I could hear Cheryl in our bedroom closet. She was finding dress shirts for me.
“Ah nope, ah nope, ah nope, ah nope.”
“What is the problem?” I asked.
“You haven’t got one shirt that doesn’t have ball point pen ink stains on the pocket,” she answered.
I have a theory. The makers of dress shirts and the manufacturers of ball point pens are owned by the same corporation. The pens are designed to leak, leaving an ink stain on the shirt pocket thereby requiring me to go to JCPenney. Four new dress shirts had to be purchased. We were going on a cruise.
As I write this, I am sitting on the veranda of my 350 square foot room watching the ocean flow by. We are on a Holland America Alaskan Cruise out of Seattle. The day has been rainy but now the sun is trying to break through.
Our embarking day weather was dead calm winds and temperatures in the high 70s. This was not to be the weather for long. That evening, as soon as we left Puget sound and entered the Pacific Ocean, we entered a storm. All night long the twelve-foot seas tossed and heaved. So did the passengers.
When I was a pilot, I would take great delight in pulling back on the yoke, raising the nose of the airplane up until the air speed dropped off. Then I would push it forward, causing my passengers to rise off their seats in weightlessness. The maneuver causes severe tummy tickles. All night long, the bow of the ship road up a wave only to dive down the back side. Each time, the passengers would rise out of bed, float in mid-air for a moment before settling back onto their mattress.
In the morning, the halls were lined with sick sacks, which looked like luminaries. It reminded me of Christmas.
The toilets on a cruise ship may catch the first-time cruiser by surprise. Not unlike the toilets on a jet, the flush creates a vacuum. The first time I flushed while sitting, my lower lip pulled down a bit while my ear lobes fluttered.
I yelled to Cheryl, “Hey, you’re not going to believe this!” I flushed three more times for effect. This proved to be a mistake as I had to do a forward front roll to break the seal.
The dining rooms aboard the ship are elegant with the friendly Asian waiters hustling around to meet our every need. If you choose, you can sit at an intimate table for two, or a larger table with six people you have never met. It was at one of these larger tables that I met Howard.
I had noticed Howard earlier. He was a tall, thin man who drug his left leg. Now, sitting next to him at the dining room table, I found that we only live thirty miles from each other. He began to explain how two years prior he was in a bad accident and lost his leg. He then lifted his pant leg to show me his state-of-the-art prosthetic. The problem, he explained was that when he came aboard the ship the microprocessor quit working. He now only had two options: turn the prosthetic off or run it at full speed. Because it was glitching, it would go full speed or shut off on its own. This explains why later, up on the Promenade Deck, I heard Howard yelling, “Excuse me! Pardon me!” as he ran through the crowd. His right good leg was trying to keep up with his left goose-stepping prosthetic. I am assuming that he had it looked at when we reached Juneau.
The Mendenhall Glacier
Pulling into Juneau at 1:00 pm, we were off on our first shore excursion, canoeing Lake Mendenhall. Of course, being Alaska in September, the weather was cloudy and raining. It was hardly the type of day I would want to be sitting out in a 34-degree lake. Nevertheless, that is the Alaskan experience.
Norm, a Tlingit tribal member, and our bus driver/canoe guide gave us specific guidance on paddling a journey canoe. He put two men who had canoeing experience in the front seat and told us to watch them. When they took a stroke, the rest of us were to do the same. There were seven paddling on the port and seven on the starboard side.
Norm, from the stern seat yelled, “All ahead full!” The two men in front started pulling with the rest of us following their lead. For the first ten strokes we made Norm proud, looking like true Tlingit canoe pullers. On the eleventh stroke we started losing the rhythm and synchronization until it was obvious that we had been trained at the Three Stooges School of Watersports. Paddles were slapping into each other; water was splashing, and people were getting wet. Norm just moaned.
“People, the Glacier recedes at a rate of 30 feet a year. We must paddle a mile and a half to get to the base of it. Because of global warming and the speed at which you are pulling, the Glacier may well be melted by the time you get us to its base.”
Sarcasm is a great motivator and even though seven in the canoe decided they didn’t want to paddle anymore; we still made it to the Glacier and back in two hours.
That night on the ship was Gala dining. Being dressed in our finest, Cheryl and I had formal photos taken. A day later, looking at them at the gallery, I realized that I have completely forgotten how to smile at a camera. It is a real ego booster to have your wife doubled over with uncontrolled laughter as we sorted through 20 professional photos.
The White Pass and Yukon Railroad, the Red Onion Saloon, and the Gold Rush Brothel.
A trip to Skagway wouldn’t be complete without a ride on the narrow gage WP & YR Railroad. Skagway had no gold in its hills, but it was the starting point for the Klondike Gold Rush.
When the Seattle PI announced in its July 17, 1897, paper that gold had been found in Alaska, men, and women both climbed aboard boats and sailed to Skagway, the gateway to the Canadian Klondike. From the Skagway beach, a narrow pathway led up into the hills, a trail used by the natives for hundreds of years. Two entrepreneurs in the town came up with an idea to build a railroad into the interior and when financing from London came through, 30,000 men built the 110-mile run from Skagway to Whitehorse, Yukon Territory.
Our trip on the train lasted 14 miles due to construction on the tracks. Two diesel engines pulled eight passenger cars up the hill along rock hillsides within reaching distance and against cliffs that fell to the rivers below. As the cars rocked back and forth, I hoped the three-foot span track was enough to keep us from rolling over the edge.
Back at the bottom, we boarded the bus for our next stop, The Red Onion Bar, and the Gold Rush Bordello. We were met on the side street by Madame Lucy. She played her part well with her costume and innuendoes. It was interesting to learn that there were over 300 women working the trade in Skagway to meet the needs of the stampede of miners. Of special note, a few miles up the trail out of town was the Canadian border. Every miner who did not have a years’ worth of supplies was turned back. Also on sad note, of 3000 pack horses used by the miners, only 30 returned.
Glacier Bay
The next day was amazing as we visited Glacier Bay. The sun broke through the clouds, there was no wind, the water surface was like glass, and the temperature was in the 50s. Onboard was a National Park ranger and a member of Huna Tlingit tribal nation who lives in the park. Throughout the day, commentary over the p.a. described the animals, sea life, glaciers, and peoples of the park. The 3.3 million acres of National Park should be one of the wonders of the world and the glaciers are something everyone should see before global warming melts them away.
Ketchikan
The town of Ketchikan was the largest and most modern Alaskan city of our stops. Well stocked gift shops surround the ship pier luring tourists inside. Three blocks from the ship, we visited Creek Street which has buildings and board walks built on pilings over Ketchikan Creek. Creek Street was notorious for having up to 33 operating “Cat Houses” before the city finally shut them down in 1954. The slogan for the wickedest street in Alaska is still, “The Street where both men and salmon went upstream to spawn.” Unlike Skagway, the men who frequented Creek Street were loggers and fisherman. On benches lining the creek sat men from the senior center. On the creek banks were the carcasses of dead salmon. It appeared that both the salmon and the men were spawned out.
Ketchikan was also the unfortunate town where Cheryl’s ID’S, credit card and driver’s license were lost. Though we were hoping for a good Samaritan to bring them back to the ship, they never returned. And yet, upon reaching Seattle we received a call from the Ketchikan police that they had all the cards. They would be returned by mail. I wasn’t aware that Ketchikan’s mail traveled by dog sled.
Cruise lines make their money selling booze, spa packages, internet, dining upgrades and photos. We stayed away from those perks, so we didn’t raise our tab too high. Holland America provides a wealth of things which are included in the original ticket price. The Dining room and the eateries on the Lido deck makes fabulous meals. The live shows in the theater were amazing as were the music acts all through the ship. There were lectures and activities scheduled from dawn to dusk, or you could just sit in the pools.
I don’t quite understand it, but we talked with people who were on their fifth Alaska cruise. I don’t know about five times, but I think that I would go again.
When I think about it, the trip in its entirety ran full circle. It started in Seattle, had one day at sea, four days at sites, one day back at sea, and docked again in Seattle.
And, after I dropped the luggage back in the house and flopped down on the couch, Cheryl came into the living room and stared at my chest.
“Your pen leaked ink all over the pocket of your brand-new shirt!”
And we were right back where we started.
Faith Family Life Getting Older Growing Up Misadventures Music Patriotism Pets or Pests? Snips Tributes
