On Wednesday, July 18, we slept in, then made our way over
to Top Pot Donuts – a highly-rated local chain – and approved of their
offerings. We then drove downtown to Pike Place Market and wandered through the
maze of shops. For lunch, we had excellent soups from Pike Place Chowder (I got
a sampler of 4 different chowders). We then stumbled across Daily Dozen Donuts,
which serves baby donuts scooped hot from the fryer and dropped into a paper
bag with a bunch of sugar and cinnamon. Yum! Later that afternoon, we met up with Cindy, one of our
friends from when we lived in Woodside Park MD back in the 1990s. Her two kids are the same ages as
Chelsea and Spencer, and Cindy and Jennifer were in a babysitting co-op. Cindy
and her husband Doug moved to Seattle about seven years ago to work at a
university there. She drove us around the neighborhood where they live and
work. Doug met us for dinner at Ray’s Boathouse, on the waterfront north of the
inlet to the Ballard Locks and Lake Union. It was nice to reunite with old
friends.
Thursday morning, Jennifer and I ate a more traditional
breakfast at a nearby café, then went to the Olympic Sculpture Park, part of
the Seattle Art Museum. I provided a commentary on each piece of modern art:
“This symbolizes man’s conflict with nature, and his constant struggle to
redefine himself in the face of oppression.” It was amazing how variations of
that commentary worked for each piece. I’m not a fan of modern art. I then
dropped Jennifer off at SAM’s main building, and drove down to SeaTac to pick
up Bill, Bernice, Cynthia, and Walter, our good friends who were joining us for
the cruise. I read on my iPad while waiting for them to arrive and collect
their baggage. I had downloaded a bunch of books using Fairfax County Library’s
on-line app: most of Mary Doria Russell’s books (The Sparrow, Children of God,
A Thread of Grace, and Doc); Jon Krakauer’s Under The Banner Of Heaven; Leo
Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, The Maze Runner by James Dashner, A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis, and two
of Ken Follett’s older books (On Wings of
Eagles, and Pillars of the Earth (which I’d read twice already). Anyway,
I eventually picked up our friends, then collected Jennifer on our way back up
to the hotel. I had arranged for a two bedroom suite with a queen hide-a-bed
(again using points), so we all piled into our room, dropped our bags, then
returned to Pike Place Market. They were eager to try the chowder, and Jennifer
and I were happy to sample other varieties. All were good. We then drove up to
Fremont – a funky liberal offbeat part of Seattle – and drove by the Fremont
Troll (a large sculpture of a troll head crushing a VW bug, located underneath
a bridge), and a genuine statue of Vladimir Lenin, salvaged from a Chekoslovakian
junkyard in the early 1990s. Why anyone would want to commemorate someone who
had more blood on his hands than Adolf Hitler is beyond me. At least Lenin’s hands
were painted red. For dinner, we picked up remarkably good sandwiches from
Paseo’s and went to Gasworks Park at the north end of Lake Union, where we
watched the sun set at 10 pm.
Friday, June 20, Bill and Walter got up early for a walk,
and came back with a dozen Top Pot donuts. Bless their hearts. We then walked to the Chihuly Exhibit at
the Seattle Center. Dale Chihuly is an innovative artist who has created a new
art form with huge hand-blown glass pieces – chandeliers more than 20 feet
tall; floor sculptures looking like something from a Dr. Seuss book, entire
gardens mixing glass, plants, water, and light; huge bowls with amazing
colorations; and much more. Amazing stuff. We then spent some time in the
visitor’s center for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and came away
impressed at all of the innovative and amazing things that it is doing to
attack some of the most pressing and intractable issues in the world. After an
afternoon nap at the hotel, we decided to stop by Kerry Park, featuring great
views of downtown and Mt. Ranier. While driving up the steep hill of Queen Anne
Avenue, we stopped behind an Audi A4 at a light. When the light turned green,
the Audi lurched forward, stalled, and promptly rolled backwards and hit the
minivan with a solid thunk. The driver – a kid who looked like he was 14 – got
out and was close to tears. I told him to pull off the road and give me his
license and insurance card. It turned out he was 16, had had a learner’s permit
for 3 weeks, was driving his friend’s dad’s car, and it was his first time
driving a manual transmission. The friend was in the back, saying how his dad
was going to kill him. When we couldn’t find the insurance info, he had to call
his dad to ask where the insurance card was. I could hear his dad’s displeasure
from outside the car. I took pictures of the driver’s license, the insurance
card, and of both vehicles. Fortunately for me, the damage to the minivan was
limited to a bent license plate and a mark along the bumper. I told the kids that I wouldn’t file a
claim unless the car rental company had a problem with the car. I also urged
him to learn how to use the emergency brake when starting on a hill, until he
mastered the right heel-brake/toe-gas method of starting on a slope. After that
excitement, we made our way to Kerry Park, where Bill dropped his new
binoculars and knocked the optics out of whack. We avoided further accidents
when having dinner at 5 Star Seafood, home of all you can eat fish & chips
on Friday. And it was actually very good.
Saturday was departure day for the cruise. We were nervous
about getting to the dock, because we learned the night before that the Rock
& Roll Marathon would be closing most of the streets between our hotel and
the cruise dock. We had a light breakfast of fruit and yogurt, then left at 10
am for a three mile drive that we feared would take hours. As it turned out, it
took only 15 minutes to drop off everyone else and our bags at the dock. Bill
wanted to get new binoculars at the REI mother store, and since we had enough
time, off we went. An hour later, we dropped off the rental at Dollar – no
problem with the front bumper – and the agent drove us down to the dock. We
were all aboard by noon. A couple of weeks ago, NCL had upgraded all of us from
oceanview cabins on the 5th deck to balcony cabins on the 9th
deck (for B&B, and C&W), and the 10th deck for Jennifer and
me. Nice! Our cabin was on the starboard (right) side, exactly one level below
where our room was during our European cruise, just aft of the rear elevator
and stair stack. The others new rooms were near the forward stack on the port
side. Bernice and Cynthia made a beeline for the spa, where they signed us all
up for the unlimited spa access package (limited to the first 50 people).
Jennifer and I had extolled the relaxing virtues of NCL’s spa during our prior
cruises in Europe and the Caribbean, and our friends wanted to share the
experience. The spa quickly became our hangout for the cruise. We all loved the
sauna, steam room, Jacuzzi, and especially the heated tile lounge chairs with a
view of the entire front of the ship from the 12th deck. Bernice dubbed it the “loafateria” as
our prior vacations together have been dominated by loafing and eating. The
Garden Café buffet was dubbed the “gluttonarium,” and we did our best to honor
the name. What more could you ask for in a cruise?
Sunday, June 22, was a sea day. I woke up before Jennifer,
went up to the café for an omelet and some fruit, then made my way to the spa.
Jennifer found me a couple of hours later, and said she was feeling a bit
queasy. We were sailing around the western side of Vancouver Island and the sea
had a moderate swell of 6-8 foot waves, so there was some rocking of the ship.
While Jennifer was on her way back to the room for some medicine, she was
overcome with nausea. She grabbed a towel from a nearby cart and emptied her
breakfast into it. A couple of minutes later, she felt much better, although
the nearby steward seemed horrified. She took some Dramamine, then came back to
the spa. After making sure she was ok (she laid down on the heated stone
recliner and immediately went to sleep), I went to the medical office and got a
different kind of anti-nausea pills, as well as some crackers. Fortunately,
that was her only bout; as soon as we rounded Vancouver Island and entered the
Inside Passage, the waters were calmer. The rest of the day was spent loafing,
eating, loafing, and eating some more.
Monday morning we arrived in Ketchikan at about 7am. It was
drizzling on and off most of the day. Bill and Walter got it into their minds
to hike the Deer Mountain Trail, a 4-5 hour hike with a vertical rise of about
3000 feet. The rest of us wished them luck (“Have fun storming the castle!” we said
in our worst Billy Crystal/Max the Healer voices). Cynthia signed up to go sea
kayaking. Bernice wanted to stay on board, sleep in, and enjoy the spa.
Jennifer wanted to see totem poles, bald eagles, and Native American stuff. We
got off the ship a bit before 8am, walked to the visitor’s center to ask about
car rentals, and were directed to a board with two options: Bob’s car rental,
and Carl’s cars. Carl didn’t answer his phone, but Bob did, and drove down to
pick us up and drive back to his house, where he kept a few cars that he rented
out to tourists like us. Along the way we learned that he had done everything a
person could do in Alaska: logging, fishing, pipeline building, contracting,
and more. He ran the car rental business on the side. He shoved a barely
legible form at us (that’s when I saw a day’s rental was $85, but oh well), and
we got a Chevy HHR with a damaged fender.
We drove north to Totem Bight State Park, which had more
than a dozen beautiful totem poles and a long house set against the ocean. We
learned how totem poles were mostly carved between 1810 and 1860, as the native
tribes experienced an explosion of wealth trading with Europeans. By 1900, most
Native Americans had abandoned their traditional villages and relocated to newly
established towns, which offered schools, health care, reliable jobs, and
better housing. The totem poles and villages were largely abandoned and the
craft slowly forgotten. In the 1930s, the Civilian Conservation Corps started
collecting the abandoned totem poles and hired the Native elders to teach the
craft to the younger generations. Many of the poles in Totem Bight were the
result of the CCC’s work.
We then drove over to Ward Lake, a small glacial lake
surrounded by stunning vistas. We parked in a campground and as we walked
around a bit, Jennifer said, “I could spend a few weeks here.” I silently
added, “in a 40 foot class C RV with 3 tip outs, satellite TV and internet.” As
we walked around the lake, who should we meet but Bob the rental car guy: He
had rented a full size van to a bunch of Chinese tourists, and none of them
were comfortable driving such a large vehicle, so for an extra $50, he agreed
to be their driver. Bob is the type of guy who could talk your ears off. We
gradually eased away as he was winding up for another tale, explaining how
there was so much to see and so little time. We escaped to our (his?) car, and
drove south through Ketchikan, picking up Bernice along the way.
Our next destination was the Saxman Native American Center.
This was a more commercial version of Totem Bight State Park, with lots of
brightly painted totem poles, a carving center, and a presentation by members
of the Tlingit tribe. Not as authentic as the State Park. We then backtracked
into Ketchikan, and toured the Totem Heritage Museum, which featured a large
number of totem poles and related historical artifacts set in an indoor
location. It was an informative visit. By then, I was ready to return to the
ship, so I took the girls into town where they proceeded to warm up the credit
cards, while I returned the car (which consisted of leaving it by the dock with
the keys under the floor mat), went on board, got some lunch, and went to the
spa. Later, we connected with Walter and Bill, who said that the sole of Bill’s
30 year old hiking boot fell off halfway up the trail, so they were unable to
make the summit. They recuperated in the spa. Cynthia returned from her
kayaking trip also ready for the spa, so that’s what we all did.
Tuesday, June 24, we arrived in Juneau at 7am. Bill,
Bernice, Jennifer, and I had booked a helicopter flight to the Mendenhall
Glacier, with the bus leaving the dock at 7:15am. The driver was a bright-eyed
BYU student who was in Juneau for the summer. We later learned that Juneau’s
summer tourism industry recruited heavily from BYU and other schools with large
Mormon populations, and there were nearly 150 Mormon students with summer jobs
in Juneau. He took us to the heliport where other BYU students outfitted us in
studded galoshes and showed us the safety video. The four of us trundled to the
helicopter, buckled in, and swooped off up, over, and around the nearby
glacier. After circling a couple of times, we landed on the glacier, where we
were met by a guide who showed us around the glacier. We were the only group on
the ice at the time, and we were free to wander around, exploring potholes,
crevasses, fissures, rock formations, and streams of melted glacier. The guide
explained how the pressure of glacier formation compacted snow by a factor of 5
(i.e., 100 feet of snow is compacted into 20 feet of ice), which was so dense
that only the shortest wavelength of light could emerge, thus accounting for
the bright blue colors. He added that the potholes were formed by rocks smaller
than the size of a basketball, which heated in the sun and melted through the
ice. Larger rocks, by contrast, cast such a shadow that the ice under them
melted at a rate slower than the surrounding ice, causing ice pedestals topped
by rocks. We could hear the rushing of water through and under the glacier as
it slowly melted. It was a really neat experience. As our helicopter swooped
back in to disgorge another load of tourists and pick us up, we saw three more
helicopters landing at the same time, unloading a bunch more people. We were
glad we were on the early shift, and left before it became too crowded.
Upon our return, we were met by our old friends, Beth and
Grey, who have senior positions with the U.S. Forest Service and Alaska
Department of Fish and Game. They gave all 6 of us a private tour of Juneau and
its surrounding area. They pointed out a number of bald eagles – apparently the
best place to view them is near the landfill – then drove on to the Mendenhall
Glacier National Park and walked to Nugget Falls, a torrential cascade near the
glacier. Beth explained how the glacier was dramatically melting, and that the
pace was increasing. We admired the icebergs in Mendenhall Lake, and wondered
about global warming. They then drove us around Mendenhall Loop Road to Auk
Lake, where we walked along the water to a swim platform where hardy Juneauans
went for a dip in the 59 degree waters. They then drove us up Gold Creek,
through a beautiful canyon, to an area silly with hiking paths. The summer sun
rose at 3:40am, and set at about 10pm, and the locals were intent on squeezing
out every minute on outdoor activities, perhaps to compensate for the 6 hours
of daylight during the long, dark winters. We appreciated our friends’
hospitality and their tour of the Alaskan capital.
We returned to the ship at 1:10 pm, just in time for the
1:30 pm departure. Our goal was the Tracy Arm glacier, about 60 miles away by
water. We entered the Tracy Arm fjord at about 4pm, and the ship slowed to
about 10 knots as we sat on our balcony and sailed by an increasing number of
icebergs and scenery seemingly out of The
Lord of the Rings. Mountains surged out of the water and climbed almost
straight up for thousands of feet. Cascades of water streaming from the
mountain tops obscured by clouds plunged into the ocean. We could trace some of
the paths for three or four thousand feet. Each of those waterfalls would have
been a major tourist attraction in the lower 48. Soon, they became so common
that we focused only on the largest of the plumes. We saw seals swimming along
side the ship. Occasionally small icebergs would grind past the hull. As we approached the entrance to the
Sawyer Arm and its glacier, our ship (larger than a WWII aircraft carrier)
sailed by a smaller cruise ship of about 350 feet. The fjord was so narrow that
we were less than 100 feet from the cliff on one side, and 100 feet from the
other ship on the other. The captain slowed as we approached the Tracy Arm
glacier, a massive icefall with a bright blue base. The last mile was jammed
with ice floes, and the captain decided that he did not want to be like the
Titanic. We slowly turned 180 degrees, pushing ice away as the ship pivoted,
and retreated back to the Pacific. We enjoyed the view of the other side of the
fjord from our balcony, occasionally retreating to our room to warm our
fingers. Growing up in the Rocky Mountains, I thought I knew mountains. But the
dramatic force of these Alaskan fjords were breathtaking. I was reminded of the
Norwegian fjords Jennifer and I saw in 1985, when we spent the summer
backpacking across Europe, from the Arctic Circle to Greece. The Tracy Arm was
probably the most beautiful part of our trip.
Wednesday morning we awoke in Skagway, the starting point
for the 1898 Yukon Gold Rush. We hopped off the ship and boarded the narrow
gauge train waiting at the dock. We rode the White Pass and Yukon Railroad up
to the White Pass summit and the border with Canada, listening to the narration
by – you guessed it – a BYU student who was spending his third summer as an
Alaskan tour guide. We learned how the railroad was hacked out of the sides of
mountains in 16 months, and was finished just as the gold rush was ending. It
nevertheless became a key transit route between Canada and the Pacific Ocean.
(Skagway is the only one of the three Alaskan ports that we visited that was
actually connected by road or rail to the rest of the world.) At the top of the
pass, we flipped our seatbacks over so we could face forward on the train ride
back down the mountains.
Upon our return to the dock, I had little desire to walk
through the small town and look at the shops of schlockunjunken. Jennifer gave me a stern look, and I realized that
whatever good husband points I had earned by driving her all around Ketchikan
held no credit in Skagway. I ambled along while the others went back and forth
on where to eat. Finally, Cynthia announced that she was going back to the
ship, and I leapt at the chance to see that she got there safely. The two of us
went back to the gluttatorium for lunch, then to our respective cabins for
naps. Jennifer ended up having lunch at a pub with the others, then went off on
her private shopping trip, returning with delight at her finds. I especially
appreciated the bag of caramel corn. Life is good when everyone is happy.
Thursday was a sea day, marked by sleeping in, a leisurely
breakfast, loafing in the spa, emerging for more food, then either returning to
the spa for more loafing or naps in our cabins. We all met for dinner in one of
the dining rooms, enjoying each other’s company and conversation. Cruising with friends is fun.
Friday we arrived in Victoria, B.C., at about 1:30pm.
Jennifer, Walter, Bill and Bernice wanted to go to Butchart Gardens, a
beautiful collection of outdoor gardens about 15 miles north of town. Cynthia
and I had little interest in looking at flowers, so we took a cab into town
with the intention of touring the Royal BC Museum. After seeing what it
offered, and being spoiled by the Smithsonian Museums in DC, we decided to
pass. We instead walked across the street to the British Columbia Legislative
Building, where we were the only Americans on the tour. Our delightful guide
was a student from Nova Scotia with the unlikely name of Attica. Cynthia and I
looked at each other and smiled; we both were consumed with curiosity of why that name? I thought of the Attic
peninsula in Greece, the cradle of democracy. Cynthia thought of Attica State
Prison in NY and the famous riot in 1971. I asked Attica why her parents chose
the name, and she blithely responded that her parents just really liked the
sound of it, and had no other reason. She continued the tour, explaining about
the Canadian provincial system of government and the Confederation that brought
Canada together. Apparently, Victoria and BC were being actively courted by the
US; after the US purchased Alaska from Russia in 1867, Canada faced the real
prospect of losing its entire west coast to the US. The new Confederation
agreed to assume the collective debt of Victoria and BC, plus build a massive
new shipyard in Victoria. As residents of the US Capital, such wheeling and
dealing sounded perfectly rational.
We walked across the street and through the Empress Hotel, a
massive neo-chateau structure built in the early 20th Century.
People pay $60 each to attend high tea, which appeared to me to be a reminder
of why the British were kicked out of the US. People were actually extending their pinkies to slurp their
dregs. Civilization is overrated.
We ambled past a guy dressed as Darth Vader enthusiastically
playing a violin, while his light saber swung by his side. Don’t ask why, I thought. We found our
way to the Canadian Maritime Museum, where we had planned to spend only about
45 minutes, but it quickly swallowed three hours. We both were fascinated by
the artifacts and history of seafaring in Canada, and especially enjoyed the
goofier bits. For example, we learned that the development of the torpedo in
the late 1800s was “partially successful,” marred only by steering problems,
lack of range, and premature detonation. Other than that, it worked fine. We
also learned that the distribution of rum to British sailors was the primary
cause of death on board ship, usually because drunken sailors slammed their
heads into bulkheads, causing traumatic brain injury. We admired a “bone ship”
built by a French prisoner held for years on “prison hulks” on the River Thames
during the Napoleonic Wars: a minutely detailed ship more than a foot long,
built entirely of animal bone scavenged and carved over a period of two years.
We also learned of the “Canadian Titanic”: the sinking of The Pride of Ireland in 1914, when it was rammed in the middle of
the night by a Norwegian collier in the St. Lawrence River and sank in 14
minutes, killing more than 1,000 people. And we also learned that the path that
we had just taken on our cruise had seen a number of notable wrecks over the
past 100 years, some of which had hundreds of casualties. We returned to our
ship a little more grateful for modern seafaring technology.
Saturday, June 28, we awoke back in Seattle. We disembarked
at the last call at 9:30am, having enjoyed our cruise. It was our third NCL
cruise in less than a year. The food was the best of the three, as was the
company. I can’t wait to do it again. We still had a few more days together
with our friends, however: Jennifer and I would fly to Utah on Monday evening;
Cynthia and Walter would return to DC on Tuesday, and Bill and Bernice were
staying through the rest of the week. We were met at the dock by Bill and
Bernice’s son, Levi, who took his parents to pick up a rental car. Soon Bill
came back at the wheel of a Chevy Suburban, which was nearly as large as the
cruise ship. It easily swallowed all of our luggage, and the six of us piled
aboard. We dropped our bags off at the Mozart Guest House, a bed and breakfast
near Volunteer Park, then spent the day with Levi. We walked through the nearby
Olmstead-designed park, named for the World War I volunteers. Walter was jonesing
for pizza, so we ambled about a mile to a reputedly good joint, and it indeed
fit the bill. Since we were still on vacation, we decided that an afternoon nap
was in order. For dinner, we joined Levi and two of his friends at the Oyster
House, where I declined to suck those viscous lumps of goo.
Sunday we awoke late, enjoyed a full breakfast courtesy of
the inn owner, then trooped over to Bellevue for the annual Strawberry
Festival. It was more like a local fair, with an antique car show, tons of
different types of food (including a few with strawberries), local vendors,
community groups, and kids’ activities. After we gazed and grazed, we headed
out to Snoqualmie Falls, a 270 foot waterfall about 30 miles west of Seattle.
For dinner, we went to 5 Star Pies for their savory and sweet pies.
Monday, June 30, was our last day in Seattle. Our flight was
not until the afternoon, so we
spent the last day visiting some other sights. We went to the Duwamish
Tribe’s Longhouse but contrary to
the website, it was closed. We also stopped to admire the unusual architecture
of the downtown Seattle public library. For lunch, we braved the crowds by Pike
Place Market to get Russian baked treats from Piroshky Piroshky, then ate them on
the grass at Victor Steinbrueck Park. It was another warm sunny day,
like all of our days there. We said our goodbyes, then Bill dropped us off at
SeaTac. Jennifer and I looked at each other with the same thought: I can’t
believe we’re now going to spend 10 days in Utah.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDelete