MIDDLE-AGED WOMEN 40-60ish

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.

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...

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.

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.