A little bit of Alaska

[jethrien]

I'm sure no one wants to read a six page post on What I Did on My Summer Vacation, but here's a couple little snippets of our Alaska trip:

Actually, it wasn't that cold. Needed winter coats, but wasn't freezing.

Things that were expectedly awesome about Alaska:
1) Seeing Seattle folks before getting on the boat (and cinnamon bun French toast, which has got to be the best invention ever).
2) Seeing tons of wildlife - humpback whales, grizzly bears (from very, very far away), black bears, bald eagles, seals, and a fox.
3) Seeing glaciers and tons of waterfalls.
4) OMG seafood - we had the most amazing lunch with all kinds of fish prepared eight or nine different ways, all of it astonishingly delicious. And I don't even like fish.
5) Horseback riding in the Yukon.
6) Chocolate buffet.

Things that were unexpectedly awesome about Alaska:
1) The Nylons were on our boat! Yay obscure a cappella group we actually have heard of and like! We saw them perform three times.
2) The weather was unexpectedly good. They were forecasting rain when we left. We actually got sunshine in both Juneau and Ketchikan (where the sun never shines), and although it rained in Skagway, when we drove over the pass, it was sunny in the Yukon.
3) Sitting in the hot tub watching snow capped mountains go by.

Things that were not-so-awesome:
1) The four hours on the tarmac in Newark and the three hours of sitting in the airport with no information in Seattle. Stupid thunderstorms.
2) The weird light conditions playing havoc with sleep schedules.
3) Vague sea-sickness.

Things that were just amusingly random:
1) We were disinfected within an inch of our lives. They're really quite concerned about GI infections on cruise boats, so there were disinfectant dispensers every fifteen feet. If you got on the boat, they spritzed you. If you entered a restaurant, they spritzed you. If you sat still long enough, I'm pretty sure they'd spritz you. Fortunately, the disinfectant left hands soft and minty-fresh, as advertised.
2) Do the same six jewelry companies have a deal with the cruise lines? I swear, the same ones in Juneau, Skagway, and Ketchikan were also in Hawaii and Aruba, always on the block the ship dumps out on. I got really sick of seeing Tanzanite International.
3) Alaska is very, very big. We were in a National Monument the size of Connecticut, which was surrounded by a National Forest waaaay bigger than that.

In short - planes, bad. Boats, good. Alaska, awesome!

Comments

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

4) OMG seafood - we had the most amazing lunch with all kinds of fish prepared eight or nine different ways, all of it astonishingly delicious.

Only two kinds of fish: Salmon (four ways) and haddock (two). And jumbo prawns two ways, and two kinds of crab. And, of course, dessert.

For the expectedly awesome list:
7) The fruit at Pike Place market. OMG.
8) Lumberjacks. Bunny chair!

For the unexpectedly awesome list:
4) Salmon jerky.
5) Reindeer sausage.
6) Acrobat/gymnists good enough to not skip a beat even when the boat was moving under them.
7) A duck.

For the not-so-awesome list:
4) "This is Paul Shally, your cruise director!" at 7:00 in the morning.

Amusingly random:
4) The tour guide knew the father-son team that caught the salmon we ate. Ketchikan is a very small town.
5) The same tour guide exclaimed "That's more people than live in the state of Alaska!" when told how many people live on Long Island, NY.

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

Awesome - every other performer working bad impressions of Paul Shally into their act.

[(Anonymous)]

I love to say "I told you so" and I told you that you'd LOVE the Pike Place Market and the chocolate buffet. After all, what's not to love about incredibly wonderful fresh foods?

[nanonicole.livejournal.com]

The vague seasickness that you mention is the reason I'm really scared to go on a cruise. It seems like if it doesn't agree with you, you're just out of luck and miserable for a week. Were you mostly ok?

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

Actually, there was only one bad day--the day we hit a storm. Usually, the only way to tell you were in motion was to look out the window. (I had virtually no problems with seasickness, though I only get motion-sick in odd corner-case times. I can read on buses, but can't sit backways on them. But I can sit backwards on trains...)

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

Actually, yeah, I'd forgotten about that. I remember being woozy, and concerned that the dancers were going to hurt themselves (they didn't), but I forgot that the reason for all of this was the thunderstorm outside.

It's surprisingly easy to forget outside.

[nanonicole.livejournal.com]

I can't read in cars, buses, or smaller boats (ferries and things). I can read on a plane as long as there's no turbulence. The storm sounds rough, but maybe I'd be ok otherwise...

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

90% ok. I was actually fine while standing up - I just had a little trouble when I was lying down and my ears got confused. Also, this is with no medication.

[nanonicole.livejournal.com]

All the medication I've tried (for planes and boats mostly) make me super drowsy. It's usually very helpful on a plane because I have a hard time sleeping otherwise. Being drowsy for the entirety of my vacation seems a little... extreme. Maybe cruise ships are large enough for me to be ok. I wish there was a way to test it out. :-)

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

They spritzed you because of GI bugs? Huh, is that what that was? We got sprayed every five seconds (and helped ourselves to hallway dispensers for shits and giggles) when we went to Hawai'i, but we thought that that had to do with all the prohibitions about trekking back and forth between islands with possibly invasive, foreign species of fruits and such.

Was there an outbreak on a cruise ship or something?

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

Oh dear. Yes, quite a bit, and a lot of issues with norovirus specifically. Basically, if someone brings something on board, pretty much everyone catches it. It's always been a problem, but there was a rash of particularly bad incidents two or three years back. One of the crew was talking about how a couple years ago, Juneau basically just wouldn't let any ships dock for a little while because they weren't about to let a bunch of tourists make their entire town sick.

Our ship was very transparent about the reasoning. They made announcements at the beginning, and had signs in all the bathrooms and on the back of your stateroom door listing the symptoms of noroviruses and saying that if you had nausea or diarrhea to stay in your stateroom and call them, and they would send a doctor to your room to do a complimentary, private examination to make sure you didn't have anything. Seriously, every bathroom. They weren't mean or scary about it, just very matter-of-fact.

[fairylane.livejournal.com]

The Nylons were on your ship? That's fantastic! I love them. And they tend to be hilarious live.

Man, they weren't on my ship when *I* went to Alaska...

Did you see any marmots? They were the only wildlife that seemingly wasn't trying to actively avoid us on our "wildlife-spotting" hike, although we saw plenty of wildlife when we didn't go looking for them.

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

No marmots (although I've seen them in Colorado).