Back to Alaska, Part 5!

God, will I be glad when this is over! I certainly enjoy sharing all this with you but it is taking almost as long to talk about the trip as it did to go on the trip!

Anyway, I am happy to talk about our favirote place. Ketchikan. It it wasn't our favorite place just because it was sunny and in the low 70s, either. The poor Ketchikans were terribly stressed because it was so hot. Frankly, I was as content as a cat on a hot rock.

Anyway, Ketchikan was totally cool! Totem Bright State Park was amazing and our trip to the Saxman Native Village (really, an actually Tlingit village) was mondo fun!

Again, we got up early in the morning to get out the door. But since so many people had early morning tours, we didn;t avoid the rush. Instead, we waited and waited in line. It didn;t help matters that we were almost an hour late docking. Many folks didn't make their morning tours. I hope they got reimbursed.

We made our tour. Onto a nice tour bus we went and off for a short tour around the town. The highlights? A little park that was really beautiful and the redlight district, which I wish we could have walked through. Lots of cute little painted houses.

Once the house tour was done, we headed out of town to Totem Bright State Park. Along the way, we saw some interesting "boat" houses. To avoid paying property taxes, many of the loggers used to build shacks on floating rafts that rose and fell with the tide. Because they were never really on solid ground, they didn;t have to pay taxes. Then we got to the park. I was disobedient and headed out into the woods along the path (it's a one-way path. What's the worst that could happen!? Well, bears I suppose but since it was me, I was never going to see one anyway, so whatever.) So I headed out and took some great tree and rock pictures (most of my pictures are of trees and rocks. I can't help it. It's genetic.) and then I hit the totem poles.

Like, wow! So beautiful! So impressive! So damn tall! Each pole tells the story of a particular event in the history of the tribe that cares it, traditionally. Nowadays, they sometimes aren't based on a historical happened but rather tell a different type of story. Each different symbol has a very complex meaning. It used to be that the women would chew salmon eggs, spit out the mess, and mix in different botanicals to make paint. Now they just get it at the Ace hardware. Totem poles also used to be erected and left to decay naturally. But so mnay were stolen or damaged by white men, that there is a lot of care taken to preserve them; some are even stored inside.

After spending a lot of time at the park and taking a million pictures, we got back on the bus and headed back to the pier, where we caught another bus for our next tour - to the Saxman Native Village. An actual functional Tlingit town, we got to learn more about Tlingit history and language. We watched a short film and then went to the ceremonial lodge to view a traditional dance troop. Yours truly got to put on full regalia and dance! It was so exciting. Women's dancing among the Tlingit is even less physically active than women's dancing among the Ojibwe (if you are a regular woman and not a fancy dancer), but it was way fun! It reminded me of when I was a little girl and we would go to the pow-wows in Wisconsin. I would dance so much, I would wear holes in my mocs. Once, I got pulled off the floor, because - at 8 or 9 - I was a little too young to be dancing in the eligible young women's dance. I was mad as hell and threw a hissy fit! No need for a hissy fit among the Tlingit. They let me dance.

Our guide was actually a white woman. She reminded me a lot of my friend Timi from Kentucky...similar voices, similar mannerisms, similar body types. This guide had some sort of an interesting relationship to the Saxman villagers; I am not certain what it was but it felt like family.

We got to see a totem pole carver working and learned that he makes about $60K per average pole. Nice! And beautiful work. I was going to swipe another curl, but I found an interesting knothole from a piece of wood being readied for carving that I was able to take home with me.

I didn't get many pictures at Saxman because my camera battery died. But I did get a tasty reindeer jerky snack and a not so tasty salmon jerky snack. I just don't like salmon. I just don't! But I do like reindeer, which makes sense as I prefer eating venison whenever possible. In fact I got some cooking on the stove right now....

Well, we were pretty tired after Saxman, so we headed back to the ship. Mom went on board and I did a quite sprint through the town to see if there was anything I actually wanted to buy. I found a hidden Native artists cooperative and purchased the most beautiful scrimshaw bracelet made of fossilized mammoth ivory. It was so fabulous, I didn't even blink at the price. Which is rare for me.

We got back to the ship and it was italian night at dinner! I have to say, of all the food on the cruise, the italian was the best. Other than a few occassions when they added brown sugar to the sauce to stretch (nonononono!!, the Italian food was pretty decent. I had my favorite dish - amatriciana, which is paste in a tomato sauce with onions, garlic, and pancetta.

The next day was another at sea. Another boring day. A day of total hell for me.

Nothing went right. I can't even remember everything that just didn't go well. Everything tasted funny. I didn't feel 100% and I was bored and crabby. I decided to go sit in the hot tub. That always cheers me up. Well, not here. The hot tubs were filled with nasty little 10-year-old girls. Unsupervised. One of them informed me that fat people shouldn't be allowed to wear swimsuits. So I sat next to her to make her uncomfortable. Then I went back to the room and tried to read. After dinner, I wanted to go see The Matador, a film I had been wanting to see for a while. It was great! Until about half way through when it died. And couldn't be fixed. So I went back to the room, where Mom was resting and we decided we wanted a snack. Maybe pizza. There was a pizza place on board so i decided to go up and get one for us. I get there, and am informed that pizza cannot be ordered take out. Well, shit. So then I decide on peanuts. And they have no peanuts in the store. Only a $4.50 container of Pringles. Pringles it was. I took them back to the room and shared them with Mom and went to bed. Tomorrow, at Victoria, it must be a better day.

Back to Alaska, Part 4 ....

Ah, Juneau. That's where we headed after Sitka. And it was the port at which we would spend the longest on shore. so, we kept ourselves rather busy. Well, I did. I am not certain about Mom. I think she probably spent a lot of time waiting for me to get back from my galivanting....

According to the Pitter Patter, which we awaited breathlessly each evening around 10, Juneau's primary reason for being in the white man's world was the presence of large amounts of silly gold. Really, I have never much understood the attraction. It's soft and heavy and fairly useless on a day to day basis. Nevertheless, it drives people mad.

Anyway, we were up bright and early, hoping to avoid the mad rush of bling crazy shoppers about to flood the shops nearest to our dock. And we succeeded. First we went to this place called Caribou Crossing, which is sort of an Alaskan artists' cooperative, where I ordered a fabulous mythological painting by a local artist. Then we got the ever-present t-shirts and picked up some bottled water. Than we took the tram up Mt. Roberts. 1800 feet almost straight up. Totally cool! In the fog... very spooky.

At the top, at a Tlingit-run visitor center, we watched a movie about the history of the local tribes and their interactions with the Russians and the Americans. Then we visited the gift shop and heard our loud friend Lorraine, she of the booming voice. We then escaped outside into the rainforest, where we freaked out about how high we were and commented on the extreme amount of moisture and moss/lichen hanging everywhere and then I went hiking further up the mountain.

I did about 2.5 miles up into Mt. Roberts, into bear country, although all the animals were wisely in the warm, dry dens, and I saw no bears, no squirrels even. I was scolded by a hoary marmot, which is like a giant praire dog with a pissy attitude. I did see some beautiful views, even if it did rain every damn time I got out my camera and I returned to the visitor center completely drenched. Mom and I ate lunch there and I had an excellent Dungeness crab with some sort of interest butter/bear fat mixture for seasoning.


We then made our way down the mountainside via tram to head off for our next major adventure - a trip to a salmon hatchery, then a visit to Mendenhall Glacier, and finally a salmon bake.

The hatchery was interesting... it had a fish ladder and we learned about the types of salmon, but how long can you stand around watching fish flop around in a breeding frenzy and then croak? About 30 minutes. Then we headed off to the glacier, where again, we had hoped to see a bear but didn't.

I don't know why we were so frantic to see a bear. Wisconsin has tons of bears. I have even been bear hunting. Maybe we thought that Alaskan bears would be somewhat special. Huge giant bears!

Anyway, no bears, but we did see our first wild mammal - a sassy red squirrel in the parking lot.

The glacier and its lake more than made up for the lack of large, fanged and potentially woman-eating bears. With a huge waterfall and completely cold waters (I know. I went wading in it to pick up a rock), we were fascinated and took tons of pictures. Then - of course - it started to pour again and we all got herded onto the boss to head off to the salmon bake.

Now, I am not a huge fan of salmon under any circumstances. Honestly, I would have sooner eaten the squirrel from the parking lot - as small a mouthful as he would have been. But when in Alaska, do as the Alaskans do, so I eat salmon. Well, I tried to. We got off the bus to be greeted by the foul stench of rotting salmon from the nearby stream and a man-made duck pond that obviously had not been cleaned for years. And the food was, well, let's just say that - yet again - it was aimed at people who were going to be gulping and shoveling rather than savoring and enjoying. That being said, they had good cornbread. And I don't even like cornbread. Once we were done eating, I went hiking again up the stream where all the salmon were dying and saw the waterfall they just couldn't get up... beautiful but deadly!

Our driver on the way back to the ship was a local Tlingit who was funnier than anyone who currently has a network show. Truly, he was in the wrong line of work!

That night, we basically dried off and got warm. Man, we were so tired of the rain! Luckily, the rain broke when we hit Glacier Bay National Park the next day.

Glacier Bay is basically a boat tour you take of a bay field with tons of glaciers. You don't get off. You just look and go oh! ah! look at that! At the main glacier, we did some recording with the video camera. The first time a chunk of iceberg "calved" off, we were like someone just fired a cannon! It was that loud. Again, we saw now wildlife except birds although we think we saw an orca fin. Somebody claimed to have seen a bear on the shoreline but they must have Superman eyes. We couldn't see anything even with the binocs! Anyway, the bay was beautiful and a sight everyone should see, because who know how long the glaciers have until they melt entirely. Tomorrow, Ketchikan!

Back to Alaska, Part 2!

When we last left our plucky adventurers, they had just boarded the Regal Princess, preparing to set sail for northern waters on their 10-day Alaskan cruise. Little did they know .....


They had entered the Floating Home Shopping Network!!!!! *ominous music here*

Yes, dear friends, a cruise ship is one big and easy way to spend cashola. It's constantly pushed at you - Buy this gaudy jewelry! But expensive fine art! Buy a fur! Buy drinks! Buy a future cruise!

And there was almost nothing else to do until we got to Sitka. On Thursday. And we started sailing on Monday. And it rained nearly the entire way.

Oh my god!

To be honest, I really don't remember what we did on Monday evening. Oh! I made an appointment for a manicure, which ended up costing $44 (piracy indeed). And we had our first dinner, which wasn't bad. Our table companions were are very nice people, including one fabulous 11-year-old named Rachel. Wonderful young woman. Sadly, I remember very little about what we ate. Honestly, I was not impressed with the food on the ship. It was ok, but not anything nearly as good as I have had elsewhere. I remember only a few dishes over the course of the cruise. The escargot, which was great (how can anything in garlic butter be bad?). An Alaskan Rock Fish, mild and tender. Poached peaches with an almond souffle - damn good! And I tried and enjoy Morbier and dulce leche cheese. But other than that, it was, well, mostly plain. No seasoning. I mean, I understand they are cooking for an older crowd, but no seasoning at all. I had one curry dish that had no flavor, although it was bright yellow. The pasta was decent but not spectacular. My primary goal the entire trip was to have a piece of toast that was warm enough to melt butter. It never happened.

And that was eating in the dining room, where the food was ten times better than the buffet. I was in shock listening to people rave about the buffet. Truly, too many people eat so quickly they don't taste what they are eating. It is quantity versus quality.

Well, between the time we got on board and the time we got to Sitka on Thursday morning, Mom and I did pretty much nothing, as there was nothing much to do. Other than to buy things, attend boring art auctions (listening to the auctioneer was like watching paint dry - painfully boring and slow), paint your own ceramics, and Pictionary in the bar. We did see one high school musical style review of the history of early rock n' roll. I purchased an infamous un-Savvy Traveler (more about that later) Boring boring!

We had our first formal dinner, and I must say that Mom and I were totally cute.

Needless to say, however, we were terribly excited for land ho! on Tursday morning. That morning, I had gotten up early to go and get some coffee upstairs in the buffet. I was so excited to see land that I needed to sit down. One older woman sitting alone at a table that could hold ten seemed like a nice place to start. And when I asked her if I could sit across from her, she screamed, "No! Get away!" So I did. Land ho! Sitka on the horizon...