We -- Judy and I -- just got back from the longest, and certainly one of the best, vacations we've ever had: 4 days in Anchorage and the Kenai Peninsula with friends, 7 days on a cruise down to Vancouver, and 3 days in Vancouver with my brother and sister-in-law, and my son, daughter-in-law and 1-year-old granddaughter. For any who might be interested, below is my account of the trip (spell checked but not proof read -- it's too damn long and I'm tired of working on it, so please forgive the evidence of my awful typing skills). I was going to stick some pictures and videos in here, but that's also too much work. I'm no Bill Snellman anyway, and it's time, finally, to put this to bed. So if you want to see the pictures, click on the title of this post.
Saturday, August, 6, 2011: Flying to Anchorage
Packed and ready to go by noon. Pretty excited. Judy insisted that we start the vacation right – by spending 2-3 hours in the Delta Sky Club(?!), so we had a car come pick us up at 3:00 for a 7:30 flight. Spent the requisite 2.5 hours at the club, then went down to the gate and learned we had gotten upgraded, so we got to fly first class, which was fun. Didn’t realize until we got to the airport that it was 3500+ miles and about 7 hours. This is one BIG country.
Mardy and Robert picked us up at the airport about 10:30 pm (2:30 am ET) and we decided that discretion was the better part of valor: we put off the "welcome to Alaska" drink – the last time in the next two weeks we would do something like tat -- and went to bed. Day 1 was in the record books.
Sunday, August 7, 2011: Robert & Mardy’s, a road trip north, dinner with the Larsons
Mardy, her daughter Courtney, and her granddaughter Quin (with one "n") picked Judy up and they went to church while I stayed at the hotel and read the paper, did the crossword, etc. Then we went to the Kiesels for a huge "brunch," after which we went on a 4-5 hour driving tour of the area north of Anchorage, known locally as “the Valley.” The whole day was overcast with intermittent rain, so we couldn't see much of the topography, but had a nice time anyway. Visited a friend of theirs up at a mountain lake (Lake Nancy) who had the most beautiful private garden I have ever seen.
Got back about 6 pm and went to see Judy's cousin Clayton and his wife Renee. Clayton’s nephew Neal and wife Becky were there as well. Had a great time with them and got a huge steak and king crab dinner to boot. They are delightful people, and we were sorry we didn’t get to spend more time with them.
Monday, August 8, 2011: Travel to Homer
Monday morning we set off for Homer – after stopping at Costco for boating essentials like wine, chocolate-covered pomegranate seeds, hummus, wine, chips, wine, etc. The trip to Homer is normally about a 4 hour drive, but it took about 7 with all the side trips and stops and visits we took. Again, it was overcast, so we really didn't realize what we were missing. But had fun. Probably the highlight was a visit to another of their friends who owns a beautiful B&B on the Kenai River. Had supper at a pizza place on the way down and I got my first taste as to how expensive food is Alaska: the four of us had three salads, a small pizza, 4 glasses of jug wine and 2 beers and the bill was over $100.
Two things occupied a good deal of our attention on the way to Homer. First off, halfway there, Robert realized he didn’t have his wallet. He was sure he had put it in the car, but after literally removing and inspecting every single bag and item of clothing, there was no wallet to be found. To make a long and pretty stressful (for Robert) story short, it turned out he had dropped it at Costco and some kind soul had turned it in with even the cash still in place. The other thing – and this was the real event – was that Brandt, the Kiesel’s younger son called that evening to tell his parents that they had a large black bear on their deck. Brandt had turned off the motion detectors they have to warn of encroaching wildlife (moose are the most common problem) because the wind kept setting them off, and his first inkling that he had a bear on his hands came when he heard something on the deck smashing the birdhouse. Fortunately, the bear moseyed off the deck after Brandt turned the deck spot lights on, proceeded to help himself to their raspberries, then jumped the fence into the neighbors yard and disappeared. There was considerable concern that night about the ultimate fate of the two pet chickens Ida and Clara. But as it turned out, the bear missed them.
We got to Homer about 8:00 and still had 2+ hours to sunset! Mardy and Robert have an RV there (regarding which they have some of the funniest travel stories I have ever heard -- they make the Patbergs/Griswolds look like pikers in the "shit happens" department) so we went there first to drop of their stuff and visit with more of their friends -- including a Brit ex-pat called Limey who looks (the girls wistfully tell me) an awful lot like Paul Newman. Then we went down to their boat (a 40' aluminum fishing boat) knocked off a couple bottles of wine and then went to the Salty Dawg, a fairly famous hangout where people tack either their underwear or a dollar bill with more or less obscene messages to the wall. There wasn't much underwear, but there must have been a few thousand dollar bills covering virtually every square inch of the walls and ceiling. I guess the place can get pretty raucous in the late afternoon/early evening when the charter boats come in, but it was pretty mellow by the time we got there, and besides I was dead tired (it was still 2:30 am my time), so we had one beer and called it a night.
Monday, August 7, 2011: Sailing the Cook Inlet: Gull Island, Halibut Cove, Seldovia
We slept very well in the berths on the boat, but again were up about 7 (10 am body time). Robert had set up the coffee pot for us, and the Kiesels are not what you'd call early risers, so Judy and I had a couple hours sitting on the boat, drinking coffee and watching the harbor come alive a bit and gulls wheel about overhead. It was very, very relaxing.
Once Mardy & Robert made their appearance, we set off in the boat for Gull Island (a small rock that serves as a rookery for thousands of gulls, cormorants, puffins and who knows what else) and then Halibut Bay, a largely private cove that is accessible only by water and air and that is owned mostly by a family (the Tillions, I think their name is ) that Robert and Mardy said made a fortune being an Alaskan State Senator.
The Cove is beautiful, and after motoring about that for a bit – and espying the most darling little floating Cape Cod-style cabin complete with dormers – we docked at a place called Saltry’s (also owned, I gather, by the Tillions) where Mardy and Robert treated us to a very nice al fresco lunch on the deck overlooking the harbor. As we arrived in Halibut Cover, the sun had come out in full force. I was sitting on the deck at lunch so that it was shining on my right, and Judy said I came away from lunch with a sunburn, but only on the right side of my face. (Jon, I guess I looked like some demented UW booster at Camp Randall).
The Tillions also built a boardwalk around a good bit of one side of the Cove, and after lunch we walked along that for an hour or so checking out the interesting selection of shops and art galleries set out along that.
Mid-afternoon, we set sail for a our next port of call – Seldovia – another little fishing/tourist village further down the Kenai Peninsula. As we left Halibut Cove, I remarked to Robert that I was surprised how calm the water was. He replied, somewhat cryptically, “Well, it is right now,” and sure enough halfway to Seldovia the sea started to roll the boat quite a bit. For about an hour it was quite a ride, but we arrived safely – and with our lunches still in our bellies – so, in the end, it was just fun.
Seldovia is a pretty little town, but the harbor gives a hint at what the tides are like. The docks all float up and down on stanchions. We were there at a fairly low tide and the top of the stanchions were probably 20-25’ above the water. The town was situated even higher up, on what almost looked like a small bluff. The height of high tide and the depth of low tide varies significantly over the course of each month, and we were there at a point in the cycle when the changes weren’t all that great, but looking at a tide chart later, the difference between high and low tide can be more than 30 some feet.
As we came into the harbor, Mardy pointed out one of the more famous of the local denizens – a sea otter called Otis – floating on his back. Otis instantly became Judy’s favorite – sort of an Alaskan javelina – to be looked for at ever opportunity. And to be sought after in souvenir shops!
We were spending the night in Seldovia, with Robert & Mardy using the boat and Judy and me checking into a little B&B called the Bridgekeeper Inn (Valerie Morin, Innkeeper). While Robert got the boat (and Ginger, their dog, who accompanied us everywhere) squared away, Mardy walked us up to the B&B, which turned out to be very nice: only two rooms, and we had the place to ourselves. Our room had a small balcony overlooking the (at the time) swiftly running river that gave the B&B its name. We got settled in and then walked back into town to meet Mardy and Robert for dinner at a place called the Mad Fish. It took some coaxing to get Robert to come in because of Ginger. Ginger is an absolutely darling little ball of fur, but she has a bit of separation anxiety and barks when left alone. Robert wasn’t all that hungry to begin with and he was going to stay with Ginger while we went to eat rather than risk having her disturb everyone with the barking. In the end, Mardy lured him in by pointing out that they had strawberry-rhubarb crisp with vanilla ice cream on the menu. So Ginger got tied up right outside the window at which we were sitting so that she could see us. It turned out that none of us was really hungry, so Mardy Judy & I all had appetizers while Robert had his crisp. Judy and Mardy did end up splitting a slice of banana cream pie, but I was good. I took all my calories in liquid form. (Alaskan Amber is a very nice beer if you ever get a chance to try it). Ginger did do a little barking, but not enough to bother anyone I don’t think.
We were going to walk around the town after dinner – it was only 8:00, so we still had 2½ hours of daylight left – but Robert wanted to move the boat to a better location, so we went down to do that first. And that was the end of all our good intentions. The lure of deck chairs, sunsets and some nice wine proved too enticing. The walk would wait until tomorrow.
When we got back the B&B about 11, I went out on our little deck to check out the river. It had been turned into a lake and was flowing up hill. What had been a small waterfall/rapids at 7, had been completely submerged and had its flow reversed by the incoming tide. I had a final glass of wine on the lanai, and then went to bed.
Tuesday, August 8, 2011: Return to Anchorage
Up at 8 and Mardy and Robert joined us for a very nice breakfast at the B&B. This time, Ginger was not so easily mollified, and kept up a steady chatter, but there was no one but us to hear, so it was OK.
After breakfast, we strolled down to the funky eclectic used book store cum pottery & art gallery cum coffee shop on the river. The girls were in 7th heaven, and Robert and I sat out in the sunshine on the deck, watching the river. I’m not sure how this happened, but some question about whether NAFTA was a good idea got us into a bit of a political discussion, which we both soon realized was stupid and wasteful of a beautiful day, so we declared a truce before I had a chance to do any permanent damage (I think). When we got to the bookstore, the tide was out again, so the rapids were back and the river was flowing down hill again. But as we sat there, you could see the water level rising downstream, and by the time we left, the rapids were almost gone again.
We spent another couple hours wandering around town checking out the shops, and then got back on the boat for the 2+ hour ride back to Homer. The ride back was even more of an adventured than the ride over. Just as we were getting underway, a fog bank rolled in and we did most of the trip on instruments and GPS-assisted electronic charts. It was weird being out on the water unable to see anything more than 50 or so feet away from the boat.
When we reached Homer, we pretty quickly loaded up the car and headed back to the Salty Dawg so the girls could buy more sweat shirts. While they were in the bar, Robert and I went over to check out the fileting operation at a place called Buttwhackers. There a guy and girl (!) were fileting scores of fish in front of a group of onlookers. Each of them was turning 20-30+ pound salmon and halibut into packaged filets in under a minute each. It was amazing to watch.
Leaving there we dropped off some stuff at the RV, grabbed some sandwiches at a local general store and headed off on the 4-5 hour trip back to Anchorage. Along the way, though, we stopped at the [something] Bear Winery. No, they don’t grow grapes in Alaska. The grape “juice” comes in concentrates “from all over the world,” and they mix it with local produce like rhubarb, blueberries etc. to make what might be called a “meritage” in more high falutin’ locales. Some of it is not half bad. We also stopped once to find a bathroom and ran into an ice cream parlor, which couldn’t be resisted, of course.
Driving back, the sun was out and we figured out what we had missed on the way down due the overcast. The scenery is impossible to describe, at least for me, but it is spectacular. Every time you turn your head there is a new vista, with each seemingly better than the last. I spent the entire trip in awe. We took lots of pictures, but I doubt seriously if any of them will even begin to capture what you see in person. Amazing.
Apart from the scenery, the highlight of the trip back was a CD Robert put on – actually two of them – of him and Amber, their daughter, singing a medley of country and classic rock songs. They made the CD for Lil, Mardy’s mother, and it was marvelous. They recorded the damn thing in their basement, but it sounded terrific. I think Robert put the first CD on just to see how we would react, but by the time the 20 tracks there were done, he was pretty sure – with good reason – that we’d like to hear the second CD as well. After a while, Robert got sufficiently into the spirit of things that he started doing a karaoke gig, singing along with the recording. Damn those two can sing!
We got back to Anchorage about 10 pm, so we had at least another hour of light left. Apparently, Robert & Mardy are gluttons for punishment, because they convinced us that they actually did want us to come by their house for a goodbye glass of wine. “Only one,” Judy insisted. In the end, of course, it was more like 2+, and we didn’t get back to the hotel until after midnight. Which was OK, because we didn’t have to leave to catch the train to the ship until after 10. With “lights out” on Wednesday, Phase 1 was over.
As Judy remarked, Phase 2 is going to have to be awfully damn good to match Phase 1, and that’s all due to Robert and Mardy. I have never experienced such unrelentingly cheerful hospitality. You’d think they actually wanted to spend 3 days babysitting two “outsiders.” [Shoot, there is a name they have for people who have been in Alaska for less that 6 years or so, but I can’t remember it. A mind is a terrible thing to lose!] Anyway, to Mardell & Robert: thank you very much.
Thursday, August 11, 2011: Train to Seward, Embarkation and Setting Sail
By 8 am Thursday morning, we were up and raring to go. Unfortunately, as it turned out we were WAY early all day long.
We ate breakfast at the hotel and got one last chance to talk to Mardy and see Robert when Mardy called to say Judy had left her windbreaker at their house (we knew that but decided they would send it) and that Robert would drop it off on the way to Costco to pick up his wallet.
After getting the coat back and saying one last goodbye and thank you, we packed up and caught the shuttle from the hotel to the airport train station for the train ride to Seward and the ship. The information we got said that “boarding” started at 10, but when we got there, we found that the train wasn’t even scheduled to arrive until 12:30. What they apparently meant was the ship boarding process began at 10 for anyone dumb enough to get to the train station by then. Even that wasn’t true, though, as they didn’t begin to check people in until after 11. The only good thing was that they took our luggage and we didn’t see or touch it again until we got to our stateroom on the ship, where it all sat, safe and sound.
So we sat around for about two hours (during which time I wrote a goodly chunk of this epistle) and waited for the train. As the room filled up with travelers, it got stuffy, so about 12:45, with the train still not there, we decided to go outside and wait on the platform. But as we moved through the crowd toward the door, the train came in and they barred the exit, announcing that there were some 300 people who had to get off the train before we could board. (Turns out these were the passengers from the northbound trip -- Vancouver to Seward -- on our ship. We were watching them turn the ship around). We had ended up at the front of the line, so decided just to stay there thinking that as soon as the incoming passengers had gotten off, we would get on. Think again, bison breath! Everyone got off and still we stood there. After 10 minutes or so, someone said we’d be boarding in about 10 minutes. Fifteen minutes later, they made an announcement that we would be boarding in – guess what? – about 10 minutes. And then she said and, oh by the way, we will be boarding by car and by section within each car, so no one can board until called. Not sure why they couldn’t have told us that an hour earlier. Oh, well. In hindsight, I feel a bit embarrassed not figuring that’s how it would be from the get go. But at the time, I felt like my first contact with Silver Seas was far less than impressive. Price of being a cruise newbie, I guess. In the end, I was somewhat mollified by the fact that it turned out that we were in the front car, so we were among the first to board the train, which was a doubly good thing, since it meant we were also among the first to board the ship.
One unexpected treat was that, as we boarded the train, we actually got to see Mt McKinley, which was a couple hundred miles away in the Denali National Park. That gives you an idea how great the weather was. (Pam and Wayne: Not a day went by that we don’t think guiltily of your weather travails. We got all your luck and then some).
The train ride down to Seward was spectacular. More unbelievable scenery. Mountains. Glaciers. Forests. Steams turned milky gray by the glacial silt (powdered rock ground off the mountains by the glaciers). Lakes. Rivers. More glaciers. And mountains upon mountains upon mountains. Some of it we had seen before, since for about half the trip the train followed the same route that we took going to Homer. But about an hour and a half out of Anchorage, the train left the highway and went into the Kenai mountain range. I had not thought scenery could be better than what we saw going to Homer, but I was wrong.
The train let us off, literally, at ship side. I think we had to walk all of 200 yards. Being first off the train meant almost no waiting in line, and the whole embarkation process and location of our stateroom took maybe 10 minutes. Our bags were there and we spent an hour unpacking. We met our butler, Tushar, who showed us some of our room amenities, took our orders as to the sorts of liquids we wanted in our room (scotch and pinot noir, plus assorted sodas) and took our dress jackets to be pressed (the garment bag failed miserably at the task of keeping them neat). Somewhere in here we realized that we were already underway and went out on the lanai to watch the process of leaving the harbor.
At that point the cruise experience actually started. We were provided with a very nice chilled Italian (Silver Sea is an Italian cruise line) sparkling wine (Prosecco), and after Tushar left, we took that and its ice bucket out on the lanai. Unfortunately, after I took the foil and cage off the cork, and just touched it to begin uncorking it, the cork popped out of its own accord and hit Judy, who was standing beside me on the lanai, right in the cheek. No harm done, fortunately, although Judy did confess later that she briefly wondered if I had shot her. Anyway, we got the prosecco poured and had a movie quality exit from Seward Bay. The weather all day was spectacular, and as we set sail it was hard to tell whether it was us moving or the land. The water was like glass and the ship moved through it so smoothly that you can’t really tell you aren’t on dry land, except for the very pleasant, low shooshing sound, as the ship cuts through the glass-like water.
After spending an hour or so on the lanai with the prosecco, we made our way to dinner in the main dinning room and had a very nice four course dinner with some really nice wines. Then we spent an hour in the casino (I lost $40 and Judy broke even) and headed back to the suite. Sat on the lanai for another hour watching the stars and the water and listening to the shooshing, and then finally headed to bed. Very nice beds and bedding BTW. I was asleep in nanoseconds. Judy was not so lucky, I guess.
And thus ended Day 1 of Phase 2. Notwithstanding the “trials” at the train station, it was a very good day.
Friday, August 12: Cruising the Gulf of Alaska, the Hubbard Glacier
Woke about 7 to another beautiful day and sat for a while on the lanai in our bathrobes. Finally got dressed and went to the Panorama Room where they had coffee, juice, fruit and pastries and had a light breakfast. Judy then went to have a massage while I wrote some of this journal. (Judy wants me to tell all of you (a) that she wasn’t impressed with the massage, and (b) that the masseuse told her she really wasn’t stressed at all). I then went for my spa orgy: over two hours of manicure, pedicure and scalp/shoulder massage. Way over the top, I know, but I have never done any of those and figured this was the trip full of once-in-a-lifetime experiences, so why not go for it in this regard as well. It was OK. Best thing was the scalp/neck/shoulder massage. I might actually do that again. But I’ll tell you what: my toenails have never looked so good!
By the time I got out of the spa, we were arriving at the Hubbard Glacier. Actually, there is a whole series of glaciers in the same area, but the Hubbard is the biggest: 6 miles across and 76 miles long they told us. The Hubbard is actually formed by the confluence of it with two other glaciers, and the whole thing makes a very impressive display. The ship got very close (one of the benefits of being a “small” ship) and I took about a hundred pictures trying (I’m not sure successfully) to capture the cragginess and very weird neon aquamarine color the ice has in certain lights. Judy had had lunch while I was at the spa, and was spending the afternoon in our room writing whatever it is she writes whenever she gets time, so she watched the glaciers from our room. I went down to have lunch at the very nice Italian restaurant, got a table by the window looking out at the glacier as the ship got closer and closer, and repeatedly went outside on the deck to take pictures. I must have told myself “That’s enough, now” five or six different times, only to see something new I wanted to try to capture. It will be fun to see how the pictures turn out. I learned later that we were actually pretty lucky, since many times they can’t get as close as we did due to ice bergs in the water.
Thursday was “formal” night. Basically this meant that if you wanted to go to the Captain’s reception and eat in the main dining room, you were expected to dress formally: tux (or at least dark suit) for men and gowns for women. You could avoid these obligations by eating in one of the other restaurants, and this is what we did because I didn’t feel like lugging a tux or dark suit around for two weeks just for one night. But still, we are expected to “dress” for dinner each night, which for me means a sport coat, with no tie and a dress or pant suit for Judy. So, we changed clothes about 6 pm, went to the piano par for a pre-dinner drink – Judy had the “Silver Sea Cocktail,” a mixture of some things I had never heard of that came out tasting slightly grapefruity and pretty refreshing. It is apparently the signature cocktail of the Silver Seas cruise line. I settled for Glenmoraigne (poor me). We then had a very leisurely dinner at the Italian Restaurant. I had a parmesan flan which may be the gastronomical hit so far. The rest was good but not memorable.
We then split up for a bit, planning to meet at 9:30 for the show they put on every night. There are no “headliners” for these – one drawback, I suspect, of a “small ship” – but they do have a troupe of professional singers and dancers that put on a different variety show most nights at 9:30. Between dinner and the show, Judy went back to the room, ostensibly to do more writing, and I went to get a nice Cuban cigar (a Cohiba, Bill), another Glenmoraigne and went out on the back deck to watch a spectacular sunset. Around 9:15 I wandered over to the Show Lounge and got us seats, but Judy never showed.
After about 15 minutes of the show (which didn’t wow me much anyway) I went and called the room – and woke her up. We decided to bag what remained of the show and finish the day in the casino. I’m now down $140 and Judy’s up $2. Yuck!
Apart from that, another really nice day.
Saturday, August 13: Sitka
The butler woke us at 8:00 delivering our room service breakfast. We hadn’t slept anywhere near that late since we’ve left Ohio, so we expected to be up long before he arrived. Judy, in fact had intended to do a “power walk” at 7. But it appears we have now fully adjusted to the 4 hour time change, so we’ll need to be more careful going forward – at least if we are ordering room service. Which isn’t likely. The room service breakfast was our first disappointment. Not so much bad as just very mediocre. We won’t do that again.
By the time we had finished breakfast, we were anchored in Sitka Bay. Our luck continued to hold, and we had another spectacular day. Alone among the Alaskan cruise ship ports of call, Sitka doesn’t have a cruise ship dock – the ship’s tenders are used to ferry people to land – and, partly as a consequence, it is the least touristy of all those cities. It is also the oldest, having been the seat of government for the Russians and the place where the transfer of Alaska from Russia to the US took place in 1867. Lots and lots of history and the Russian influence is everywhere. Indeed, the center of the city is dominated by a Russian Orthodox cathedral. I liked the town. It was very pleasant and the shops were pretty classy I thought. We spent about 5 hours ashore wandering about sightseeing, doing our part to further the Sitka economy, writing post cards – including some wooden ones -- and sitting in two local coffee shops: the Backdoor Café, which is located behind the local bookstore and the Highlander Coffee Co., where we had to go when we returned to the Backdoor Café only to find that it closed at 2 pm on Saturday (!? The nerve of them!)
Caught the tender back to the ship about 3, and went up to the pool deck to have some lunch out doors. It was such a nice day that there were people out sunbathing.
From Sitka, the ship continued south, rounded the southern end of Baranof Island about 8 pm and then turned north toward Juneau.
After our mid-afternoon lunch on the pool deck, we went back to our room and read and wrote until 7:30 or so, changed and went up to The Bar (they have such a flair for names) for a drink and some piano music, and then went to dinner at The Restaurant (don’t they?). Just as we sat down, we were told that we had just missed a pod of whales. We later learned that they were on both sides of the ship. Not seeing those was a disappointment. Finished dinner about 9 and took our wine up to the deck behind La Terrazza – probably my favorite spot on the entire ship – and watched the sun set again. Then, sadly, we went back to the casino for another try. It took a couple hours, but I’m now down $240. The game must be rigged.
Sunday, August 14: Tracy Arm, Juneau, Mendenhall Glacier and Whale Quest
For some reason I got up about 6:30 thinking it was much later, and went to get some breakfast, only to find that the buffet wasn’t open yet. But I was very glad I hadn’t slept longer, because we were entering the Tracy Arm, and for the next 2½ hours, we enjoyed what is probably the best scenery yet. Tracy Arm is what the Scandinavians refer to as a fjord. And it is spectacular. I know I keep using that word, but I can’t think of anything else to call this scenery.
Our weather luck may have run out, as the day dawned cloudy and pretty cool, but that didn’t detract at all form the mountains rising straight up out of the water, the small waterfalls, the turquoise blue water dotted with small icebergs, some of which were the most amazing shade of nearly iridescent blue, and long valleys with walls so steep the valley itself looks like it was made by a single giant ax blow. Judy joined me on the observation deck about 7, and we watched until the ship went as far as it could up the Arm and then turned around. There was a glacier (the Sawyer, I think) further up the arm, and we saw a number of smaller boats heading further up the arm toward it. That would have been a fun trip, I think, but our ship was too large to get within sight of the glacier itself.
Once the ship had turned and started back the way it had come, we went down to La Terrazza for the breakfast buffet. All the tables by the windows were full, but we noticed that, for the first time, they had set the tables outside on the rear deck, and no on else was brave enough to use them. We were, and it actually was very nice, since it was well sheltered from the wind. So we had an al fresco breakfast.
We read/wrote for a while and had lunch on the pool deck while the ship docked in Juneau. It was a pretty nasty sort of day, so I stayed on the ship waiting for our tour, while Judy explored a little bit of Juneau near the dock. At about 1:30, we loaded on a bus for the whale watching tour. Chatty, amusing (for a while) bus driver named Sylvia gave us a 5-minute tour of Juneau in which we saw and had a full description of everything there was worth seeing.
The whale watching exceeded all expectations – even all hopes. Not 15 minutes out, we spied a pod of killer whales (orcas), which I gather is pretty rare. I got a few photos, but we never did get close enough for anything decent, and, in any event, photography was a real challenge as it was pouring down rain. Tried standing outside at first, but the action was too intermittent and the railings too crowded, and in any event, the lens kept getting wet, so I eventually went downstairs and shot through the window. The problem with that was that the autofocus kept trying to focus on the raindrops on the window. But the guide said that was nearly ideal weather for whale watching. According to her, the herring on which the humpbacks feed don’t like light, so the brighter the day, the deeper they go and the whales naturally follow. On rainy days, though, the herring stay closer to the surface, so the whales do as well.
The guide told us a couple interesting things about orcas. First, they come in two types: resident and transient. The resident orcas stay in one territory (about 100 square miles), whereas the transients keep moving. The transients are stealth hunters. They are going after porpoises, dolphins and other “intelligent” marine mammals fish, so they do a minimum amount of echo sounding because their prey is smart enough to know what is making that noise. The residents hunt only salmon and other “dumb” fish, so those orcas are downright noisy with their sounding. The other thing she told us sounds pretty far fetched but here goes any way. In the Australian whale fishing grounds in the last century, the aboriginal fishermen had a tradition – perhaps even a religious practice – of giving part of their catch to the orcas because they considered the orcas to be the souls of their departed warriors. When whaling came to Australia, this practice was carried over to the whaling ships. The parts of the whale the orcas ate – tongues and lower jaws – were of little commercial value, so the orcas were allowed to eat those while the crew process the rest of the whales. Eventually, a symbiotic relationship developed in which the orcas would lead the whaling ships to the whales. In fact, their were (she said) cases in which a pod of orcas would trap a number of whales in a cove and then one member of the pod would go to the whaling village and breach until the ships came to follow him and would lead them back to the trapped humpbacks. Their was, she said, one orca that would actually pull ships by their anchor chains if they didn’t move quickly enough.
After tracking the pod of orcas for a while, we went after the humpbacks, and scored. First we saw a mother, calf and some other adult in a group, with the calf just fooling around it seemed. We watched them frolic for a half hour or so and then moved on (a requirement of the marine mammal protection act, I guess). Fifteen minutes later, we ran into a group of three males who were coming up, and sounding, coming up and sounding. Got some video of tail flukes sticking out of the water as they went down. Then the jackpot: one of them breached abut 50 yards from our boat. The guide said that this was really rare – maybe 10% of the trips – and especially so that close to the boat. It was spectacular. Judy happened to be looking right at the spot at which it came out of the water, and so got to see the whole thing. I looked around just in time to see him out of the water and falling back in. Pretty memorable, even at that. Of course, no one got a picture, so we’ll have to rely on memory.
Spent another half hour in the area and saw a fair amount of activity, but of course nothing matched what we had already seen and we headed back in for part 2 of the tour – a trip to Mendenhall Glacier.
The interesting thing we were told about whales relates to their age. No one know how long they live. Apparently, there has never been a whale tracked through its entire life cycle. However, two stories – if true – would indicate that the live a very long time. A bow whale was found once that had a spear or harpoon head in it that was subsequently determined to be over 200 years old. And a humpback was found with an explosive device attached to him that had at one time been used to kill whales (an explosive harpoon, I guess) but that had not be used for this purpose for over a hundred years.
The Mendenhall Glacier was disappointing because of the rain. It was so enshrouded in mist that it was hard to see much less photograph, and the pouring rain kept us from getting much closer. It also prevented us from taking advantage of the other big attraction there: bear spotting. At this time of year, the salmon are coming upstream in the small stream near the Mendenhall visitor center, and it is apparently one of the best bear viewing areas in the world. The bus driver told us that earlier this summer, they actually had to close the visitor center because there were too many bears wandering around. But it was a 15 minute hike in the rain and we decided to pass. The visitor center was nice, and they had an interesting film on glacier formation, advance and retreat, but I was disappointed to not be able to get closer or to get any decent pictures.
Our incredibly – and finally annoyingly – talkative bus driver did she make me realize one thing I had never thought of before. We all know that salmon return to the place where they were born to spawn, but what I never realized until the bus driver talked about seeing it, is that this applies as well to salmon hatched in a fish hatchery. There was a hatchery we passed on the way back to the ship, and the driver described how amazing the sight was to see thousands of salmon returning to the tanks in which they were hatched.
We had another nice (and late) dinner at the Restaurant and then went to a show. It was OK, but I felt bad for the performers because I think there were no more than 30 people in the audience. The place was pretty full the first night, so I don’t know if it was just the night (we were parked in Juneau until 11 pm, so it may be that a lot of people had not returned to the ship yet) or if the quality of the performances had made people stay away. My guess is the latter, since I doubt if we’ll catch another one.
A third foray into the casino – and likely my last: I’m now down $300. And it happens the same way each time: I holding my own, up a little, down a little, and then after I’ve been there about an hour, this Ukrainian woman named Veronica comes to the table to deal, plays around with me for 15 minutes or so and then just crushes me in about 20 hands. If it weren’t so preposterous to think that the cruise cares about my hundred dollars enough to cheat, I’d swear she was a mechanic.
Anyway, off to bed about 1:00, pissed off.
Monday, August 15, 2011: Skagway
Went to sleep pissed off; woke up pissed off. We arrived in Skagway a bit before 7 am, and I was awakened by the noise of a forklift getting the gangway set up. It seemed to take forever, so I finally got up and went to take a shower, even though my plan for the day was to sleep in, since I had already decided I wasn’t going to go into town. The guide book made it sound like a worthless tourist trap, and the weather wasn’t good either, so I just decided to sit back and chill for the day. Well the forklift operator had other ideas. And then the helicopters started in. The ship was docked about 200 yards from the place where the helicopter tours leave from, and with an amazing frequency, regularity and cacophony, six different helicopters took off or returned every 10 to 15 minutes. For the first time since we sailed, even Judy wanted to close the lanai door.
We threw some laundry into the German made washing machines that had an inexcusably large number of buttons and options and utterly indecipherable directions, hoped for the best and went to breakfast. Based on our experience yesterday, we decided to eat outside again, but this proved a mistake. It wasn’t much colder than it had been yesterday, but there was a wind blowing across the deck that made things pretty uncomfortable. So we ate quickly and then went back to check the laundry only to find that we had apparently picked a 90+ minute wash cycle, since there was still 45 minutes left after we returned from breakfast. The driers proved no less challenging, but we eventually got things figured out enough to allow Judy to go into town for a while. I then went down to write this and read a bit.
About 1:00 I went and had a steam, and when I got back I realized I had forgotten to take my room key. I rang the door bell, just in case Judy had returned, but there was no answer. So I had to flag down one of the maids, who was understandably reluctant to let me in with no id, so she apparently went and called our maid, Gretha, to come let me in. And guess who was there? Why Judy of course, wonderfully oblivious to my predicament despite repeated door bell buzzing.
By the way, I don’t think I’ve noted this before, but out butler is a nice young Indian man named Tushar Nakashe and our maid is a lovely young Filipina named Gretha Anala. Gretha’s husband also works on the ship as a waiter in one of La Terrazza.
We spent the rest of the day doing what has become our daily regimen: a late lunch on the pool deck where Judy tries out the cocktail of this day, followed by a roma coffee and a return to the room to read and write while I go the observation deck and read. We change for dinner about 7:00 and head to the piano bar for a drink, eat dinner at the Restaurant, then hit the casino for a couple hours. My luck was much better tonight: I won about $200, so, I’m now only down $100. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011: Ketchikan
We slept late today; so late that the Restaurant was already closed when we got there for breakfast. That is the only aspect of this cruise I find irritating: there really are only two restaurants and they each are open only an hour and a half (the Restaurant) or two (La Terrazza for breakfast and lunch. You’d think they could be a bit more flexible about when you have to eat. This is one of the reasons we eat so often on the pool deck: it is the only place on the whole ship where you can get food between 2:00 and 7:00.
We docked in Ketchikan at about noon. There were 3 other cruise sips already there, making the following statement from our guide book seem likely to be all too accurate
On summer days, the white cruise ships tower above the town like huge new buildings . . . . Each morning, their gangways disgorge thousands of visitors, clogging the streets and, for a few hours, transforming the town into a teeming carnival.
Since we were only going to be in Ketchikan for 5 hours, there really wasn’t time to do anything other than explore the downtown a bit, and with that sort of description and the fact that we were the 4th – and smallest – ship to arrive, I came close to staying on board again, but Judy talked me out of it. It looked cold and rainy, so I bundled up in layers and took the umbrella, which, of course guaranteed that it would be warm and sunny, which it was. Ketchikan is a shopping destination, and they have an amazing range of stores, from placers like you’d find on the Jersey shore boardwalk selling plastic eskimo dolls and other cheap “souvenirs,” to high end art gallery’s and jewelry stores selling some really really nice stuff. So we browsed a bit in some of the nicer stores, crossed off the last couple items on our shopping list, and found a local coffee and pastry shop – the Sweet Mermaid – and sat there for a half hour or so. Our last task was to pick up some smoked salmon. We asked the coffee house proprietor where the best place to buy it was, and she sent us to a little whole in the wall shop called Salmon Etc. They were having a special, where if you bought one king salmon filet, you could get a sockeye salmon filet free. So we decided to get two, one for Vancouver and one to send to Zach. The boxes for the filets were each about 18” long, and that got us thinking about how we were going to get all the stuff we had bought back home. We and decided that we ought to at least ship Zach’s stuff to him from here since we’d have to ship it once we got home anyway, so we headed back to the ship to pick up the things we had fro Zach and Chelsea. At that point, we decided that we’d also ship some of the stuff that was going back to Toledo, since it would make packing easier. So we took all of our purchases and walked back over to what turned out to be a contract branch post office with the world’s least helpful postmistress. No she couldn’t give us any tape. If we wanted tape we had to buy a thousand foot roll for $7. We did without. Six feet of bubble wrap, which we did have to have, was $6 – and you had to pay for it separately and immediately! Oh, and no, there was no place to throw away garbage. We finally did get a lot of stuff packed into flat rate boxes (that didn’t need tape, thank goodness!) and sent them off – one the Zach and Chelsea and other to us at home. We will be seeing John, Dee, Bill, Jenny & Quinn in Vancouver, so that stuff we will hand carry – and leave it to them to figure out how to get it home!
Except for the postmistress, Ketchikan was a very pleasant surprise. Yes it was crowded with touristas, and yes there really was very little to do but shop in the time we had available, but the town was nice and the shopping was very good. So, the experience greatly exceeded expectations.
Got back to the ship about 4 and repeated our afternoon regimen: lunch and drink of the day for Judy (I had a beer) on the pool deck; watch the ship pull away from Ketchikan, which looked positively quaint in the lowering sun; return to the suite for quiet time (I had another steam); Dress for dinner about 7; drink at the piano bar at 7:30; dinner at La Terrazza at 8:30 and a couple more hours at the casino. (I’m back down to -$200. Grrr). And then to bed. One more day and no more stops before Vancouver.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011: At Sea
Slept in again, so we still have not had breakfast anywhere except the buffet at La Terrazza, which, frankly, is getting a bit boring. We realized today that you don’t have to eat the buffet and can order virtually anything you want, but didn’t take advantage: had the buffet again anyway. Next cruise we’ll be smarter.
That Phase 2 of our vacation is drawing to a close was driven home when Tushar delivered our disembarkation instructions. We give them our luggage tonight (before 11 pm) and they take it off the boat for us once we dock. We are supposed to be out of our stateroom by 8, but we are not scheduled to leave the ship until 9:30, so I guess we will get breakfast in the Restaurant after all. It looks like disembarkation will be as well organized and painless as embarkation was. We’ll see.
We had a nice day at sea. Around noon the sun came out again and the topography began to get pretty interesting. Didn’t do much of anything. After breakfast we sat around the suite. We thought about going to the “galley lunch,” but then said heck with it. We took our books up to the pool deck again for an early afternoon lunch, then went back to the room to read. I took a half hour nap and felt much better while Judy lay on the couch reading the John Grisham short story collection “Ford County,” which she is loving. I went for another steam, didn’t really get cooled off enough and stood outside for a half hour trying (ultimately successfully) to cool off.
The denouement is bitter-sweet. The cruise has been great, and we have enjoyed it a lot, but 7 days is about enough, and we are very much looking forward to Phase 3: the three days with Bill, Jenny, Quinn, John and Dee in Vancouver. But unlike the transition between Phases 1 and 2, this transition brings with it intimations that the vacation is nearing its end and that before we know it, we’ll just be Bill and Judy in Toledo again. That’s not so bad, actually, but I can tell you for sure that doing what we have been doing for the last 10 days is sure a lot more interesting!
Wednesday, August 18, 2011: Arrival In Vancouver
We arrived in Vancouver to a warm sunny day at about 7 am. They had picked up our big luggage last night, so all we had to do was get dressed and pack our carry-ons. They wanted us out of the room by 8, and we accommodated them and went down to have a very leisurely breakfast. They off-loaded the passengers in groups to keep the lines from getting too long and to allow them to phase the luggage, so we didn’t disembark until about 9:30. That created a bit of a problem, since by the time we got out to the taxi stand there was a shortage of cabs. You cannot believe the amount of luggage some of these people had with them, and it was comical watching some of them trying to shoehorn all that luggage into the Toyota Priuses that comprise the bulk of the taxi fleet. Many didn’t even try – they were stuck waiting for a mini van.
Finally got a cab and made our way over to the condo we had rented with for our group of 7. The place was located in a great spot, but was far from the most comfortable place as it had neither air conditioning nor anything that would pass for ventilation, so it was pretty hot and stuffy most of the days even though the outside temp was in the 60’s and very low 70’s.
My brother John and his wife Dee had gotten into town the day before and had collected reams of info on stuff to do. However, Bill Jenny and Quinn (my son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter) didn’t get into town until mid-afternoon, so we tried to find something to do that they wouldn’t fell bad about missing. Since they had lived in San Fran for 5 years, we decided China Town was something they wouldn’t mind missing. We walked over to China town and went to the Sun Yat Sen classical Chinese scholar’s house and garden and to the adjacent public park. I thought it was really nice, but everyone else was much less impressed. We then went to have dim som at the Jade Garden Restaurant. It was very good, although the waitresses were pretty surly. We then went back to the condo to wait for Bill Jenny and Quinn, and I let John just shellac the hell out of me in gin. I won exactly two hands, once of which was for only 3 points.
Bill, Jenny & Quinn arrived mid-afternoon, and surprisingly given that she had had very little sleep and was coming down with a cold -- the little girl was wide awake and chipper. We decided she would crash sooner or later, and that we should probably get stuff to cook in the condo for dinner, so while the getting was good, we got a couple cabs and headed to the public market on Granville Island. What a great place! Oodles and oodles of interesting shops, performing arts venues, food shops and restaurants, canoe/kayak rentals. A rowing club, and lots of other stuff I never got a chance to identify. We didn’t have but a couple hours to kill, so we didn’t really get to see more than about 20% of what was there, and I thought that we’d probably end up coming back. Someday, maybe, but not this trip.
Picked up tortellini, fresh tomato sauce and parmesan, bread, cheese, wine, olives, bagels and cream cheese and a few other things for dinner and breakfast, and then hopped a water taxi back across the, what, river? inlet? channel? I have to admit, I’m not sure what kind of a body of water it is.
Quinn finally crashed sometime around 7, I guess – although she was destined for a pretty rough night, at least be her standards – and we devoured the cheese and some of the bread, then cooked the tortellini and had a really nice dinner. The girls then took their wine out on the stoop to chat and watch the people, while Bill, John and I played 3-handed cribbage and gin. Went to bed about 11, Nice, nice day.
We learned during the night – each night actually – that Vancouver never sleeps. The bars stay open ‘til 5 and there is a constant ebb and flow of people and traffic. It was interesting, but it also made you choose between heat/stuffiness and noise in terms of sleeping.
Friday, August 19, 2011: Vancouver and Stanley Park
I woke up to the sounds of the little girl babbling her head off. Apparently, she’d been up quite a bit that night, and Judy had brought her into our room to give her parents a chance to get a bit of shut eye. She loves taking things out and either throwing them on the floor or putting them back, and Judy had given here her cosmetic bag, and she was busily pulling bottles and tubes and what not out, chewing on them for a bit and then dropping them on the bed to get something else. I called to her and she looked up, and I did a little finger-curl kind of wave and she waved back, then I did it again, and said “Hi Grandpa,” and she finger-curl waved back and – I swear – said “Hi Grandpa” right back. My cognitive development expert wife heard it but immediately went into denial mode, claiming no 1-year old spoke in meaningful 3-syllable utterances, but I heard it, so did she, and so did my brother who was actually downstairs at the time. Yee haa!
Our plan for the day was to go biking in Stanley Park, one of the great urban parks and supposedly larger than Central Park in NY, although I find that hard to believe. But Jenny & Bill decided to put Quinny down for a nab before we left, given how little sleep she had had in the previous 36 hours, and she seriously crashed, sleeping for almost four hours. We sat around chatting and playing cards, waiting for her to wake up, and it was close to two by the time we got to the bike rental place. It turned out to be OK though. We pedaled around the circumference of the park along the sea wall – about 6 miles – stopped and watched a little lawn bowling and generally just took it easy for a couple hours. It was a another beautiful day and it was fun to be out. Quinny sat on a front facing seat on Bill’s bike and loved the ride, although she had no tolerance at all for the helmet they tried to put on her – and ultimately gave up on. She HATES hats, so a bike helmet was a real problem. Bill felt a bit queasy letting her ride without a helmet, but it all worked out, so no harm, no foul.
John in particular would have liked to ride one for a while longer, but it was getting on toward happy hour and Quinn’s afternoon nap time, so the rest of the crew decided we should, pick up some more beer, wine and groceries, send old man Bill back in a cab with those (to spare his aching back) and walk up Robson St, which is one of the main shopping streets in Vancouver.
We had planned to go out for dinner, but we got back to the house and started in again on the cheese and bread, fruits and wine and after a couple hours of that, no one was all that hungry. So we decided to bag dinner. About 9, though, the munchies set in, so a couple people walked down the block to the noodle shop and got a couple SE Asian dishes to bring back. When they brought it in, it looked like way too much food, but, strangely, it did disappear.
And thus ended our next to last day of vacation. Another nice one.
Saturday, August 20, 2011: Vancouver and Grouse Mountain
Once again was awakened by the little girl babbling away, and once again elicited a “Hi grampa” I’m sure (although this time no one else would admit to hearing it). She is an absolute stitch, toddling around like a drunken sailor and babbling non stop, sometimes at the top of her lungs. The plan for today was to go to Grouse Mountain where they had the 2008 winter Olympics. A bit touristy, for sure, but promising some great views. Again, though, we were at the mercy of the little girl’s nab schedule, so we didn’t really get moving until after lunch. That gave John time, though, to do what he is best at: organize. He figured out how to take public transportation: a subway, boat and bus to get there. We saved a little money, of course, relative to cabs, but the real treat was the public transport.
On the way up there we got a bit of an inkling as to what it would be like from the crowds of people on all the transport. When we got off the ferry, the bus to Grouse mountain was there waiting, but it was already completely full, with 8-10 people waiting outside of it for the next bus. When the next bus did come, it got filled by people who had been there for the pervious bus. And, sure enough, while the views at the top of Grouse mountain were really cool, the press of tourists and the lines they (we, I guess) created took a good deal of the fun out of it. But it was a beautiful Saturday afternoon in August. What did I expect?
We all took the gondola up, and then John, Dee, Bill, Jenny & I took the chair lift up to the top, while Judy stayed back with Quinn, who was too little to go on the chair lift. Surprisingly, there wasn’t too much to see at the top: all the equipment got in the way of the views. But there was one great vista of the greater Vancouver metropolitan area, and we could see off in the distance what I was told is Whistler Mountain. It was huge; in fact, it looked like Mt. Ranier, but I knew that was too far away to see and in the wrong direction as well, or at least I think. But that was a spectacular view, and Bill tried to teach me – without too much success – how to use the panorama picture feature on my new android phone. But having enjoyed that one vista, there wasn’t much else to see, so after about a half hour we headed back down. Frankly, the chairlift ride down the mountain was the prize of the day. What a set of views! And, since they had the lift slowed way down to accommodate the walkers, especially when getting off, it was spectacular. (There’s that damn word again!)
When we got down, we watched a little of the lumberjack show, which tuned out to be mostly a scripted comedy skit. It was amusing for a bit, but got boring pretty quickly, so we decided to “beat the rush” and go get on the gondola down before the lumberjack show let out. Well, was THAT ever a naïve assumption. When we got there, the line was already 500 yards long. Fortunately, it moved pretty quickly, so we were done the mountain within a half hour or so.
Bill, Jenny, Quinn and I took a cab back while the others repeated the public transport route. Traffic on the bridge, which they avoided by taking the water taxi, allowed them to almost beat us home.
We again debated going out for dinner but Quinn argued persuasively in favor of ordering in, so we decided to order food from a highly rated (in the tourist mags at least) Indian food restaurant. John went to pick the food up, and his taxi driver was a Punjab, who, when he found out where we were ordering food, berated John steadily with tale as to how bad the place was and how much better we would eat if John just let him take him to the place he recommended. I’m glad John resisted, but I will say that I was not all that impressed with the food we got.
John and Dee had to leave the house at 5 to get a 6:30 train to Seattle, (this was the end of the vacation for us, but for John& Dee, Vancouver was just the first stop on a 3 week tour of the pacific northwest), so the packing up began early, and things were pretty quiet by 10 pm.
The only thing left now is the travel day.
Sunday, August 21, 2011: Travel Back To Toledo
Trying to leave Vancouver was, without a doubt, one of the WORST travel experiences of my life. Lines at every step: check baggage, security, and the worst of all by FAR – US customs. We jumped the first of the lines by going to the first class baggage check-in counter which had no lines at all whereas the hoi polloi counter had 30 or so people in it. I was feeling pretty smug. Then we went to get into the security line. We were in one line when I noticed that the line next to us had half the people in it. So, on a rush from the checked baggage coup, we went back and got in the shorter line. What I only learned later was that this was, I guess, the line for people wanting or needing full body cavity searches. It took, I swear, more than 10 minutes for someone to get through the security line.
But we made it. Only to come up against the US customs and border control people. I have no idea why the US does customs in Canada, but, at least in Vancouver, they do. And when we entered the room allocated to US customs, it looked like the line for the latest and greatest roller coaster at Cedar point: 10 or so 50’ switchbacks crammed with people just trying to tell customs they had nothing to declare.
Except my wife DID have something to declare. Her Puritan frugality compelled her to clean out the refrigerator and take it all with her. So, she had apples, grapes and brie cheese in her carry-ons. All of which qualified us for a secondary screening by the agricultural officers, who took the fruit but let us keep the cheese – who knows why.
People were desperate to move forward in the line because NO ONE had expected to have to spend more than an hour trying to get through customs and everyone was on the verge of missing their flights. I encouraged a woman who was clearly going to miss her flight of she stayed in line to ask people across the rope line if she could cut in. She did and it worked pretty well, I think. Anyway, we never saw her again. I tried the same trick with another couple, but after they had moved across two line the Customs Line Nazi caught them and made them go back. He then turned around and let us cut across one of the lines apparently because I had let the couple cut in front of us. The enigma that is US customs.
Judy and I were fortunate in terms of time because we had left for the airport at the same time as Bill and Jenny, whose flight left about an hour and a half before ours, so we had enough time. Not so Bill & Jenny, though. While we had all left the house at about the same time, the amount of luggage we had and the amount of equipment they had for Quinn precluded taking one cab, so we each went separately. They had to return the high chair they had rented, so they got to the airport a half hour or so after we did, and by the time they got to the customs line, they were in serious danger of missing their flight. So Judy and I decided to change places with them, which would cut their wait by at least a half hour. That maneuver damn near gave Customs Line Nazi a stroke, but once he figured out what we were doing all he could really do was sputter. Which he did. So, Judy and I were back at the end of the line. As it turned out, Bill and Jenny would have been OK – just barely – because we got to see them and say good bye as they were boarding.
Sadly, we didn’t get upgraded on the way back, but we did have exit row aisle seats so it wasn’t bad. I actually must have slept a bit, since the 3½ hour flight to Minneapolis, where we changed planes seemed to go very quickly. Got back to Detroit at about 10:30 (really only 7:30 body time), and both the luggage and the car and driver were there waiting for us. Home by midnight and spent a couple hours sorting and opening mail unpacking souvenirs and just puttering around, aware that once we went to bed the vacation was officially over.
And so it was. It was a great time, and I’d recommend it to anyone that hasn’t seen Alaska yet. I have to start thinking about what to do next.
Bill
PHASE I: ANCHORAGE THE KENAI PENINSULA
Packed and ready to go by noon. Pretty excited. Judy insisted that we start the vacation right – by spending 2-3 hours in the Delta Sky Club(?!), so we had a car come pick us up at 3:00 for a 7:30 flight. Spent the requisite 2.5 hours at the club, then went down to the gate and learned we had gotten upgraded, so we got to fly first class, which was fun. Didn’t realize until we got to the airport that it was 3500+ miles and about 7 hours. This is one BIG country.
Mardy and Robert picked us up at the airport about 10:30 pm (2:30 am ET) and we decided that discretion was the better part of valor: we put off the "welcome to Alaska" drink – the last time in the next two weeks we would do something like tat -- and went to bed. Day 1 was in the record books.
Sunday, August 7, 2011: Robert & Mardy’s, a road trip north, dinner with the Larsons
Mardy, her daughter Courtney, and her granddaughter Quin (with one "n") picked Judy up and they went to church while I stayed at the hotel and read the paper, did the crossword, etc. Then we went to the Kiesels for a huge "brunch," after which we went on a 4-5 hour driving tour of the area north of Anchorage, known locally as “the Valley.” The whole day was overcast with intermittent rain, so we couldn't see much of the topography, but had a nice time anyway. Visited a friend of theirs up at a mountain lake (Lake Nancy) who had the most beautiful private garden I have ever seen.
Got back about 6 pm and went to see Judy's cousin Clayton and his wife Renee. Clayton’s nephew Neal and wife Becky were there as well. Had a great time with them and got a huge steak and king crab dinner to boot. They are delightful people, and we were sorry we didn’t get to spend more time with them.
Monday, August 8, 2011: Travel to Homer
Monday morning we set off for Homer – after stopping at Costco for boating essentials like wine, chocolate-covered pomegranate seeds, hummus, wine, chips, wine, etc. The trip to Homer is normally about a 4 hour drive, but it took about 7 with all the side trips and stops and visits we took. Again, it was overcast, so we really didn't realize what we were missing. But had fun. Probably the highlight was a visit to another of their friends who owns a beautiful B&B on the Kenai River. Had supper at a pizza place on the way down and I got my first taste as to how expensive food is Alaska: the four of us had three salads, a small pizza, 4 glasses of jug wine and 2 beers and the bill was over $100.
Two things occupied a good deal of our attention on the way to Homer. First off, halfway there, Robert realized he didn’t have his wallet. He was sure he had put it in the car, but after literally removing and inspecting every single bag and item of clothing, there was no wallet to be found. To make a long and pretty stressful (for Robert) story short, it turned out he had dropped it at Costco and some kind soul had turned it in with even the cash still in place. The other thing – and this was the real event – was that Brandt, the Kiesel’s younger son called that evening to tell his parents that they had a large black bear on their deck. Brandt had turned off the motion detectors they have to warn of encroaching wildlife (moose are the most common problem) because the wind kept setting them off, and his first inkling that he had a bear on his hands came when he heard something on the deck smashing the birdhouse. Fortunately, the bear moseyed off the deck after Brandt turned the deck spot lights on, proceeded to help himself to their raspberries, then jumped the fence into the neighbors yard and disappeared. There was considerable concern that night about the ultimate fate of the two pet chickens Ida and Clara. But as it turned out, the bear missed them.
We got to Homer about 8:00 and still had 2+ hours to sunset! Mardy and Robert have an RV there (regarding which they have some of the funniest travel stories I have ever heard -- they make the Patbergs/Griswolds look like pikers in the "shit happens" department) so we went there first to drop of their stuff and visit with more of their friends -- including a Brit ex-pat called Limey who looks (the girls wistfully tell me) an awful lot like Paul Newman. Then we went down to their boat (a 40' aluminum fishing boat) knocked off a couple bottles of wine and then went to the Salty Dawg, a fairly famous hangout where people tack either their underwear or a dollar bill with more or less obscene messages to the wall. There wasn't much underwear, but there must have been a few thousand dollar bills covering virtually every square inch of the walls and ceiling. I guess the place can get pretty raucous in the late afternoon/early evening when the charter boats come in, but it was pretty mellow by the time we got there, and besides I was dead tired (it was still 2:30 am my time), so we had one beer and called it a night.
Monday, August 7, 2011: Sailing the Cook Inlet: Gull Island, Halibut Cove, Seldovia
We slept very well in the berths on the boat, but again were up about 7 (10 am body time). Robert had set up the coffee pot for us, and the Kiesels are not what you'd call early risers, so Judy and I had a couple hours sitting on the boat, drinking coffee and watching the harbor come alive a bit and gulls wheel about overhead. It was very, very relaxing.
Once Mardy & Robert made their appearance, we set off in the boat for Gull Island (a small rock that serves as a rookery for thousands of gulls, cormorants, puffins and who knows what else) and then Halibut Bay, a largely private cove that is accessible only by water and air and that is owned mostly by a family (the Tillions, I think their name is ) that Robert and Mardy said made a fortune being an Alaskan State Senator.
The Cove is beautiful, and after motoring about that for a bit – and espying the most darling little floating Cape Cod-style cabin complete with dormers – we docked at a place called Saltry’s (also owned, I gather, by the Tillions) where Mardy and Robert treated us to a very nice al fresco lunch on the deck overlooking the harbor. As we arrived in Halibut Cover, the sun had come out in full force. I was sitting on the deck at lunch so that it was shining on my right, and Judy said I came away from lunch with a sunburn, but only on the right side of my face. (Jon, I guess I looked like some demented UW booster at Camp Randall).
The Tillions also built a boardwalk around a good bit of one side of the Cove, and after lunch we walked along that for an hour or so checking out the interesting selection of shops and art galleries set out along that.
Mid-afternoon, we set sail for a our next port of call – Seldovia – another little fishing/tourist village further down the Kenai Peninsula. As we left Halibut Cove, I remarked to Robert that I was surprised how calm the water was. He replied, somewhat cryptically, “Well, it is right now,” and sure enough halfway to Seldovia the sea started to roll the boat quite a bit. For about an hour it was quite a ride, but we arrived safely – and with our lunches still in our bellies – so, in the end, it was just fun.
Seldovia is a pretty little town, but the harbor gives a hint at what the tides are like. The docks all float up and down on stanchions. We were there at a fairly low tide and the top of the stanchions were probably 20-25’ above the water. The town was situated even higher up, on what almost looked like a small bluff. The height of high tide and the depth of low tide varies significantly over the course of each month, and we were there at a point in the cycle when the changes weren’t all that great, but looking at a tide chart later, the difference between high and low tide can be more than 30 some feet.
As we came into the harbor, Mardy pointed out one of the more famous of the local denizens – a sea otter called Otis – floating on his back. Otis instantly became Judy’s favorite – sort of an Alaskan javelina – to be looked for at ever opportunity. And to be sought after in souvenir shops!
We were spending the night in Seldovia, with Robert & Mardy using the boat and Judy and me checking into a little B&B called the Bridgekeeper Inn (Valerie Morin, Innkeeper). While Robert got the boat (and Ginger, their dog, who accompanied us everywhere) squared away, Mardy walked us up to the B&B, which turned out to be very nice: only two rooms, and we had the place to ourselves. Our room had a small balcony overlooking the (at the time) swiftly running river that gave the B&B its name. We got settled in and then walked back into town to meet Mardy and Robert for dinner at a place called the Mad Fish. It took some coaxing to get Robert to come in because of Ginger. Ginger is an absolutely darling little ball of fur, but she has a bit of separation anxiety and barks when left alone. Robert wasn’t all that hungry to begin with and he was going to stay with Ginger while we went to eat rather than risk having her disturb everyone with the barking. In the end, Mardy lured him in by pointing out that they had strawberry-rhubarb crisp with vanilla ice cream on the menu. So Ginger got tied up right outside the window at which we were sitting so that she could see us. It turned out that none of us was really hungry, so Mardy Judy & I all had appetizers while Robert had his crisp. Judy and Mardy did end up splitting a slice of banana cream pie, but I was good. I took all my calories in liquid form. (Alaskan Amber is a very nice beer if you ever get a chance to try it). Ginger did do a little barking, but not enough to bother anyone I don’t think.
We were going to walk around the town after dinner – it was only 8:00, so we still had 2½ hours of daylight left – but Robert wanted to move the boat to a better location, so we went down to do that first. And that was the end of all our good intentions. The lure of deck chairs, sunsets and some nice wine proved too enticing. The walk would wait until tomorrow.
When we got back the B&B about 11, I went out on our little deck to check out the river. It had been turned into a lake and was flowing up hill. What had been a small waterfall/rapids at 7, had been completely submerged and had its flow reversed by the incoming tide. I had a final glass of wine on the lanai, and then went to bed.
Tuesday, August 8, 2011: Return to Anchorage
Up at 8 and Mardy and Robert joined us for a very nice breakfast at the B&B. This time, Ginger was not so easily mollified, and kept up a steady chatter, but there was no one but us to hear, so it was OK.
After breakfast, we strolled down to the funky eclectic used book store cum pottery & art gallery cum coffee shop on the river. The girls were in 7th heaven, and Robert and I sat out in the sunshine on the deck, watching the river. I’m not sure how this happened, but some question about whether NAFTA was a good idea got us into a bit of a political discussion, which we both soon realized was stupid and wasteful of a beautiful day, so we declared a truce before I had a chance to do any permanent damage (I think). When we got to the bookstore, the tide was out again, so the rapids were back and the river was flowing down hill again. But as we sat there, you could see the water level rising downstream, and by the time we left, the rapids were almost gone again.
We spent another couple hours wandering around town checking out the shops, and then got back on the boat for the 2+ hour ride back to Homer. The ride back was even more of an adventured than the ride over. Just as we were getting underway, a fog bank rolled in and we did most of the trip on instruments and GPS-assisted electronic charts. It was weird being out on the water unable to see anything more than 50 or so feet away from the boat.
When we reached Homer, we pretty quickly loaded up the car and headed back to the Salty Dawg so the girls could buy more sweat shirts. While they were in the bar, Robert and I went over to check out the fileting operation at a place called Buttwhackers. There a guy and girl (!) were fileting scores of fish in front of a group of onlookers. Each of them was turning 20-30+ pound salmon and halibut into packaged filets in under a minute each. It was amazing to watch.
Leaving there we dropped off some stuff at the RV, grabbed some sandwiches at a local general store and headed off on the 4-5 hour trip back to Anchorage. Along the way, though, we stopped at the [something] Bear Winery. No, they don’t grow grapes in Alaska. The grape “juice” comes in concentrates “from all over the world,” and they mix it with local produce like rhubarb, blueberries etc. to make what might be called a “meritage” in more high falutin’ locales. Some of it is not half bad. We also stopped once to find a bathroom and ran into an ice cream parlor, which couldn’t be resisted, of course.
Driving back, the sun was out and we figured out what we had missed on the way down due the overcast. The scenery is impossible to describe, at least for me, but it is spectacular. Every time you turn your head there is a new vista, with each seemingly better than the last. I spent the entire trip in awe. We took lots of pictures, but I doubt seriously if any of them will even begin to capture what you see in person. Amazing.
Apart from the scenery, the highlight of the trip back was a CD Robert put on – actually two of them – of him and Amber, their daughter, singing a medley of country and classic rock songs. They made the CD for Lil, Mardy’s mother, and it was marvelous. They recorded the damn thing in their basement, but it sounded terrific. I think Robert put the first CD on just to see how we would react, but by the time the 20 tracks there were done, he was pretty sure – with good reason – that we’d like to hear the second CD as well. After a while, Robert got sufficiently into the spirit of things that he started doing a karaoke gig, singing along with the recording. Damn those two can sing!
We got back to Anchorage about 10 pm, so we had at least another hour of light left. Apparently, Robert & Mardy are gluttons for punishment, because they convinced us that they actually did want us to come by their house for a goodbye glass of wine. “Only one,” Judy insisted. In the end, of course, it was more like 2+, and we didn’t get back to the hotel until after midnight. Which was OK, because we didn’t have to leave to catch the train to the ship until after 10. With “lights out” on Wednesday, Phase 1 was over.
As Judy remarked, Phase 2 is going to have to be awfully damn good to match Phase 1, and that’s all due to Robert and Mardy. I have never experienced such unrelentingly cheerful hospitality. You’d think they actually wanted to spend 3 days babysitting two “outsiders.” [Shoot, there is a name they have for people who have been in Alaska for less that 6 years or so, but I can’t remember it. A mind is a terrible thing to lose!] Anyway, to Mardell & Robert: thank you very much.
PHASE II: THE CRUISE
Thursday, August 11, 2011: Train to Seward, Embarkation and Setting Sail
By 8 am Thursday morning, we were up and raring to go. Unfortunately, as it turned out we were WAY early all day long.
We ate breakfast at the hotel and got one last chance to talk to Mardy and see Robert when Mardy called to say Judy had left her windbreaker at their house (we knew that but decided they would send it) and that Robert would drop it off on the way to Costco to pick up his wallet.
After getting the coat back and saying one last goodbye and thank you, we packed up and caught the shuttle from the hotel to the airport train station for the train ride to Seward and the ship. The information we got said that “boarding” started at 10, but when we got there, we found that the train wasn’t even scheduled to arrive until 12:30. What they apparently meant was the ship boarding process began at 10 for anyone dumb enough to get to the train station by then. Even that wasn’t true, though, as they didn’t begin to check people in until after 11. The only good thing was that they took our luggage and we didn’t see or touch it again until we got to our stateroom on the ship, where it all sat, safe and sound.
So we sat around for about two hours (during which time I wrote a goodly chunk of this epistle) and waited for the train. As the room filled up with travelers, it got stuffy, so about 12:45, with the train still not there, we decided to go outside and wait on the platform. But as we moved through the crowd toward the door, the train came in and they barred the exit, announcing that there were some 300 people who had to get off the train before we could board. (Turns out these were the passengers from the northbound trip -- Vancouver to Seward -- on our ship. We were watching them turn the ship around). We had ended up at the front of the line, so decided just to stay there thinking that as soon as the incoming passengers had gotten off, we would get on. Think again, bison breath! Everyone got off and still we stood there. After 10 minutes or so, someone said we’d be boarding in about 10 minutes. Fifteen minutes later, they made an announcement that we would be boarding in – guess what? – about 10 minutes. And then she said and, oh by the way, we will be boarding by car and by section within each car, so no one can board until called. Not sure why they couldn’t have told us that an hour earlier. Oh, well. In hindsight, I feel a bit embarrassed not figuring that’s how it would be from the get go. But at the time, I felt like my first contact with Silver Seas was far less than impressive. Price of being a cruise newbie, I guess. In the end, I was somewhat mollified by the fact that it turned out that we were in the front car, so we were among the first to board the train, which was a doubly good thing, since it meant we were also among the first to board the ship.
One unexpected treat was that, as we boarded the train, we actually got to see Mt McKinley, which was a couple hundred miles away in the Denali National Park. That gives you an idea how great the weather was. (Pam and Wayne: Not a day went by that we don’t think guiltily of your weather travails. We got all your luck and then some).
The train ride down to Seward was spectacular. More unbelievable scenery. Mountains. Glaciers. Forests. Steams turned milky gray by the glacial silt (powdered rock ground off the mountains by the glaciers). Lakes. Rivers. More glaciers. And mountains upon mountains upon mountains. Some of it we had seen before, since for about half the trip the train followed the same route that we took going to Homer. But about an hour and a half out of Anchorage, the train left the highway and went into the Kenai mountain range. I had not thought scenery could be better than what we saw going to Homer, but I was wrong.
The train let us off, literally, at ship side. I think we had to walk all of 200 yards. Being first off the train meant almost no waiting in line, and the whole embarkation process and location of our stateroom took maybe 10 minutes. Our bags were there and we spent an hour unpacking. We met our butler, Tushar, who showed us some of our room amenities, took our orders as to the sorts of liquids we wanted in our room (scotch and pinot noir, plus assorted sodas) and took our dress jackets to be pressed (the garment bag failed miserably at the task of keeping them neat). Somewhere in here we realized that we were already underway and went out on the lanai to watch the process of leaving the harbor.
At that point the cruise experience actually started. We were provided with a very nice chilled Italian (Silver Sea is an Italian cruise line) sparkling wine (Prosecco), and after Tushar left, we took that and its ice bucket out on the lanai. Unfortunately, after I took the foil and cage off the cork, and just touched it to begin uncorking it, the cork popped out of its own accord and hit Judy, who was standing beside me on the lanai, right in the cheek. No harm done, fortunately, although Judy did confess later that she briefly wondered if I had shot her. Anyway, we got the prosecco poured and had a movie quality exit from Seward Bay. The weather all day was spectacular, and as we set sail it was hard to tell whether it was us moving or the land. The water was like glass and the ship moved through it so smoothly that you can’t really tell you aren’t on dry land, except for the very pleasant, low shooshing sound, as the ship cuts through the glass-like water.
After spending an hour or so on the lanai with the prosecco, we made our way to dinner in the main dinning room and had a very nice four course dinner with some really nice wines. Then we spent an hour in the casino (I lost $40 and Judy broke even) and headed back to the suite. Sat on the lanai for another hour watching the stars and the water and listening to the shooshing, and then finally headed to bed. Very nice beds and bedding BTW. I was asleep in nanoseconds. Judy was not so lucky, I guess.
And thus ended Day 1 of Phase 2. Notwithstanding the “trials” at the train station, it was a very good day.
Friday, August 12: Cruising the Gulf of Alaska, the Hubbard Glacier
Woke about 7 to another beautiful day and sat for a while on the lanai in our bathrobes. Finally got dressed and went to the Panorama Room where they had coffee, juice, fruit and pastries and had a light breakfast. Judy then went to have a massage while I wrote some of this journal. (Judy wants me to tell all of you (a) that she wasn’t impressed with the massage, and (b) that the masseuse told her she really wasn’t stressed at all). I then went for my spa orgy: over two hours of manicure, pedicure and scalp/shoulder massage. Way over the top, I know, but I have never done any of those and figured this was the trip full of once-in-a-lifetime experiences, so why not go for it in this regard as well. It was OK. Best thing was the scalp/neck/shoulder massage. I might actually do that again. But I’ll tell you what: my toenails have never looked so good!
By the time I got out of the spa, we were arriving at the Hubbard Glacier. Actually, there is a whole series of glaciers in the same area, but the Hubbard is the biggest: 6 miles across and 76 miles long they told us. The Hubbard is actually formed by the confluence of it with two other glaciers, and the whole thing makes a very impressive display. The ship got very close (one of the benefits of being a “small” ship) and I took about a hundred pictures trying (I’m not sure successfully) to capture the cragginess and very weird neon aquamarine color the ice has in certain lights. Judy had had lunch while I was at the spa, and was spending the afternoon in our room writing whatever it is she writes whenever she gets time, so she watched the glaciers from our room. I went down to have lunch at the very nice Italian restaurant, got a table by the window looking out at the glacier as the ship got closer and closer, and repeatedly went outside on the deck to take pictures. I must have told myself “That’s enough, now” five or six different times, only to see something new I wanted to try to capture. It will be fun to see how the pictures turn out. I learned later that we were actually pretty lucky, since many times they can’t get as close as we did due to ice bergs in the water.
Thursday was “formal” night. Basically this meant that if you wanted to go to the Captain’s reception and eat in the main dining room, you were expected to dress formally: tux (or at least dark suit) for men and gowns for women. You could avoid these obligations by eating in one of the other restaurants, and this is what we did because I didn’t feel like lugging a tux or dark suit around for two weeks just for one night. But still, we are expected to “dress” for dinner each night, which for me means a sport coat, with no tie and a dress or pant suit for Judy. So, we changed clothes about 6 pm, went to the piano par for a pre-dinner drink – Judy had the “Silver Sea Cocktail,” a mixture of some things I had never heard of that came out tasting slightly grapefruity and pretty refreshing. It is apparently the signature cocktail of the Silver Seas cruise line. I settled for Glenmoraigne (poor me). We then had a very leisurely dinner at the Italian Restaurant. I had a parmesan flan which may be the gastronomical hit so far. The rest was good but not memorable.
We then split up for a bit, planning to meet at 9:30 for the show they put on every night. There are no “headliners” for these – one drawback, I suspect, of a “small ship” – but they do have a troupe of professional singers and dancers that put on a different variety show most nights at 9:30. Between dinner and the show, Judy went back to the room, ostensibly to do more writing, and I went to get a nice Cuban cigar (a Cohiba, Bill), another Glenmoraigne and went out on the back deck to watch a spectacular sunset. Around 9:15 I wandered over to the Show Lounge and got us seats, but Judy never showed.
After about 15 minutes of the show (which didn’t wow me much anyway) I went and called the room – and woke her up. We decided to bag what remained of the show and finish the day in the casino. I’m now down $140 and Judy’s up $2. Yuck!
Apart from that, another really nice day.
Saturday, August 13: Sitka
The butler woke us at 8:00 delivering our room service breakfast. We hadn’t slept anywhere near that late since we’ve left Ohio, so we expected to be up long before he arrived. Judy, in fact had intended to do a “power walk” at 7. But it appears we have now fully adjusted to the 4 hour time change, so we’ll need to be more careful going forward – at least if we are ordering room service. Which isn’t likely. The room service breakfast was our first disappointment. Not so much bad as just very mediocre. We won’t do that again.
By the time we had finished breakfast, we were anchored in Sitka Bay. Our luck continued to hold, and we had another spectacular day. Alone among the Alaskan cruise ship ports of call, Sitka doesn’t have a cruise ship dock – the ship’s tenders are used to ferry people to land – and, partly as a consequence, it is the least touristy of all those cities. It is also the oldest, having been the seat of government for the Russians and the place where the transfer of Alaska from Russia to the US took place in 1867. Lots and lots of history and the Russian influence is everywhere. Indeed, the center of the city is dominated by a Russian Orthodox cathedral. I liked the town. It was very pleasant and the shops were pretty classy I thought. We spent about 5 hours ashore wandering about sightseeing, doing our part to further the Sitka economy, writing post cards – including some wooden ones -- and sitting in two local coffee shops: the Backdoor Café, which is located behind the local bookstore and the Highlander Coffee Co., where we had to go when we returned to the Backdoor Café only to find that it closed at 2 pm on Saturday (!? The nerve of them!)
Caught the tender back to the ship about 3, and went up to the pool deck to have some lunch out doors. It was such a nice day that there were people out sunbathing.
From Sitka, the ship continued south, rounded the southern end of Baranof Island about 8 pm and then turned north toward Juneau.
After our mid-afternoon lunch on the pool deck, we went back to our room and read and wrote until 7:30 or so, changed and went up to The Bar (they have such a flair for names) for a drink and some piano music, and then went to dinner at The Restaurant (don’t they?). Just as we sat down, we were told that we had just missed a pod of whales. We later learned that they were on both sides of the ship. Not seeing those was a disappointment. Finished dinner about 9 and took our wine up to the deck behind La Terrazza – probably my favorite spot on the entire ship – and watched the sun set again. Then, sadly, we went back to the casino for another try. It took a couple hours, but I’m now down $240. The game must be rigged.
Sunday, August 14: Tracy Arm, Juneau, Mendenhall Glacier and Whale Quest
For some reason I got up about 6:30 thinking it was much later, and went to get some breakfast, only to find that the buffet wasn’t open yet. But I was very glad I hadn’t slept longer, because we were entering the Tracy Arm, and for the next 2½ hours, we enjoyed what is probably the best scenery yet. Tracy Arm is what the Scandinavians refer to as a fjord. And it is spectacular. I know I keep using that word, but I can’t think of anything else to call this scenery.
Our weather luck may have run out, as the day dawned cloudy and pretty cool, but that didn’t detract at all form the mountains rising straight up out of the water, the small waterfalls, the turquoise blue water dotted with small icebergs, some of which were the most amazing shade of nearly iridescent blue, and long valleys with walls so steep the valley itself looks like it was made by a single giant ax blow. Judy joined me on the observation deck about 7, and we watched until the ship went as far as it could up the Arm and then turned around. There was a glacier (the Sawyer, I think) further up the arm, and we saw a number of smaller boats heading further up the arm toward it. That would have been a fun trip, I think, but our ship was too large to get within sight of the glacier itself.
Once the ship had turned and started back the way it had come, we went down to La Terrazza for the breakfast buffet. All the tables by the windows were full, but we noticed that, for the first time, they had set the tables outside on the rear deck, and no on else was brave enough to use them. We were, and it actually was very nice, since it was well sheltered from the wind. So we had an al fresco breakfast.
We read/wrote for a while and had lunch on the pool deck while the ship docked in Juneau. It was a pretty nasty sort of day, so I stayed on the ship waiting for our tour, while Judy explored a little bit of Juneau near the dock. At about 1:30, we loaded on a bus for the whale watching tour. Chatty, amusing (for a while) bus driver named Sylvia gave us a 5-minute tour of Juneau in which we saw and had a full description of everything there was worth seeing.
The whale watching exceeded all expectations – even all hopes. Not 15 minutes out, we spied a pod of killer whales (orcas), which I gather is pretty rare. I got a few photos, but we never did get close enough for anything decent, and, in any event, photography was a real challenge as it was pouring down rain. Tried standing outside at first, but the action was too intermittent and the railings too crowded, and in any event, the lens kept getting wet, so I eventually went downstairs and shot through the window. The problem with that was that the autofocus kept trying to focus on the raindrops on the window. But the guide said that was nearly ideal weather for whale watching. According to her, the herring on which the humpbacks feed don’t like light, so the brighter the day, the deeper they go and the whales naturally follow. On rainy days, though, the herring stay closer to the surface, so the whales do as well.
The guide told us a couple interesting things about orcas. First, they come in two types: resident and transient. The resident orcas stay in one territory (about 100 square miles), whereas the transients keep moving. The transients are stealth hunters. They are going after porpoises, dolphins and other “intelligent” marine mammals fish, so they do a minimum amount of echo sounding because their prey is smart enough to know what is making that noise. The residents hunt only salmon and other “dumb” fish, so those orcas are downright noisy with their sounding. The other thing she told us sounds pretty far fetched but here goes any way. In the Australian whale fishing grounds in the last century, the aboriginal fishermen had a tradition – perhaps even a religious practice – of giving part of their catch to the orcas because they considered the orcas to be the souls of their departed warriors. When whaling came to Australia, this practice was carried over to the whaling ships. The parts of the whale the orcas ate – tongues and lower jaws – were of little commercial value, so the orcas were allowed to eat those while the crew process the rest of the whales. Eventually, a symbiotic relationship developed in which the orcas would lead the whaling ships to the whales. In fact, their were (she said) cases in which a pod of orcas would trap a number of whales in a cove and then one member of the pod would go to the whaling village and breach until the ships came to follow him and would lead them back to the trapped humpbacks. Their was, she said, one orca that would actually pull ships by their anchor chains if they didn’t move quickly enough.
After tracking the pod of orcas for a while, we went after the humpbacks, and scored. First we saw a mother, calf and some other adult in a group, with the calf just fooling around it seemed. We watched them frolic for a half hour or so and then moved on (a requirement of the marine mammal protection act, I guess). Fifteen minutes later, we ran into a group of three males who were coming up, and sounding, coming up and sounding. Got some video of tail flukes sticking out of the water as they went down. Then the jackpot: one of them breached abut 50 yards from our boat. The guide said that this was really rare – maybe 10% of the trips – and especially so that close to the boat. It was spectacular. Judy happened to be looking right at the spot at which it came out of the water, and so got to see the whole thing. I looked around just in time to see him out of the water and falling back in. Pretty memorable, even at that. Of course, no one got a picture, so we’ll have to rely on memory.
Spent another half hour in the area and saw a fair amount of activity, but of course nothing matched what we had already seen and we headed back in for part 2 of the tour – a trip to Mendenhall Glacier.
The interesting thing we were told about whales relates to their age. No one know how long they live. Apparently, there has never been a whale tracked through its entire life cycle. However, two stories – if true – would indicate that the live a very long time. A bow whale was found once that had a spear or harpoon head in it that was subsequently determined to be over 200 years old. And a humpback was found with an explosive device attached to him that had at one time been used to kill whales (an explosive harpoon, I guess) but that had not be used for this purpose for over a hundred years.
The Mendenhall Glacier was disappointing because of the rain. It was so enshrouded in mist that it was hard to see much less photograph, and the pouring rain kept us from getting much closer. It also prevented us from taking advantage of the other big attraction there: bear spotting. At this time of year, the salmon are coming upstream in the small stream near the Mendenhall visitor center, and it is apparently one of the best bear viewing areas in the world. The bus driver told us that earlier this summer, they actually had to close the visitor center because there were too many bears wandering around. But it was a 15 minute hike in the rain and we decided to pass. The visitor center was nice, and they had an interesting film on glacier formation, advance and retreat, but I was disappointed to not be able to get closer or to get any decent pictures.
Our incredibly – and finally annoyingly – talkative bus driver did she make me realize one thing I had never thought of before. We all know that salmon return to the place where they were born to spawn, but what I never realized until the bus driver talked about seeing it, is that this applies as well to salmon hatched in a fish hatchery. There was a hatchery we passed on the way back to the ship, and the driver described how amazing the sight was to see thousands of salmon returning to the tanks in which they were hatched.
We had another nice (and late) dinner at the Restaurant and then went to a show. It was OK, but I felt bad for the performers because I think there were no more than 30 people in the audience. The place was pretty full the first night, so I don’t know if it was just the night (we were parked in Juneau until 11 pm, so it may be that a lot of people had not returned to the ship yet) or if the quality of the performances had made people stay away. My guess is the latter, since I doubt if we’ll catch another one.
A third foray into the casino – and likely my last: I’m now down $300. And it happens the same way each time: I holding my own, up a little, down a little, and then after I’ve been there about an hour, this Ukrainian woman named Veronica comes to the table to deal, plays around with me for 15 minutes or so and then just crushes me in about 20 hands. If it weren’t so preposterous to think that the cruise cares about my hundred dollars enough to cheat, I’d swear she was a mechanic.
Anyway, off to bed about 1:00, pissed off.
Monday, August 15, 2011: Skagway
Went to sleep pissed off; woke up pissed off. We arrived in Skagway a bit before 7 am, and I was awakened by the noise of a forklift getting the gangway set up. It seemed to take forever, so I finally got up and went to take a shower, even though my plan for the day was to sleep in, since I had already decided I wasn’t going to go into town. The guide book made it sound like a worthless tourist trap, and the weather wasn’t good either, so I just decided to sit back and chill for the day. Well the forklift operator had other ideas. And then the helicopters started in. The ship was docked about 200 yards from the place where the helicopter tours leave from, and with an amazing frequency, regularity and cacophony, six different helicopters took off or returned every 10 to 15 minutes. For the first time since we sailed, even Judy wanted to close the lanai door.
We threw some laundry into the German made washing machines that had an inexcusably large number of buttons and options and utterly indecipherable directions, hoped for the best and went to breakfast. Based on our experience yesterday, we decided to eat outside again, but this proved a mistake. It wasn’t much colder than it had been yesterday, but there was a wind blowing across the deck that made things pretty uncomfortable. So we ate quickly and then went back to check the laundry only to find that we had apparently picked a 90+ minute wash cycle, since there was still 45 minutes left after we returned from breakfast. The driers proved no less challenging, but we eventually got things figured out enough to allow Judy to go into town for a while. I then went down to write this and read a bit.
About 1:00 I went and had a steam, and when I got back I realized I had forgotten to take my room key. I rang the door bell, just in case Judy had returned, but there was no answer. So I had to flag down one of the maids, who was understandably reluctant to let me in with no id, so she apparently went and called our maid, Gretha, to come let me in. And guess who was there? Why Judy of course, wonderfully oblivious to my predicament despite repeated door bell buzzing.
By the way, I don’t think I’ve noted this before, but out butler is a nice young Indian man named Tushar Nakashe and our maid is a lovely young Filipina named Gretha Anala. Gretha’s husband also works on the ship as a waiter in one of La Terrazza.
We spent the rest of the day doing what has become our daily regimen: a late lunch on the pool deck where Judy tries out the cocktail of this day, followed by a roma coffee and a return to the room to read and write while I go the observation deck and read. We change for dinner about 7:00 and head to the piano bar for a drink, eat dinner at the Restaurant, then hit the casino for a couple hours. My luck was much better tonight: I won about $200, so, I’m now only down $100. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011: Ketchikan
We slept late today; so late that the Restaurant was already closed when we got there for breakfast. That is the only aspect of this cruise I find irritating: there really are only two restaurants and they each are open only an hour and a half (the Restaurant) or two (La Terrazza for breakfast and lunch. You’d think they could be a bit more flexible about when you have to eat. This is one of the reasons we eat so often on the pool deck: it is the only place on the whole ship where you can get food between 2:00 and 7:00.
We docked in Ketchikan at about noon. There were 3 other cruise sips already there, making the following statement from our guide book seem likely to be all too accurate
On summer days, the white cruise ships tower above the town like huge new buildings . . . . Each morning, their gangways disgorge thousands of visitors, clogging the streets and, for a few hours, transforming the town into a teeming carnival.
Since we were only going to be in Ketchikan for 5 hours, there really wasn’t time to do anything other than explore the downtown a bit, and with that sort of description and the fact that we were the 4th – and smallest – ship to arrive, I came close to staying on board again, but Judy talked me out of it. It looked cold and rainy, so I bundled up in layers and took the umbrella, which, of course guaranteed that it would be warm and sunny, which it was. Ketchikan is a shopping destination, and they have an amazing range of stores, from placers like you’d find on the Jersey shore boardwalk selling plastic eskimo dolls and other cheap “souvenirs,” to high end art gallery’s and jewelry stores selling some really really nice stuff. So we browsed a bit in some of the nicer stores, crossed off the last couple items on our shopping list, and found a local coffee and pastry shop – the Sweet Mermaid – and sat there for a half hour or so. Our last task was to pick up some smoked salmon. We asked the coffee house proprietor where the best place to buy it was, and she sent us to a little whole in the wall shop called Salmon Etc. They were having a special, where if you bought one king salmon filet, you could get a sockeye salmon filet free. So we decided to get two, one for Vancouver and one to send to Zach. The boxes for the filets were each about 18” long, and that got us thinking about how we were going to get all the stuff we had bought back home. We and decided that we ought to at least ship Zach’s stuff to him from here since we’d have to ship it once we got home anyway, so we headed back to the ship to pick up the things we had fro Zach and Chelsea. At that point, we decided that we’d also ship some of the stuff that was going back to Toledo, since it would make packing easier. So we took all of our purchases and walked back over to what turned out to be a contract branch post office with the world’s least helpful postmistress. No she couldn’t give us any tape. If we wanted tape we had to buy a thousand foot roll for $7. We did without. Six feet of bubble wrap, which we did have to have, was $6 – and you had to pay for it separately and immediately! Oh, and no, there was no place to throw away garbage. We finally did get a lot of stuff packed into flat rate boxes (that didn’t need tape, thank goodness!) and sent them off – one the Zach and Chelsea and other to us at home. We will be seeing John, Dee, Bill, Jenny & Quinn in Vancouver, so that stuff we will hand carry – and leave it to them to figure out how to get it home!
Except for the postmistress, Ketchikan was a very pleasant surprise. Yes it was crowded with touristas, and yes there really was very little to do but shop in the time we had available, but the town was nice and the shopping was very good. So, the experience greatly exceeded expectations.
Got back to the ship about 4 and repeated our afternoon regimen: lunch and drink of the day for Judy (I had a beer) on the pool deck; watch the ship pull away from Ketchikan, which looked positively quaint in the lowering sun; return to the suite for quiet time (I had another steam); Dress for dinner about 7; drink at the piano bar at 7:30; dinner at La Terrazza at 8:30 and a couple more hours at the casino. (I’m back down to -$200. Grrr). And then to bed. One more day and no more stops before Vancouver.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011: At Sea
Slept in again, so we still have not had breakfast anywhere except the buffet at La Terrazza, which, frankly, is getting a bit boring. We realized today that you don’t have to eat the buffet and can order virtually anything you want, but didn’t take advantage: had the buffet again anyway. Next cruise we’ll be smarter.
That Phase 2 of our vacation is drawing to a close was driven home when Tushar delivered our disembarkation instructions. We give them our luggage tonight (before 11 pm) and they take it off the boat for us once we dock. We are supposed to be out of our stateroom by 8, but we are not scheduled to leave the ship until 9:30, so I guess we will get breakfast in the Restaurant after all. It looks like disembarkation will be as well organized and painless as embarkation was. We’ll see.
We had a nice day at sea. Around noon the sun came out again and the topography began to get pretty interesting. Didn’t do much of anything. After breakfast we sat around the suite. We thought about going to the “galley lunch,” but then said heck with it. We took our books up to the pool deck again for an early afternoon lunch, then went back to the room to read. I took a half hour nap and felt much better while Judy lay on the couch reading the John Grisham short story collection “Ford County,” which she is loving. I went for another steam, didn’t really get cooled off enough and stood outside for a half hour trying (ultimately successfully) to cool off.
The denouement is bitter-sweet. The cruise has been great, and we have enjoyed it a lot, but 7 days is about enough, and we are very much looking forward to Phase 3: the three days with Bill, Jenny, Quinn, John and Dee in Vancouver. But unlike the transition between Phases 1 and 2, this transition brings with it intimations that the vacation is nearing its end and that before we know it, we’ll just be Bill and Judy in Toledo again. That’s not so bad, actually, but I can tell you for sure that doing what we have been doing for the last 10 days is sure a lot more interesting!
PHASE III: VANCOUVER
Wednesday, August 18, 2011: Arrival In Vancouver
We arrived in Vancouver to a warm sunny day at about 7 am. They had picked up our big luggage last night, so all we had to do was get dressed and pack our carry-ons. They wanted us out of the room by 8, and we accommodated them and went down to have a very leisurely breakfast. They off-loaded the passengers in groups to keep the lines from getting too long and to allow them to phase the luggage, so we didn’t disembark until about 9:30. That created a bit of a problem, since by the time we got out to the taxi stand there was a shortage of cabs. You cannot believe the amount of luggage some of these people had with them, and it was comical watching some of them trying to shoehorn all that luggage into the Toyota Priuses that comprise the bulk of the taxi fleet. Many didn’t even try – they were stuck waiting for a mini van.
Finally got a cab and made our way over to the condo we had rented with for our group of 7. The place was located in a great spot, but was far from the most comfortable place as it had neither air conditioning nor anything that would pass for ventilation, so it was pretty hot and stuffy most of the days even though the outside temp was in the 60’s and very low 70’s.
My brother John and his wife Dee had gotten into town the day before and had collected reams of info on stuff to do. However, Bill Jenny and Quinn (my son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter) didn’t get into town until mid-afternoon, so we tried to find something to do that they wouldn’t fell bad about missing. Since they had lived in San Fran for 5 years, we decided China Town was something they wouldn’t mind missing. We walked over to China town and went to the Sun Yat Sen classical Chinese scholar’s house and garden and to the adjacent public park. I thought it was really nice, but everyone else was much less impressed. We then went to have dim som at the Jade Garden Restaurant. It was very good, although the waitresses were pretty surly. We then went back to the condo to wait for Bill Jenny and Quinn, and I let John just shellac the hell out of me in gin. I won exactly two hands, once of which was for only 3 points.
Bill, Jenny & Quinn arrived mid-afternoon, and surprisingly given that she had had very little sleep and was coming down with a cold -- the little girl was wide awake and chipper. We decided she would crash sooner or later, and that we should probably get stuff to cook in the condo for dinner, so while the getting was good, we got a couple cabs and headed to the public market on Granville Island. What a great place! Oodles and oodles of interesting shops, performing arts venues, food shops and restaurants, canoe/kayak rentals. A rowing club, and lots of other stuff I never got a chance to identify. We didn’t have but a couple hours to kill, so we didn’t really get to see more than about 20% of what was there, and I thought that we’d probably end up coming back. Someday, maybe, but not this trip.
Picked up tortellini, fresh tomato sauce and parmesan, bread, cheese, wine, olives, bagels and cream cheese and a few other things for dinner and breakfast, and then hopped a water taxi back across the, what, river? inlet? channel? I have to admit, I’m not sure what kind of a body of water it is.
Quinn finally crashed sometime around 7, I guess – although she was destined for a pretty rough night, at least be her standards – and we devoured the cheese and some of the bread, then cooked the tortellini and had a really nice dinner. The girls then took their wine out on the stoop to chat and watch the people, while Bill, John and I played 3-handed cribbage and gin. Went to bed about 11, Nice, nice day.
We learned during the night – each night actually – that Vancouver never sleeps. The bars stay open ‘til 5 and there is a constant ebb and flow of people and traffic. It was interesting, but it also made you choose between heat/stuffiness and noise in terms of sleeping.
Friday, August 19, 2011: Vancouver and Stanley Park
I woke up to the sounds of the little girl babbling her head off. Apparently, she’d been up quite a bit that night, and Judy had brought her into our room to give her parents a chance to get a bit of shut eye. She loves taking things out and either throwing them on the floor or putting them back, and Judy had given here her cosmetic bag, and she was busily pulling bottles and tubes and what not out, chewing on them for a bit and then dropping them on the bed to get something else. I called to her and she looked up, and I did a little finger-curl kind of wave and she waved back, then I did it again, and said “Hi Grandpa,” and she finger-curl waved back and – I swear – said “Hi Grandpa” right back. My cognitive development expert wife heard it but immediately went into denial mode, claiming no 1-year old spoke in meaningful 3-syllable utterances, but I heard it, so did she, and so did my brother who was actually downstairs at the time. Yee haa!
Our plan for the day was to go biking in Stanley Park, one of the great urban parks and supposedly larger than Central Park in NY, although I find that hard to believe. But Jenny & Bill decided to put Quinny down for a nab before we left, given how little sleep she had had in the previous 36 hours, and she seriously crashed, sleeping for almost four hours. We sat around chatting and playing cards, waiting for her to wake up, and it was close to two by the time we got to the bike rental place. It turned out to be OK though. We pedaled around the circumference of the park along the sea wall – about 6 miles – stopped and watched a little lawn bowling and generally just took it easy for a couple hours. It was a another beautiful day and it was fun to be out. Quinny sat on a front facing seat on Bill’s bike and loved the ride, although she had no tolerance at all for the helmet they tried to put on her – and ultimately gave up on. She HATES hats, so a bike helmet was a real problem. Bill felt a bit queasy letting her ride without a helmet, but it all worked out, so no harm, no foul.
John in particular would have liked to ride one for a while longer, but it was getting on toward happy hour and Quinn’s afternoon nap time, so the rest of the crew decided we should, pick up some more beer, wine and groceries, send old man Bill back in a cab with those (to spare his aching back) and walk up Robson St, which is one of the main shopping streets in Vancouver.
We had planned to go out for dinner, but we got back to the house and started in again on the cheese and bread, fruits and wine and after a couple hours of that, no one was all that hungry. So we decided to bag dinner. About 9, though, the munchies set in, so a couple people walked down the block to the noodle shop and got a couple SE Asian dishes to bring back. When they brought it in, it looked like way too much food, but, strangely, it did disappear.
And thus ended our next to last day of vacation. Another nice one.
Saturday, August 20, 2011: Vancouver and Grouse Mountain
Once again was awakened by the little girl babbling away, and once again elicited a “Hi grampa” I’m sure (although this time no one else would admit to hearing it). She is an absolute stitch, toddling around like a drunken sailor and babbling non stop, sometimes at the top of her lungs. The plan for today was to go to Grouse Mountain where they had the 2008 winter Olympics. A bit touristy, for sure, but promising some great views. Again, though, we were at the mercy of the little girl’s nab schedule, so we didn’t really get moving until after lunch. That gave John time, though, to do what he is best at: organize. He figured out how to take public transportation: a subway, boat and bus to get there. We saved a little money, of course, relative to cabs, but the real treat was the public transport.
On the way up there we got a bit of an inkling as to what it would be like from the crowds of people on all the transport. When we got off the ferry, the bus to Grouse mountain was there waiting, but it was already completely full, with 8-10 people waiting outside of it for the next bus. When the next bus did come, it got filled by people who had been there for the pervious bus. And, sure enough, while the views at the top of Grouse mountain were really cool, the press of tourists and the lines they (we, I guess) created took a good deal of the fun out of it. But it was a beautiful Saturday afternoon in August. What did I expect?
We all took the gondola up, and then John, Dee, Bill, Jenny & I took the chair lift up to the top, while Judy stayed back with Quinn, who was too little to go on the chair lift. Surprisingly, there wasn’t too much to see at the top: all the equipment got in the way of the views. But there was one great vista of the greater Vancouver metropolitan area, and we could see off in the distance what I was told is Whistler Mountain. It was huge; in fact, it looked like Mt. Ranier, but I knew that was too far away to see and in the wrong direction as well, or at least I think. But that was a spectacular view, and Bill tried to teach me – without too much success – how to use the panorama picture feature on my new android phone. But having enjoyed that one vista, there wasn’t much else to see, so after about a half hour we headed back down. Frankly, the chairlift ride down the mountain was the prize of the day. What a set of views! And, since they had the lift slowed way down to accommodate the walkers, especially when getting off, it was spectacular. (There’s that damn word again!)
When we got down, we watched a little of the lumberjack show, which tuned out to be mostly a scripted comedy skit. It was amusing for a bit, but got boring pretty quickly, so we decided to “beat the rush” and go get on the gondola down before the lumberjack show let out. Well, was THAT ever a naïve assumption. When we got there, the line was already 500 yards long. Fortunately, it moved pretty quickly, so we were done the mountain within a half hour or so.
Bill, Jenny, Quinn and I took a cab back while the others repeated the public transport route. Traffic on the bridge, which they avoided by taking the water taxi, allowed them to almost beat us home.
We again debated going out for dinner but Quinn argued persuasively in favor of ordering in, so we decided to order food from a highly rated (in the tourist mags at least) Indian food restaurant. John went to pick the food up, and his taxi driver was a Punjab, who, when he found out where we were ordering food, berated John steadily with tale as to how bad the place was and how much better we would eat if John just let him take him to the place he recommended. I’m glad John resisted, but I will say that I was not all that impressed with the food we got.
John and Dee had to leave the house at 5 to get a 6:30 train to Seattle, (this was the end of the vacation for us, but for John& Dee, Vancouver was just the first stop on a 3 week tour of the pacific northwest), so the packing up began early, and things were pretty quiet by 10 pm.
The only thing left now is the travel day.
Sunday, August 21, 2011: Travel Back To Toledo
Trying to leave Vancouver was, without a doubt, one of the WORST travel experiences of my life. Lines at every step: check baggage, security, and the worst of all by FAR – US customs. We jumped the first of the lines by going to the first class baggage check-in counter which had no lines at all whereas the hoi polloi counter had 30 or so people in it. I was feeling pretty smug. Then we went to get into the security line. We were in one line when I noticed that the line next to us had half the people in it. So, on a rush from the checked baggage coup, we went back and got in the shorter line. What I only learned later was that this was, I guess, the line for people wanting or needing full body cavity searches. It took, I swear, more than 10 minutes for someone to get through the security line.
But we made it. Only to come up against the US customs and border control people. I have no idea why the US does customs in Canada, but, at least in Vancouver, they do. And when we entered the room allocated to US customs, it looked like the line for the latest and greatest roller coaster at Cedar point: 10 or so 50’ switchbacks crammed with people just trying to tell customs they had nothing to declare.
Except my wife DID have something to declare. Her Puritan frugality compelled her to clean out the refrigerator and take it all with her. So, she had apples, grapes and brie cheese in her carry-ons. All of which qualified us for a secondary screening by the agricultural officers, who took the fruit but let us keep the cheese – who knows why.
People were desperate to move forward in the line because NO ONE had expected to have to spend more than an hour trying to get through customs and everyone was on the verge of missing their flights. I encouraged a woman who was clearly going to miss her flight of she stayed in line to ask people across the rope line if she could cut in. She did and it worked pretty well, I think. Anyway, we never saw her again. I tried the same trick with another couple, but after they had moved across two line the Customs Line Nazi caught them and made them go back. He then turned around and let us cut across one of the lines apparently because I had let the couple cut in front of us. The enigma that is US customs.
Judy and I were fortunate in terms of time because we had left for the airport at the same time as Bill and Jenny, whose flight left about an hour and a half before ours, so we had enough time. Not so Bill & Jenny, though. While we had all left the house at about the same time, the amount of luggage we had and the amount of equipment they had for Quinn precluded taking one cab, so we each went separately. They had to return the high chair they had rented, so they got to the airport a half hour or so after we did, and by the time they got to the customs line, they were in serious danger of missing their flight. So Judy and I decided to change places with them, which would cut their wait by at least a half hour. That maneuver damn near gave Customs Line Nazi a stroke, but once he figured out what we were doing all he could really do was sputter. Which he did. So, Judy and I were back at the end of the line. As it turned out, Bill and Jenny would have been OK – just barely – because we got to see them and say good bye as they were boarding.
Sadly, we didn’t get upgraded on the way back, but we did have exit row aisle seats so it wasn’t bad. I actually must have slept a bit, since the 3½ hour flight to Minneapolis, where we changed planes seemed to go very quickly. Got back to Detroit at about 10:30 (really only 7:30 body time), and both the luggage and the car and driver were there waiting for us. Home by midnight and spent a couple hours sorting and opening mail unpacking souvenirs and just puttering around, aware that once we went to bed the vacation was officially over.
And so it was. It was a great time, and I’d recommend it to anyone that hasn’t seen Alaska yet. I have to start thinking about what to do next.
Bill
