Iraq Sunrise

One of my favorite things about my new room is a window. I celebrated by taking sunrise photos the past two days. In a coincidence, exactly 10,000 photos ago, and 3 years ago (30 December 2006), Shelby and I were on top of Mt Sinai taking sunrise photos....


Sunrise from My Window - Iraq 29 December, 2009




Sunrise from My Window - Iraq 30 December, 2009

Before the Cruise

We visited friends in the Bellingham area, north of Seattle for a few days. One of the many highlights of the visit was a drive out the Mount Baker Highway to past Picture Lake to Artist Point between Mt Baker and Mt Shuksan. Here are a couple of photos of Mt. Shuksan from that drive.


Mount Shuksan from Picture Lake - Washington State




Mount Shuksan from near Artist Point - Washington State

Back to Alaska - Haines

A few photos from our second port of call on our cruise, Haines, Alaska. It was a nice quaint little town. I liked the old military officers' housing (of which I didn't take a photo:) Elesa went on a jet boat wilderness ride if I remember correctly, while I went off with a few guys and a local photographer who drove us around.


House - Haines, Alaska





Glacier - Haines, Alaska





Driftwood - Haines, Alaska

Mud

I'm sure many of you on the East Coast are sick of snow already....I'm sick of mud. Much of Iraq is so flat, when it rains, the water doesn't flow anywhere, it just sits in puddles of mud. I'm dreaming of a mud-free Christmas.


MRAP (actually pretty clean!)




Iraqi Mud

A Long Way From Anywhere

Said goodbye to a couple of friends that have finished their year (or a bit more) here. They'll be home for the holidays...

Mileage Marker

Juneau

We flew up to Juneau a full day before our cruise was scheduled to leave. We meandered around a bit, took the Mount Roberts Tramway and walked one of the trails at the top. We took a tour that took us out to Mendenhall Glacier and the Shrine of St. Therese.

Juneau is very rainy, rain forest actually, but it makes for a very green late summer.


On the Grounds of the Shrine of St. ThereseJuneau, Alaska



Evergreen Cemetery - Juneau, Alaska




Tree with Carving - Mount RobertsJuneau, Alaska

Some More From Alaska - Humpbacks

I did get my "stuff" Sunday, but between getting the computer actually working correctly and me working 12 hr days, there has been little time to mess with photography. I still have to reset my screen size every time I fire it up...

Here are a couple of photos I took of the humpback whales along our Cruise West "Gold Rush Inside Passage" cruise.

Breaching Humpback - Frederick Sound, Alaska




Relax and Take a Deep BreathHumpback - Frederick Sound, Alaska




Whale TailHumpback - Frederick Sound, Alaska