North to Alaska

The story really begins when Lee and Kathleen Ritzman (Kristina's in-laws) decided to take all their kids and attendant spouses on an Alaskan Cruise. I have always wanted to go on such a cruise, as I spent some years of my childhood in Alaska, so Garth eventually agreed, and we signed up.

It was really an Adventure, in the true sense of the word. We plunged into a world we were unfamiliar with, had fun and learned a lot about Cruising.

I bought tickets on Amtrak from Portland to Seattle, from where the cruise as leaving on Sunday, June 15, 2008. Unfortunately, the Amtrak train was delayed south of us in Salem that day due to mechanical trouble, so Amtrak provided us a bus to Seattle. In addition, the driver kindly took us directly to the port of Seattle where our ship was docked. That saved us a cab ride. We met several other people who were sailing on our ship as we rode the bus north. One group was a lady who was taking her son, father and mother-in-law on the cruise with her.

When we got to the dock, we stood in a long line with thousands of other people to turn our luggage in, have ourselves photographed, have our passports scanned and receive out room key-card. Garth was almost stopped for carrying the pocket knife he received for Father's Day, but we squeaked though. Sort of like airport security, only more people and more checkpoints. Also, every time we got on the ship or passed into any of the many restaurants, a crew member was there with a spray bottle to spray our hands. There have been several recent cruise which had to return to port due to outbreak of viral illness. I guess it stands to reason, as you have a floating city of 3000 guests and 1500 employees, all living together for a week. Could be an epidemiologist's nightmare.

We had selected an inside stateroom. It was small, but very neat and attractive. Where Kristina and James had a window looking out to the waves, we had a mirror. Garth said he was fine with no window...all that water would have made him seasick. Our room steward introduced himself as Luke, a middle aged Phillipino man who took good care of us. I managed to prevail upon Garth to not greet him in a low, Vadar-like voice, "Luke, I am you stewardship".

There were lots of activities to do on the ship, but many of them were things we didn't really have interest in...drinking, gambling, buying expensive paintings or jewelry. I did walk on the walking deck every day. Two and three-quarters trips around the deck was a mile and I walked one to two miles a day. Unbelievable scenery and always cool. They also had a library, a quiet room with several comfortable armchairs to sit in. It had big windows and we both spent many enjoyable hours there. I brought 6 books and read 3 of them.

One interesting incident. As I was reading in the Library one day, the lady we had met on the bus who was traveling with her son, mother-in-law, etc, found me and asked if I knew where she could buy a walker for her mother-in-law. The older lady had fallen in a restaurant the first day and caused someone to fall also, precipitating a shipwide alert. We went down to the main desk, found a phonebook for Juneau and I was able to give her the number of a couple of Medical Equipment stores. Later she told me she had gotten a walker but the mother-in-law refused to use it. :-)

There were two types of restaurants: free and cover charge. There were four free restaurants: one that was a huge buffet, one sort of semi-formal, one really formal and one outdoor buffet. Generally, one or more were open at any time, so you could always eat somewhere. Excellent food, and the formal dining room was especially nice the evening we were seated in the very rear, as we were by the huge rear windows looking out on the wake of the ship and the sunset.

We stopped in four ports on this cruise. Juneau was nice because we paid for a bus tour of the town and the Mendenhall Glacier. The driver/tour guide was a Native American and told us many interesting (and probably true) facts about Juneau and Native American ways. He told us about the custom of the Ravens and the Eagles. All native children are born to one designation or the other, depending on their mother's designation. Custom demands that one marry a person of the opposite designation, and your children are the designation of the mother. This keeps the gene pool mixed. It was stricly enforced by the chiefs until very recent times.

In Skagway, we took a smaller boat down the fjord to Haines. One of the attractions for me in Alaska was that a dear patient of mine had been a member of the founding family of Haines. Her son and daughter-in-law are also friends of mine, so I was anxious to see the town she loved so much. We were given a personal tour of the museum she founded and spent a lovely, peaceful day wandering the little town and (Garth) napping in the library. :-) One thing we enjoyed was visiting a man who lives in a house on the old Army post. He is a native and is carving a huge totem pole on his porch.

We also stopped at Kechican, where we rode the tram to the hotel that overlooks the town, and Victoria, B.C., where we spent the afternoon with James and Kristina on the waterfront and seeing the hotel.

We arrived back in Seattle on Sunday June 22, 2008. We were very happy to be disembarking and coming home. We travelled with James and Kristina. Unfortunately, James had bilateral corneal abrasions from his contacts, and was in considerable pain for the trip. He mainly slept. Garth had an assignment from his boss to learn a new thing for his work, so he spent several hours with his computer, studying, so Kristina and I bought some sandwiches before we got on the train to Portland. Then we all took a snooze as the train sped south. Then, onto the Max, back to the station near our house, where we found our car waiting for us.

And THAT was because we had the blessing of a wonderful house-sitter, Anthony Ndirangu. He is also our housekeeper, and agreed to stay at our house, take care of Calvin and also (oh, joy!) clean our house while we were away. What a lovely homecoming! We were so glad to be home, no longer surrounded by crowds of people, but surrounded by the trees and quiet of our own bit of heaven.