I wrote a bit about our day with Erin on my last post, but she’s important enough to deserve an entire posting herself. Erin looks great - very happy and confident. She knows her way around Juneau quite well, and she spends a lot of time walking places (with a city of 30,000, it’s easy to walk most places or hop on the bus)
After spending the morning at Glacier Gardens with her, appreciating the upside-down tree planters, eagles, and the views of the neighboring islands and mountains, we went to lunch at Hangar on the Wharf, which is now a restaurant but was previously where Alaska Airlines was founded (before they grew and monopolized Alaska travel). The fish was straight from the sea outside our window, and I learned that if you deep fry halibut, it’s not that bad! (of course, you can deep fry almost anything, and it’s not that bad - except deep fried twinkies - those do not taste good).
We had our first sprinkles of the trip after lunch, but it never rained particularly hard. We wandered around town, and we noticed many signs in store windows promoting that they were Alaska/locally owned. More about that in a future post. While many of the stores had the same tourist chotchkies as Ketchikan, there were many more unique artisan stores with interesting and cool local products. We mostly resisted purchasing anything, since we knew we’d be back in a few weeks and would avoid carrying our purchases around Alaska. Dad decided he wanted a totem pole to go along with the giraffe he bought in South Africa, but the $6,000 price tag scared him off.
We stopped in for some Alaska Brewery Ale (brewed right down the street in Juneau) at a local bar that had a live blue grass singer, and we walked out to him singing “Folsom Prison Blues.” Erin headed off to her softball game, and we headed back to the Millennium. Home sweet home.
Monday, June 30, 2008
Cruising in Alaska!
As predicted, we have had little internet access on the ship. Satellite internet access is $0.65/minute, and notoriously slow. So I'm in a library in Juneau, where Erin has shown me where I can get free internet access. I'll have to post pictures retroactively, once we hit our next B&B with wireless or internet access.
Our last day in Vancouver was bright and sunny. A perfect sail away day. We had a spot of trouble getting to our ship (it wasn't parked with the other cruise ships, which we knew, but getting into the shipping docks was another matter altogether. Couple that with driving a huge Lincoln Town Car, and much stress/laughter ensued).
We finally got aboard in plenty of time, and watched the Millennium sail away from Vancouver. Spent that night cruising in Canadian waters, and awoke the next day to find our ship embedded in fog but still in Canadian waters. The sun finally cracked through the clouds about mid-afternoon, leading to a perfect sunset that night.
A note about waves/motion sickness/cruising. One can DEFINITELY feel the boat moving in the waves, when we are not cruising in Inner Passage channels. Poor Beth didn't feel very well yesterday until we got back into the narrows and the waves stopped. I very happily and luckily put on an anti-nausea patch and have avoided any seasickness. These patches rock.
Yesterday, we docked in Ketchikan and got to take advantage of the first sun they had seen in 3 weeks (and barely avoided a big rain storm that had rolled through the area the previous day). The town itself is not much to write home about. Very geared towards tourists, and all of the shops sell the same crap to the 10,000 tourists who dock there daily.
Zip lining, however, is always worth writing home about. Very similar to our zipping experience in South Africa a few years ago, though several of these individual lines were much longer than those we did in Safrica. I managed to get myself completely turned around on the last zip, and then my glove got stuck in between the cable and zip contraption, so I ground to a halt about 2/3 of the way across and had to pull myself in. Whew! I figured that work out entitled me to eat a lot of nachos back on the boat. Which I happily did.
Mom and Dad took a small float plane over the Misty Fjords, and they both raved about it. Even Mom, who doesn't love small planes, said it was much more beautiful and stunning than scary, and even landing on the water wasn't that scary. We may try a float plane to the Juneau icefields when we come back.
Today, we're visiting ERIN!! Yay! She is bubbling with excitement that we're here to visit her, and we've enjoyed our day so far, visiting Glacier Gardens, the Alaska State Museum, and now off to explore Juneau a bit. We're saving the big Mendenhall Glacier for our return in a week and a half, when we'll have a car.
So far, this trip has been great. The scenary from the boat is gorgeous, even with the fog, and we've seen a few whales while we were eating dinner and several bald eagles nesting in the trees (and a few flying around while zipping, but no bears). They feed you a LOT on the boat, so now I understand why people gain weight while cruising. We're trying to take the stairs everywhere so we can avoid that fate but still enjoy the food.
Tomorrow, off to Skagway where Beth and I will don more helmets and protective gear and cruise down the mountain on our bikes. We'll explore the town a bit (guessing more cheesy tourist shops), and then do a hike and float in the mountains.
Our last day in Vancouver was bright and sunny. A perfect sail away day. We had a spot of trouble getting to our ship (it wasn't parked with the other cruise ships, which we knew, but getting into the shipping docks was another matter altogether. Couple that with driving a huge Lincoln Town Car, and much stress/laughter ensued).
We finally got aboard in plenty of time, and watched the Millennium sail away from Vancouver. Spent that night cruising in Canadian waters, and awoke the next day to find our ship embedded in fog but still in Canadian waters. The sun finally cracked through the clouds about mid-afternoon, leading to a perfect sunset that night.
A note about waves/motion sickness/cruising. One can DEFINITELY feel the boat moving in the waves, when we are not cruising in Inner Passage channels. Poor Beth didn't feel very well yesterday until we got back into the narrows and the waves stopped. I very happily and luckily put on an anti-nausea patch and have avoided any seasickness. These patches rock.
Yesterday, we docked in Ketchikan and got to take advantage of the first sun they had seen in 3 weeks (and barely avoided a big rain storm that had rolled through the area the previous day). The town itself is not much to write home about. Very geared towards tourists, and all of the shops sell the same crap to the 10,000 tourists who dock there daily.
Zip lining, however, is always worth writing home about. Very similar to our zipping experience in South Africa a few years ago, though several of these individual lines were much longer than those we did in Safrica. I managed to get myself completely turned around on the last zip, and then my glove got stuck in between the cable and zip contraption, so I ground to a halt about 2/3 of the way across and had to pull myself in. Whew! I figured that work out entitled me to eat a lot of nachos back on the boat. Which I happily did.
Mom and Dad took a small float plane over the Misty Fjords, and they both raved about it. Even Mom, who doesn't love small planes, said it was much more beautiful and stunning than scary, and even landing on the water wasn't that scary. We may try a float plane to the Juneau icefields when we come back.
Today, we're visiting ERIN!! Yay! She is bubbling with excitement that we're here to visit her, and we've enjoyed our day so far, visiting Glacier Gardens, the Alaska State Museum, and now off to explore Juneau a bit. We're saving the big Mendenhall Glacier for our return in a week and a half, when we'll have a car.
So far, this trip has been great. The scenary from the boat is gorgeous, even with the fog, and we've seen a few whales while we were eating dinner and several bald eagles nesting in the trees (and a few flying around while zipping, but no bears). They feed you a LOT on the boat, so now I understand why people gain weight while cruising. We're trying to take the stairs everywhere so we can avoid that fate but still enjoy the food.
Tomorrow, off to Skagway where Beth and I will don more helmets and protective gear and cruise down the mountain on our bikes. We'll explore the town a bit (guessing more cheesy tourist shops), and then do a hike and float in the mountains.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Baby Davey
Here's a special hello to the newest baby panda of the bunch. We drove through Davie Village today, which Baby Davie (Davey) will have to come visit when he's a bit older than a month.
Vancouver Fun
I'm taking advantage of free internet/wireless when I can, so excuse the frequent early postings (I know, I know - you want Alaska stories - they're coming soon, I swear!).
Jorge finished up with his conference duties for the day, and we finished off the evening at West, one of the top restaurants in Vancouver. Delicious!
Vancouver's newspaper today forecasted "a bit of gray" but mostly sunny skies. Instead, we had a chilly, overcast and occasionally rainy day. Just getting used to Alaska weather, I guess.
Despite the poor weather, we had a lovely day in Vancouver. Beautiful city - surrounded by mountains and the ocean.
Highlights included meeting Malini at Granville Island for lunch. A unique market area, without a single chain store or restaurant. This area was a former industrial shipping/fishing area that the city reclaimed and made into an arts community. The public market is very reminiscent of Reading Market in Philly, and the food we tried was delicious. If the weather were nicer, we would have enjoyed the free jazz concert outside. Instead, we visited all of the stores with their Vancouver 2010 Olympics officially-licensed merchandise. They're getting excited for their turn at the Olympics in a few years, which reminds me of Chicago's hunt for the 2016 Olympics.
Highlights included meeting Malini at Granville Island for lunch. A unique market area, without a single chain store or restaurant. This area was a former industrial shipping/fishing area that the city reclaimed and made into an arts community. The public market is very reminiscent of Reading Market in Philly, and the food we tried was delicious. If the weather were nicer, we would have enjoyed the free jazz concert outside. Instead, we visited all of the stores with their Vancouver 2010 Olympics officially-licensed merchandise. They're getting excited for their turn at the Olympics in a few years, which reminds me of Chicago's hunt for the 2016 Olympics.
We then headed over to the VanDusen Botanical Gardens, which were gorgeous despite the gray skies. The dogwood trees were in full bloom, and gave Beth and I the opportunity to quote "American President" - "Sir, the dogwood is a tree AND a flower."
It also provided us with the opportunity to take many Bollywood-inspired pictures.
Jorge finished up with his conference duties for the day, and we finished off the evening at West, one of the top restaurants in Vancouver. Delicious!
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Hi Brian (Mike, this one is for you)
Here's a picture of Brian, as seen from 35,000 feet (he's the speck in the mountains down below - can't you see him??). Hope your ride is going well, as you approach the Pacific Northwest! Love those mountains!
And we're off! (No, really)
Twelve hours and two planes later, we have finally arrived in Vancouver. We left our house at 7:30am and arrived at Ohare in plenty of time to check in for our quasi-International flight. We boarded our flight for our on-time departure, and the rainy skies cleared up to become bright blue skies. I thought that God was smiling on us, as payback for our last horrible weather flight.
And then we sat. And sat. And sat some more. The pilot came down the aisle periodically to let us know they were working on some mechnical issues and to sit tight. Finally, about 1.5 hours after we were supposed to take off, we get cleared to leave Chicago. Hooray! We made it about 25 feet from our gate when our pilot came back on to announce that the plane was still broken, and that we'd be taxiing back to the gate to get a new plane. Another 2 hours later, we were finally aboard a new plane, and ready to go. Of course, the skies had clouded back over and rain was steadily falling.
The delay, while annoying to us, was devastating to many people on our plane who were rushing to make their cruises that departed that same day. One couple who was sitting in front of us on the plane was celebrating their 58th wedding anniversary with their first cruise. They were visibly upset that they weren't going to make it, and almost didn't board our 2nd plane to Vancouver. They figured that point they had missed their ship and should just fly back to Tulsa where they'd started their journey. Luckily United came through for all of the cruise passengers who were suffering from the 4.5 hour delay, and they were planning to fly this cute couple as well as others on their same cruise to Juneau to catch up on their first port of call. Others were given priority departure from the plane in Vancouver and rushed to catch their ship in time for their later departure. All seems well in cruise world. Whew!
Having never been on a cruise before, I wasn't aware that those going on a cruise are so easy to spot, but after spending much time in the waiting area with my fellow Vancouver passengers, I can tell you that cruise passengers are easily identifiable. I'm a little scared that I'll be morphing into one of them in the next few days.
A day and a half to explore Vancouver now. Meeting up with Malini for lunch and Malini and Jorge for dinner tonight. Yay! The skies are cloudy but sun is predicted for later. I want to take advantage of as much sun as I can, as we've now entered the rainy, cloudy part of Canada/the US.
(Mike, I haven't figured out to how to post pics later - I'll try to edit this post later with your requested picture, if it turned out well)
And then we sat. And sat. And sat some more. The pilot came down the aisle periodically to let us know they were working on some mechnical issues and to sit tight. Finally, about 1.5 hours after we were supposed to take off, we get cleared to leave Chicago. Hooray! We made it about 25 feet from our gate when our pilot came back on to announce that the plane was still broken, and that we'd be taxiing back to the gate to get a new plane. Another 2 hours later, we were finally aboard a new plane, and ready to go. Of course, the skies had clouded back over and rain was steadily falling.
The delay, while annoying to us, was devastating to many people on our plane who were rushing to make their cruises that departed that same day. One couple who was sitting in front of us on the plane was celebrating their 58th wedding anniversary with their first cruise. They were visibly upset that they weren't going to make it, and almost didn't board our 2nd plane to Vancouver. They figured that point they had missed their ship and should just fly back to Tulsa where they'd started their journey. Luckily United came through for all of the cruise passengers who were suffering from the 4.5 hour delay, and they were planning to fly this cute couple as well as others on their same cruise to Juneau to catch up on their first port of call. Others were given priority departure from the plane in Vancouver and rushed to catch their ship in time for their later departure. All seems well in cruise world. Whew!
Having never been on a cruise before, I wasn't aware that those going on a cruise are so easy to spot, but after spending much time in the waiting area with my fellow Vancouver passengers, I can tell you that cruise passengers are easily identifiable. I'm a little scared that I'll be morphing into one of them in the next few days.
A day and a half to explore Vancouver now. Meeting up with Malini for lunch and Malini and Jorge for dinner tonight. Yay! The skies are cloudy but sun is predicted for later. I want to take advantage of as much sun as I can, as we've now entered the rainy, cloudy part of Canada/the US.
(Mike, I haven't figured out to how to post pics later - I'll try to edit this post later with your requested picture, if it turned out well)
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
What kind of money do they take in Alaska?
I called to alert my credit card company that I was traveling to Canada and Alaska, so they didn't think someone had stolen my card and gone on their own Alaska adventure on my dime.
One of women I spoke to (who was not one of the many Indian people I spoke to in the call centers but rather had a Southern accent) asked me "what kind of money do they take in Alaska?" I was very nice in my response, but inside my head, I was yelling, "It's part of America, woman! They take American dollars!" Sheesh. Everyone should be required to take a geography class at some point in their life.
One of women I spoke to (who was not one of the many Indian people I spoke to in the call centers but rather had a Southern accent) asked me "what kind of money do they take in Alaska?" I was very nice in my response, but inside my head, I was yelling, "It's part of America, woman! They take American dollars!" Sheesh. Everyone should be required to take a geography class at some point in their life.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Getting Ready for Takeoff!
T minus one week until we leave for our Alaska Adventure. Beth and I are getting ready by booking our excursions (ziplining, float trips, ATV expeditions, etc), and my parents are getting ready by my dad having an appendectomy.
I wasn't going to post quite this early on the blog, but Mike somehow stumbled across it, so I figured I would get it going sooner rather than later.
The postings may be a bit slim for the first week of the trip, as I've heard on-ship internet access is incredibly slow. I'll try to stop in to some libraries when we're on shore to update you on our adventures and reassure everyone that we haven't been eaten by a bear or drowned by a whale.
If anyone has any suggestions for Vancouver or Alaska, please let me know. We've got 3 weeks of sightseeing, hiking, rafting, and float-planing ahead of us, and we want to make the most of it! (A somewhat detailed itinerary can be accessed by clicking on the map - I can't figure out how to make the google map appear on the blog itself (I keep getting errors), but click through the other Alaska map to get to it)
I'm keeping my fingers crossed that my flights will be much less dramatic than my last trip to Colorado (stupid Midwestern storms!).
Brian, you've set a high standard in trip-blogging. I'll have to see if I can even come close to measuring up (for those who haven't seen his Transam Shazam blog detailing his adventures biking across the US, the link is in my favorite links/blogs section).
Mala, I'll see you in Vancouver in a week!
I wasn't going to post quite this early on the blog, but Mike somehow stumbled across it, so I figured I would get it going sooner rather than later.
The postings may be a bit slim for the first week of the trip, as I've heard on-ship internet access is incredibly slow. I'll try to stop in to some libraries when we're on shore to update you on our adventures and reassure everyone that we haven't been eaten by a bear or drowned by a whale.
If anyone has any suggestions for Vancouver or Alaska, please let me know. We've got 3 weeks of sightseeing, hiking, rafting, and float-planing ahead of us, and we want to make the most of it! (A somewhat detailed itinerary can be accessed by clicking on the map - I can't figure out how to make the google map appear on the blog itself (I keep getting errors), but click through the other Alaska map to get to it)
I'm keeping my fingers crossed that my flights will be much less dramatic than my last trip to Colorado (stupid Midwestern storms!).
Brian, you've set a high standard in trip-blogging. I'll have to see if I can even come close to measuring up (for those who haven't seen his Transam Shazam blog detailing his adventures biking across the US, the link is in my favorite links/blogs section).
Mala, I'll see you in Vancouver in a week!
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