9/1/2013

Ketchikan, Alaska

Magnets!

Is it wrong that I’m in Alaska, surrounded by incredible mountains, and glaciers and scenery… and yet, I woke up this morning excited about magnets? 

Yea, I roll like that.

Brief background: years ago I was once in a relationship with someone who liked magnets.  So, when I traveled for work, I would pick up magnets for him from wherever I went.  Alas, when the relationship ended, he took the magnets with him… and quite suddenly… I realized I really missed those damn magnets!  I mean, they provided this wonderful map of all the places I had been for work and pleasure. 

So, I started collecting magnets for me.

Now, I have certain rules: I have to have been to the place in question in order to collect the magnet.  No magnets from friends on vacations, alas.  I want this to be a visual map of where I’ve been, after all, not where others have been.  Also, I have to have done more than just lay over through the airport… which is why I don’t have a Hong Kong magnet (much as I wanted to buy one while I was there!).  It just doesn’t seem fair.  The only exception to this is Dubai, where I broke down and bought a magnet even though I never left the airport… sigh… I suppose there always has to be an exception.

Because having all of those magnets on my fridge would just be annoying, I decided to buy a large sheet of galvanized steel, hang that, and make it my “magnet art”, so to speak.  Since then, I’ve nearly replaced all of the magnets from those I places I lost those many years ago (although, not all of them), and I’ve had to add a few additional steel plates around the wall to account for everything. 

I have a section for States, cities, countries, foreign cities, historic/iconic places I’ve visited, and plays I’ve attended (that have magnets, anyway… not many do). 

So… the problem is… now when I travel it’s almost always to places I’ve already been.  I do all of this traveling, and can’t add to my wall.

I know, there are more horrible crosses to bear in life… just hush.

Thus, when I go someplace I’ve never been before (or someplace where I can replace those magnets I lost), I get REALLY excited.  And this trip has been Magnet Epic!  Yes, I plan to coin that phrase.

Really, I’ve replaced my Seattle and Washington State magnets… I’ve gotten an Alaska, Yukon, Caribou Crossing, Skagway, Juneau, Ketchikan and Inside Passage magnet… and more actually!… I may have to buy another steel sheet… this makes me giddy… and a bit tingly in those “special places” =).

You’re so, like, “weren’t you going to tell me about Ketchikan?”  And I’m so, like, “here, little reader, take this sweet little piece of Ketchikan candy out of my hand while I lure you into my magnet story!  Bwahahahaha!”

Ah well.  I never said I didn't have ulterior motives for writing my blog.  

Ketchikan was actually an awesome way to say ‘Farewell’ to Alaska.  The weather, here, like so much of this trip was simply perfect.  Like a perfect, early Fall day that’s neither too hold nor too cold… really, I could go on all day.  Now, let’s think for a second about how amazing and perfect this has truly been.  In a an area where the average rainfall in a year can be over 14’… yea, you saw that right… not inches… FEET (in fact, Ketchikan specifically has an average of 300 days of rain in a year)… we’ve had gorgeous, sunny days for every single one except Juneau. 

Yea, I know… you’d almost think my horrible vacation luck may have slacked off for once…

Vacation isn’t over yet, though… so I don’t want to jinx it.

We were only in Ketchikan for about 5 hours… a very short stop.  Alas, the only excursions that seemed really interesting involved taking a small propeller plane to tour Misty Fjord.  This actually sounded pretty cool, but it was pricey and Mom wasn’t really up for a plane ride.  So, we decided to just walk around town.

Now, this sounds a little dull, but it turned out to be quite nice.  Yes, it was FULL of tourist shops… but it was also this quaint, adorable little fishing village nestled into rolling, forest encased mountains.  It was, quite simply, a lovely day, doing some shopping with this fantastic view surrounding you.

In the end, we boarded the ship again around noon, and I jogged on my treadmill as I watched us sail from the beautiful day in Ketchikan into another dense, impenetrable cloud of fog.  The temperature took another intense, sudden drop as indicated by the appearance of first jackets, then parkas on the people still daring the deck outside.  The winds came.  The fog horn on the ship would sound every so often… a deep, chest throbbing boom that echoed off the water and fog around us… and it became beautiful and eerie just watching the ocean, the boat, and the incredible fog as we made our way into Canada.  

8/31/2013

Juneau, Alaska

So, today we are to kayak around the Mendenhall Glacier!  How cool is that!?!

Well, very cool, actually… as in, warm, moist air flowing over cool surfaces and forming an extremely thick blanket of fog…

No no… think thicker…

No no no… you can still SEE through the fog, can’t you?  Stop that.

So, the fog was SO thick this morning that no sight was to be had.  Or kayaking, for that matter. 

They canceled my excursion… (sob!)

Yea… Juneau turned out to be cold, wet (extremely wet), and kinda dull.  We tried to make up for the kayaking with a tram ride over the city… but you can see the problem with this, right?  Yea, this wasn’t the brightest idea as the fog essentially meant we trammed our way into a dense, wet, cold cloud for awhile where one could hear lots of "ooooh!  Look at THAT indiscernible blob of whiteness! ... No, no!  Look at THIS indiscernible blob of whiteness over here!  There's just TOO MUCH to see!!  OMG!!".... 

Ok, so maybe 'one' wouldn't have heard that if I hadn't been in the tram... have I mentioned 'hush, you' yet this entry?  Insert hushing now.  

At the ‘top’ of the tramway, we then shopped (of course… I got a magnet!... you are SO surprised… I know it!)… and then watched a movie covering the entire history of the Tlingit Native Americans from the very first Tlingit hunting his first Caribou all the way up to present day…

It lasted 18 minutes.

I’m assuming it was abridged.  Uh-huh.

Anyway, after that, we headed back into the dense, white, cold, endless cloud and emerged in Juneau. 

So what is Juneau?  Well, it’s the capital of Alaska… with a whopping population of 33,000.  To put this into prospective, my Dad mentioned that Murfreesboro, TN, had a population of 114,000. 

Think about that. 

Yea, there wasn’t a heck of a lot to do except shop.  Mendenhall Glacier was the big tourist draw here, but paying for the various means to get there seemed rather pointless when any view of the glacier would be shrouded in pretty epic mists.

Ah well.  Juneau was a bit of a let down, but there were a few beautiful sights right as the boat left dock.  The fog, of course, miraculously began to lift as we sailed out of town and you could see multiple waterfalls coming out of the cloud line and coursing down the mountains… quite amazing =).  

8/29 - 8/30/2013

Tracy Arm Fjord Excursion

White Pass & Yukon Railway

So… how to sum up these last 2 days?  Poorly, I’ve no doubt.  Every trip like this I’ve ever taken seems to start out with me having TONS of time to do these blogs, only to quickly descend in little blurbs to try and describe the epic events that transpired… and thus left me too tired to write about them…

For instance, yesterday evening I was simply too exhausted to write anything… and tonight I have this incredible desire to write:

“We rode a big boat.  We rode a smaller boat.  2 glaciers and a waterfall.” For Tracy Arm Fjord along with “We rode a bus, then a train… we pet sled dogs”… for Yukon & White Pass Railway and then gently drift off to sleep…

My typical desire towards the OCD spectrum, however, screams for a bit more detail, so I’ll need to find the most pleasant in-between to satisfy the rock of one and hard place of the other.  Bear with me…

Early on the morning of the 29^th, we sailed into the mouth of Tracy Arm Fjord.  Phenomenal mountains flanked both sides of the ship, all covered with pines and often ending in ice capped tops.  Perhaps more incredible was the water itself… the most amazing shade of turquoise you’ve ever seen.  It was breathtaking and surreal.  Truly, I’ll edit these photos for days (I’ve already been at it) and will still never be able to replicate in the photos the exact shade of turquoise… or how nearly alien yet

gorgeous a color it is… for anyone else to understand.   As it turned out, it had a very specific reason to be such a color… and these reasons actually made it rather unpalatable to marine life.  Namely, the glaciers are eating their way through rock, shaping the granite of the mountains around us, and the byproduct of this is sediment from a variety of minerals.  As fresh water from the glaciers mixes with the salty seawater, a great deal of activity is generated.  This activity stirs up the sediment mentioned above, which then catches the sun… making the water appear the intense, beautiful shade of turquoise you see there.

Alas, fish and other marine life tend not to be so fond of it.  First off, it can’t really make up it’s mind whether to be fresh or salty… mostly, however… that’s a lot of sediment!  I would imagine swimming through it… breathing it through gills… etc etc… would be unpleasant.  The predominant wild life we saw throughout the day were Harbor Seals, which apparently like to mate around the actual ocean, where food can be found, and then have the females birth and take care of the young within the fjords, were their predators (orca whales) are unlikely to go. 

We had left the main ship, you see, and entered onto a much smaller ship that was able to take us in closer to the glaciers and the waterfalls.  As ice hunks… from small to enormous, bobbed and flowed all around us through the fjord, navigating around them required something a little less gigantic than a cruise ship.  The smaller boat was simple, but fun, with decks on top and a crew that was near to bursting with enthusiasm. 

Thus, we sailed into the bowels of Tracy Arm Fjord… which basically means there were long, fjords of

turquoise water surrounded by high, carved mountains and, around a couple of corners… Sawyer’s Glacier!  This, also, is a bit difficult to put into words.  First off, the ice is only white in parts.  The top, for instance, is pretty brown with dust.  The inside, however, shown to us due to the constant caving of ice into the fjord, was a brilliant blue.  It was actually somewhat amazing to realize how quickly the glacier was disappearing right in front of our eyes as pieces kept breaking off… and from what we were told, nothing has really been added back to them in over a hundred years.  As I said above, there were also seals everywhere!  Laying placidly on the ice chunks, basking in the absolutely gorgeous day we were having.

We did a waterfall as well… which was gorgeous and I enjoyed it, but I can probably spare you some of the details as I’m sure you’ve seen one or two yourself in the past.  I will say, however, that the boat got up pretty darn close… like, I could reach out and touch the waterfall, close… at one point… making me a tad bit nervous…

Other than this, however, it was a fantastic day and one where I was soooo happy I had my new camera lens!  Woot!

White Pass & Yukon Railway

I never thought I would be, like, “What’s that?!? Oh, it’s just another glacier… what else is there to photograph?”

I mean, does that statement even make sense to you?

Yea, that’s what I thought.  Crazy.  Still, I suppose when you’re in one, single State in the Union that contains approx. half the worlds glaciers (according to our “Naturalist”, anyway… and just what the hell is a “Naturalist”?  I keep thinking “Naturist”, which is just another word for “Nudist”, right?  Thus, every time I hear our “Naturalist” on the PA, I picture her giving us sage advice about Alaska and Canada in the buff… how did I get onto this subject, anyway?)… oh yea!  So, glaciers… Today I saw a gaggle of glaciers… (well, it wouldn’t be a murder of glaciers now, would it?). 

We started the day off on a bus tour.  A cute little guy named Drew (with the most gorgeous blue eyes) was our host and driver and provided a rather entertaining dialogue as we drove through Skagway, then into Canada. 

The terrain was simply breathtaking.  Enormous mountains covered in dense forest.  Incredible water falls that seemed to go on forever.  Countless rivers, lakes and streams with varying shades of that amazing turquois.  Even a desert!  Yep, due to some bizarre fluke of nature, there’s 1 square mile of

land near the top of one of these mountains that is simply sand and a few persistent pines.  Of course, it’s not technically a desert, but it does in many ways resemble one and looks quite out of place where it sits.  Can’t remember exactly why it’s so dry… something about wind over the mountain… puppies crying… small children making tennis shoes in China… I don’t remember. 

Anyway.

We had lunch in Carcross, Yukon.  Carcross was once “Caribou Crossing”, but apparently had it’s name changed by the Post Office as there were already 3 Caribou Crossings in Canada… who knew?  There really isn’t much to Carcross.  There’s a taxidermy museum (which was, admittedly, pretty impressively done… but I find taxidermy… like wax museums… a bit creepy… those eyes follow you everywhere!).  Also, the training ground for dog sledding tournament people… so you can see the dogs

and the puppies!  That was cute. 

Other than that, it was a lot of driving and a couple of photo stops.  Unfortunately, as long as it took to get everyone on and off the bus, we didn’t stop very often, and taking photos through the tinted bus window wasn’t ideal.  Ah well.  I still took something like 200 photos from this day alone =).

The remainder of the day was spent on a train, riding back to the boat some 68 miles.  Unfortunately, the train in question was meant to give you something akin to the “authentic experience” of those gold rush stampeders that took the White Pass trail… this translated to a train that jerked, jolted and essentially threw you around a bunch.  We “authentically” spent a lot of time driving past rock walls and dense forests… not terribly exciting… but when it did open up, the view was awe inspiring.  The valley and surrounding mountains were simply too beautiful.  With this, at least, I have a few excellent photos as we were able to go out onto a platform (thankfully, with a reliable rail!) to take photos.  A rather large but friendly guy shared the platform with me as we both moved into and out of the ‘good’ places to take photos… and then tried not fall into one another as the train would suddenly lurch. 

This brings me back around to the glaciers.  Yea… so every mountaintop… just about... seemed topped with an enormous sheet of ice that had some name that sounded like, “Blah blah blah Glacier”.  Really… at some point… who remembers these things?  Mind you, they were incredibly impressive!  Especially as the clouds rolled in as the day advanced, rolling over the glaciers in this amazing display. 

Yea… it was cool like that.

Other than that, a little shopping in Skagway ended the day (did I mention it used to be Skaguay before the Post Office changed that, too?  Who knew the Post Office was really this insidious, undercurrent of power… changing names… and stuff!... Skagua, apparently was a native word that meant either, “Wind that Blows from the North”, “Northern Wind that Makes White Caps on the Water”, or “Place Where Only Stupid White People Would Live”… depending on who you ask in the town…).

8/28/2013

A Day At Sea…

So, the day started off with a bit of a chuckle.  While getting ready, Dad had the TV on to a program that talked about the various activities going on throughout the ship today… Bingo, Charades, Wine Tasting, a Gathering of the Friends of Dorothy, Disco Dance Class…

Wait… Gathering of the Friends of Dorothy??

Ok, so let’s assume that you, fair reader, are not a homosexual and have never found gay history even vaguely interesting (if you are gay and have no idea what this expression means… shame one you!  Back to your pink triangle history book!): “Are you a Friend of Dorothy?” used to be a code phrase for “Are you gay?”  Of course, the popularity of this phrase had it’s hay day during the glory years of Judy Garland (if I have to explain who Dorothy is… really… there’s just no hope…).

Back to our erstwhile hero, another dear friend of Dorothy, within the Carnival Miracle…

Obviously, this had to be on my agenda… how many gay people could there possibly BE on this cruise, anyway?  Would the people who stumbled into this little piano bar off the casino even know it was a clandestine meeting of the fruity variety? (Hey, I can say that… ‘cause I’m a fruit… if you’re a vegetable, don’t try this at home…).  Methinks this might prove entertaining…

The day is yet young, however, so we shall return to the festive, floating fey (again… I’m SUCH a fairy that when people ask me, “Is that fairy wand in your pocket or are you just happy to see me”… I have to respond, truthfully, “It’s the wand..”… Hey!  Don’t make me fairy dust yo’ ass, MoFo!) in a bit.  In the meantime…

Today was the “Day at Sea”… this basically means there were no ports and the boat essentially just booked it’s way through Canadian waters as it made its way to Alaska.  The day was gorgeous… the temperature steadily dropped… and we really just spent the day getting acquainted with the ship in general. 

So I suppose I haven’t really described the ship much yet, have I?  Well, let me take a moment to do so… Like I mentioned before, the ship consists of some 10 floors, each with a name (I think we’re on the “Riviera”).  Everything on this ship seems to have a name… each little bar, coffee shop, casino, steak house, store, ashtray and persistent stain seems to have acquired a name purloined from Mythology, Literature, Comic Books, Broadway Stage Production or Harlequin Romance… and that’s just the thing… there’s really no theme or consistency I can find.  There’s the Bacchus Restaurant, like I said, but there’s also Horatio’s Restaurant.  There’s Gotham and Metropolis (‘Lounges’, I believe) and even “The Joker” (a room, from what I can tell… just a room… with chairs… it has a table, perhaps… maybe that’s the joke?).  There’s ‘The Phantom” and ‘The Mad Hatter’ and then ‘The Fountainhead Café’ (Ayn Rand allusion, I’m assuming… very juxtaposed to everything else to be sure).  Yep… chaos… pure and simple.

Of course, what would all this confusion be without a plethora of art from every discernable era and style?  Yea, you saw that one coming.  Oddly, while it sounds pretty atrocious, it does have a certain charm.  Think Casino Chic…  or just Uber Kitsch… that works, too.

I will say that I was pretty darn impressed with the gym, which was 2 floors and full of quite the selection of cardio equipment, free weights, and weight machines.  And YES!  I worked out today… WOOT me AGAIN!  BOOYA!  It was actually pretty cool doing cardio while staring out into the ocean… however, as I tend to run on a treadmill, I quickly discovered the general movement of a ship out in the ocean was a bit disconcerting while running on a treadmill.  In fact, afterwards I spent about 15 minutes fighting a rather mild but annoying vertigo that kept up a rather persistent presence in my head.  Yea… tomorrow I think I shall try the Elliptical… perhaps that will work better…

You’re dying to know about the Friends of Dorothy thing, aren’t you?

Ok, so of course there was the disco ball hanging from the ceiling, glitter falling from through the sky like rain upon the nubile, naked chests of the cut, shirtless guys dancing to the beat…  nearly naked go-go boys writhing in their cages with their glo sticks in hand…

Oh wait… maybe that was an episode of Queer as Folk… any episode of QAF, really, pick one… ah, well…

So the Friends of Dorothy Event turned out to be about as pathetic as I imagined it would be.  I entered the piano bar right around the time the event was to begin with nearly no one around.  A few, antique straight couples lined the back of the bar, nursing their peanuts and cocktails and awaiting the entertainment to begin.  Shortly after I sat down and ordered my obligatory glass of white wine, a couple of lipstick lesbians walked in and sat down a short distance down the bar from me.

“Is this the right place?”

“I don’t know… it doesn’t look like the right place.  I mean, do you see many gay people?”

“It SAYS it’s a G.L.B.T. event… but what does ‘Friends of Dorothy’ mean?”

“I don’t know.  Let’s ask another gay person.”

“Ok, but who?  Oh, wait… Excuse me…”

Do I have to tell you to whom they turned to?  Really… do I have a pink triangle flashing tracers over my head into a dark and starless night?

Hush, you.

Anyway.  Of course, I felt obligated to explain the phrase to them.  This lead to a brief conversation, interrupted by the unwelcome flirtation of the piano player… the male piano player… flirting with the girls, not me…

Apparently, he didn’t know what “Friends of Dorothy” meant either.

Sigh…  Seriously?

Anyway, they quickly decided to move on, with just cause.  Kindly, they invited me along to the comedy club they intended to patronize… but I just didn’t have the energy for a comedy club… so I kindly declined and thought I would finish up my wine and leave.

Amazingly, the piano player asked me… quite publicly… after the girls left just why they left so abruptly.

“Um… because they were here for the ‘Friends of Dorothy’ night… get it?”

He looked at me funny… eventually said, “Ahhhh!”… but really had no frickin’ clue what I was talking about.

Oh my.

In the end, by the time I nursed my glass of wine, one late 60-ish gay gentleman had sat at the other end of the bar… and an adorable, but probably under age, kid sat at the back of the bar (no, he didn’t drink anything) and sang along to every Elton John and Billy Joel number.  Oh yea, he was gay.  I felt bad for the kid, however, as I seriously doubted there was anyone near his age on this ship that was openly gay.  Ah well, kudos to him for giving it a try.  And, admittedly, kudos to Carnival for at least hosting the event… even though it was pretty wretched.

As the bar filled up with ancient straight people and the piano player stumbled, hacked and generally abused his way through a serious of songs, I finally decided it was time to leave the bar and walk around the ship a bit. 

The night seemed beautiful, so I considered going out onto the deck and admiring the ocean in moonlight.  While considering this, however, a handsome couple in elegant attire, wine glasses in hand, apparently had the same idea.  They stepped gracefully, arm in arm, out onto the deck… and were then nearly swept down the length of the deck in what was obviously an incredibly strong gust.  I watched as the lady, in sequined gown, struggled to keep ahold of her wine glass, along with her dignity as wind whipped dress and hair into a frenzy around her.  With far less grace then they had exited, they struggled, fought, and eventually won their way back into the ship.

While watching this was fascinating, it rather dampened my initial longing to see the moonlight from the deck of the boat.  I thought maybe I would just head back to the cabin and write this instead.

So, here I am… another day past.  Tomorrow… our first excursion!  We get to see glaciers!!  YAY!!