Cruising from Alaska to LA Trivia Quiz

Answer: Juneau

We actually visited Sitka first but the photos didn't come out too well, so we'll start with Juneau. Juneau became the capital of Alaska in 1906, long before Alaska became a state. This is the view from the port on a drizzly day. Those are waterfalls pouring down Mount Juneau in the background. To the east, there's a steep tramway going up Mount Roberts, but it wasn't running that day due to the weather.

In fact the weather kept most passengers onboard, but we went in town to get a bowl of fish chowder.

Answer: Moraines

Moraines look like black streams or stripes against the blue glacial ice. They are caused by rocks and sediment being carried down, pushed aside or deposited by the glacier, and they can appear alongside, inside, on the top of, or at the end of the glacier.

The Johns Hopkins glacier was one of several amazing glaciers that we saw during our day in Glacier Bay. It was twelve miles long, although we only saw a portion of it, and as of the cruise date in 2019, it was one of the few glaciers still advancing rather than receding.

Answer: Seals

Harbor seals are the most numerous marine mammal in Glacier Bay, according to the National Park Service. The organization also describes them as "giant hairy sausages on floating ice near the glaciers", and that's a pretty apt description. The seals have to "haul-out" for ten or so hours a day to regulate their body temperatures.

The ice chunks also make a handy getaway for seals being chased by killer whales who are fond of seal snacks.

Answer: Funicular

Ketchikan is located along the inside passage and is a popular access point for the Misty Fjords National Monument. We'd visited that spectacular place on a prior cruise, so this time, we opted to just wander around town. Much of the town near the port is devoted to tourists with lots of kitschy gift shops, but the downtown area historic district is on the National Register of Historic Places.

The funicular can be accessed from Creek Street, another historic site in Ketchikan. Officially called the Cape Fox Hill-Creek Street Funicular, it's also known as the tram, and it takes you 130 feet up (on a 211 foot track) to the Cape Fox Lodge and its lovely collection of totem poles on the top of the hill.

Although it is called a funicular, the tram technically is an inclined elevator as it only operates one car.

The picture also shows the Chief Johnson Totem Pole, a 55 feet tall replica of a pole originally erected in 1901.

Answer: Salmon

Historic Creek Street is a boardwalk built on pilings along Ketchikan Creek. Previously known for its brothels, the street now caters to tourists with shops and galleries. The waters are fairly calm in the commercial section, but further upstream, you'll see rapids as in the picture. Several varieties of salmon, including King Salmon, come into Ketchikan Creek to spawn, and fishing is allowed within guidelines.

A few varieties of trout are present year-round in the creek. Seals have figured out that the creek makes a nice place for safe fishing, so you're likely to spot some floating around the pilings. Seagulls are present too.

Answer: Golden Gate Bridge

That's the vibrant Golden Gate suspension bridge that connects San Francisco with Marin County, which is the piece of land visible in the photo. The bridge is 1.7 miles (2.7 km) long and was opened in 1937. This picture was taken as we sailed into San Francisco Bay, and when passing under the bridge, the ship horn blew loudly.

The name Golden Gate actually belongs to the one mile strait connecting the bay with the Pacific Ocean, and it received its name from John C. Fremont who called it "a golden gate to trade with the orient". Because of the persistent fog in the area, the strait was apparently missed by early European explorers, and it wasn't until 1769 that the strait was mentioned in historical records.

Answer: Alcatraz

Located a little more than a mile offshore from San Francisco, Alcatraz Island was named for the birds that occupied it when it was first documented by Spaniards in the late 1700s. A fort and a lighthouse were built on the island, before it was converted to a military prison in the 1800s.

Then in 1933, the island became a federal prison and contained the likes of Al Capone, Machine Gun Kelly, and Robert "The Birdman of Alcatraz" Stroud. After the prison was closed in 1963, it was occupied by Native Americans protesting federal policies; the first occupation occurred in 1964, but a later one in 1969 lasted almost two years. Nowadays, the island is a tourist attraction with tours available of the prison and the grounds.

Answer: Redwood

Sequoia sempervirens is the official name for the coast redwood which is an endangered species of tree that grows from the central California coast to the southern Oregon coast. Muir Woods is located in Marin County and is so popular that in 2018, a reservation system was put in place to control access to it. Named for environmentalist John Muir, the monument contains one of the only remaining old-growth coastal redwood forests in the San Francisco Bay area.

The area was once covered with the trees, but by the early 20th century, only a small pocket of the trees remained, and a local politician William Kent purchased a plot of land with the intent of preserving it.

He appealed to President Theodore Roosevelt who gave the land national monument status in 1908.

Answer: Sea lions

California sea lions are plentiful in the San Francisco Bay area, but they used to mainly hang out on Seal Rock, just offshore in the Pacific Ocean. In 1989, they decided to move their haul-out area to the docks at Pier 39. Some sources list the 1989 earthquake as the reason, but the sea lions actually started appearing on the docks a few months earlier.

Another theory is that the docks were refurbished in 1989 which meant that the boats had to be moved elsewhere during the work, and the sea lions decided to move in while they were empty. Regardless of the reason, the sea lions became a popular tourist draw, and the boats that used to dock there had to find another home.

Answer: Santa Barbara

Santa Barbara was part of Spain/Mexico before it became part of the United States in the mid-1800s, and the city has continued to embrace its Spanish heritage with its architecture and many of its street names. The "Santa Barbara" soap opera ran from 1984 to 1993 and focused on four families in different socio-economic groups who lived in the city.

The show mainly featured plots involving the wealthy Capwell family, which briefly included a young Leonardo DiCaprio. The detective series "Psych" originally ran from 2006 to 2014 and followed a fake psychic detective (James Roday) and his partner (Dulé Hill) as they solved cases for the Santa Barbara police department. "Psych" was actually filmed in Vancouver, Canada, but featured footage from Santa Barbara including the exterior of the Santa Barbara Courthouse, which is where this picture was taken from.

A visit to the courthouse is highly recommended if you're in Santa Barbara. It's more like a museum with gorgeous art and tile work throughout the building. From the top of the clock tower, you'll get a 360 degree view of Santa Barbara with signs pointing out all of the landmarks.

This picture was taken from the tower looking west toward the Pacific Ocean.