I hope to post here a small log of our Alaska trip, which begins early tomorrow.

Heading into it, I haven't been too excited. Trouble with being old, you can imagine that what you've already seen is pretty much the same as anything you are likely to see from now on. I've seen the earth from the air. Have seen the ocean from the deck of a big boat, have seen mountains and woods and bears. Have seen people all my life, and can't think how any of them, seen from a distance, were very significantly different from any others. Walked on a glacier, saw a whale close up. What else is there

So this evening, sitting in my usual chair in my usual house looking out my usual window, I am hoping to be able appreciate the newness of whatever these vacation days might bring. I really need some newness.

My newness will come in June. It will have been 22 months since I've seen the grands. The youngest will only be 26 months old, so she's grown a LOT! The others will have matured a lot and have a lot of stories to tell us. The hugs will be oh-so-sweet. That's all the newness I need for now. Although, I will be seeing Toronto for the first time too, lol.

Have a great trip Gramps!

Roseanne, you can be sure the grands are going to be very happy to see you too. You're a world class gramma.

Day 1: Our cabin on the boat is a nice hotel room that happens to be moving up the west coast of North America. We have a sliding door opening up to a private balcony overlooking, well, the ocean, basically. It is quiet and calming. Remember the beautiful old plug-in Hamms beer signs from the old days, the picture of the northern woods lake, the water rippling electrically? It's like that, but huge and real. Not sure what there is to do tomorrow but sit and look at it. That suits me fine.

Sitting on a boat, watching the scenery and water. Sounds blissful to me!

Day 2: At sea the whole day. Slept luxuriously late. Did nothing in particular all day, until dinner. For dinner we went the Bordeaux Restaurant, not knowing that the dress code for the evening was "formal". Joan was wearing a Tee shirt from The Black Canyon Of The Gunnison from the last motorcycle trip. I didn't bring a tie on the trip, and have neglected my shaving for several days. We talked it over with the hostess, she conferred with her superior, and they seated us anyway. We had a nice meal and conversation with the couple seated next to us, who were celebrating their 21st anniversary (and were dressed to the nines).

Tomorrow we stop in Ketchikan. Joan wants to look at tee shirts. I want to go to the Cariloha store, which they claim is " the world's largest retailer of clothing and bedding made of bamboo". This I gotta see. This outfit must have some affiliation with Lumber Liquidators.

We can see land to the west now, and the boat isn't rocking so much.

I think it's good that you two with just dress code issues are confined to a boat. I'm still thinking of that poor lady's SUV you were trying to hijack at the gas station in the pouring rain, last time you guys were traveling.

Day 3: It's amazing that, despite the hugeness of this vessel,the crew was able to arrest its momentum so gently that we never felt it touch the docks his morning. We went ashore and set to work on our main task for this voyage - buying tee shirts. Poking through little souvenir stores.
We had some time, though, to take a guided walking tour of Ketchikan, very interesting.
after that we found a little general store with a wifi sign, bought a cup of coffee in exchange for the password, and downloaded a couple of ebooks into our iPads. Finally, because this cruise line only sells Coke, we bought some cans of Pepsi and smuggled them in in our backpacks as we came back aboard at 1:30. An hour later the ship imperceptibly went from motionless to under way, and we headed up the coast. I was surprised to notice that a coast guard cutter escorted us out into open water, with a sailor manning a machine gun mounted on the bow. After supper we saw the movie McFarland in the theater and enjoyed it. No whales today that we noticed.

Turns out they really do make clothing out of bamboo.

Jab, so far gramma and I have not needed to carjack a ship.

Day 4: well, today we saw whales. Humpbacks. Two mom/calf pairs and three others. One approached to about thirty yards from our silent, drifting boat, and exhaled. It was an extraordinary sound. There were snowy mountains all around us. The mountains' sharp edges stood out in stark, white detail against the blue sky. Joan and I stood on the open deck outside the cabin almost the whole time (3 hrs). It felt like we were standing among the mountains.

On the way back we stopped to view the Mendenhall glacier. Also magnificent. Best thing about that was walking a mile to see a beautiful waterfall and walking back. A good portage. Not much chance to get exercise on the ship.

We got to see the Alaska Governor's mansion. You cannot see Russia from the porch. We had a burger at the Red Dog Saloon afterward. A treat after boat haute cuisine.

Day 5: I dreamt weird dreams last night about jobs and bosses, and awoke in that confused place between dream and reality, asking myself, "Where is it that I work, again?" I honestly did. Took me three guesses to get it right. And I was relieved, lying there in the dark, that the first two were wrong. When it comes to employment, I have a very good gig. Thank you, my MCC friends and employers who may be reading this.

First up ashore in Skagway this a.m. was breakfast in a brothel. I guess bawdiness was an important industry here during the gold rush, and its importance is celebrated to this day for the benefit of tourists. After the raunchy breakfast we boarded a bus for a 40-mile trip up the mountains, over a high pass, along a route traversed by gold-fever sufferers in the 1890s. I have to say, Colorado mtns can't hold a candle to these for rugged beauty. We crossed into the Klondike (aka Canada) and, after viewing various artifacts of the gold rush, back into the U.S.

The rest of the day was spent back in town, shopping for Tee shirts, naturally. The weather is so good that the locals can't believe it. There are only ~900 locals in Skagway. In boom times, the population was 300,000 they tell us.

For the next two days, we'll remain on the ship. We'll cross open ocean, so it may be a bumpy, wavy ride.

Would like to write in more detail, but this costs 50 cents per minute.

Writing doesn't, sending does. I can wait to read the whole book when you get back. Hint, hint.

This trip sounds wonderful to me ~ hope you are taking a LOT of photos, gramps ~

Sooz

Norovirus abroad aboard.

Hope y'all are not affected/infected.

Day 6: Here's how a cruise works. You fly to a distant city and check into a big hotel. You settle in and go to sleep. When you awake in the morning you find that your hotel has relocated to an even more distant city. You rub your eyes, get dressed, leave the hotel, look around a little, buy some stuff, and then go back to your room and go to sleep. And come next morning, sure enough, it has happened again, the place has pulled up stakes and moved overnight. And it goes on like this. You get used to it eventually.

As of this morning seventeen passengers are being kept in isolation as they have norovirus symptoms. The Captain spoke over the PA system about how to minimize the contagion, but I doubt it can be contained, because people are in such close proximity here on the ship. I wonder if we'll be adrift off the coast of N. America for months, turned away by public health officials in every coastal city. Boat people, refugees with room service. Will the Coast Guard warn us off, fire shots across our bow? That's where the main dining room is. Maybe we'll be on the news. Stay tuned.

Just before noon we parked a hundred yards off the face of Margarite Glacier in Glacier Bay. Wow! It was at least twice as high as this monstrous ship, and gleaming in the sunlight. It creaked and groaned and boomed constantly as the ice inside cracked and shifted. It sounded exactly like a Wisconsin thunderstorm, reverberating between the mountainsides. Every ten minutes or so there's a thunderclap and a big piece of it breaks away, splashes into the ocean with a roar. We had the best view you can imagine, standing on our little cabin's balcony. Got good pictures. I regret I can't post them now, as the boat's satellite connection is too slow.

Clouds are moving in now, changing everything.

Day 7, Last day at sea: Two memorable events today.
The first was the movie "Imitation Game". We enjoyed that a lot. The second was College Fjord. That's a long bay southeast of Anchorage. It has mountains right down to the water, and about a dozen remarkable glaciers. It's blocked at the end by a huge glacier named "Yale", which is guarded by floating ice. The Captain wanted to get us close to the glacier, and he did. I'd have sworn he was going to spear it with the boat's sharp prow. I told Joan it would be a damn shame to dent this nice new boat. But he did stop, and the face of the glacier was literally awesome so close up. When we left, he turned the ship around in its own length. Oh, there was also a killer whale in the bay. And some seals and stuff.

Also talked to other cruisers like us. Sort of surprised to find how like us many of them are. Not members of the leisure class, but retired paper mill workers, retired sailors, and the like.

We disembark tomorrow at 6:30am, then ride a train to Mt. McKinley area hotel. I hope this one stays put.

Sounds beautiful. About bamboo clothes- I bought bamboo socks at Target awhile back and they are extremely soft and comfy. There is a Cariloha store in Annapolis but they are closing next week- not enough business.

I looked at the fabric, Queenie, very very soft. The Cariloha stores are open and busy at every tourist port up here.

Not to be picky, but I don't think there's enough room for 300,000 people in Skagway.

Hey, Oskar, I report, you decide!
Anyway-Day 7: We have had a smooth transition from ship to shore. Princess Cruise Lines organizes troop movements better than the U.S. Army does it. They must have emptied that ship (~2000 passengers)in 90 minutes flat. Well organized. We got off the Princess ship and onto the Princess train and then on the Princess bus and finally arrived at the Princess Lodge in time to eat a Princess burger (full 1/2 lb) at the Princess Restaurant north of Talkeetna AK. On the way we passed through Wasilla AK, home of S. Palin. The town looked much more peaceful than I had expected, no bar fights going on just then.

There are clouds covering the tops of the distant mountains, so we probably won't get a good look at Mt. McKinley tomorrow. We are going River rafting in the morning.

We met an Aussie couple while riding the train. They were especially keen to see a moose. Several years ago, on a ride through Wyoming, Joan and I came upon two bull moose(s) in a clearing at the side of the road, butting heads for some reason. Sounded like two big guys having a board fight. They clanged antlers for three or four minutes, stopped to graze for a bit, and then went at it again. They repeated this sequence several times as we watched from the bikes, as though according to some previously agreed upon rules. Maybe moose fights are fought in rounds. There seemed to be a kind of moose-ish courtesy involved in the whole thing anyhow.

Anyway, we took pictures of the event, and will send some to this Australian couple as soon as we get home, just in case they don't get to take any moose pictures of their own to show their friends. They invited us to call them when we get to Australia.

Oskar, you're right. The guy lied to us. It was only 20,000. I read it in a book today.
But anyhow:
Day 8: this morning we got into an inflatable raft and floated down the River Of Sticks (English translation of Athabaskan river name). The current is swift, so the twenty-seven mile trip took about four hours. They advertised that we were likely to see wildlife on the river, and so we did! An eagle, a magpie and three bumblebees. No Grizzlies or moose, but we did see a moose through the bus window on the way back to the lodge. It was nibbling leaves off saplings at the side of the road.

The Internet service here is terrible. Picture a couple hundred people sitting around for hours in arm chairs and couches in a very large log-walled room, repeatedly tapping "Go" on their iPads' screens, all swearing under their breath. There's no chance of posting this tonight. I really wanted to ask if I could please have a look at their router.

We can see the base of Mt. McKinley, but the top is obscured by clouds.

It's nearly 11:30 pm, and not even close to dark outside. I'm all for saving daylight, but this is ridiculous.

The end.

Are you home, gramps? ~ did you take a lot of photos? ~ are you going to share any with us who have lived vicariously thru your travels?

Sooz