Lost At Sea

Day 6, Tuesday, May 20th Ahhhhh Sitka. Now you must read this with a Russian accent in order to get a full feeling of this story. Russia is like 29 miles across the Bering Strait, I don't know, but at one time it was close enough and the Strait was not water, it was a land bridge from one continent to the other. One theory states it is where the North and South Americans came from. Eventually the U. S. did purchase the Alaska Territory (Seward's Folly) from Russia. At $.49 an acre, it was quite a steal. Quite an influence of Russian culture in this area.

We were taken by the ship's tenders (otherwise called life boats in emergency situations) from the ship to the shore as the ships are required to anchor in the harbor. Makes for an awesome picture of the cruise ship. Isn't she lovely?

So into the tenders and on to the shore to meet up with the guides and gear up for our Sea Kayaking Adventure. This time, I chose a lovely little rubber jacket, blue, to beat the wind and of of course all of us got one of ugly Coast Guard regulated orange life jacket to complete our outfits.
When we arrived, we exchanged our life jackets for ski vests. Much more comfortable. Then we listened to the instructions. Two persons to a kayak. The person in the back is the captain, the person in the front is the navigator. The captain, must follow the navigator's paddling, the goal is to put the oars in the water at the same time on the same side of the boat. English translation, paddle in unison. The captain must follow the navigator. The navigator can see where they are headed. The captain must follow the navigator. So with the grace of an elephant we loaded up. Wayne was the captain of our kayak. Phil and Amelia were in another, and Jolene had to team up with another single guy there. Some how during the practice round in the little cove, we got separated and move out in two groups. Jolene was on her own. Luck of the draw, some call it. We started out slowly, out of the cove and into the bay. How beautiful it was. The water was so very clear. You could see starfish and jellyfish. Along the way, as the navigator, I found that paddling was becoming quite a challenge, often paddling but not necessarily going in the direction I thought we were to be headed. Seems as if the captain had forgotten to share the course he had plotted with either me.....or the guides for that matter. Then Amelia asked me to take a picture of her and Phil. My captain in an effort to help pass the camera to me dropped the camera. Amelia quietly asked, "Why?" as the four of us watched it sink to the bottom of the bay in the 50* water. We each took a few seconds to stare in disbelief at each other in complete silence and then returned to paddling. Well some did. The navigator of my kayak continued to struggle with the navigating the kayak in a calm, steady, balanced manner. It was later (a day and a half) when our silence was broken that it was explained to me by the captain of my kayak, that I had been paddling wrong. Hmmmmph.


Jolene's partner pulled a starfish up for a closer examination by all in their group. Luck of the draw if you ask me.

Lesson 3: DO NOT go two-man kayaking unless you KNOW and TRUST, LOVE and HONOR your captain and/or navigator at ALL times. Cause if you don't or can't or both of you think you are right, you ain't gonna go no where fast....and your camera will be lost at sea.





We returned to town a few hours later and headed over to the corner Electronics/Photo shop. Almost as if it were planned, it was right there waiting with open doors for us. Must say we got a good price on the replacement.





Then we hit all the curio shops as we headed to upt to the corner where the Russian Orthodox Church was located. But across the street is located a Lutheran Church ~ the first Lutheran Church established on the West Coast of North America (1840). The church also houses their original Kessler Ortan #45, built in 1844 in Estonia. It was the first pipe organ on the West Coast of North America.

We satisfied our visit to Sitka with the Lutheran Church when we found that it costs $2.00 a head to get into the Russian Orthodox Church. Go figure.

Our visit in Sitka ended with time spent at both local Fire and Police Stations by Jolene, Phil, and Amelia. They were very proud of their new fire truck.


Wayne and I missed it. We were busy chowing down a reindeer dog. Tasted like a chicken hot dog to me.

An Awesome Sight to See

Day 5, Monday, May 18th Glacier Bay welcomed us with wide open blue skies and jade green sea. Probably the most amazing thing about our trip as a whole was the weather. As mentioned earlier, we only had rain for about 1/2 an hour in Juneau and it was clear sailing from there. Please understand, this area of the world is considered to be a rain forest ~ not tropical ~ but a rainforest none-the-less. Ketchican (stay tuned for that exciting pit stop) receives 12 ft...FEET....not inches of rain a year. We were told over and over again that the weather during our cruise was a truly rare experience.

These glaciers "flow". They build from 21 miles back up in the mountains, at 15,000 ft, and move forward approximately 8 ft each day. They are literally ice rivers. They are truly blue in color. That comes from the compression of the ice, they are so dense all light is blocked, allowing our eyes only to see the blue color as on a prism.

The black is dirt that the ice has collected as it scraped down the granite mountainsides. Being a National Park, we were joined by National Park Service Rangers who were our "guides" through the bay. We visited three glaciers and their presentation was done shipwide over the loud speakers. You could tell they are all quite knowledgeable and took pride in sharing "our" park with us.

The chunks of ice, of course were from the calving of the glacier. That is when, as the glacier makes it way down to the sea, it breaks off and the ice floats out to sea. We saw eagles flying overhead and resting on the ice. There were sea lions. As a matter of fact, access to thethe John Hopkins Glacier was restricted as the sea lions, who had given birth earlier in the year were raising their new young to return to the sea in a few months.

We started out in our winter gear, but by mid morning, we were down to our shirt sleeves. Once the ship slowed down, there was no wind. The sun was warm and lounging in the deck chairs was a wonderful way to relax.

It is in places like this that one can truly recognize God's majesty in His creation. All the talk about the "vastness" of Alaska is true. It seems as if the wilderness goes on forever.

Now, where was I....

Day 4 Sunday, May 18th:

Breakfast was always fun on board. Little bit of an issue with the "wet" almost runny scrambled eggs. But easy enough to pass them by and go for just the little Belgian waffles drowning in,,,,mooshed up berries. No added sugar, just berries and juice. Mmm mmm mmm mmm mmmmmmm. Now that was good. Course some in the crowd opted for eggs over medium...boring. French toast was nice ~ from what I heard. Why waste calories on normal food?

and then....JUNEAU!!!!! We docked right on time....11:00 am on May 17th. [snicker]

Here's an interesting tidbit about Juneau. There are no roads going in or out of town. To get to Juneau, one MUST arrive by ship or float plane. That amazes me. We are talking the State of Alaska's capital city!!! Also, make note of the pink-colored (salmon) federal building in the picture above. There was a major hullabaloo over whether or not it should remain pink or be changed when the city paints it. I can tell you it is badly in need of paint...any color. Turquoise blue from the 50's will do, but it needs paint. The town is up-and-coming...they just opened their first Home Depot,,,,and doodoodoodooooooo.....Super-Walmart!

We did manage to book all our excursions months ago to avoid the rush on the ship. Wise thinking. And we were so excited over our selections. Juneau held a "river float trip" down the Mendenhall River and a "salmon bake". Wahoody!

We went by shuttle bus to Mendenhall Lake. There in all it's glory was the Mendenhall Glacier. Beautiful. Rapidly melting these more recent 75 years. It is normal for glaciers to move back to the sea, but it is also normal for them to continue feeding themselves with winter freezes. Thats not happening now days at Mendenhall. It is slowly disappearing. We were greeted by a very handsome guide who came from the shoreline to greet us wearing board shorts and flip flops. Although we started our float in light rain it stopped after about 10 minutes and we did not see any more until we returned to Seattle. This was the first float of the year for the guide. He was from Newport Beach, CA, hence his attire. I just don't know how his feet survived the cold water he was wading in. We were very comfortable decked out in mud boots, rain pants, and slickers. Quite toasty actually. We went down a few rapids and spent the rest of the time looking for wildlife. Eagles flying! They are huge birds when you see them that close up. And ravens. Big black ravens. The RAVEN is an intricate part of Alaskan Folklore.

After a two hour nap back on the ship, we all headed out to the Salmon Bake. The was a beautiful waterfall on the stream there. Salmon run the stream. The singer finally quit singing, which was probably a good thing because there were those of us in the crowd that were getting the urge to howl. Kind of a Singing Nun Calamity Jane type. Go figure. Owwwww Wooooooooo.

And then, back to boat for a good night's sleep. Of course, we did stop at the Red Dog Saloon. Mighty nice.

Next up....Glacier Bay.

One day closer to retirement

is my new mantra. Really thought I would have been out of there a year ago, but such is the life in the fast lane. I guess it really is all in the timing and with lots of prayer we'll be looking back at it all soon.



Day 3, Saturday May 17 Surprising thing about our boat, (yeah I know, its a ship) but there is no clock in the stateroom. Actually there are very few clocks on board at all. A couple in the main stairwells by, but not by the elevators where you can see them ~ who uses stairs??? And one and only one on the Lido Deck by the pool. So got up and found the boat channel on tv which had the time, travel distance/time to and from the current ports, and the our point on the map (lol, i can not think of what is is called) you know, longitude and lattitude. And of course, none of us had a watch. We never knew what time it was, and quite frankly really never knew where (on the boat) we were. Quite disorientated. I'd go out on one deck and the sun was there and around to the otherside where there was no sun and I would swear the water was going in the opposite direction. No wonder the Ancient Mariner had issues, but I think they were more than just water related. He was old, probably blind, and didn't have a watch. To top it off, get this, on the last day of the cruise what do you suppose happened????? Yes! They had a watch sale!!!! $75 watches ~ 2/4 $25. Can you believe it. And NO, we did not buy one.


We awoke as we had slept~upside down in our bed. When we went to bed, the room was so dark, the bed just didn't feel right. With the rolling of the ship and being so disorientated I convinced Wayne to sleep upside down with me. Got a good nights sleep though. After the first night we slept normal. So we get up and get dressed. Boots, ski socks, long johns, undies, jacket, hat, gloves and out the room we head. 6:30 am. LOL we were ready for Juneau ~ our first stop. We toured the boat, made our way through breakfast and finally caught up with the kids. Around 10:30 am, we are just about out of things to do before getting in to port. This ship-guy comes walking by and I asked, "hey, what time will we be docking in Juneau?" He looks each one of us and quite matter-of-factly states, "Why tomorrow morning about this time." We all had to pick our jaws up off the floor. Somewhere in all the goin's on, we missed the fact that the first day out was a "at sea day". No wonder the little chart on the boat channel looked like would have to be doing some fast sailing to make Juneau which appeared to be still 2x as far as what we had traveled through the night. Off we all went.....a perfect time for a nap.


Decked out for Juneau ~ 24 hours early. Don't we look good.





















The Room Animals ~ each day when we returned to our rooms we had little room animal that the cabin steward made for us. This one was the first one we got. A Turkey. I wonder if there is any signifigance in that. It was cool though, every time we left the room we would hear him say, "Good Morning, Mrs. Perman." or "Good Evening, Mr Perman, how is your day?"

We Salute You

~All those that have served our country to ensure freedom in the world. As noted from a soldier's mouth today, "If we were not here, who would be."

On with the story....okay....epic....

Day 2, Friday, May 16th: Up with intention of getting out to Pike's Market. A knock on the door. Jolene appears. White dots on her throat. So off we went to the local Urgent Care. Seattle is a mass of hills. Down up, up another. Three hours later we were hoofin' it to a Pharmacy. Note that was Pharmacy, not a drug store like Longs or Rite-Aid. Pennicillan. By the time we got back to hotel it was time to get our bags and ready our selves for....EMBARKATION. (I love that word.)

Me, Jolene, Phil, and Amelia in Seattle's oldest park. Take a guess at the name of it....I don't remember. : )

Transportation in Seattle had already become quite costly and that was only for the trip from the airport to the hotel. So, penny-pincher that I am [snicker] we cut a deal with a limo driver ~ two town cars for 40 bucks to the pier. Wayne and I rode with Hussen, a nice man who proceeded south to the docks. Somewhere along the line he either made the wrong turn or deliberately took a short cut that included a U-turn on a freeway / bridge route that brought a semi hauling cement to within 10 ft of our rear end as he gunned the town car back towards the pier. Remember the nerves I mentioned in the last post????? Well at about that time my guts were churnin'. We are at the terminal just long enough to wonder where the other three were when Jolene rings me. She informs me their driver has taken them to the otherside of the terminal and would not deliver them until they paid her. By agreement, we had already paid Hussen. So I give a call to a number listed on Hussen's card. No answer. A call to the second number connects me to Hussen's brother, maybe even an uncle, who ever it was could not or at least acted like he did not understand English. Infuriated, I hung up and as I was dialing 911 to get assistance with my "hostage crisis" the releasees come walking up; apparently the driver settled the issue with Hussen and let them go. [Yes an Email to both Seattle Chamber of Commerce and the hotel has already been sent.] Just thinking about it pisses me off. How dare they come to our country and treat us like that. Its bad enough they have ruined all the 7-Elevens and hotels in the country, now its the taxi services. GO HOME.


Through the terminal, baggage surrender, check in, up the ramp ~ I knew I should have bought those binoculars ~ and onto the boat. Rooms not ready, up to Deck 8 ~ The Lido Deck ~

Here is Wayne and I with Seattle in the background. Mind you, the city set a record at 85* that day. And the air was oh so clean!

We sailed out at 4:00 pm.

Sun setting during dinner at our window table was fantastico.

Wait 'til you hear what we did on Day 3!!!!!

Tonight It Is Meatloaf

We are home.
Got in last night after a four-hour drive from LAX ~ what a nightmare traffic was.

I have been thinking about this blog, wondering how I can tell you of all the things we saw and did and all the things that happened during the last 7 days on our Journey to Alaska. My intent was to blog during the trip, but internet access on board, well, it ain't free. So get ready to sit awhile.

I hope I can give you some of the flavors we encountered and the sights we have seen. But in the end, I do believe you will need to go for yourselves. As pictures are up-loaded, I'll post.

Most of today has been spent doing laundry, yardwork, and organizing our "booty" as Wayne calls it. Tonight, we had meatloaf. Homemade, served on a not so pretty plate, and assembled with no parsley. I think the comment I got was, "Ummmmm, this is your best meatloaf yet!" That one, I'll take it.

I will start with Day One and work forward. I wouldn't want you to miss out on Day One. It will give you a better understanding by the time we get to Day Seven.

Ohhhh yeah, it has been a trip.

DAY ONE Thursday, May 15th: 4:45am arrived early. Plans were that by leaving at 5:00 we could easily make our 9:35 am flight out of LAX (LA) to SEA-TAC (Seattle). We waved good by to home and the incoming 103* weather expected. And I got the wheel. Long about 8:00 am I realize I am on the 5 not the 405, almost to Long Beach, not LAX. We stop for directions. Catch the 605 to the 105 and go straight in to LAX on Imperial. Sounds simple, huh. Well it wasn't . We drove a little ways and found Imperial, dropped off the freeway, and in a panic stopped for more directions. Back on Imperial to the 105, which is the Imperial Highway (duh), after a short 20 minute drive and numerous calls to friends we could have "google" a map for us, we found Parking Lot C and headed for the shuttle. 1st shuttle bus drops off at the "real" shuttle bus station. Thank God they had a bathroom. "But Mom, the next bus will be here in less than two minutes!!" Knowing that it wouldn't take two seconds, I ran for the door. Nerves. I just explode in these kinds of situations. We arrived at 9, checked our 8 bags, was herded through TSA screening along with another kazillion people and arrived exactly on time 15 minutes before boarding was to begin.

On the shuttle bus, this guy hit on a young woman (with her own man). Get this for a line. "Hello, I sure would like for you to call me." Hands her his card. "Yes, I think ........, Yeah...Uh yeah I sing with Marvin Gay, so call me." And he gets off the bus at the next stop. One of the guys that stayed on the bus reminded us that Marvin Gay has been dead for sometime now. The more I think about, perhaps the guy said, "Hello, I'm Marvin, and I'm gay. Let's get together."

Lesson 1: Regardless of the price difference in air fare, do not fly out of LAX. It is a madhouse ~ I live on the edge of lunacy every day of my life, but that place is a ZOO. And, it is FILTHY.

Delta, little plane. 2 hour flight. Beautiful view of the Western Sierra Nevada, Lake Tahoe, Mt. St. Helens, and Mt. Ranier. Blue skys the entire way. Such textures of the earth amaze me.

Lesson 2: Regardless of the price difference in air fare, do not fly Delta. You get better goodies on SouthWest. Even with the stop overs, the planes are much more comfortable.

Sea-Tac. Ever play follow the leader when there are 5 leaders? Let's go here, no this way, over here, outside! Okay so we finally found a shuttle in to town and settled in at the Holiday Inn. Sundown in the north is at 9:30 pm!!!!!! Makes for long days to do wonderful things in the city. Many hills to walk, police and fire stations to find, the Space Needle, and of course dinner at the Outback on our own private patio was wonderful ~ the fish place we were looking for closed down.

What a day. What a day. And only the beginning.

Allllllll a-boarrrrrd

I cant remember what the ship captain says when they load the ship...which is embarking....so train talk will have to do for today. I am so excited. I even left work early today so i could come home and get my butt in gear. But before I left, my staff gave me a send off, which included a kazillion ships in various sinking positions and a zip line that looks like its 500ft in the air and of course the numerous pic's of people barfing over the side of the ship. And lunch, mmmmmm tri-tip and chili. What a hoot they are, a real bunch of knuckleheads, but I LOVE them, each one of them.

Favor from you, please, keep us in your prayers.

Batten down the hatches,,,,,in case there is a storm.
Sail away, Sail away, come sail away with me.

adieu.