It has been a while since I’ve posted and between a new laptop and a new and different brand of phone it has been quite a learning curve. Windows 11 and/or my phone would not allow me to upload my pictures directly from my phone to my computer so I ended up having to email them to myself from my phone (one or two pictures at a time), open the email on my laptop and then download them, and eventually save them to the correct location on my laptop. I eventually ordered a USB with a C connection AND a USB connection and then copied the pictures from my phone to the device and then uploaded to the laptop. WHY does it have to be this hard? If you’re reading this and you can see pictures, then I was successful!
Some of this was written as it was happening and I don’t want to go back through and change everything to past tense … so, I KNOW, just deal with it!!
Friday, June 3, 2022
Our flight from OKC to Las Vegas was supposed to leave at 9:15 PM. We ended up leaving about 20 minutes late. When we get to Las Vegas we will, hopefully have time to change terminals and get to our connecting flight to Seattle. We were supposed to have had a 45 minute layover but they way things are looking now we will have about 15 minutes. Praying the connecting flight is delayed! I can’t imagine how hard it will be to try and get another flight into Seattle.
We landed in Las Vegas and RUSHED to our connecting flight gate and the plane wasn’t there yet! Lucky us. Our connecting flight didn’t show up for another 20 minutes, then 20 minutes to deplane and then they were being REALLY slow to start boarding. We eventually got boarded and THEN they told us that our captain wasn’t feeling well and they were hunting for someone else to fly the plane. After an hour (sitting on board the plane) we finally had a pilot. The entire plane erupted with applause.
We were at least 2 hours late getting into Seattle, so instead of landing at 1 am it was after 3 am. Had to call for the hotel shuttle and by the time we got to the hotel it was after 3:30 Saturday morning. When we got to our room I realized this was the same ultra crappy hotel that we had stayed in on a previous visit and I swore I would never go back. OK, now I promise I will NEVER go back! It has these weird shutters that open up between the bathroom and the bedroom so you can see into the Jaccuzi tub. I guarantee you, under no circumstances would my butt EVER sit in THAT tub! AND if that wasn’t icky enough, the shower stall had a door that had one of those old fashion screen door type latches on the inside to keep it closed …. not really what I expect paying more than $150 for a room.
Saturday June 4, 2022
We took the 11am shuttle back to the airport to pick up our rental car. Since we were the only ones on the shuttle he took us directly to the rental car pickup location. We ended up with a silver Nissan Rogue (this will be an important fact later). We headed out with our first stop being Snoqualamie Falls. We stayed off the major Seattle highways and took the backroads through Renton and over Tiger mountain pass to get to I-90. A couple of miles east on 90 was our exit. The area was gorgeous! Big trees, mountains, streams, lots of flowers and beautiful landscaping, and with most tourist places these days, it came with an abundance of traffic. We found a small parking area next to the falls area with about 25 parking spaces. Drove through once, nothing. Came back around a second time and lucked out. We paid $7 for a parking place. After we paid for parking we took the receipt back to put on the dash and then took a short walk to the falls overlook which was a raging drop of 268 feet – guess June is a good time for snow melt off. Lots of people there and kind of like the Grand Canyon, once you’ve seen it, you’ve seen it – the view wasn’t going to change in the next 50 minutes, so we headed out.
We set off to cross Snoqualamie pass to head to Yakima Washington to visit my cousin Pam, her husband Reed, daughter Michelle and son-in-law Randy.
We arrived in Yakima about 4:30 and called Pam after we checked into the hotel and headed over to Michelle and Randy’s for a visit and dinner. Michelle pulled out some old pictures of when Aunt Arlene and my dad were little kids and we reminisced over stories we had heard. Randy made pulled pork and apple coleslaw for dinner, all yummy and after a nice dinner and visit we headed back to the hotel.
Sunday, June 5, 2022
We checked out of the hotel and headed over to pick up my Aunt Arlene who is now staying in an assisted living facility. She was waiting out front for us but realized when we got there that she had forgotten to put her hearing aid in so she hustled back to her room and then we headed off for breakfast. We never found the place that she was interested in going to but ended up eating at a chain restaurant called Shari’s. It was a bountiful breakfast. The food was good and the company even better. After a much too short visit, we dropped Aunt Arlene off and headed toward Coulee Dam.
We retraced our steps back to Ellensburg before heading northwest on highway 17 to Coulee. We crossed the Columbia River and stopped at an overlook for a few pictures. High on a ridge above the overlook was an art piece containing dozens of wild horses called “Wild Horse Monument”. I expected the area to be more like the area around Yakima which is irrigated desert, growing a lot of apples, grapes and hops. Initially we passed a lot of farm land, and the farmers were thoughtful enough to put up signs in front of their crops that identified what they were growing. We saw wheat, alfalfa, sweet corn and timothy. I’ve never heard of timothy before and had to look it up. It’s a cool grass that is feed to livestock. Eventually the scenery changed to high basalt cliffs and lots of glacier like lakes. The views were absolutely stunning and included Soap Lake and Sun Lake.
Further down the road we passed a place called Dry Falls and when I glanced out the window I couldn’t believe the vista. We ended up turning around and going back for a closer look. There was a very nice visitor center at Dry Falls. We ended up getting a personal tour with a young lady named Taylor who was from the forest service. She was very well informed about the area and its history. Her discussion included the animal life, the fauna and how the area was formed. You can see from the pictures that this looks like a natural place for Falls and it has seen Falls here over 150 times (they can tell by the sediment layers) but it is now dry. It was a very interesting story. Most people thought the area was created by the Columbia River during the last Ice Age by a giant ice lobe that came down the valley but there was a man who studied the area and was adamant that the area had seen Falls and was created by running water, he further surmised it wasn’t the Columbia River that had done the work. He lived to be 98 years old and before he died someone else was able to validate his theory. There had been a huge glacier that covered most of Montana and on the glacier was a glacier lake. Over time the lake got fuller and fuller until the weight of the water broke through the glacier and sent a HUGE amount of water downstream. The Dry Falls had cliffs of about 300 feet and it is estimated that the water that came OVER the cliffs reached a height of 300 feet! All that water rushing through the area and making its way to the Pacific coast was what created the beautiful scenery that we had just passed through. It would have taken 2 days for the water to travel from Montana to the Pacific Ocean. Along the way, the water would have taken all of the area topsoil with it and eventually deposited it downstream including in the Yakima Valley were all the apples are grown. And, as I said earlier, this water event happened over and over again, a total of 150 times, to carve out these beautiful, rugged basalt cliffs.
We hit the road again and headed toward Coulee Dam. We passed the visitor center and had turn around and go back. For such an amazing undertaking as this dam was, we were completely underwhelmed at the presentation at the visitor center.
I mistakenly thought that Coulee Dam was named after a person, instead it is named after an area. There is a huge trough that lays just beyond the plateau to the southwest. The trough is an ancient riverbed, or coulee, which was carved out of stone by massive Ice Age floods (the same ones that created Dry Falls). The trough is known as “Grand Coulee” because it is the largest in the Columbia Basin. Today, pumps at the dam divert water from the Columbia River over the plateau ridge and into the Banks Lake, which fills part of the Grand Coulee. Water from that reservoir irrigates farmland in the Columbia Basin.
Grand Coulee Dam is the largest hydropower producer in the United States and irrigates over 671,000 acres in the Columbia Basin. The dam is approximately 1 mile long, 550 Ft high, 500 feet thick, and weighs over 24 million tons. 806,000 gallons of water PER SECOND pass through the dam. A third power plant was added in the late 60s adding an additional 259,000 gallons of water per second generating power to 4.2 million homes in the Pacific Northwest.
I’d always heard stories of how many men were killed during the construction of the dam. 77 people did die during the construction, but that number is actually below average for construction sites during that time period. There were more people killed on the “speedball” highway leading up to the dam than at the construction site.
There was some interesting facts about the “cities” that were created to house the workers and how much food had to be cooked every day to feed the workers. There was also information about all the areas upstream that had to be completely cleared of timber and homes because once the dam was put into operation, they didn’t want anything coming downstream to block the dam.
After we left the dam we backtracked a little bit and took highway 174 to 21 and then headed north where we took the (free) Keller ferry across the Columbia River. Our plan was to drive 21 north and then cross the Colville Indian Reservation to Inchelium before continuing on to Idaho. We kept getting severe weather reports on our phones and before we turned into the Indian Reservation the sky opened up. It rained hard and the wind was blowing but we were on a nicely paved two lane road that was going up and around a mountain and there wasn’t any traffic. I thought we were the only ones on the road but eventually caught sight of someone coming up behind us. I slowed down and pulled off the side of the road to let the “local” pass and it turned out to be a sheriff. We continued on our way having to dodge tree limbs that appeared in the road every so often. About halfway across the reservation we came around a corner and the sheriff was stopped in the middle of the road with his emergency lights flashing. In front of him were no less than 6 trees that had been felled by the storm. He informed us that there was no way we were getting through this way on this day. We visited with him for a little bit and took a couple of pictures before turning around and headed back the direction we had just come. We ended up having to take highway 21 further north to Republic, east on highway 2o and then south on 395. That added about 80 miles to our trip. It continued to rain off and on the reminder of the day all the way into Sandpoint, Idaho. We were driving east of Chewelah and came around the corner and spotted 5 elk out in a pasture (a bucket list item for me, guess I should have added that I wanted to see a huge bull elk, these were all cows). Since there was no traffic we stopped and took a few pictures before continuing on.
Up to this point today, we had seen a turkey, a magpie, some deer and now the elk. A little further down the road, in the middle of nowhere we came up to a stop sign with a farmhouse close by and a big chocolate colored bunny (the breathing kind, not the candy kind) crossed in front of us. Just passed the stop sign were all of his brothers and sisters. There had to have been a dozen of them.
Not too much later it turned dark and the rain continued, so hard at times it was really difficult to see the road. Jeff took over the driving and we eventually made it into Sandpoint and stayed at one of the nicest hotels of the trip (no icky Jaccuzi here!).
Monday, June 6, 2022
We left Sandpoint fairly early (9 am) and the plan today was to sightsee by car. We took the highway south headed toward Coeur d’Alene. I’ve heard numerous people talk about how beautiful it is here. A couple of observations about that. It was an extremely crowded area, the traffic was horrible, there were stoplights every ½ mile for a couple of miles. We finally made it to the lake area and were greeted by a two lane road through a tourist trap area with lots of expensive looking shops and eating places. We drove in, turned around and headed back to the highway, not willing to take the time to find a parking place just to explore expensive shops.
Once out of town the vista changed yet again. We had now left the alpine area behind and were greeting with miles and miles and miles and rolling verdant green fields of wheat. I don’t know what it is about this area but the fields look greener, the sky looks bluer and the clouds look whiter. It might just be field after field of wheat but the color and the rolling hills were gorgeous AND there were no fences. You don’t realize how much fences encroach on the view until there aren’t any.
Our intended destination this afternoon was Hells Canyon, Idaho. It is the deepest canyon in the United States and the Snake River runs through it. When we reached Lewiston, Idaho the scenery changed again. We first passed a deep canyon and then another. Soon we were going down a 7% grade into Lewiston. After that it leveled out again but we were on a two lane windy road around mountains. We saw a large wooden trestle railroad bridge high above us and then entered a traffic construction area. The sign indicated that the road would be closed overnight for demolition (the explosive type). We got through the construction area and then pulled off the side of the road to determine if we had enough time to get to Hells Canyon and be back before they closed the road, or see if there was an alternate route. We needed to be in Spokane Valley to meet a cousin for dinner. We ended up turning back around and headed back to Lewiston. Then we picked up a Washington highway that took us through Pullman and back up into Spokane Valley, which we managed to hit at rush hour.
We checked into the hotel and soon discovered that the shower didn’t work and the sink didn’t drain. I’m not sure what our problem is with hotels on this trip, and it’s not like we’re staying in dumps. These places are costing between $130 and $150 a night with names like Ramada and Wyndam. Trust me, I’ll ding them on Yelp when I get back home. We ended up changing rooms and then met my cousin, Sandi for dinner. We had a nice visit, a good meal and went back to the hotel.
Tuesday, June 7, 2022
Today’s plan is to start heading back west. We are planning to stay at Wenatchee but going past to Levenworth before returning to Wenatchee to have dinner with my cousin Kelly and his wife Lynda.
Not wanting to travel the interstate (if you know me, you know that I hate the interstate, there is so much more to see in this county rather than the back end of a semi truck) and not wanting to be on the same roads we had traveled previously, we took highway 2 out of Spokane and then dropped south a bit and picked up highway 28 to Wenatchee. There we picked up highway 2 again and made the scenic drive to Levenworth. This road follows along the Wenatchee River, which was flowing good. We saw a few float groups on the river and a few places with rapids. The river looked like it was over the banks and flowing fast.
We found a metered parking space in Levenworth and spent about an hour looking through the shops before heading back to our hotel in Wenatchee. We stayed at the Sleep Inn which appeared to be a brand new hotel by the Choice group. Finally, another decent hotel.
We met up with my cousin Kelly and his wife Lynda and shared a meal at Olive Garden. We figured we hadn’t seen each other for over 26 years (at my grandmother’s 90th birthday party when Trent was 6 months old) and probably not visited since I was about 13 (not telling you how many years ago that’s been!). We caught up on what Kelly’s been doing all these years and what their future plans are. Lynda is retiring in 2 weeks and they are working on restoring her family’s home which is a homestead surrounded by the Colville Indian Reservation that we had been through earlier in our trip.
We headed back to the hotel and packed up to head back to Seattle the next day, but since Seattle was only a 2-1/2 hour drive we made plans to visit a memorial to one of my relatives (an early Washington state homesteader that was killed by the Indians) that Kelly had talked about which is located in Buckley WA which is south of Seattle Tacoma area.
Tonight was the night that we had to complete our “proctored” COVID antigen testing (24 to 72 hours prior to our cruise departure). Talk about a cottage business. You scan the QR code on the box (ordered it online) and you’re connected to a call center. The person on the other end has you hold your phone so they can scan the test ID into their system. Then they watch you open the box and swab your nose. They tell you how to complete the testing and then they call you back in 15 minutes to review the results. They rescan the test id, verify the results and we were all done. Minutes later we had emails with our test results – both negative. I usually buy trip insurance but since the cruise fare was so cheap ($115 per person for the entire 6 day cruise) I didn’t purchase it this time. If we had tested positive we would spend the next 6 days exploring more of the area before catching our flight home on the 15th.
In addition to the testing, Carnival had us download the “Verifly” app to put in our vaccination info and test results and we also had to complete another on line app for access to Canada to upload our test results or we would NOT be allowed on the ship. Carnival also had a vaccination attestation that had to be completed.
Wednesday, June 8, 2022
We had a nice hot breakfast at the hotel before we loaded up and headed back Levenworth direction on highway 2. We went over Stevens Pass, some 4 lane, but mostly 2 lane roads. We followed the river, which like in Wentachee, was flowing fast and looked to be over the banks. Lots of rapids and beautiful scenery around every corner. We saw snow at the pass and on the surrounding mountain tops but the temperature was in the low 50s at the summit.
We took highway 203 south, spent about 4 miles on 90 before heading south on 18 and 169 to Buckley. I had tried looking online to find some information on the memorial that Kelly had referred to but could only find where he was buried. The memorial was to my great, great, grandfather who was one of the first pioneer settlers in Washington State.
When we got to Buckley we found an historical museum and stopped in there to inquire if they knew of any statues or memorials in the area. They directed us across the street to the city offices and said the people over there were very knowledgeable about the area. In the office there were 4 women and one man working. They listened to my story – Lt. McAllister had been killed in that area in a conflict with the Indians in 1855 and we were looking for the memorial. It was interesting to listen to the ladies talk about what it could possibly be and one lady eventually seemed to come up with something. She was telling me how to get to the area and I ended up opening Goggle maps on my phone and following her directions. And then on Goggle maps up pops – “Connell historical site”. The name sounded familiar but I couldn’t place it. This was the best evidence we had so we decided to see what was there. We made the short trip out to the memorial and low and behold, this was exactly what we were looking for! One side of the memorial read “Near here Indians lay in ambush and killed Lt. McAllister and Michael Connell on October 27, 1855”. In politically correct terms, the Indians have erected a sign at the memorial spot that indicated that 4 battles had taken place within a ten mile radius of this spot in an effort to keep their land. It appears that the land owner, Connell and my gg grandfather were the first ones killed in the Treaty War of 1855. My mother told me that he had been scalped but I have not found anything that backs that up.
From here we drove to a cemetery in Tumwater, WA which is where Lt. McAllister’s body was eventually moved to. We located his grave and on a marker next to his was the name Hawk which was McAllister’s daughter name and my grandmother’s mother.
We braved getting onto I-5 and traveled back north (during rush hour) to our hotel in Renton, WA. When we got to the hotel, after dinner, and opened up our suitcases Jeff asked “where are my shirts?” I knew I didn’t do anything with them, but darn if they weren’t in the suitcase. He always packs his shirts on their hangers and puts them in the suitcase. After checking and rechecking, a call was made to last night’s hotel, and yes, they had his shirts. We called my cousin and they said they would go by and pick them up for us, but not worth a 5 hour round trip drive to retrieve them for the cruise. So, 9:30 at night, we are off to Wal-Mart (which is open until 11) to find Jeff some (hopefully) suitable cruise wear. We picked up 3 polo shirts and now we are ready to set off tomorrow for the cruise.
Thursday, June 9, 2022
We had plenty of time to get to the airport to return the rental car and catch the shuttle to the pier so we weren’t in a huge hurry this morning. We packed everything up and headed out to the rental car with our luggage. We walked up to the back of the car and pressed the key fob to open up the back of the SUV. It beeped but didn’t open. Tried it again. Same thing, beeped but didn’t open. It’s raining, not too hard, but the longer we stand out here trying to get the SUV open, well, the wetter we’re getting. I reached down to try and open it manually. No luck! AND then I heard Jeff laughing. I turned around and behind us was the exact same rental car all the way down to the Florida car tag with the back open. Hope someone inside the hotel wasn’t watching us trying to “break into” THEIR rental car!
We made a quick run through McDs for breakfast and then headed to the airport. Last night’s hotel was maybe one step above the first Seattle airport so it won’t be on my return list but while the hotel was not next to the airport it was a short 10-15 minute drive to the airport car rental return. After emptying out the car we caught the shuttle to the airport where we checked in the with cruise line for transportation to the pier. We were given directions to the area where the bus would pick us up and then we waited. We were supposed to be on the 10 oclock bus but it was closer to 10:30. We got loaded on the bus for about a ½ hour drive to Pier 91. I had no idea this existed, but we drove through a tunnel in Seattle that the driver said was completed about 3 years ago, then past the Space Needle before arriving at the Pier 91. There we found our Carnival Spirit (our first time sailing on this ship) docked and next to us was the Holland Westerdam which wasn’t going out until the 12th.
There were a LOT of people queued up to get into the terminal but surprisingly enough it moved rather quickly. The first thing we did was to show our Verifly app (which included all of our Covid testing and questionnaires) along with the new app ArrivCan which was most of the same type of information but specific to Canada. Then it was a quick trip through the xray machine before we actually checked in with Carnival. There we found out that our travel agent booked this trip as a cash account so we had to put our credit card info on the account, then we headed for the ship. There was no waiting and we got directly on the ship. The absolute first thing we did was get our muster station training completed – less than 3 minutes – how to properly put on a life jacket and please watch the safety video playing on your state room tv. Then it was “do not pass go”, head directly to your state room … Since we are Platinum on Carnival, the perks are a shorter check in line, early cabin access, early disembark for shore days and final disembarkation, a couple of free drinks and a commemorative picture of the ship (haha)… so we found our room and our room keys, dropped off our backpacks and headed to the Lido deck for lunch.
Because of Covid, Jeff now refuses to travel on a cruise ship unless we have a balcony room. I get it, but I don’t think a porthole room was that bad, but I can understand the desire to have access to the outside. At least we didn’t pay a premium for a balcony room this time. The offer we received from Carnival was for $85 per person for the 6 day cruise but that turned out to be a obstructed view, which means it was located BEHIND the life boats, so I upgraded to a regular balcony room which ended up being $115 per person for the 6 days. They also threw in $200 on board credit, so if you’re keeping track, this cruise is costing us a NET $30 plus airfare How could we stay home with a deal like that?
Nothing much happened until dinner and when our tablemates showed up they were from Edmond, OK (Ed and Kathy)! Go figure, small world. The other couple showed up after we had received our main entrees (Curtis and Mena from Atlanta). Turns out there was a screwup on the dinner times. Ours said 5:30, Ed and Kathy’s said 6 and Curtis and Mena’s said 6:30. We are now meeting around the 5:30 time give or take.
All I remember about dinner the first night was I had shrimp and Jeff had chocolate melting cake (with ice cream). After dinner we went to 4 different comedy shows, 2 PG with 2 different comedian and 2 R rated shows from the same comedians. It was a late night but it is followed by 2 sea days so no need to get up early.
Friday, June 10, 2022
The first time I woke up it was bright outside. I got up and looked at my phone ….5:30! I went back to bed and finally got up about 9. We headed upstairs for breakfast. Then took a walk around the ship and checked things out. I guess we are used to Holland because I had forgotten how much ship real estate is dedicated to the casinos on Carnival ships. The décor is tasteful and it has been fairly easy for me to find my way around (I have been very directionally challenged on previous cruises ).
Although this is billed as in “inside passage” cruise, after we left Seattle, we headed out into the Pacific Ocean. The seas were far from rough but there was definitely some “sway” and I heard a number of people complaining. Not me, it rocks me to sleep! Basically, on a sea day you eat and then you plan the next time you’re going to eat. Nothing memorable this day but lots of good food and good comedy shows.
Saturday, June 11, 2022
Today, while technically a sea day, was billed as “cruising Tracy Arm Fjord.” Typically, that means that there aren’t any excursions. This is the first time on a “cruising” day that there were actually excursions. We had sailed into an inlet and started seeing small growlers (bits of glacier ice) and then started slowing down. I assumed that the slowing down was for the sightseeing we were going to be doing from the ship… until we passed two large double decker boats, and then the ship slowed to a complete stop. That was when I learned that we could have booked an excursion that would take us up close and personal to a glacier and a naturalist was on board to help spot wildlife. Oh well, I’m still at Net $30! One of the boats pulled up next to the ship and a bunch of people loaded up and headed off into a smaller inlet. It was POURING rain! We headed straight ahead into the most beautiful glacier formed waterway. At the beginning it was densely covered mountains with waterfalls. The further we went the more bergy bits (larger chunks of ice, but not iceberg sized) we saw and more waterfalls. Further in the cedar trees thinned out and we saw more rock face with waterfalls and just undergrowth type of greenery. Even further in the undergrowth thinned out even more and there was just rock and waterfalls. Did I mention that we saw a lot of waterfalls? A couple of hours in and we slowed to a complete stop. I assumed that we were stopped to pick up the people that had gone on the excursion and had taken a different route. Well, that was mostly true, however we were “parked” facing the Stewart glacier. We put on our raincoats and headed up to the highest deck and viewed the largest glacier I’ve ever seen and it was probably 5 to 7 miles in front of us. With our binoculars we could zoom in and see the detail of the “river” type movement on the surface. Our cellphone pictures just don’t do it justice. Trust me, it was amazing!
At dinner that evening, Kathy told us that her husband had gone on the excursion. Apparently, they took one group where we slowed down initially, and then took another group from here back to the beginning.
After the second excursion group departed, we turned around and got to see the scenery on the “other” side as we were going out.
It rained off and on the entire day but the pictures don’t always reflect that. At one point I managed to catch a pic of a bald eagle on top of a bergy bit!
We rounded off the day with another fabulous meal, good dinner company and a couple of comedy shows.
Sunday, June 12, 2022 – Juneau AK
This was an early day and you could tell it was a port stop because the breakfast area was crowded. Even though we are Platimum and could have gotten off the ship as early as 7:30, we chose to wait until they opened the tender boats to general boarding. Although there is a pier at Juneau, there were 3 other ships here and no room left for us. The Royal Caribbean – Oasis of the Seas was docked, and she is HUGE. I looked her up – she is 16 decks high and maxes out at 4900 passengers. There is also an articulated arm on top of the ship that raises up a viewing capsule to give guests a higher viewpoint. It looked like it extended up another 10 stories. I read that it holds up to 14 people at a time and we got to see it extend up.
Overheard at the dock (with mountains in the background) “Oh my, look at those mountains, we must be really high up. What’s the elevation here?” “Uh, ma’am? We’re at sea level!”
Our plan this day was to take the cable car up to the top of the mountain and hike a trail or two … however, when we got up in the morning and looked outside it was pouring rain and you couldn’t even see the top of the mountain. We gathered up our coats, gloves and rain ponchos and headed down to catch the tender. No sooner had we gotten on the tender than the guy sitting across from us, that was dressed in a thin jacket and shorts, made a wise crack about how we were dressed implying that we had taken the rain way too seriously. When we got off the tender boat it was pouring! The wooden dock we were walking across had spaces between the boards so the water could drain but it was raining harder, and the water wasn’t draining very fast and had pooled everywhere. There were shops along the main street that had overhangs where you could mostly get out of the rain, but you had to walk a least a block from the pier to the shops to get out of the rain. If you follow my travel blog at all, then you know we are ALWAYS on the lookout at every stop for the elusive Dr. Pepper for Mr. Davis. Jeff was fortunate, we located his DP at a small convenience type store and purchased 3 bottles for $9. YIKES! Outside I looked for the source of a loud bird and located a huge Raven perched high up on the side of the building. He did not appear to be very happy. Further down the street there were 3 more Ravens perched underneath an overhang. All were loud and cranky and did not appear to care for the rain. Did I mention that it was still pouring rain?
We visited a few stores to check out the local artwork. There were interesting pieces carved out of moose antlers. We saw some Reindeer skins and more carvings that used whale bones. All unusual and expensive. A few shops later we found ourselves at the infamous Red Dog Saloon, home of the drink the “duck fart”! So the $32 we saved on the cable car tickets was eventually spent on t-shirts from the Red Dog Saloon for some family members. We also stopped at another shop and bought my mom a hat. When we stepped back out on to the sidewalk, lo and behold we came face to face with the guy from the tender that questioned our outerwear. Needless to say, he was SOAKED. Our eyes met and I said “can I interest you in a rain poncho?” He just sneered at me and kept walking.
Once back on the ship I broke the binoculars out and started first looking at the huge RC Oasis of the Seas, then moved on to a fairly large yacht that was tied up close by. To my surprise, I found 2 bald eagles perched atop a pylon that the larger cruise ships tie up to. I could take a picture with my phone, and I knew the birds were there, but no one else would be able to tell. So on a lark I got out the binoculars and tried to take a picture with my phone looking through the binoculars. It took 2 of us to make it work … but it worked! A Princess ship had just tied up at the pier and the guests were getting off and were totally oblivious to these majestic birds watching them walk by. When we pulled up anchors and started heading out we started looking at the tops of the electric poles and managed to located a total of 6 bald eagles, 2 of them in flight …. Way cool!
Ed and Kathy weren’t at dinner this evening. I was looking forward to hearing details about Ed’s glacier excursion. I did visit with Mena about their excursion. They went to Mendenhall Glacier (we were there on our last Alaskan trip), a salmon hatchery and then they were fed a lunch of fresh salmon and tuna. She said that they cut the female salmon open and empty out the eggs and then squeeze the sperm out of the male salmon on to the eggs to fertilize them. Both are sacrificed for the next generation. The fertilized eggs are deposited into the river so they will return to the same area to spawn.
Not much in the way of entertainment this evening. The comedians are done for the week. Lots of music but the rock band from the Philippines playing Queen doesn’t work for me. The piano bar guy is cheesy. The string quartet can’t hold a candle to one that we saw on a Holland cruise, the main stage show tonight was a takeoff on a game show and the best pianist/vocalist wasn’t playing this evening. We eventually settled for a young female guitarist who played ballad type songs. She speaks like she’s from Australia. She was playing at the Alchemy bar and the main bar tender there amuses me to no end. He definitely takes his job to the extreme. Every move that he makes is choreographed and precise. This bar sells frou frou drinks at the cost of $15 a piece but you are paying for the show as much as for the alcohol. They had a sale yesterday – 4 mini martinis, regularly $25 on sale for $24!
Monday, June 13, 2022
Today’s stop is Ketchican. We had booked to go see the cheesy Lumberjack show with the remainder of our on board credit and the show didn’t start until 10 so we slow played it again this morning. We’ve been here before so as soon as we got off the ship we headed to my favorite shop that sells local artist goods. They had some beautiful pieces that the owner would be more than happy to ship home for us but I have no idea where I’d put them. One piece was about 6 foot tall and it was a wood carving of an octopus among coral with fish. The owner said the artist started the piece with a chain saw and then used a dremel on the more intricate detail work. It was stunning and so was the price! In the end I settled for two watercolor prints of a bear and an eagle. They will go on our travel wall at home.
The lumberjack show was entertaining and besides the talent that was displayed the jokes were amusing and not too corny. After the show we walked around and looked at more artwork. In one shop there was a mammoth tusk. The owner said when the snow melts the locals find them all over the tundra … and ONLY the locals are allowed to collect and sell them. Checked out the t-shirt shops but nothing called our name so we headed back to the ship.
Our balcony overlooked the pier so we parked our butts outside to watch the sail off and see if there were any pier runners. Everyone appeared to play nice and were back in time but I was confused why they only took one gangplank down. The pier workers were kind of pacing around and we were now more than 10 minutes past sail time. The pier workers finally got the word and the second gangplank came down and they closed the doors …. just about the time a young man came running around the corner carrying two large grocery bags that appeared to be full of potato chips. I’m fairly certain that he was a cruise employee and not a passenger. Jeff’s comment was “that’s going to turn out to be a REALLY EXPENSIVE bag of chips!” The ship’s agent was on the pier and he escorted the young man to his car and they drove off as the ship was sailing away.
Tuesday, June 14, 2022
When I booked this cruise I was really excited because we were going to be in Victoria Island, British Columbia from 8 to midnight. I did all this research because I wanted to go to the Butchart Gardens. I had heard how beautiful it is and figured out how we could do it a lot cheaper, and a lot longer, than the excursion offered by Carnival. We needed to walk about a mile into town and catch the city bus … easy peasy. Only problem turned out to be that I unfortunately ASSUMED the time was 8 in the morning. It turned out to be 8 in the evening. When we eventually docked the pier didn’t appear to be a normal cruise ship pier, it was chilly, it was going to be dark within an hour and the walk into town looked further than a mile. We choose to stay on the ship. Glad we did. Others we talked to afterwards said that it was a long walk, it was cold and it got dark fast (hmmm, sounds familiar).
Very, very, very minimal entertainment this evening. That’s one thing about cruises that I don’t get. They (the cruise line) starts wrapping up your trip before it’s over. You seriously could not find an entertainment venue anywhere on the ship after 9 pm this evening.
So, we packed up, put our suitcases out for pickup and called it an early night.
Wednesday, June 15, 2022
We were in no big hurry to get off the ship this morning because our flight doesn’t leave until 4 pm but we did need to catch the shuttle to the airport. I know from previous trips that you can not check your luggage in at the airport until 4 hours before your flight is scheduled for departure. Which means we couldn’t go through TSA and get access to food/drinks. I think we finally got off about 9:30 and when the bus pulled away from the pier I commented to Jeff how low the tide was. We heard later on the news that this day was an extraordinary low tide for Puget Sound, the lowest it had been in 13 years, 4 feet lower than the average daily low tide.
Miscellaneous pics from the cruise
A final note …. I started feeling bad the day after we got home. Jeff convinced me to take a COVID test the second day and it was positive. I had COVID when it first started making its rounds in 2020 but this was different. I was coughing but not as bad as the first time. I don’t think I ran a temp, if I did it was low enough I didn’t bother checking. The most horrible part was the fatigue. I would get up in the morning and eat breakfast and within a half hour I would have to go lay down and take a nap … usually a four or five hour nap! Then eat something and nap again. Get up watch the news and go back to bed AGAIN. It was horrible. Those symptoms lasted a little over a week and then I started having other issues. I wasn’t having problems breathing but I very easily over exerted myself and felt like I couldn’t catch my breathe (thought maybe that’s how my daughter feels with her asthma). Then it felt like someone had my chest in a vice. All that to say, we ended up at the emergency room and after blood work, chest x-ray, CT scan the diagnosis was LONG COVID. That means they couldn’t find anything wrong with my lungs or heart and because I had just had COVID that was their diagnosis. They also couldn’t tell me how long it would last. The chest pressure, for the most part, has subsided but I still occasionally have that feeling. I get winded very easily walking the dogs and we can call it Long COVID, but I manage to get a nap in more frequently than not.