Alaska | Hubbard Glacier.

Yippee - it's Friday! In today's installment of the Alaska Travelogue, it's Wednesday, August 23. We travel to the Hubbard Glacier and celebrate my mom's birthday and our last night on the ship.

When we left off last week, leaving Sitka, the skies were blue and the air was warm. What a difference a night on the open sea makes!

6:20 am

6:40 a.m.

A little over an hour later, the water was full of bergy bits and growlers.

And by 8:00 am, we could see Hubbard Glacier. It's huge (six miles wide and up to 400 feet tall)! We were still a few miles away here.

Our ship stopped about a mile away and turned in circles to afford everyone views.

It was the chilliest time we'd had on board. I love this photo with even more knits layered over me and Lydia (those extra knits are inside the Observation Lounge and we were outside).

A view off to the left of the glacier (as the ship was turning).

One of the staff (on his third or fourth Alaska cruise) suggested I try to capture the ship and the glacier as we were leaving. It's hard to get a ship and a glacier into one photo!

It's a little easier when the ship is further away ... and you don't get as much ship.

It was also surprisingly hard to photograph the glacier. It really is blue. And there was not much contrast between the water, the glacier, the surrounding mountains and the sky. Most of the photos I've shared here were taken with my phone.

By 8:45 am, we were cruising back out of Disenchantment Bay, headed for Seward, where we would disembark early the next morning.

Despite the relatively short time we spent by the glacier, the cruise did an excellent job making it a Really Big Deal. There was a lovely spread of sandwiches and pastries, hot chocolate and mulled wine in the Observation Lounge (along with all the coffees). This was the only sight that we saw exclusively from the ship. We really appreciated that there were fewer than 400 passengers on board. Even that "crowd" left plenty of room for everyone to see.

Of course, our little group had another celebration that day - my mom's birthday. Our steward hung birthday decorations in our cabin and brought everyone a mimosa for a birthday morning toast. Mother and I had lunch together.

...and then I know we played trivia; we didn't even place in the tournament but we had so much fun! and packed. The last night on the ship was casual and - thankfully - a little warmer outside by the time we dressed for dinner. Back to our pre-dinner mirror selfie shenanigans!

For dessert, our steward ordered a birthday cake and the wait staff sang Happy Birthday.

And then we tried (and tried and tried) to get some group photos. These are my favorites of all of us, Steve & Lydia and Karen & Ron.

Our cruise was almost over, but not our Alaska trip. Stay tuned - I have a few more days to share.

And yay! This is the 10th post for NaBloPoMo (which means we're one-third of the way through). I'll be back tomorrow with a cocktail (assuming this evening's taste testing goes as planned). Happy Friday!