First, let me just say that I am not a mountaineer, but I think that this is less due to a lack of will and more a result of my environment growing up. When you’re raised on the East Coast, there aren’t really a whole lot of mountains around to climb… Hills to hike maybe, but not true mountains. However, for years I have been fascinated by climbing. If there’s a book written about it, I’ve probably read it. If there’s been a movie, documentary, or TV show made, I’ve probably seen it. Even the completely unrealistic, cheesy fictional ones. I also enjoy pushing myself to see what I’m capable of. For example, I refused to take any seasickness medication before going out on my first big sailing trip because I wanted to see if I would actually need it. Turns out I didn’t. I did the same thing when I went to Peru to hike the Inca trail. I didn’t take anything to help with altitude sickness because I wanted to see how well my body would adjust on its own. Turned out it adjusted pretty well, although I did have some issues the one night when we stayed above 14,000 feet. I want to run a marathon this year for this reason. In the same way, the challenge of mountaineering is extremely attractive to me. Pair that with my adventurous spirit, throw in my love affair with mountains and the outdoors, an interest in climbing seems like a natural byproduct.

As many of you know, I was born in Bend, Oregon and I have come to believe that this somehow encoded a love of mountains into my DNA. I adore them (they’re not part of the illustration on my blog by accident!) and can’t underscore enough how much I look forward to living back among them again. But since my parents moved me to the Philly area when I was a mere 6-months-old, my affection for mountains lay dormant until the first time I saw some in person.

I was 20 and was headed to Seattle to attend the Christian Writer’s Conference at Seattle Pacific University. I had first flown to San Francisco and spent a few days with my family there before flying from San Jose up to SEA. I had a window seat and was looking out at the clouds when suddenly noticed a particularly large object jutting up through them. It look me awhile to realize I was staring at Mount Hood. I was so overwhelmed with its beauty that my eyes immediately welled-up with tears. Pictures and movies hadn’t even come close to preparing me for the actual majesty of an in-person mountain.

Alaska was where I became truly addicted to them, though. There is nothing like being up in a small plane and looking out to see nothing but miles upon miles upon miles of a rippled mountain landscape coated in snow. There is something so awe-inspiring and quieting about them that words alone fall short in conveying. In Alaska, you also have the added bonus of being literally surrounded… Some volcanic (like Augustine and Redoubt), but more just the ranges of them that run down to the sea. One of my favorite places to go when I needed to get away for a minute without going far was up to Flattop. Flattop, so named for its flat top, is a mountain just on the edge of Anchorage and part of the Chugach Range. It’s a great hiking mountain in the summer especially, but there’s also a fantastic vista point not far from the parking lot where you can see for miles…all the way up to Denali on a clear day. I used to love to drive up there on winter mornings when the whole of Anchorage was encased in an ice fog. On the drive up, the fog would be dense and heavy, but it would start to thin near the top until suddenly you emerged in the crisp, winter air and glorious sunlight. The city below would be completely cloaked and you could imagine yourself alone in the world. To echo some of Ben’s sentiments from his post, I have always experienced God in the mountains in a different way than I have elsewhere.

Biblically, this makes sense to me as well.  God seems to have a special place in His heart for mountains. I love how He always had His temples among his people, but when He chose to take up residence with the Israelites in the desert and speak to Moses, it was on a mountain. Jesus also had a thing for mountains. The gospels speak repeatedly of him going up into the mountains by himself to pray…sometimes he would stay there all night (Luke 6:12). He also did a lot of his speaking from mountainsides (but I suspect that probably had more to do with acoustics).

Shortly after arriving in Alaska, my friend who moved with me had decided she wanted to go home. Those first few months there after she left were some of the loneliest I’ve ever known as I tried to figure out what my new life would look like 5,000 miles from everything I knew “home” to be. But the great paradox I learned is that it’s in loneliness that I feel the least alone for it’s in loneliness when I am most reminded that I am not alone.  God is there.  As David writes in Psalm 139:7-9…

Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?

If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,

Even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.

It was also during this time that God used the mountains as perspective givers for me. If things weren’t going well, or if I was feeling overwhelmed with life, I would just drive out to where I could spend some time with the mountains and in prayer. It’s extremely humbling to stand on (or even next to) something so majestically huge with the knowledge that it was formed by our God through His power alone (Psalm 65:6). He is indeed an awesome God.

I wrote the following poem on 10/14/96 during my first few weeks in Alaska…not surprisingly, it begins and ends with mountains:

The mountains stretch out
Across purple skies
To the end of the world
Or so it seems.
But they do stretch far
Far
Far out of sight.
Beyond comprehension.
Beyond confusion.
Beyond dismissal.
Beyond betrayal.
Beyond lies.
Beyond fear.
Beyond feelings of hopelessness
And loss.
All my fragments
Of ragged dreams
Are swallowed up
In the magnificence
Of jagged rocks
Blanketed with snow.
The enormity
Of the mountains
Makes problems seem
Insignificant.
Small.
Trivial.
Resolvable.
So I sit
In stillness
And focus
On the mountains.

Partly what I love about not just mountains, but the wilderness in general is the peace that’s there. I feel like peace is often so hard to find today in our crazed tilt-a-whirl lives. In an attempt to obtain it, I will sometimes purposely leave my cell phone at home (gasp!). I love when I go on trips that cause me to abandon my connections to the world. I have found that when I extract myself from the craziness of life, turn off my cell phone, and just allow myself to be quiet, God is able to speak without competing distractions, and I find I am often more apt to hear Him. The wilderness gives me an excuse to do that.

John Muir once said:

To the lover of wilderness, Alaska is one of the most wonderful countries in the world.

When I had gone back to AK for a visit in 2002, it was a particularly clear day and Denali was so stunning, I decided to go on a flight-seeing trip out of Talkeetna up to the mountain.  It was kind of last minute, and outside of the regular tourist schedule, but I found someone to take me and ended up with a bonus – the pilot was flying the first climber of the season out to Denali base camp and I got to ride along. On the way back, the pilot told me about someone he had dropped off on a glacier near Denali for several weeks over the winter. I had actually read an article about it so was even more interested when the pilot told me he had been their “taxi” to and from their adventure. To be left in the middle of the mountains in Alaska would probably be a nightmare for some, but it sounded like heaven to me.

There has been a lot of judgment flying around from the so-called “armchair experts” who are, in my opinion, awfully brash – throwing their dogmatic opinions at people and on topics about which they have little knowledge and no personal experience. While not a mountain climber myself (or at least not currently), I still can understand the drives and the desires that motivate them… I also know the joy that comes in doing something you love, even when discomfort – or even danger – are involved. I think I realized this the most acutely on the second day of the Inca Trail. It was the day I both looked forward to and dreaded with the same breath. Most guidebooks even referred to it as “grueling”. We were coming up to the highest point of the trek at 13,770 feet – Dead Woman’s Pass. We were tired, sore, hungry, wet, and cold. I remember stopping for a breather at one point and saying to one of the other members of my group that I was walking with that, even though I was as physically uncomfortable as I was, I was also incredibly happy. “At this moment,” I told her, “there is absolutely no other place in the world I would rather be.”

That’s a fantastic state to be in. One day, I hope to reside there permanently… For now though, part of my journey is learning to live in contentment with where God has me. But He also knows my heart…better than anyone else…and He understands the irresistable song the mountains sing to me and maybe one day He will place me among them again. Perhaps then I’ll start to climb them too.

So, in a fit of boredom and driven by my desire to be in keeping with blogging standards, I hereby present my list of 25 Things About Me.   Ahem.

1. Coffee is my favorite comfort food. I couldn’t imagine a world without it…nor would I want to.
2. I adore roller coasters – I laugh hysterically when riding them and I love to be in the front car.
3. I am completely addicted to travel – I have been to 15 countries on 4 continents.
4. They say you can’t buy love, but my dog has taught me otherwise.
5. My biggest pre-teen crush was a tie between Bill Bixby (from “The Incredible Hulk”) and Shaun Cassidy (from “The Hardy Boys”).
6. I once worked in a chocolate factory.
7. I love Jesus and believe in the power of prayer and the importance of community.
8. My favorite beer is Dogfish Head 90-Minute IPA.
9. I rang in the New Millenium in NYC.
10. I have lived in Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Alaska, New York City, and England.
11. My favorite TV shows through my life so far have been “Sesame Street”, “The A-Team”, “The Wonder Years”, “Seinfeld”, “Friends, “Frasier”, “Ally McBeal”, “90210″, “Gilmore Girls”, and “LOST”.
12. I have painted every wall in every room of my current home including closets & ceilings.
13. I volunteered with the Red Cross at Ground Zero (The World Trade Center) after the terrorist attack of 9/11 which was one of the most sobering and rewarding experiences of my life.
14. I was 20 years old the first time I visited the Pacific Northwest and have been in love with it ever since.
15. I will not eat raw tomatoes.
16. I have never seen any of “The Godfather” movies.
17. I wrote my first book (called “The Oddness of Andrew”) in 3rd grade. There was a boy in my class named Andrew who was not amused.
18. The first time I saw real mountains in person, I cried.
19. I have had roommates for the majority of my adult life – 14 in all.
20. I love Oreos.
21. I once wanted to be a marine biologist.
22. I collect Starbucks mugs…I have one from every city I’ve visited (assuming I could find a Starbucks).
23. Snow is my favorite form of precipitation – I am thrilled when there’s a blizzard.
24. The biggest earthquake I’ve ever been in was a 6.4
25. I have not had a landline phone since October 2001.

For those of you who have yet to look through all my photos from the Alaska trip I took in June, here is just a taste of what you’re missing! Love this one… Will most likely end up on my wall.

The full slideshow of my AK photos can be viewed through Flickr: Alaska Inside Passage

There is probably no more obnoxious class of citizen, taken end for end, than the returning vacationist.

I’m back at work today and thrown back into the atmosphere of reality (caution: objects may burn up upon reentry) which is why I’m taking a few minutes out to write now. I’ll finish up from home most likely which will give me a chance to add some photos as well.

So to recap quickly…

Since I last wrote which was sometime on Friday morning, we landed in Victoria on Vancouver Island, BC around 5pm or so. I was supposed to have a shore excursion to the gardens, but my day had just been absolutely non-stop since 8:30 that morning, I decided to skip out. Seen one flower… I mean, I’m sure it would have been pretty, but I just didn’t have the energy. So instead I waited until about 7:30pm and took a shuttle into town where I walked around the waterfront and just enjoyed the gorgeous day for a couple of hours.

Friday night was mostly spent trying to drink up the rest of the wine some of us had bought in various ports before finally heading off to bed.

Saturday morning was a bit of a blur… I got up exhausted since being out late and for some reason not having slept well. I managed to crawl out of bed around 7:15 and somehow gathered my bags and got off the ship. Janelle picked me up on the dock and we headed back to her house. Sean ran out for a haircut, but then we all went into town to walk around the Edmonds Art Festival and enjoy some food, and fresh lemonade. Good times.

Jel got me to the airport in plenty of time to make my flight (which was late thanks to Houston thunderstorms) and I pretty much passed out as soon as I got on the plane only to awake four and a half hours later in Newark. Always a downer when coming back in from the Pacific Northwest…or almost anywhere else, for that matter. When I’ve been away long enough, I forget how people here can be – especially in the areas surrounding NYC. For example, here I’ve been used to being on a ship with friendly vacationers and wandering around towns with friendly residents. Then I fly into Newark and make the mistake of smiling at a guy walking past who happened to look in my direction. What I got in return was…well…put it this way, if looks could kill… And so I am once again left wondering why I haven’t picked up and moved to Seattle, and once again there are no answers. Sigh.

Anyway, since my flight had been delayed, I missed the last train from EWR to Princeton where my car was parked so I examined my options: Stay overnight at the airport, or take a car service. Turned out the price was about the same either way, so I opted for the car service. This landed me home around 3am.

Sunday I went to pick up my Chena (for those of you who don’t know, her name is pronounced “Chee-na”) from my aunt & uncle’s house – and what a happy reunion that was! A lot of peeing and excitement ensued (just to clarify, Chena did the peeing…I was just excited). I think she had a blast while I was away, but she also seems to have crashed once I showed up. She barely left my side, couldn’t wait to get into the car when we finally went to leave, and even this morning she was doing a lot of yawning and lazing around as I got ready for work. I suspect she’ll be sleeping most of today.

I’m finding that I’m having an easier time getting back to regular life than I have after other trips. I suspect that this is due to the shorter length so I don’t think I ever got into full vacation mode as I did with, say, Thailand. As for the trip itself, and final thoughts: I definitely enjoyed myself – more so as the week wore on. I was pleasantly surprised, and of course some of the people I met certainly enriched my overall experience as well as making it more fun.

Despite my earlier reservations, I think I would do another cruise, but I would probably be a little more inclined to go with pre-existing friends I’m not having to start from scratch with relationship-wise. I could see where I might have had more fun sooner if Jo or Es or Jel had been with me. I would also make sure I didn’t do a longer trip – 10 days or more at least. The 7-day just ended up feeling like something of a tease.

So I realized that I’m actually heading out again in just under two weeks (which I think may also be helping with being home). I have a 4 day backpacking/camping trip in Glacier National Park, Montana set to begin on June 30. To further assist with my readjustment until then, I will focus on the immortal words of Milton Berle:

Laughter is an instant vacation.

Thankfully I manage to get a lot of that in!

Until Montana…

As I type right now I’m literally “at sea” and yes, I did say that I was not going to surrender to pay the crazy on board Internet charges, but I caved. Not due to boredom or anything – trust me on that, but rather I wanted to post an update and hating that I didn’t have the time while in port for our short time in Ketchikan yesterday and the fact that I’m pretty sure I’ll lack the time in Victoria.

Now for the bad news, since I am on the ship, I also will be unable to post pictures until later which REALLY bummed me out since I didn’t realize this until after logging on. So sadly you’ll all have to wait to see my pictures of Ketchikan and the others I took in Sitka – and possibly even the ones from Victoria I’ll take later.

What I wanted to make sure I did was at least chronicle the last couple of days since we’re now nearing the end of the trip which has really turned into a delight despite my first day or so of not understanding exactly what it is that I’d gotten myself into!

So Sitka. Sitka was Wednesday and is known as the “Paris of the North” although, despite a exhaustive Google search, I am unable to find a source that can explain why it was given that nickname. Another off-hand question…why is it not the other way around? Why isn’t Paris called instead the “Sitka of France” or something comparable? Thoughts? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

After I left the Internet cafe in Sitka, I headed over to an semi-out-of-the-way coffee shop which a local recommended called “The Back Door”. Great coffee and even greater molasses cookies. Seriously the best molasses cookie I think I have ever had. It was big and warm and postively melted in my mouth. In Sitka. Who knew? In fact, I enjoyed that cookie so much that I would return to Sitka just to have another one. Perhaps the Sitka visitors bureau should add this little-exposed fact in their tourist information packets or Chamber of Commerce publications…? Just a thought.

So with cookie in hand, I meandered over to Chapel Hill for the view and ran into a couple from our group so I had some company for the rest of my wanderings. We visited St. Michael’s which is a Russian Orthodox Church just about in the center of town. Apparently from 1840 to 1872, Sitka was the seat of the Russian Orthodox Diocese which governed all of the Russian Orthodox Churches in North America. The original structure was completed in 1848, but burned down in a major fire which hit the town in 1966. The building as it currently stands is an exact replica of the original and, amazingly enough, they were able to save roughly 90% of the artifacts that still reside in the chruch (icons, paintings, chandeliers, etc.).

After St. Michael’s, we walked over to the Sitka Raptor Center. I will admit here that my first thought was the raptor center had something to do with dinosaurs, although I didn’t tell anyone this since I was pretty sure I was wrong. I was. The Raptor Center is in fact a wild bird rehab. They receive injured raptors (bald eagles, owls, hawks, etc.) from all over North America and work to rehabilitate them for release back into the wild.

I have seen more than my share of bald eagles up-close-and-personal (as Es can attest to after our trip to Homer), but they never cease to impress me with their size and majestic presence. They command attention – and it clearly doesn’t matter if they’re sitting on a piling, soaring through the sky, or hangin’ in a pseudo-habitat.

Realizing that we were cutting it close if we were to head back to the ship on foot, we called a cab with a rather unique list of charges posted inside including a $100 charge for “pukers”. Naturally questions arose, so our driver explained that they often do a lot of shuttling of individuals home from the bars and so “pukers” became a nuisance because, well, who wants to clean up that? Hence the extra charge.

The rest of the evening on board ship was I think the best yet, followed closely by last night – but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Wednesday night first.

I went with a bunch of the group to dinner and then killed some time before the semi-finalist round of “Superstar” (this is the American Idol-esque show they do onboard that I mentioned in my last entry). Since they were having some technical difficulties, the MC for the event and the cruise director were having a time trying to come up with jokes to tell the audience. After a few rather lame ones, I ran up to the stage and stuck my head around the curtain and said, “Hey, why don’t you guys ask the audience if we have any jokes to share?” Our cruise director asked if I knew any and of course I couldn’t turn down an invitation like that! So I got up and shared a rendition of the best all-time Alaska catch-phrase that Janelle and I used so often I’ve lost count when explaining to people why we had difficulty meeting men in Alaska despite what is perceived as the exceptionally favorable ratio: “The odds are good, but the goods are odd.” Thankfully the audience thought this was as funny as we always have…and they don’t even know how true it is!

After the “Superstar” came a ventriloquist act in the main lounge area which was really cool. Never having seen aone live before, I was thoroughly impressed and laughed so hard my face actually began to hurt. Finished out the evening relaxing with a drink (or three) in one of the ships many bars.

And that was Wednesday, more or less.

Out late, up later. We had arrived in Ketchikan early yesterday morning, but I didn’t force myself out of bed until nearly 9:30. When I pulled back the balcony curtains, I was smacked in the face by bright sunshine and clear, blue skies – a welcome break from the previous few days of mostly clouds and rain…made even more amazing when you have the knowledge that Ketchikan is the city that gets the most rainfall in all of North America.

I took a shower and got myself off the ship by 10:30. Unfortunately we only had until 12:30 or so to explore which is why I didn’t have time to do the Internet thing while in port. I went up and down the roads right along the port, up the infamous Creek Street – Ketchikan’s former Red Light District so named for the creek that runs along its side which, as the old saying goes which was plastered across every t-shirt I saw, “is the only creek in the world both men and salmon go up to spawn”.

In search of totem poles, I wandered a little further into the residential area and ended up giving some pruning feedback to a local who was staring at a flowering bush in his yard, but otherwise didn’t see much in the way of residents – I think they had all retreated when they saw the approaching cruise ships, perhaps wisely.

I was back on the boat by about 11:45, ate some lunch outside on the Aft Deck by the pool and then went to a couple of events on board. This included getting roped in by a 12-year-old to play an adjusted version of “Family Feud”. I had just gone in to watch, but had a difficult time saying “no” to her when she begged and said they had to have an adult in order to play. And so I caved and so it was me and four 12-year-olds. Bet you all wish you could have seen that! I sort of felt like I was auditioning for “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?” We actually didn’t do too badly (all things considered) and lasted through a couple of rounds, although the question we lost on came down to one of the girls who must not have understood the question because when asked to name one of the top five creatures that people would wipe out if they could (think spiders, mosquitoes, etc.), her answer was “fireflies”. Hm.

Afterward, I wandered around the ship a little and hit dinner alone on the Lido deck (everyone else was at “formal night” which I had more-or-less boycotted since I didn’t have the space to pack a cocktail dress before leaving). After dinner I met up with some people for the final show put on in total Broadway splendor – seriously. I’ve been to a lot of shows and what these performers did for us last night rivals much of what I’ve seen in and around Times Square.

After the show we hit the much ado-ed about “dessert buffet” where I’m sure one could literally drown in chocolate if one so desired which, in my book wouldn’t be such a bad way to go. Then a handful of us then went dancing until…well, there’s some debate as to what time it was. It was the night we changed the clocks back from AK to West Coast time, and we weren’t sure whether the clocks we saw had been updated yet or not. Either way, it was late.

This morning we had our group farewell meeting and then attended the disembarkation session where just about all 800 of the cruise ship crew lined the stage and sang for us (I have some pictures of that as well which I’ll surely post later). It was a little cheese, but it was fun cheese – like perhaps Gouda.

We arrive in Victoria, BC tonight around 6pm. I may or may not have time to get online again before heading home on Saturday night. If not, I’ll definitely post another blog (WITH pictures) when I get back home on Sunday.

So to get back to the title of this entry – how do you hug a cruise ship? Well, I haven’t entirely figured that out yet…my go-go-gadget arms have been malfunctioning… I may just have to settle for hugging the crew. I doubt I’ll have time for all 800 of them but perhaps a select few.

And there you have it. I’m a cruise convert and am definitely feeling a strong affinity for the ship in general – I’m only sorry it took so long for this to set in!

Thanks for reading – I know it’s not as fun when there aren’t any pictures to keep you entertained… I will add those when I get home.

In the meantime, hope you’re all having fun in your normal, ship-less, mountain-less, Alaska-less lives.

After my last entry in Juneau, I left the Internet cafe and walked back to the ship. This ended up being a very wet mile, but it was nice to get a semi-hike in. Back onboard, I got changed into dry clothes and went to dinner followed by a comedy show and then a version of “American Idol” they hold on board where passengers “try out” and then sing before a panel of judges which included our illustrious cruise director, one of the singers from the shows they do on board, and one of the DJs. It was most definitely a lot of fun.

I’ve finally realized something which maybe should have been more obvious, but I’m not always the first to catch onto stuff – a fact that will come as no surprise to many of you, I realize. Anyhow, what I’ve come to see is that going on a cruise is really almost more about the ship than it is about the destination. This being the case, I can see why it’s such a desireable thing to do in places like the Carribean. So rather than viewing the cruise as just a mode of transportation to take me someplace I want to be, like I would an airplane, the ship itself becomes an active participant in the overall vacation experience. I took some time and walked around the ship yesterday and found a cooking demonstration by one of the restaurant chefs, people winning and losing all kinds of money in the casino, a never-ending abundance of food being served in the various dining rooms, and shopping galore.

All this is to say that I’m finally starting to see what I need to do in order to get more enjoyment out of being on the ship itself…and who knows, this might just change my entire outlook on this trip.

Yesterday was a rather long day, partly because we didn’t get off the ship at all. I had sessions with my travel group in the morning. They’ve been taking us through a full DISC personality assessment which has been interesting – turns out I’m a High I and my overall profile is “The Persuader” (I is the highest with D next and then very low S and even lower C). At 12:15 we all met on the Aft Deck to get a group photo taken as we began motoring in to see The Glacier.

One might be tempted to think that if you’ve seen one glacier, you’ve seen them all. And while I agree with this statement, I also am always amazed by glaciers. They’re just really beautiful… Sadly because we were on a large cruise ship, we could not get in as close to the glacier as you can in places like Portage where the ship gets so close that the glacier fills your field of vision completely. Still, Hubbard was a pretty large and breathtaking sight.

After being outside so long I couldn’t really feel my fingers anymore, I went in, grabbed a tray of food, and went to the room to sit and eat on the balcony and continue to take in the stunning view.

I then did my walk around the boat – checked out the culinary arts demo, looked in every nook and cranny, and then went to change for dinner before heading over to our second group DISC session.

We all were given a gift card for The Pinnacle Grill which most of us were doing after the session. The food was great – I’ve never seen so much salmon on one plate in my life. I was able to eat about half of it before knowing that to continue would only mean pain. The chocolate volcano cake I had for dessert (because let’s face it, there’s ALWAYS room for dessert) was to absolutely die for.

Anyway, so after dinner I went to a magic show which was really fun – the man and wife team performing have done shows in Vegas and other places so you can imagine how talented they are. After that, there was another more intimate show playing in the lounge with the four singers who performed a medley of Broadway tunes – everything from “My Favorite Things” to tunes from “Rent”. Very fun.

I finally ended up my day as I do on the Aft Deck which gets really quiet after the pool and hot tub close down at 10pm. I sit out there with a glass of wine and enjoy the peace and beauty… It’s good to be alive.

Please don’t think that I got on the boat with this attitude entirely. If you read my previous blog entitled Why Cruise Ships Scare Me, you might think that I did. The fact is that, skeptical though I was, I still found myself excited by the prospect of getting on such a large ship and seeing a part of one of my “home” states that I’ve always longed to.

I’ve spent the last day or so – since we left the Port of Seattle on Saturday – trying to figure out a way to describe exactly what I think about the cruise. I still don’t know. The closest thing to a description I’ve been able to come up with is “surreal” – and even that doesn’t quite do it justice.

Let me at least give you something of a taste, if I may…

The ship is huge. Freakishly. I mean, there just are no words. It holds ~2,000 people (passengers & crew). 2,000. There are towns in Alaska that don’t even have that many residents. My cabinmate, Lisa, is really cool so for that I am exceedingly thankful as having a cabinmate that I didn’t like or had a difficult time relating to would have had a major impact on my ability to at least enjoy the cruise for what it is. Our room is also really cool. There is certainly something to be said for splurging and getting the nicer room with the balcony on an Alaskan voyage where you’re not going to spend your days sitting out on the Aft Pool Deck because it’s just too dang cold and/or rainy. Having a room you aren’t trying to come up with creative ways to avoid is nice…

Another thing I’ve enjoyed is the free-food thing. I love not having to pay for room service. I love being able to order breakfast in the morning which I can then enjoy sitting wrapped in a blanket on the balcony…and it’s all free – in a manner of speaking. On top of which, the food is actually good. I’m trying to also be healthy and, despite all of the various and tempting options, I’m choosing a lot of salads, seafood, and fruit – the last thing I need is to return from this cruise with all of the food I ate permanently attached to my thighs.

Something that I’ve found to be a bit of a bummer is the lack of intimacy. I realize that this is really unavoidable due to the size of the ship, but I still am sorry to find it missing. On my usual trips, the groups are so small that you end up meeting and really getting to know everyone else. On the cruise ship, I’ve gotten to know Lisa…and that’s about it. I’ve seen some of the other members of our group at the intermittent meetings we’ve had, but then they get swallowed by the ship and do not reemerge until the next meeting!

So, Saturday Jel dropped me off at the dock and I went through the somewhat arduous process of checking-in for the cruise line. After dropping everything off in the room, I found the hospitality desk that the group I was with had set up on Deck 3. Afterwards, I went on a tour of the spa (I’m scheduled for a massage tomorrow and pedicure on Friday). We had a lifeboat drill, and then left port around 4:30pm.

Sunday was an “At Sea” day which translated into a mild amount of boredom for me, but I made do. I walked around the boat some, but discovered that most people were feeling ill (the water was pretty choppy as we were circumventing a storm) and as a result, I kept finding little, shall we say, “reminders” of this that some left around the ship. Not pleasant. I have never had trouble with seasickness and so while I did feel sorry for people who were suffering, I love the motion of being on the water so it was all I could do not to stand out on the balcony and beg for more!

Last night was probably the most surreal so far. I didn’t go to the formal dinner night, but ate instead in the casual dining area on the Lido Deck (don’t ask me what it means) and then Lisa and I went over to watch one of the shows on board. This is where it starts getting a little bizarre for me. Remembering that the biggest boat I’ve ever been on (aside from a ferry) before Saturday is a 50-foot catamaran, it is just beyond wild to me that you could be on the water in what amounts to a floating building that houses not only a couple thousand people, but also two pools, a spa, basketball courts, a couple of restaurants, a night club, cafe, full gym, as well as a stage and movie theater. Nuts.

Anyway, so I’m watching these people dance around on stage singing in Broadway-caliber voices and all the while thinking to myself, “I’m on a ship. I’m floating on the water right now. These people are dressed up in sequin-ridden clothing and doing dance routines in a stage on the water.” For those out there who have previously done cruising, I understand that this may be a little, “Well, duh” for you, but my boating background is very different and my mind is just having a hard time reconciling this experience with my previous ones.

Okay, so that was yesterday. Today we arrived in Juneau. I think the ship got into port around 10:00am and everyone started to disembark for their various excursions by about 10:30. Mine didn’t leave until 11:45 so I took my time and stayed onboard as long as I could since it has been both raining and cold here today.

As I said in the beginning of this entry, I ran away from my tour as quickly as soon as I could. I enjoyed the tour – it was a Photo Safari of Land & Sea. I was extremely pleased that the guide was actually from Alaska – or at least had lived here in Juneau for the last 31 years. You wouldn’t believe how many people do tours in other parts of the state that are simply here for a summer job and are actually from Colorado or something. This was one of my pet peeves in Anchorage – I couldn’t stand going for a rafting trip and having the guide not be able to answer some of the specific-to-Alaska questions I had because he didn’t actually know anything about the state, he’d only come to raft.

We saw some great stuff on the tour. Mendenhall Glacier is beautiful – and out on the boat we got to see a baby humpback whale breech which was really cool, but I can’t say that I felt the whole trip was worth what I paid. In fact, I’m going to see about canceling my other two shore excursions when I get back to the ship. I think I’d rather just come into town and do my own thing… I’m glad I got to see the whale – really. But I think I would have done just fine on my own. Especially here in Juneau where there’s plenty to do. It’s a small city, but it’s not that small.

And so here’s the rest of the week’s agenda:

• Tuesday – Hubbard Glacier
• Wednesday – Sitka
• Thursday – Ketchikan
• Friday – Victoria, BC
• Saturday – Seattle

Tomorrow we don’t leave the ship again. Wednesday we do, but not for a full-day like today. Same with Thursday. From Thursday night until 6pm Friday, we’ll be on the ship also. Friday night we only have a few hours in Victoria and then we have to steam ahead to be back in Seattle by 7am or so Saturday morning.

I have to admit that it’s good to be back in AK. I miss it a lot… I still don’t think I’d want to live in the Southeast part of the state – too much rain. But there’s something about the state itself that I have just always been in love with. The mountains, the ocean, the eagles, the whales…take your pick. Not to mention that this was the first place I chose to call “home” when I moved out on my own lo those many moons ago. I’m sure for that reason it will always have a special place in my heart. For now, what I can say is that I think I’ll be coming back to Southeast AK at some point in the future. I’m thinking a 2-week kayak trip in July/August or the like…

In the meantime, I will value this trip for what it is and what it offers and hopefully will be able to send another update from Sitka. Apologies if this entry was a little disjointed…maybe by Sitka I’ll have my thoughts a little more in order.

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Based on the comic strip Milton by Mike Judge (also the creator of Beavis and Butthead) Office Space goes the extra length to take pretty much every stereotype in the book and magnify it to the umpteenth degree. Imagine every weird coworker you’ve ever encountered…every cubical you’ve ever worked in…every boss you’ve wanted to strangle, put them in a company called Initech, and then move them all to The Far Side and you might just have an idea of what this movie is all about. The main character in the film isn’t Milton, however, as the comic strip title would suggest. Instead it’s a guy named Peter (played by Ron Livingston). Milton is in the film and adds a really humorous (but also sad) dimension to the movie (there is a certain level of morbid humor throughout). Stephen Root (who is best known for his character Jimmy James on News Radio) plays Milton and really gives the best performance overall.

There is an underlying plot line, in case you were wondering. The company (Initech) calls for a couple of consultants, known as “Efficiency Experts” to come in and do a little—shall we say—‘housecleaning’. As one insane plot builds on another, the Efficiency Experts promote Peter, but fire two of his fellow cubical-mates so they all begin scheming together to find a way to rip off their evil and incredibly patronizing boss, Lumburgh (played by Gary Cole).

Another facet of working that’s touched on is done by Jennifer Aniston’s character, Joanna, who’s a waitress at a restaurant which is clearly a joke version of TGI Friday’s. As a former waitress myself, I fully empathized with Aniston’s character and the trivial pressures that are put on someone in the food service industry. It’s still amazing to me how these people can get so hung up on the dumbest things like how many buttons you have on your uniform! Aniston did a good job and was roughly on par with every other performance in this film. This is not a movie that will be recognized by the Oscars, but I don’t think that’s what any of them were going for.

Offices are not always fun environments to work in, but thanks to them, movies like this one can be made!
Worth the money…go see it.

To start with, A Perfect Murder has a totally different run of things in the plot twists and ways of figuring out things. The part of the adulterous wife (played by Gwyneth Paltrow and Grace Kelly, respectively) turns tables almost completely. Emily (Gwyneth Paltrow) is no fool. And she also plays the part of a woman who actually killed someone in the process of protecting herself masterfully. She’s very shaken after the encounter and distraught and hysterical. Afterward, she pretty much reaches her own conclusions…looking into things, beginning to suspect that her husband is up to something…and then she confronts him with what she’s found. Steven (Michael Douglas) pretty much has everything figured out. He knows what to do in every case…he seems to have every base covered. And he’s much more devious and evil than the husband in Dial M.

Dial M for Murder is also very Hitchcockian in its filming and format. Hitchcock tended to like somewhat odd camera shots. Shots from the floor or for the ceiling as if you were spying on the scene. Also, a great many of his movies were first plays so they were written with one major scene and Hitchcock would leave it that way, filming some of the movie in other places, but the majority of it would be in that one main room or apartment or what-have-you. Other good Hitchcock examples of this would include Rope and Lifeboat.

Something that I thought made a good twist in A Perfect Murder was the role of the lover. Instead of hiring through blackmail an old college acquaintance, Emily’s killer-for-hire is driven by money and a criminal background and is, in fact, the man she’s cheating on her husband with (named David). Michael Douglas does his homework and decides that this guy is by far the best candidate for this job as he is greedy and he can blackmail him since he knows of David’s criminal background and could turn him in for a variety of crimes. David pulls a trick on him though and sends someone else to do the dirty work so that he is free to walk away when it doesn’t go right and then use his knowledge to blackmail in turn and still get the money he lusted. Another good twist.

A Perfect Murder is definitely more gruesome than Dial M for Murder, but I think it’s effective more than gory. It’s no battle from Braveheart so don’t concern yourself too much. There’s no dismemberment or anything like that…there’s a lot of blood, but not much else.

I’d definitely recommend A Perfect Murder. Both Paltrow and Douglas give superb life to their roles and I enjoyed the film enough to see it again.

Oh, and as a footnote, you might just want to consider renting Dial M for Murder which is a wonderfully suspenseful, distinctly Hitchcock film and everyone needs to get in one of those every so often.

There are some clear similarities that carry over from one story to the other, but overall I would say that it’s a night and day difference. However each are well-done in their own right and both are more than worth seeing.

Now the time has finally arrived and here I sit ready to go…more or less. It’s a 4 to 4.5 hour drive up to the head of the river which is just above Denali National Park and not far outside the town of Denali. I’m scheduled to be there at 11:00am so I’m going to have to get up and leave awfully early, but I’m actually looking forward to the drive as it should be relaxing, and hopefully it’ll remain as clear and warm out as it has been the past few days.

I’ve heard rumors of a beautiful weekend, but I don’t want to necessarily count on it yet. It would just be a great thing to be able to see Mt. McKinley which tends to be a difficult task. A mountain that size really tends to make its own weather, despite how the rest of the area is. It could be a beautiful day without a cloud in the sky…except around that mountain. You can see McKinley from Anchorage on a good day, but even then you couldn’t count on the fact that if you got into your car right at that moment and drove straight there that you could see it by the time you got there. I tend to think of the mountain as being just plain moody. It totally has a mind of its own…and uses it. It knows when people are coming from thousands of miles to see it and so if it happens to feel anti-social that day, too bad. You just came all that way for absolutely nothing. It’s an amazing thing…and quite comical when you really get down to it.

Well, I couldn’t have asked for a nicer day. Sunshine dominated the clouds, and the clouds were relatively light and soft looking like they might just disappear altogether later, which was my hope. Part of the drive up to Denali from Anchorage doesn’t have a whole lot of scenery, but the mountains are constantly teasing you by peeking in through the surrounding trees with promises that soon you will be able to see them in all their magesty, and indeed you do! At last you reach a clearing and it seems that from here on you’ll have all the mountains you can take. Some are snowcapped and delicate, others are covered moss-like vegitation with the warmest shade of green. You are in awe. The mountains continue on, and the whole time I’m scanning the horizion for McKinley, but either I have no clue where it is I’m supposed to be looking, or it’s just hiding in the clouds. I glance at the clock. It’s only 8:00am so maybe all the clouds will have lifted by early afternoon. I’m also pleased to see that I’m making such great time. I should easily be in Denali by 9:00 at the latest, just in time to get some breakfast before having to report to Mt.McKinley Raft Tours, Inc.

As I hit Denali, I immediately zeroed in on Lynx Creek Park Mart for food. I had neglected to pack a lunch for the rafting trip so I wanted to at least pick up a snack. Not to mention I was starving. After glancing over the prices, I really wished I had planned better and at least stopped at the last grocery store I had seen on my way out of Anchorage. This is something that I think everyone needs to be aware of as it’ll save you a lot of money. Any town, village, etc. that’s more than 10 to 15 miles outside of a city in Alaska charges you about triple the price for staples like food. Just to give you an idea of what I mean, an 11oz bag of Cheetos are selling for $4.69. A snack pack of Hostess Frosted Donettes are going for $1.29. Outrageous prices. Now of course I can understand why this happens, Alaska being as remote as it is, things just cost more to bring in, so if you live here, I suppose it’s just one of those little quirks you have to learn to live with. On the other hand, if you’re just passing through, there’s really no reason why you should pay $5 for a bag of chips when if you plan ahead enough to stop for food in town, it can be avoided completely.

Unfortunately there aren’t any real convient café’s or diners in Denali. The town mainly consists of a couple of RV parks, the Denali Princess Lodge owned and operated by Princess Cruises, and a couple of other lodging places (Lynx Creek Pizza, Husky Homestead, McNeil River Enterprises, Rafting, Cripple Creek Ranch Trail and Wagon Rides, Denali Raiinbow Village RV Park, Cruiser’s Café (Princess Lodge), Flight Seeing advertised for $99. Check local listings and call.

With McKinley, we started out immediately getting into all our gear…the gear they said we would need. I appreciated not having to bring things myself. Our gear consisted of a raincoat, rain pants, boots, and a life jacket. I felt more like a firefighter than anything else, but they promised that these items were all necessary and would keep up warm and somewhat dry. Of cours it was near 70 out so I didn’t much feel like wearing all those items of breathe-less clothing, but what choice did I have? Then they drove us out to the starting point which was about 10 miles south. Our first 12 miles were relatively relaxing. Not many rapids, but a few little bumps. It was fun nonetheless. When we stopped for lunch, I dsicoved that one of the other people I had been talking with earilier that came up from Anchorage had fallen out of the raft during that first couple of hours! She was alright…just a little wet and cold. I was very impressed, though, because she changed clothes and finished out the trip with us.

Our guide was Roy and he was nice, it was funny though because I think I had always assumed that guides were generally from whatever area they are working in, or at least they’d be from the state at large, but not Roy. He was just about as much of a tourist as some of the tourists! They had trained him well, though, and he was able to point out types of flowers and various names of mountains along our journey. He even gave us a few interesting local tales and legends which I found more interesting than the biological stuff.

“If you look over there to your left,” he said at one point pointing to a bunch of trees, “you can see a red roof of a cabin through the trees. That is a cabin of an old trapper they say was killed in a fight with a bear. They found him all mangled up with a knife in his hand. They say that if you hike over to his house, you can still see the small mound where they buried him and there are 5 shovels that point to his grave.” Nice.

Pretty much every rapid that we went through had a name and a story behind it as well. It was an informative trip. I’d like to go again and do the paddling end of it so to actually be a participant. That would be more fun, I think, and you get to wear a wet suit and far more “fashionable” stuff. The people that went on the paddling tour were outfitted in very new looking wet suits and shoes. Everything appeared to be in very good repair and I felt safe which is a good thing on a trip through water that has a history of drowning people who get caught up in a whirlpool or the like. I’d go again. They even give you the option of purchasing a photograph of your raft at some point along the trip. There were a few shots that I think I’d have paid the rather hefty $13 for, but the shot of my raft was nothing worth showing to anyone else so I decided to keep my money for another time.

A couple I met on the tour told me of a white water rafting trip that they did up past Palmer. They really enjoyed that one and said that they felt it was a little more adventurous.

“I think it had more class 4 rapids than this one did,” Linda said. “At least I seem to remember it being a more exciting trip.” So we’ll see…maybe I’ll try and do that one in a few weeks.

Another key tip you might want to keep in mind if you’re planning a trip up to the Denali area of Alaska: Some “locals” (in the sense that they live and work in Denali for the summer) that I met in one of the lodging places in Denali told me of some good things to keep in mind. Mostly it was hiking trails and stuff, but at one point I said something about wanting to really see a good view of Mt. McKinley. Michael and Kathleen were quick to let me know that you don’t have to do the day-long bus ride into the park to see the mountain.

“One of the best views that’s easily accessible that we’ve found,” Michael told me, “is not far from here and great if you’re coming to or from the Anchorage area. There’s a little access road back near Cantwell. If you’re traveling from here, you’ll see a Chevron station on your left and just past that there’s a little road. If you turn left there and follow it down about 2 miles, you’ll run into some power lines that are positively the worst eye-sore, but if you park your car there and just walk a little ways in, you’ll get one of the best views of the mountain that I’ve ever seen.”

I found that road on my way back to Anchorage, but I didn’t check it out on this trip – it’ll have to wait for another time.