

And speaking of missing things and cards, a large set of the postcards we sent out from Alaska haven’t arrived yet. We mailed about 15 cards when we were in Skagway and there’s no sign of them. Kind of vexing.

One of the multitude of lighthouses on the Pacific shores. This was just outside of Vancouver, and a lovely introduction to the trip.

A not uncommon view from the deck of the cruise ship. Float planes seem to be a major method of transportation in the Inside Passage. I suppose they’re an excellent choice – they offer the speed of air travel without having to worry about runways. You can just use the existing fjords and harbors and tie up at a dock.
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