So yesterday KayLynn and Cary did what many of us have done at some point. They shipped home a box full of souvenirs and unneeded stuff to keep the weight down in suitcases. Very wise move. Except ... you don’t generally ship your cruise ship luggage tags. Or boarding passes. Oooops. We offed them some extra tags we had printed. It would send the suitcases to our room, but they are right next door. Fortunately, 5hough, Cary still had the emails from our travel agent. He was able to reprint everything at the hotel public printer. Whew. Crisis narrowly averted.
We started off today with a plane ride from Fairbanks to Anchorage. Our seats had been stolen by someone who “has had a bad day.” Apparently having a bad day is good enough reason to sit wherever you want on Alaskan Airlines. As a result we didn’t get to see the top of Mt. McKinley from the air. Chris was really disappointed. On the positive side, we had a very chatty row mate. He regaled us with stories of the fishing expedition he had just been on to the Yukon. Fascinating stuff.
Next we boarded a bus bound for Whittier and the cruise ship. When I woke up I saw some really pretty scenery. Glaciers and water on one side and mountains filled with green tees on the other. Our driver even stopped at one point for a photo op of the glaciers. Come to find out, we had a twenty minute wait ahead of us anyway. We were about to enter “The Tunnel.” That is a one way only, two and a half mile stretch of train tunnel. Through solid rock. By one way I mean that traffic is only allowed through one direction at a time. Then they switch and let the other direction go. Apparently it is tech longest tunnel in North America. Claustrophobic Chris was not comfortable with that. She was really not comfortable with the explanation of the safe houses located within the tunnel. She didn’t seem to want to hear just why the safe house might be needed. Fortunately, the exposition never explicitly mentioned things like landslides and tunnel collapses.
And then, suddenly, as we rounded a bend, there was our cruise ship, the Golden Princess. Getting on the boat was actually much easier than I expected. Oh, there was the seal security check, and my knee set off the alarm again. Woohoo. We ate at the buffet. We roamed around the ship trying to get our bearings. We got some help attuning our phones to the ship WiFi so we could communicate with each other. We met Raymund, our stateroom steward. We attended Muster, the required time for the crew to show us how to jump overboard in the event of a catastrophe. Nice. When the boat finally got underway, Chris and I made our way to the very front of the ship. It was a beautiful sight to see as the boat backed away from the dock, made its turn, and headed forward. It got cold pretty quickly, though, so we headed back to the rear to see where we had just come from. Also beautiful to see the water churning from the propellers. We were underway.
We finally reconnected with our shipmates, and Chris started taking more pictures of the glaciers. We even saw a waterfall. Later we went to a show that introduced life on the boat and pointed out several upcoming events. Oh, and I learned what a mock tail was. No alcohol. I tried a strawberry daiquiri mocktail. That translates into strawberry slushee or smoothie. It was too tart for my taste. Lime would be better. Chris liked it, though. After the show we found a. Place tat served baked potato soup and hot tea. Nice. We listened to the band play Dixieland jazz. By that time I was seriously sinking. We still had some unpacking to do, so we bade farewell and headed to our room for the evening. This whole cruise experience is exhausting ...
John 3:3 says, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.’”
Father, your creation is certainly amazing. Just amazing. Amen.
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