MIDDLE-AGED WOMEN 40-60ish
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I have been thinking about you Elimar and am so happy that you had a good time. Will be looking for the second installment of your cruise tale. Marybe
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More! More! What a wonderful trip you had! Tell us More!
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I want to live vicariously through your trip, Eli.
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Eli- disappointed that my namesake wasn't nicer. But since I married into it a couple years ago I won't get TOO dispondent. I have much bigger things to worry about right now. My UMX is on June 26th so I'll miss half my summer recovering. There goes my vacation, so please.. Keep it coming. :-)
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welcome juneaubugg, good luck with your UMX and hope you heal quickly
Eli love your stories, keep them coming. My son lives in Seattle and use to live across the street from Pike Place Market. Very interesting and fun place and when the flowers are in season you can get huge bouquets for $15. DH always buys them for me and then I leave them with DIL
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Beautiful glacier shot Eli!
Juneaubugg: we're with you during your UMX, recovery and beyond! My UMX was on April 3rd and I was fine for a vacation in Italy in May......so don't assume you'll miss too much of your summer. (((hugs))) -
Welcome juneaubugg! I missed summer too, with my 2009 Dx. Forgive my derogatory blurt about Juneau.
The foot-in-mouth icon was created for me. Also, I hail from a fabulous hometown, that anyone else would think was a punishment to go to. Forgive them, they do not know.cmbear, how is your post DIEP healing? I am thinking about you.
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Has anyone heard how cmbear is doing?
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Cruise Part Two: Skagway/Art Auction
Next stop was Skagway, gateway to Klondike gold. Tourists can pan for gold, take a town tour hosted by a costumed good-time gal, scream on the ziplines (if you have about $100) OR just hike in the hills because they are right there. Main street is six blocks of tourist shops (and I picked up a trinket or two, as I did at every Alaskan stop) and after that it's just homes and hills, as in small mountains. So, up we hiked and here you can see my view of the harbor, including the Pearl (pic #3.) My son later took a 5-6 mile hike and found a mountain lake. Like you, I only get to see the photo (pic#4.)
I love art. You might want to skip these two paragraphs if you could care less. Little did I even know that there would be an onboard gallery, entertaining talks about art and collecting, and several art auctions during the cruise. I'd never been to an art auction, so I had to sign up and get a bid card. Middles, this was no "starving artists" sale. Among the pieces auctioned were unique paintings and numbered, signed prints by Picasso, Rembrant, Marc Chagall, Peter Max (he's going to be painting the hull of a Norwegian ship for 2013,) and some storyboard art that was a 1940's collaboration between Salvator Dali and Walt Disney. How did those two ever get together? Supposedly Dali thought the idea of a talking mouse was fabulously surreal. No clue as to Walt's affinity for Dali's work. The storyboards were for a short film, called Destino, which Roy Disney found in the vaults and it got completed for a 2003 film festival release and has since been shown at several major musuems. WE got to see it. I loved it.
I BID $30K ON A PICASSO. Totally true. The etching was valued at $57,900 and the bidding started at $1. The auctioneer was having some fun with us and told us he would not sell unless it got to that price, so we should all get a bid in so we could say we bid on a Picasso! The auction wasn't just for $famous artists$, but also comtemporary ones that I could have actually bid on. I didn't bid, but still managed to win a raffle for a numbered print by Marcus Glenn. My pic hasn't arrived yet, but I linked his name so you can see his stuff. For me, the auctions were a lot of fun. Did I mention free champagne?
More later... -
OK, we must be separated at birth because viewing the Russian royalty would totally get my appetite juices flowing.
The art though-WOW! How COOL to be able to say you bid on a Picasso! Envious! I'm surprised the free cham-pag-nee didn't get your paddle up more often. I was always a sucker for Wolfman Jack & his promotions after a 12 pack or so of Bud, back in the day!
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Welcome juneaubugg! I had a UMX (modified radical) in June of last year and was still able to enjoy my summer. I think that the sunshine and warm temps helped a lot. Hoping that you too will heal quickly and get in a holiday or two.
Eli - great pics! Thanks for sharing your trip with us. Is wonderful to be able to experience an Alaskan cruise - even if only virtually. Congrats on winning the Marcus Glenn print - very cool!
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Well, I haven't been around in days and am just popping in to say I'm leaving for the beach today! Our beach house claims to have Wi-Fi - we'll see.
Eli - I have been enjoying your Alaska pics. Funny story - We are going to St. George Island, FLORIDA. When I was checking Weather Channel for the forecast there, I typed in St. George Island and hit return without really looking at it.
Apparently, there is a St. George Island, ALASKA. So when the forecast popped up it was .... snowing. Wha?? The next time it was 39 and raining. Not my idea of a beach trip!
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Could
Have sworn i was here yesterday . Woops!
Must have been the morphine talking. They are weaning me today. Doc says I am looking at coming home on Sunday. Have to make sure I am adapting to the new meds. thanks so much for
All the treats too! Sees Chocolate? I woke up and
Almost thought I was in heaven! -
claire glad you are doing OK even if you are in a morphine coma. keep us posted.
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cmb, You know we all enjoy a drug-addled/morphed-up post every now and then. You are pretty coherent, but I have to say your line spacing turned your post into a prose poem!
All other middies should follow your example and post their free-form, post-op verse here! You know I mean it. Happy weaning today. Be good and get home by Sunday as planned. We'll be waiting.madp, I need another warm vacation after that last one. Not that I want to promote weather talk, but I will tell you that I left home in 90 degree weather, then had 45-60 degrees on the cruise. The 45 was onboard in Glacier Bay (some wind chill too) and the 60 was about the tops it hit on land in Alaska. Seattle was a bit warmer. I dressed in "layers" and got up to four layers, with gloves and hat, for the coldest time. My rainiest days were (unfortunately) the one in Glacier Bay, and then Ketchikan. That's all the weather you'll get from me, I promise.
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Cruise Part Three: Glacier Bay/Whale Singular
One hundred years ago, there was no Glacier Bay...it was just glacier. Glacier Bay now consists of several inlets. I think we headed right down the middle, past cloud covered peaks (pic #5, try and pick me out) and several smaller glaciers, right up to Margerie Glacier (pic #6.) We did not get that close to it, so it may look small here, but it is a mile wide and rises 750 ft. above the waterline. If you ever see pics that are a lot closer, they probably come from someone who has a good zoom on their camera. A park ranger had come aboard and provided some commentary, which included some facts about naturalist John Muir's exploration of the area. There is an inlet named after him.
I'm sorry to say I didn't see or hear any glaciers "calving" but we did have to sail thru' a couple areas with losts of floating ice. Nothing that looked even close to creating a "Titanic" fiasco, but the chunks we sailed thru' were still scraping the (turquoise) paint off the ship (see pic #7.) The ice chunks looks deceivingly small, but many I saw were as big as a queen bed or maybe a Mazda Miata. This should give you an idea of the setting, with low cloud cover, and the scale of the peaks around me (pic #8.) Look close for another cruise ship in the distance, tiny in comparison with surroundings.
Early on this morning (like 6 a.m.) we allegedly went thru' an area of whale pods. Everyone was bummed because who was awake to see that? We were assured that we'd pass thru' the area again around 2 p.m. on our way out. My son hung out on an aft deck, I was inside at an art talk. He got to see four whales, their backs and some tail splashing. Our art group all left their seats and ran to the windows at the whisper of "whales," and I saw the blink of tail and then another went totally "Free Willy" and breached entirely out of the water (show-off!) heaving his white Orca stomach toward the heavens before flopping back with a massive cannonball splash.
I should note that their are side trips of Whale Watching (guaranteed sightings) for those who can afford to pay additional costs. Me, I was stretching it just to afford the cruise itself, so had to see what I could see without many add-ons. Still, I had been saying the entire time, "I better see at least one whale, or I'm asking for my money back." Guess the monetary gods favored Norwegian, and let me see the one, at least. -
Beautiful pictures, Eli! Thanks for sharing!
Claire: so good to hear from you! Glad the surgery went well and I'm adding my prayer that your recovery goes even better! (((hugs)))!!! -
Love the pics please keep them coming
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El nice pics we loved our cruise last year, I agree layers are needed! The art auctions are great fun, so cool you got to bid on a Picasso.
Still hoping around after 4 weeks found a hairline fracture so are baking off a bit on therapy and back to very limited weight bearing aarrgg but cellulitis infection looking good
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Cruise part Four: Ketchikan/Trivia Brag/Choholic Buffet & REALLY DESGUSTING BRAG
Our final Alaskan port was Ketchikan. It looked "cute" (see for yourself, in Pics #9 & #10) with colorful buildings, some on stilts, and I only saw the touristy waterfront area. The "liquid sunshine" (as they call it) was really coming down and it kept me from doing the 2-hr. walk that goes thru' their Historic District. It kept my son from attempting another hike into the hills that Ketchikan is nestled in. It kept us from counting all the totem poles around town. So, we decided to acquire a few final souveniers and call it a day.
Good thing we didn't spend a whole rainy day here, and left in the early afternoon. One activity the ship had several times every day was trivia, on assorted subjects. By the time I decided to play, the "brain trusts" had already formed, so I just went solo and scored pretty well, but never first place. Then, came Motown Musiic Trivia. I left my son reading Philosophy in the cabin, telling him, "I know I can win this." My confidence was not misplaced and I was the Champ in this subject, edging out a family and another 2-person team. What is better than winning a game of trivia? Winning a game of trivia , then going to the Chocoholic Buffet. Why it makes for the perfect day, really! Some of you have probably heard of these legendary buffets. I'm not going to mention the dozens of different drool-worthy confections, but besides the classic chocolate covered bananas, my favorite was the Opera Cake. It's layers of sponge cake, and layers of espresso creme, with a chocolate fudge layer on top. (Looked like the pic from Google below.) I am quite sure I tried over a dozen different things (none of them on any anit-cancer diet either) and consumed hundreds of calories at 11:00 at night. All this on top of the dee-licious and plantiful cruise food I had been devouring all week long, and when I stepped on my scale the morning after I returned home...I had gained NOT A SINGLE POUND. (O.K. to hate on me a little.) This clearly was some kind of cruise ship MIRACLE!
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Eli~ is that you in the red parka?
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Cruise ship miracle!!! I LOVE IT!!! I'm not even crazy about chocolate but your description made MY mouth water! Thanks for sharing!.....I think I gained two of your pounds by reading it!
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Meece, you're close. I am in the blue parka, looking shorter than usual for some reason.
My cruise tale has stretched out longer than I thought, so I will try and bring it to a close today...
Cruise Part Five: Victoria, BC/Back in Seattle
Our very last port stop was an evening in Victoria, BC. Like every Canadian city everywhere, it was so clean looking. We went on a two mile loop harbor walk, but went off the path down some side streets also. None of the places I visited qualified as actual Rain Forest, but it is not too far off and I saw a wide array of vegetation on all the short hikes I took. Here in Victoria, people were really into their front yard gardens, and at this time of year it meant lots of flowering plants that I don't even know the names of. I took a few photos, but they didn't do the yards justice, so instead I will show you what a capitol building should look like (pay attention Juneau!) Below is the Provincial Legislature building (pic#10) and on the grounds was also a gnarly redwood, hundreds of years old (pic #12.)
We sent our bags ahead so that we could have a few more unencumbered hours in Seattle, to have lunch and hit a few museums. I try to go to the main art museums in the cities I visit (and I forgot to mention an Ivory Museum that was pretty cool up in Skagway) so we did that, plus went to the EMP, a museum of music and pop culture. It's right by the Space Needle. We saw exhibits on (surprise!) Hendrix and Nirvana, and my son could not have been happier. Now that's his kind of museum. They also had hand-on exhibits for Horror Films and for Avatar.
For the whole trip, I felt far, far away from breast cancer; but we all know that it can pop back in a hot minute, a fact I was reminded of when we saw a whole parade of pink coming down the street. It was a Komen race (pic #13,) finishing at the Space Needle complex. The Seattle natives are active in their causes and the race was huge, tons of people, big music stage, and hoardes of vendor booths. I availed myself of a few free items, as if I had been a participant---I'm sure they wouldn't begrudge a survivor some pistacio snacks and a bottle of "Pink Water."
Seattle loves their Starbucks (every corner, I kid you not) and while finishing on the subject of breasts, I will close with a photo at the original Starbucks, the only place you will ever see their original topless emblem, not the modest ones across the nation and on supermarket shelves. Here it is (pic#14.) Wonder if they use their mega-bucks to $support$ B/C research?
So that's it. I'm going to end on a high note and not the paragraphs of woe involving a cancelled flight and lost (now recovered) baggage. Definitely will have to cruise again someday. It was a blast.
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Really? No one posting in 12 hours? My self-indulgent travelogue must have bored everyone away.
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Boring??? Never! .....just dreaming!
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Thanks for that, Chacha. I can sleep easier now. To sleep, perchance to dream.
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Eli, as always, your writings were wonderful, and the pics an added bonus. I went on one cruise and cannot wait to do another. Still talking hub into that ... he is NOT a traveller! Welcome home hon.
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Eli - I really loved your pics & delightful descriptions! We left AK after 30+ years. We lived in Juneau for a year in 1969-70 & I have to admit Juneau wasn't even in the top 10 of my favorite Alaskan cities. We lived a little over a mile from the Mendenhall glacier & I walked there many times with my baby in a stroller & 3-yr old. This was before I watched a black bear walk around our 4-plex which had floor to ceiling picture windows in the dining room
.... Fortunately, we were on the 2nd floor. -
What a wonderful trip, Elimar!
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Thanks for the Travelogue it helps me in my traveling choices.For a first cruise you picked a good cruise line.Norweigan is one of my faves.
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