itinerary

Ahoy,

Let's start from the beginning. The boarding process took all of 3+ hours. There was a lot of line waiting, like cattle out to auction. We realized later that we should have gotten popo a wheelchair and that would have probably expedited the process for all of us. But what a trooper my grandma is. I aspire to be like her when I'm a grandma. Once we were finally on board and in our rooms, we had an emergency drill to attend. We had all brought our own luggage aboard because I didn't want to wait for the service to deliver it later, or possibly lose something. We had dinner in the fancy dining room that evening, just like we would for all but one of the evenings for the rest of the trip. There were 2 fancy night dress-up meals so they could take our pictures and have us shell out mucho dinero for those moments that my dad recreated on his camera.

We spent 3 full days at sea and 3 days docked. Despite being on-board a ship all day, there was a surprising amount of stuff to do. There was programming daily, all day. We played Dutch Catan a few times, got educated about the habitat and culture, crafted some crafts, watched movies, and tried to fit in some other athletic activities. There really is not a moment to spare for boredom. And the scenery is just so gorgeous, I really could just sit and watch for a while. I really do think a cruise was a great way to see Alaska. It's such a big state, I imagine it would take so long to drive around.

We stopped first in Juneau, the capitol. It was a rainy day, which is typical. All 8 of us rode around in a taxi, while the driver answered my millions of questions and talked about the landscape and culture. He had grown up in Juneau, went away for school, and come back. It is like traveling back in time. All the little kids just roam around without guardians, crime is low, cell phones and technology hasn't become an epidemic yet. We walked over to as close as we could get to the Mendenhall Glacier. It is the most accessible glacier in Alaska. Half of us hiked up to the top of Mt. Roberts Tramway and rode the tram back down. Juneau was built on mining, but you wouldn't be able to tell anymore. There are so many trees.

Haines was the next stop; it is a tiny little town with not a whole lot to do. They only have the capacity to have 1 cruise ship in a week, and the population doubles when that happens. It used to be a military base, and you can still look at what the buildings were. There is a quiet, but big river set against mountains if you cross to the other side of town. We hung around there for a while communing with nature, if you will. This was a really quiet town, which I thought was a welcome change from more touristic harbours, but the parents were not impressed.

Our last stop was the fishing town of Ketchikan, a markedly faster pace than Haines. Half of us went on a hike amongst the trees, slugs, and cliffs overlooking the town. There were bear tracks, and fortunately no bears. The other half went on a duck tour. The red-light district was especially fun to walk around.

Our last day at sea we went up the Tracy Arm to the South Sawyer glacier. The ship got incredibly close and we were able to witness some calving and a lot of harbour seals chilling on chunks of ice that had broken off the glacier. It was magnificent. We ran around all over the ship trying to get the best vantage points as it turned and pivoted in and out safely. A thoroughly thrilling morning on board.

We were scooped up the following day by our relatives for dim sum before getting back on airplanes and back to a terrestrial way of living.

decidedly rocked,
jt