Alaskan Cruise-Day 4

August 3, Day 4, Tracy Arm Fiord and Juneau, Alaska found Sharon and I waking up…at 6am…to some very beautiful scenery as the ship entered Tracy Arm Fiord. The ship cruised very slowly to the end of the fiord where we got a great look at Sawyer Glacier, up close and personal. We couldn’t go all the way up to the glacier due to huge chunks of ice in the water, some as large as 4 tons. Only about 19% of the iceberg shows above the water line, so the pictures don’t really tell the story.

Once we traveled down the fiord as far as we could, the ship’s captain did an amazing thing…turned the ship 180 degrees on a dime. These newer ships have thrusters forward and aft which can move the ship sideways…always handy when trying to dock the ship in port. In this case, the captain used the forward thrusters on the starboard side…pretty cool I can talk ship…to push the nose around and at the aft used the port thrusters. Slowly, but surely the ship turned counter-clockwise until we were pointed back down the fiord the way we had come. The entire trip up and back took about 4 hours.

The ship was due to dock in Juneau at 2pm but actually got there early…about 1:30…but it took at least a half hour to get the ship situated at the dock. Our tour wasn’t scheduled until 3:15 so we just relaxed in the room until time to depart. We went down to deck 5 and walked down the gangway to the dock. Waiting there were several buses…some taking folks downtown Juneau and others taking people on various tours.

We headed off, through the town, towards the north side of the city to the Mendenhall Glacier. The bus driver was very informative and gave us a lot of history of the town and surrounding area. Juneau is the smallest state capital in the US with a population of only 32,000. The population lives in three primary areas…downtown, Mendenhall Valley and across the Gastineau Straight on Douglas Island.

Mendenhall Glacier was amazing to see. At one time 4,000 feet thick, the glacier is slowly receding…not melting…due to insufficient snow up on the glacier. In other words, the glacier “calves”, or breaks off, faster than it can accumulate. The ice is fairly dirty looking from afar due to the rocks and dirt it picks up along the way down to the water. The deeper ice is ice blue until it is exposed to the air then it turns clear. The Rangers said that as recently as the 1930’s the glacier was right next to the visitor’s center, which is now about 600 yards away. As the glacier has receded, it has left huge chunks sitting in Mendenhall Lake…apparently not moving away down the Mendenhall River. In the winter, the lake freezes over and the locals use it for recreation.

Our next stop was the Glacier Gardens. The history of this place is very interesting, but I don’t think I can tell the story sufficiently…at least not as interestingly as the guides did. These 20-something kids did a great job keeping the visitors entertained while simultaneously giving us a little history of the area, lots of details about the rain forest and the town of Juneau. The short version of how Glacier Gardens got started is that the owners of a nearby nursery wanted to expand so they purchased the property next door and the husband started clearing some of the land with a newly rented $250,000 excavator. Apparently, this guy was really accident-prone, especially when it came to machinery, and as you might guess, his bad luck kept up. He backed into a log and caused $4000 worth of damage to the engine. At this point his anger got the better of him and he started grabbing trees with the machine and stabbing them into the ground upside down.

Sometime in the process he had a brainstorm…these upside down trees might be interesting for people to see…and they might pay. He tried to play up this brainstorm to his wife and downplay the expensive repair bill, but that didn’t work.

Anyway, about 10 years later, they opened Glacier Gardens on 50 acres of beautiful temperate rainforest with the beautifully designed “upside down trees” as a centerpiece. They built a road up to one of the lower peaks of the mountain…580 feet…and a deck overlooking the Gastineau Straights below. They added a few carts to carry the people up, a few guides and they were in business. Our guides were great…both entertaining and educational.

On the way back to the ship, the driver dropped us off downtown in the touristy shopping area and we wandered around a while before heading back to the ship, including a window shopping stop at the local Harley store…and, oh yeah, we purchased Sharon some diamond studs for her 40th anniversary present.

The ship pulled out of Juneau about 10pm and is headed for Skagway through a very dark ocean…ETA 6am, August 4.

Alaskan Cruise-Day 3

August 2, Day 3, Ketchikan, Alaska, began fairly early. We received our wake-up call at 6am and the ship was already tied up to the dock. Sharon needed to be down on the dock for her walking tour of downtown Ketchikan at 7:45am so we got dressed and headed to the breakfast buffet on Deck 14…pretty good. I walked her down to Deck 5, where the walkway was letting people off the ship.

I walked her down the gangway and up on shore to where the tour people were holding up various signs with the appropriate number on them. We found her guy…an Indian called Joe…took a picture and then I went back upstairs to wait for my report time at 9:30am.

Sharon had a great walking tour of the town and heard a lot of history from someone who grew up in the area. He even remembered playing on the only original street still in operation…part of the tour in fact. She finished the tour downtown so did a little looking around before heading back to the ship.

I reported to my station on shore at the appointed time, waited a few minutes and then boarded a bus that took us about 30 minutes out of town to the base camp for the Kart Adventure. I thought the road the bus had to travel on off the highway was rough but it was nothing compared to what we actually drove on with the karts.

After the obligatory safety briefing and signing waivers…scares some folks away…we loaded up and strapped in. These karts were modeled after an Israeli military version that they use in the desert…capable of 100 mph. The ones we had might have been capable of 25-30 mph…on a flat road or going downhill…but I don’t think anyone

Anyway, I drove by myself…which means I didn’t have to let someone else drive back down the hill. I was number 3 behind the leader and a couple of college kids. They wanted us to keep about 100 feet between cars and as it turned out, that was not a problem. I couldn’t maintain 100 feet and I thought I had the peddle all the way down and still couldn’t keep up…no big deal, the cars behind me were strung out pretty good. There was a young lady in the rear kart that looked for stragglers so we never lost anyone. The leader would occasionally stop and let everyone catch up, especially when there was a fork in the road. It would have been relatively easy to take the wrong turn with everyone so far apart.

We stopped twice…once to take pictures of the island nearby and the waterway between them. He said the water was so deep that they had all kinds of sea life, including whales. He also told us about a semi-secret submarine testing base nearby that used the deep water to test their stealth capability under water.

After taking a few pictures, we headed further up the mountain. The next stop was at a small waterfall where we had a snack and some water while the guide filled us in on some of the history of the area, including a little about the flora and the fauna. The only wildlife natural to the area…besides small creatures like squirrels and birds…are the black bear, black-tailed Sitka deer and the Bald Eagle. There are no Grizzly Bears or Moose on the island. The island is considered a “temperate rainforest” because of the 13 feet of rain every year. We saw several examples of the plant life, including some ferns.

Following the talk, we all jumped back in our karts and headed down the mountain…really fast. I had a little easier time keeping up with the leader but it wasn’t easy. I think I hit every large pothole on the road…and I’m talking those that were 3-4 feet across and 6 inches deep…some with water. At times I thought I was going to lose control of the cart, but using my excellent driving skills I managed to maintain control and make it to the bottom.

About 30 minutes later…about 1pm…I was back on the ship and eating lunch with Sharon at the buffet…it’s the easiest place to eat and the food is pretty good too. After lunch, we headed back off the ship and downtown for some walking. She shared some of the information she had heard on her walking tour…pretty interesting. I’m sure you could spend a lot more time ashore walking around than we did. We were back on the ship by 3pm and in the room shortly thereafter.

Mom went to her massage appointment at 5pm and I stayed in the room watching the scenery slide by our balcony. I did go up on deck to get a better view for a while but eventually came back to the room to get ready for dinner….which is where we’re going now.

Next stop is Juneau tomorrow around 2pm Alaska time…more tomorrow.

Alaskan Cruise-Day 2

August 1, Day 2, was spent at sea. We set out from Seattle about 4pm and will dock in Ketchikan, Alaska on August 2, or Day 3 at 6am. Our day at sea was spent relaxing and exploring the ship. We started off with a continental breakfast served in our room and then attended a seminar in the Lotus Spa and Fitness area on “detoxing your body and losing weight” at 10am. The instructor provided a lot of good information but in the end they wanted you to sign up for a $40 evaluation of your health…probably not a bad idea but we did not take advantage.

We had a light lunch at one of the grills near the fitness center and then went back to the cabin about 1pm. I changed clothes and went back to the fitness center to work out a little while Sharon read a little and took a nap. By the time I returned to the room around 3:30, she was fast asleep. I read a bit and then took a short nap myself.

Outside the window, we saw mostly water with the occasional sight of the Canadian shoreline…but only when the shoreline had some mountainous terrain that stuck up above the horizon. The weather was beautiful and the seas very calm.

Monday night was formal night on board so Sharon and I got all dressed up and made our way to the Sterling Steakhouse on board…by way of some shopping and the cruise information desk to mail some post cards…they’re in the mail!

Sharon insisted on buying me a new watch for our anniversary…like I needed one. I’ll have to put one or two of the others on EBay. Anyway, it’s a beautiful Citizen Chronograph watch that was about 50% off of retail…such a deal!

Following our shopping stop, we made our way up to the Deck 14 where we had reservations at the steak house. Interestingly, the steak house area is part of the buffet restaurant during the day but is transformed into a very nice steak restaurant after 4pm. You really couldn’t tell the difference.

The steak restaurant and the Italian restaurant are definitely high end and require a $20 cover charge per person. However, the service was excellent and very personal. For $40 we each had an excellent 8-10 oz filet mignon, baked potato, salad and delicious dessert…and I had a shrimp cocktail…definitely got our $40 worth. Tomorrow night we’ll probably eat in one of the other no-extra-charge places to try them out. I don’t know if I can handle a 10 oz steak every night anyway.

After dinner, we took in a show put on by the cruise ship’s performers. It was called “We Have the Music” and featured song and dance numbers from famous artists. It wasn’t bad. The theater on board was very nice…easily as nice as some of the theaters I’ve been in, even in New York. The seats were very comfortable and we had a good seat on the left side of the stage.

Following the show we decided to call it a night. We made our way back to the cabin and got ready for bed. Tomorrow is our first stop in Ketchikan… the rain capital of the world…13 feet per year…see you then.

Alaskan Cruise-Day 1

July 31, 2011, Day 1, started early. I was up at a little after 5am…Sharon a bit later. We got dressed, loaded the car and hit the road to the airport…remote parking actually. I had made reservations at a park-n-ride close to the airport that had covered parking…such a deal! What we didn’t know that the operation had changed owners within the past few weeks and the name of the place was something completely different that the one I has made reservations with.

It took a few minutes to realize this during which I was freaking out. To make matters worse the van picked up another couple on the next row over and left us standing, wondering what was going on. Sharon suggested we walk up to the office and see what was going on…which we did. The office was locked up tighter than a drum. Eventually, we got a signal so we could get on the Internet and find the phone number of the place. The driver answered and said he was on his way back.

Thank goodness we started early enough because we had to be taken to two American Airlines terminals before arriving at the correct one. There wasn’t much of a line at security so we breezed through and found out gate in plenty of time.

Our plane made its 9:15am takeoff at 9:25 but we arrived in Seattle two minutes early after an uneventful flight…if you don’t count the little kid sitting behind me kicking me all the way there…3 ½ hours.

We finally got to our stateroom around 2pm and were pleased to find a very nice room. It’s only about 350 square feet but there’s plenty of room for a queen sized bed and a sitting area…plus the balcony with chairs and a table. Of course, once the sun goes down it gets a little chilly. After the mandatory evacuation drill, we wandered around the ship, took a tour of the spa and fitness facility, checked out the shops in the Atrium and eventually made it to one of the dining rooms.

We opted to eat in the buffet dining room tonight…not bad…but tomorrow we’ll see if we can get reservations in one of the nicer places. Day 2 will all be on board the ship at sea…if you can call the “Inside Passage” sea. There’s a lot of water, even if you can see land on both sides of the ship, but we still think it’s the “sea”. We will probably take it easy during the day, check out some more of the ship and rest up for the next few days.

Day 3 will bring us to Ketchikan, AK where we’ll check out some of the shore excursions…more about that tomorrow.