Well we were last in Hawaii and took the next 8 days to sail to San Diego.  I originally was not going to post any updates for this part of the journey because for the most part it was land based travel that Kathie and I did after getting off the ship in San Francisco.  But after a accumulating a number of pictures from our land based travels and then some more when we rejoined the ship in Alaska, I thought I would go ahead and do this update.  Here's a few from San Diego as we entered the harbor through the Naval Station.  

Our next stop was Santa Catalina Island just off the coast of LA.  There's not much do there except maybe take a golf cart ride around the island.  Kathie and I opted to just do a little walk around the "major" city of Avalon and then visit the famous "Casino" (see pictures below).  Who knows what the Casino is famous for?  No its not a gambling venue it actually hosts the largest circular ballroom in the world and it can hold up to 3000 dancers.

Departing Santa Catalina we headed to San Francisco.  After 4 months of sailing we were ready to get our land legs back. Before  Kathie's friends Matt and Diane, picked us up to start our land journey we hopped off the ship and walked up to the famous Pier 39 otherwise known as Fisherman's Wharf.   This is a major tourist attraction in San Francisco as you can tell by the crowds (both in and out of the water).

Once on land we decide it was time to take a serious hike, not just our normal walk through a city.  Since Kathie lived in Los Altos CA for over 40 years where she had her OB/GYN practice, she was very familiar with the availability of hiking trails (or so she said :-(.  So off we went on the PG&E power line trail.  Right from the first step we started going uphill until 2 hours later we reached the top (half way point).  And as they say, "what goes up, must come down".  Four hours of hiking and 11 miles later we were exhausted.  But we did get some nice scenic views on the way up.  Here's one of Moffett Field near Mountain View CA.  The two buildings you see in the background are Hangars 1 & 2 which were purpose built to hold airships/dirigibles.  They are some largest free standing wood structures in the world.

One of the primary reasons for our land based trip was to attend the wedding of my nephew Alex to his lovely wife Kimberly.  This took place in Morrow OH (a suburb of Cincinnati).  The outdoor wedding was very exciting and I'll leave it up to Kathie's video blog to document the event.  Since we had some time to kill before the wedding on Saturday 6/25, we headed into Cincinnati to explore the National Underground Railroad museum.  If you're ever in Cincinnati it a must see stop.  While we were in the museum we took a little break and walked out on their viewing platform just in time to see a massive Gay Pride parade...quite a sight!

The wedding was particularly nice for me because both of my sons and their family were able to attend.  As they say, "A good time was had by all".  After the wedding we spent some quality time with by brother Mike and his wife Carol.  Then it was off to our next land based stop which was again, San Francisco.  We have some very good friends, Lorie and Arthur, who live in Novato, CA (just north of the Golden Gate bridge).  A visit with them is always a very memorable visit.  This one included a trip back into San Francisco where we stopped to visit the Presidio National Park site which is part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.  From the park, which is on San Francisco side of the Golden Gate, we got some magnificent views of the bridge as well as the National Military cemetery and Alcatraz.  Originally the whole area known as the Presidio was an active Army base until it was converted to a park.

No trip to visit Lorie and Arthur is ever complete until we go to at least one famous winery and one famous restaurant.  This time it was Hess Perssons Estate.  While the wine was great, the major attraction at this winery is there adjoining 3 story contemporary art museum.  The famous restaurant we had dinner at was Scoma's of Sausalito.  We had a table by the waters of San Francisco bay as the sun was setting over the city. The Alaska halibut I had was incredible.  Here's pictures of the winery, museum art and San Francisco bay from Scoma's.

After the big city it was time to head towards northern California.  Kathie's very good friend, Missy, has two houses.  The first is in Redding CA.  We went from Novato which was a very pleasant 78 degrees to Redding which was 114 degrees when we arrived around noon.  Fortunately it was only a few hour stay and then we were back on the road to Missy's second house which is in Mt Shasta CA.  Being at the foot of Mt. Shasta (elevation 14,163 feet) the temperature when we arrived was a balmy 98 degrees.  This is a gorgeous part of California.  At the foot of Mt. Shasta is Lake Siskiyou where we did a wonderful shoreline hike of 7 miles, mostly flat and very scenic.   See picture below.

Our best hike was yet to come.  The following day we drove up to Castle Lake (elevation 5400 feet).  From there we took the Heart Lake trail up another 1000 feet to a very scenic Heart Lake.  Here's some pictures I took on this hike.  Starting with Castle Lake then a view of Mt. Shasta with Castle Crags in the foreground and then Heart Lake.

Well it was now time to put away our hiking boots and sticks as we headed back to the San Francisco airport for our flight to Anchorage.  Because of some last minute changes to our ship's itinerary we had to cancel our bus trip from Anchorage to Seward AK and instead of a one hour trip after a five hour flight, we got on a bus to Homer AK which was five hours long.  Upon arriving in Homer we were picked up by our B&B host, Michael, and driven out of town to their facility Homerhome.  We had to stay there for two nights until we could meet up with our ship.  Here's a couple of pictures from the Homerhome backyard - mountains and Alaskan Sand Hill cranes.  The following day we did a little exploring in town where we visited Bishop Beach which is at the beginning of Cook Inlet.  Cook Inlet runs for 180 miles and is the body of water our ship sailed in from Homer to Anchorage.

On the 21st of July, one month after disembarking, we embarked at the port of Homer Spit.  The "Spit" is a very narrow 6 mile peninsula the juts out into the Bay of Alaska.  Its famous for its fishing fleet, including a number of vessels that are featured on the reality TV show, Deadliest Catch.  It's also known for its famous saloon the Salty Dawg.  From top to bottom and left to right - small boat harbor fishing fleet foreground, our ship the Odyssey in background, Kathie went fishing with a big hook to catch a big fish, the Salty Dawg saloon for some refreshing nourishment, and a day in Homer, City of Peonies visiting the big brown bear in the Pratt Museum.

From Homer we sailed up Cook Inlet and docked at the Anchorage commercial port.  For some strange reason none of our onboard expert navigation team seem to know that there is a 30 foot difference between low tide and high tide in this port.  So instead of being able to get on off the ship every hour we had a four hour window between noon and 4 PM which was our time to visit the city of Anchorage.  Kathie and I did the best we could to make it a useful visit in town - 49th State brewery and one of their award winning beers.  Lastly since the salmon are swimming up stream, I caught a glimpse of a little creek in downtown Anchorage that was full of fisherman trying their luck.

Our final port in Alaska was a one day visit to Kodiak Island and the city of Kodiak. We visited a National Wildlife Refuge museum where we were treated to a real Grey Whale skeleton.  Coincidentally the woman that discovered the beached whale was at the museum and told us the story of how the skeleton ended up in the museum.  She found it on the beach in May 2000.  From there and with some heavy equipment they moved it away from the beach, dug a whole and let the whale decompose for the next four years.  Between 2004 and 2007 they went about the task of uncovering the carcass, cleaning it, transporting the pieces parts to the museum and then assembling them.  Here's a front and rear view of the finished product.

In the early 1700's Kodiak Island became a destination for many Russian immigrants and still has a large population of their descendants that worship of the local Russian church.