July 22 - “My Cuisine Hero”

Breakfast on the ... no, not the barbie.  We had breakfast on the buffet.  Just Chris and me.  Quiet meal by the window with nothing but the water to look at.  Very romantic.

When we hooked up with the Winkle’s and Sprays Cary asked me if I had heard all the commotion from the night before.  Nope.  Seems he was awake for the changing of the pilots (or maybe the entertainers).  He saw the pilot boat pull up and the transfer take effect.  He said it made him think of my Dad doing that same thing every day at work.  Sorry I missed that one.  Very cool.

We went to a presentation by the ship’s naturalist about wildlife and how to see it.  No idea how that went, but my nap went famously.  Those theater seats were really comfortable.

Next we got suckered into staying for a presentation by the ship’s professional shopper.  Sigh.  Drawn in by the promise of freebies and a drawing for diamonds.  And no, we didn’t win anything.  I think this was a ruse to give us the same experience the early gold rush to Alaska guys had ...

For lunch we were back at the buffet with our cruise family.  We saw a real treat there.  As i was staring out the window into nothing but water, a fin broke the surface.  Nope, not a shark.  It was an actual orca in the wild.  When i said it out loud the entire ship shifted as half the dining room raced over to the window to see it.  

The treat of the day came as we entered a bay and approached Hubbard Glacier.  From start to finish it was gorgeous ... and really cold.  But I guess if you were a glacier you’d be cold too.  It’s in your nature and all.  On the approach we saw an otter and a harbor seal and a calf or two.  Well, calving of the glacier.  Not exactly the same as wild life, I guess, but impressive, nonetheless.

As we got closer and closer to the actual glacier, we could hear creaking and groaning  and then a sudden rumbling like thunder, followed by the crashing to the water of immense amounts of ice.  That’s calving.  As we stood in the cold, utterly fascinated and rooted to our viewing spot (OK, part of it was interest, the other was the fact that we were just freezing), we heard a huge explosion of the thunder.  It got louder and louder and continued on and on.  We peered up and down the glacier for the crashing of ice, wondering where such an enormous calving could possibly be coming from.   Louder and louder.  Was this the very end of the word?  Would such an explosion of ice cause a tidal wave, engulfing the ship and indeed beginning a new ice age?  Louder and louder ... until finally someone realized ... the captain had turned on the ship’s engines.  No Armageddon to see here today, folks.  Everybody back inside and get warm.

So ... chunks of ice floating in the water.  Walking down a grand staircase to the melodious strands of a string duet.  Everyone dressed to the hilt in suits and even a tie.  I felt like I was living a dream.  No, not a dream ... a movie.  That’s it.  I saw that movie.  Titanic.  Not something you want to think about just now ...

So whaat was the purpose of all the fru-fru clothes?  It was formal night.  You had to get dressed up if you wanted to eat in the actual dining room at the big boy table.  Chris was gorgeous, of course.  I zipped up my tie and joined her for a dinner of ... something.  First we had some crabmeat stuffed egg things.  That was just to get us started.  Then Chris had boiled shrimp and some other stuff.  I had two hunks of meat and some grilled vegetables.  Sheri ordered shredded duck.  That one must have been particularly interesting, because the waiter clucked when he delivered it.  No, really.  As he sat the plate down he said, “Cluck, cluck.”  Now, I know he’s from the Philippines.  Maybe “cluck, cluck” translates to “quack, quack” over there.  Dessert was a highlight, for sure, particularly for Cary.  He ordered two of the five options.  Then the waiter brought out a sample tray of five or six others.  Cary polished off his two and drove in to check out the samples.  He so impressed our waiter that the guy promised to bring him five desserts the next time he sees us.  

After that KayLynn cut him off of sweets, but he ordered an espresso and some cheese at the coffee shop after we changed clothes.  And Wayne joined him in his culinary quest this time, ordering two helpings os a new dessert of his own.  I have to say Cary is truly my Cuisine Hero of the day.  And Wayne follows a close second.  

2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”

Father, thank you for the chance to see the awesome display of your nature.  Amen.

July 21 - “Underway”

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.

July 20 - “On the water”

As vacation blog posts go - and have gone in recent days - this one will rank as somewhat mild, I’m afraid.  Oh, I’ll tell you what we did.  But will there be attacks by mysterious multi-horned beasts?  Will some mysterious creature rear its ugly head?  That, my friend remains to be seen.

We started the day off with a boat ride.  Ah, a morning on the water.  Finally.  Of course this was on a river.  I guess they are trying to slowly transition us to life on the cruise ship.  The great riverboat ride of Fairbanks, Alaska.  A little bit bigger than The Colonel of Moody Gardens, this boat held, oh, maybe four or five hundred people, all seated in chairs.  We were allowed to wander around, though.  Good thing.  All the cool action took place on the port side.  In ship lingo that means “the other side from where we are sitting.”  Here’s a typical action comparison.  On the port side a water plane did a take-off, circled the boat, and landed.  On our side we saw a mama duck and her seven chicks swimming in the water.  On the port side they saw a demonstration of sled dogs from the kennels of eh woman who won four Iditarod championships.  On our side we waved at some really nice people on the bank.  Oh, and we saw a giant rubber swan swim toy as well.  Don’t get me wrong.  It was a nice boat ride.  We even stopped at an Eskimo village.  Well, a re-creation of one.  We saw a lady gut and fillet and hang up a salmon to be smoked.  We saw a demonstration of a $30,000 Eskimo parka.  even saw another stuffed moose - antlers attached.  Our guides were cousins from the same little village.  They taught us some Eskimo words.
Nanda donja- apparently means something like aloha.
Ana masta- thank you
Ana basti - thank you (no idea the difference)
Ah koo baloo- please sit down
Babeesh- moose skin rope
Klabash- serrated knife

After the boat ride we had a hearty lunch of stew and vegetables and salad, all served family style around huge tables.  Good stuff.  I admit it was hard to eat, though.  Not a reflection on the food.  Just an update on the Toothless/fillingless saga.  They did have an experience available that we availed ourselves of.  A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to lock yourself in a freezer that measured 40 degrees below zero.  Yep.  Crazy cold.  Example of life in Alaska every winter.  Pretty creative use of the freezer, I must say.  They are supposed to email us the photo they took while we were inside.  Haven’t seen it yet, though.  Oh, and I received a distinction among our larger group.  I was the last one on the second bus.  The first bus left without us.  Our tour guide was less that happy to see me.  Problem?  There was no ID visible on any of the buses.  No driver visible.  No tour guide visible.  Sigh.  At least I got a rousing round of applause as I took my seat.

The bus ride was uneventful, other than the sign we passed that said “North Pole Next Right.”  We turned left.  Our next venue was revenue-related.  A lecture at the Alaska pipeline (that was a sleeper.  I had a really hard time staying on the bench when I dozed off).  Then we hopped open a little train kind of like they have at the zoo that took us to what was supposed to be the highlight of our experience - panning for gold.  I never did “get it.”  And I was certainly not alone in the remedial class.  I did get some help from the staff, though.  Chris and I pooled our flakes and came out with a whopping $10 worth of gold. No, we didn’t get it embedded in jewelry like some people did.  We’ll just treasure the experience, right?  Oh and Bigfoot.  We’ll treasure him, too.  So much so that we’re bringing him home with us.  Cute little fellow.  Fit nicely in the mailing box along with the other guys.  Hope our mailman doesn’t get a hernia.

Back at the lodge we ordered supper from a local eatery.  It took more than an hour, but it did finally arrive.  It wasn’t horrible.  Mine wasn’t what I expected in a monte cristo sandwich, but the clam chowder was really good.

The hand and foot tournament continued, but there wasn’t much reason for five of the six of us to even show up.  Chris won every hand.  Completely smoked us.  Of course they did enlist another girl to hang out at the tabloid with us.  Totally illegal distraction, but the guys knew it was important for the girls to experience a win.  We love our wives and their happiness helps to define our very existence.  So, congratulations girls.  See, we learned ...

Proverbs 16:18 says, “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.”

Father, would you give us a safe plane ride back to Anchorage today?  Amen.

July 19 - “Let me in”

Chris was on a mission.  We had breakfast at the lodge and immediately left with the Winkle’s for the Denali Visitors’ Center.  Why?  To get the National Park travel books stamped, of course.  It turned into quite a fun adventure.  We even had THE Bugs Bunny hop across the path right in front of us.  Getting the stamps was easy enough.  We actually made two stops.  One building was called the Bus Depot.  That’s where you bought tickets to different excursions in the park.  Then we went back out and waited for the bust to come back by again to take us to the actual visitors’ center.  Now that place was pretty nice.  It had a huge three-D model of the park with Mt. McKinley jutting out right in the center.  Fascinating for any geography buff.  I thought it was pretty cool, too.  We did have a bit of a problem with the bus driver and another passenger on one leg of the journey.  Both female.  And both unapologetically took sides against the guys in spite of the obvious evidence in our favor.  “Girls rule”?  Really?

We did find a little gem to join us on the journey.  A tiny little stuffed animal husky puppy.  Her name is Hermoine.  Why?  Because it’s pronounced “Her-mine-ee .”  And she is.   Mine-ee.

While waiting for our coach to Fairbanks, I watched Sheri talk on the phone with one of my newest FaceBook friends and follower of the blog (at least for the trip), her daughter Melinda.  It appeared they were having altogether too much fun rehashing the details of my blog post about the day before.   Sheri was no doubt embellishing the facts of the completely innocent encounter I had with Chris’ water bottle.  She thought she could hide the conversation by covering her mouth with a closed fist like a pitching coach visiting the mound in a Major League Baseball game.  Sorry, Sheri.  I am a trained reporter.  We can’t help it.  We just notice things.  

The trip to Jeff King’s Husky Homestead was truly the highlight of the day, especially since the bulk of the day was spent traveling on a bus for four hours.  At the Homestead we were allowed to snuggle with little baby Alaskan huskies, a lot like little Hermoine.  Very cute.  We got a tour of the husky training facilities and even a demonstration of a husky sled team in training.  It was amazing how excited the dogs got when it was their turn to pull the sled.  They seemed to love it.  Oh, by “sled” I mean all-terrain vehicle.  Then Jeff, a four-time Iditarod champion, spoke to the group.  He was a highly entertaining communicator.  Regaled us with stories about his races as well as the dogs he has trained.  Definitely worth the drive.

After a quick pizza lunch near the lodge we boarded the coach for Fairbanks.  Since lunch I had been struggling with something that was stuck between my teeth ... on the “good” side.  Chris looked and said it appeared to be a seed of some kind.  She gave me some floss, but that did little good.  I finally finagled it enough to have it pop out into my hand.  Not a seed.  Nope.  About the size and color of one though.  It was ... part of a filling.  Of course it was.  Sigh.  Here’s to new experiences.

Back on the coach we played a game called Goose the Moose.  Everyone had a big index card.  We were instructed to draw just one small portion of a moose, then pass the card to the person behind us, who then drew another body part.  It was pretty fun.  The drawings will be judged and a winner drawn at a later date.

The rest stop provided yet another once-in-a-lifetime experience.  Besides the good cinnamon rolls (you could pile on your own icing), Chris and I got to ride in an ATV drawn by Alaskan huskies.  It was really a lot of fun. Can’t say I’ll ever have an opportunity like that in Texas.

I didn’t know just how much I enjoyed the moose goosing game until the second leg of our journey began and the bus driver started talking.  Think monotone lecture by the most boring professor you ever had.  We heard later there was an verbal altercation between Mr. Personality Bus Driver and our tour guide.  Seems the driver didn’t like the fact that the guide was talking while he was regaling us with whatever he was saying.  Not exactly a professional approach to his job.

KayLynn made a new friend when we arrived at the Fairbanks resort.  Seems she locked herself out of her room.  Their room was hot, so Sheri invited her over to feel what the room was supposed to be like. KayLynn returned and knocked.  But Cary didn’t open the door.  She  knocked more insistently.  Still no answer from Cary.  Louder.  Nope.  Louder still.  (Anybody else reminded of that classic tale of the  three little pigs story? “Little pig, Little pig, let me come in.  Not by the hair of my chimney chin chin.” )

Finally the door opened, just a crack.  By now KayLynn was bordering on the furious.  She barged her way inside, all set to give that husband of hers a good piece of her mind for keeping her waiting.  But then she slowed her pace.  She stopped.  She turned, ever so slowly, to face her gracious doorman.  Who was that strange man in her bedroom?  Umm.  Wait?  She glanced hurriedly around at her surroundings.  Not her suitcase.  Not her purse.  Not her backpack ... not her husband.  This wasn’t her room at all.  It was a stranger’s.  Well, used to be a stranger.  Not any more.  There’s just something about being together in a hotel room that sort of helps you ... bond?  When our new friend  Jeanne heard the story she had a question: “And what did you have on?”  KayLynn answered honestly: “I don’t remember a whole lot about the situation.”  Well, OK then.  Back to the story ...

KayLynn took a deep breath, I’m sure, issued her apologies, and left the room.  A few minutes later, when Cary and KayLynn came out to go to supper, who should also exit their room but KayLynn’s new special friend ... with his wife.  Awkward.  KayLynn apologized profusely, this time including the little misses.  Phew.  Was she ever glad to have that incident behind her.  Teehee.  Then she realized she was sharing it with five of her closest and best friends, one of whom is a blogger.  Suffice  it to say, I am only recording this as a completely accurate record of the trip.  Besides, who will read this thing anyway?  Well, beyond the few hundred of her closest friends and relatives.  

Supper was on the terrace of the lodge, overlooking the river.  Yes, Chris, there really is a river out there.  Then we played a few rounds of hand and foot.  During the game a couple sitting behind us asked if we wanted their ice chest with water in it.  They were checking out and couldn’t take it on the airplane.  We said sure.  It didn’t take long to hand out the water to the folks at the table next to ours.  It was the bonus gifts they left that kind of confused us.  Oh, I like bananas, and intend to eat both of them.  I’m sure the muffins were fine, but they were a grocery store knock-off brand, so no one wanted them. It was the rest of the care package that confounded us.  Towels.  Three or four of the nice towels that looked suspiciously like the ones we found in our hotel rooms.  Interesting.  We handed them off to a maintenance guy who happened to be walking by at the time.  He just chuckled and assured us they would be taken care of.  I was just glad he didn’t ask us for our room number.  We might have been seeing them in the morning.

Jeremiah 31:3 says, “The Lord appeared to us in the past, saying: ‘I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.’”

Father, thank you for the thoughtfulness of our fellow travelers.  Go with them on their journey.  Amen.

July 18 - “Into the Park”

I just remembered a brief word of wisdom from our rafting guide Beau.  “Your body doesn’t produce melatonin if it doesn’t get dark like here in Alaska.  So if it doesn’t get dark, you don’t need as much sleep.”  Umm.  Not sure about the science involved there, but it’s a good thing, because I’m sure not getting much sleep.

Yesterday was our big day to ride a bus into Denali National Park.  Order of the day?  Look for wild animals ... aka Moose Hunt.  We had a great guide/bus driver.  Her name was MJ, as in Spiderman’s girlfriend.  She explained many intricacies of the park as we drove around, and when an animal was sighted by anyone one the bus she would slam on the brakes and get her high resolution camera in motion.  The video she shot was immediately transferred to the little TV screens policed at intervals throughout the bus.  Pretty amazing technology.  They even captured the footage and combined it into a DVD available for purchase through their website.  Imagine that.  One thing she explained was the use of hand signals between bus drivers as they passed on the narrow roads.  One guy passed and put one hand to his ear with the palm open and facing us ... moose.  Then he moved the hand palm to word himself across his face ... can’t see it.  So how was that helpful?  Cary leaned over and asked his lovely wife KayLynn what the hand signal would be for a bird up the road.  KayLynn apparently didn’t answer him verbally, but the nonverbal screamed into the very depths of his would.  Think about it.

I decided that the easiest way to do this would be to just list the creatures we were able to isolate.
1.  A brown bear (grizzly - they are the same thing) eating berries.to get fat for his upcoming nap.
2.  Ground squirrels - Lots of these little critters played at the side of the road like ... well, squirrels.
3.  Hare - not everyone saw this guy.  He scampered across the parking lot at one of the rest stops.
4.  Ravens - These birds were quite plentiful.  MJ told us they were funny and smart.  I am not able to make such a designation.  We’ve never met personally.
5.  Gulls - Well, you can’t call them seagulls because we are nowhere near the sea, but flying rats can get by almost anywhere, I guess.
6.  Dall Sheep - No, spell check, it’s not “doll.”  They are named after the guy who discovered them.  Very pretty, solid white creatures.
7.  Caribou - Caribou right next to the road.  Caribou in the river trying to escape mosquitoes.  Caribou up on the mountain.  “Oh, my gosh!  There’s a caribou right in the road in front of the bus.”
8.  Golden eagle - This fellow was in full flight.  Gorgeous.
9.  Ptarmigan - Mommy and her little babies at one spot, then an entire family at another.   MJ had to maneuver the bus carefully because Daddy got separated from the family and was obviously stressed out.  Ptarmigans are the state bird of Alaska.
10.  OK.  Apparently we did see a moose.  Or two.  I had a major crisis of belief.  I had to admit that maybe these creatures actually do exist.  But there was just one thing.  Neither of the ones we saw had antlers.  That leads me to believe moose don’t have antlers.  Someone from the tour group told me that’s because the ones we saw were female.  So all moose are female?  You moose believer have strange tenets.  Several members of the tour group have expressed great concern for me because of my outspoken beliefs about the existence of moose.  I appreciate that.  Just ... show me a moose and i will believe.

Back at the lodge area we had a great supper.  Some place where the building has started sinking into the ground because of the permafrost melting (something about the foundation layer of the soil being perpetually frozen and now its melting.  Global warming stuff).  Instead of panicking, this establishment owned the problem and developed it into part of their charm.  Now you have to walk up steps that sit at a weird angle.  Makes you feel like you are in one of those old carnival fun houses.  I have fried shrimp.  Chris had seafood chowder.  Good stuff.  Pricey, though, as is most stuff up here.  On the way back to the room we just had to stop and shop.  The girls found us all t-shirts that proclaimed us part of the 30% Club.  That means we are part of only 30% of the people who are actually able to see Mt. McKinley.  How can you pass up such a proclamation?  Now, there was a rather disconcerting sight in the store.   It was, as often happens, in the doll section (Yes, spell check. This time I mean doll, not Dall.  I moved over to a shed of Eskimo dolls, only to find one of them staring at me.  It’s eyes never left me as I attempted to escape its gaze.  And what, you may ask, was it about this particular doll that made it so ... doll-ish?  It had only one set of eyelashes.  And that one set was freakishly long.  There should be a law against event displaying such terrifying things.

Finally we settled in for the next round of Hand and Foot (remember the card game from earlier in the week?).  Th girls started out really strong, barely squeaking by with a win or maybe two.  But after Sheri took a rowdy victory lap around the entire hotel lobby, arms above her head, pumping her fists and thoroughly embarrassing her poor husband Wayne, the guys calmly and methodically proceeded to whittle away their lead.  It took a bit of misdirection here and there to destroy their concentration.  It happened like this ...

Sheri provided victory bottles of water for the girls, but not the guys.  As they toasted their success, someone may or may not have surreptitiously squeezed Chris’ bottle, causing a remarkably entertaining volcano to spew upon her face.  However ... Chris responded with catlike reflexes.  She maintained her hold on the bottle and slung it in. My - er - in the direction of the offending party, splattering his clothes with the liquid in a ... less than comfortable spot.  There may or may not have been a camera catching stills of the last part of the encounter.  Suffice it to say that a change of underwear, though considered, was deemed not necessary.

Oh ... the misdirection proved to be imminently successful.  The guys stormed back after the altercation and  brought the night to a tie.  No. More victory laps.  There was, however, a quietly reserved announcement to the patrons at the surrounding tables that although the guys had, indeed, won, they would in no way be gloating.  Humility is, after all, a virtue.  “Win with class” is our motto.

John 15:13 says, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down his life for one’s friends.”

Father, thank you for good friends.  It has been fun sharing this adventure with them.  Amen.

July 17 - “The View”

Now this was the early morning of all early mornings ... so far.  Oh, I was awake and up already.  My Galveston-timed body saw to that.  Well, that and the text from home where it was already 7 a.m.  Oops.  Someone forgot about the time difference.  But Cary got a call from the front desk letting him know that THE mountain was visible.  He shot a text to each member of our group.  I got dressed hurriedly.  Chris jumped in the shower with a cry over her shoulder, “Grab the camera and go start taking pictures.”  Wow.  Entrusted with the real camera.  I went on, fiddling with the camera operations the whole way (I had no idea how to do more than turn the thing on.  Did you know that you have to focus that zoom lens thing in two different places?  Once I got that down the rest was pretty easy).  The view of Mt. McKinley (or Denali, depending on to whom you are speaking) was nothing short of spectacular.  Beautiful, clear morning.  Snow on the peak.  Clouds wisping around the tip.  And the surrounding mountains only added to its grandeur, providing a backdrop for the massive thing of beauty reaching for the sky.  OK.  Enough of the flower lips already.  When Chris arrived I turned over the reins of the camera to her, and she doubled - nay, tripled - the number of pictures I had already taken.  Should you ever need a photo of Mt. McKinley, Chris just might be able to hook you up.

Now Sheri, on the other hand ...
Poor Sheri.  She’s not exactly a morning person.  The Cary notification burst into the serene bubble of her early-morning, final seconds of sleep-age.  Bravely she donned her baseball cap and stumbled out to join us on the viewing deck.  So the Spray Family Christmas card poses with Majestic Mt. McKinley in the background?  Well ... there’s always photoshop.  She just couldn’t get both eyes open at the same time.  Kind of a Popeye look.  Now to her credit ... after a brief interlude from the photo session - and a cup of coffee - Sheri returned to enjoy breakfast looking bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and somewhat coffee-d up.  Nice to have you back, Sheri.  As Wayne explained, “There’s a big difference between B.C. and A.M. (Before Coffee and After Makeup).

As mentioned, we met up with The Group, sans Jim and Jeanne, for breakfast.  We had Wesley the Singing Waiter.  Some song about a rocket man pouring rocket fuel into our coffee cups.  Interesting fellow.  He really enjoyed pouring coffee.  Made it into a real experience.  I got flapjacks (again, that’s Alaskan for pancakes), one egg (must have been from an ostrich.  It filled my whole plate), and some of Chris’ Reindeer sausage.  While we waited for our food KayLynn took some time to read through the blog from the day before - the one in which she was so ... prominent.  She tried to post a rebuttal, but the site didn’t honor it.  Umm.  Shame on you, KayLynn.  Actually, she finally had her say over on FaceBook.  In spite of what she, though, and in further spite of the fact that she posted it twice, I don’t think she really hates me all that much.  After all, as she duly noted ... she WAS warned.

After breakfast Chris and I visited the gift shop and then sat by the fireplace in the lodge, watching people watch the mountain.  I may or may not have taken a brief nap.  That cannot be verified at this time.  And so we ended out stay at this particular lodge with ... Chris taking more pictures of that mountain.

Bus driver wisdom: “Treat the bathroom on the coach like you are at the opera.  Stay seated through the entire performance.”  He also pointed out a site of local interest.  Wal Mike’s.  Looked like the old bird collected a bunch of stuff from abandoned cabins and is selling them at his store.  Oh, and he made sure to point out when we crossed “the largest no dam river in America.”  Careful there ...

I decided to get an early jump on things for the train ride this time.  When the drink order guy came around, I didn’t hesitate.  He described a drink that sounded great.  Cinnamon, hot chocolate, coffee, peppermint, whipped cream, drizzled chocolate and some other stuff.  By that time I was mesmerized by the array of ingredients and stopped paying attention.  Oh, and it came in a cool souvenir mug that you got to keep.  I jumped all over that one.  He had even made up a cute name for it, no doubt because of all the chocolate - Brown Bear.  Once he moved on by Chris leaned over and asked me if I knew what all was in the drink.  I recited the list above of all the scrumptious, chocolate-y flavors.  She countered, “What about the rest?”  I replied, totally innocently “What rest?”  She explained that there was something called schnapps and something called Irish cream something or other.  It took this poor, sheltered, totally naive youngster a while, but it finally dawned on me what she meant.  Oooooooh.  You mean this is an alcoholic drink?  Yep.  I quickly - and of course sheepishly - changed my order to hot tea.  Still got the mug, though.  However ... it came to my attention later that none other than the Master of Threes, KayLynn herself, had courageously ordered said chocolate peppermint alcohol-laden delight.  Now she SAID the one she ordered was something called “virgin.”  Apparently that means no alcohol.  She and Cary sure made quick work of it, though.  Just sayin ...

We finally arrived in Denali National Park with just enough time to change clothes and race to the bus for our river rafting excursion.  Except once again (two mights in a row) we only had one suitcase.  And of course it was NOT the one with our clothes in it.  I called the front desk and they assured me they would search for it.  We layered on some dirty clothes and hurried to the bus.  Sadly that meant we didn’t have time to order a lunch for the excursion today.  Snacks for lunch.  WooHoo.

The river rafting adventure was well worth the effort.  The views were amazing.  The water was cold.  Good ol’ Wayne promised the guide a tip only if he kept us dry.  Guess what happened in the next two seconds?  Our guide Beau finagled the ship around so that every body in the raft was drenched before we were out of sight of the landing area.  Thanks Wayne.  Chris was concerned.  She had read that the river had only one to two category rapids.  Beau didn’t even mention any of those.  He started informing us at the threes and fours.  WooHoo.  Chris (and KayLynn, I might add), held on for dear life - one hand grasping the raft and the other digging into my arm.   There were one or two - or three - or four - or maybe more instances of tiny bits of water dripping onto us (read here, “rushes of icy liquid, exploding into our faces”).  By and large, though, Beau was a fabulous rafter and river guide.  We made it successfully to end of the run and were picked up by the guy named Mudflap for our return trip to the lodge, freezing and a little damp, but certainly with a feeling of accomplishment.  

A quick restaurant trip for some supper (It was again 10:30 at night and still light out), and then on to a hot shower and warm bed.  Big day in the park today.  Where to eat some breakfast?

Micah 6:8 says, “He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.  And what does the Lord require of you?  To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”

Father thank you for the awesome river adventure, both for the thrills and for the safety. Amen.

July 16 - “Threes ... many threes”

Early morning again.  We had to have our luggage ready by 6 a.m. for transport to our next destination.  However, human beings didn’t leave until around 8.  Our group of six left around 8:02 ...

Our mode of transportation this day was train.  We headed out to Talkeetna, a site famous for being the inspiration for the television show, Northern Exposure.  Never saw it.  The TV show, not the town.  We saw the town.

Back to the train.  Very nice experience, comfort-wise.  Plenty of leg room - kind of like first class on an airplane.  We also had breakfast.  Well, by the time we got served it was lunch.  Good flapjacks, though.  That’s the Alaskan word for pancakes.  Working on my foreign language skills.  It was also great that you could walk around any time you want.  Oh, and we made a new friend.  A moose.  Strangely enough his name is Moose.  Isn’t that a wild coincidence?  Now along those lines, I have to say that I have been further convinced of my belief that there really is no such thing as a moose ... really.  The whole thing is actually just an invention by some ingenious PR firm working for local politicians to increase tourism in Alaska.  The closest thing to a real live moose I have seen so far was a tiny little dog that reminded me of Freddy back home.

So Talkeetna was a tiny little tourist town.  Shops and such.  We got pretty close to some river.  Chris wouldn’t let me touch it.  Sisista River, maybe?  We thought we might have seen Mt. McKinley.  No idea which mountain it was, but one of them disappeared into the clouds, so we voted it in.  We had some pie with the gang.  By the way, Jim and Jeanne are now part of the gang.  They adopted us.  Now I’m the Daddy and he’s Grandpa.  Welcome to the gang, guys.  Rhubarb and two different kinds of berry pie constituted the menu.  Chris and I split a cinnamon roll.  Ever the rebels.  After pie we just roamed the streets with the rest of the antique hoodlums.  We did find our way to the National Forestry Service building so Chris and Kay Lynn could get their books stamped.

I checked my phone and saw that I had two random FaceBook friend requests.  Someone named Victoria and another named Melinda.  Actually, rumor has it that those two girls may come from Spray-ish roots.  Enjoy the blogs, girls.

When we arrived at our next destination, a resort property on the way to Denali National Park, we saw Mt. McKinley for real.  Well, part of it among the clouds.  Pretty impressive.  Chris took one or two pictures.  Supper there was good.  Crab cakes.  Salmon chowder (Nope.  Didn’t eat the chunks of that nasty fish floating around).  Dessert was chocolate mousse.  Only moose I’ve seen around here.

The card games began again after supper.  I would say they lasted well into the night, but it never gets dark here, so who knows how long we played.  And the game?  Well, think threes ... many threes.  See, there is this game. A card game.  Called Hand and Foot.  Without going into the minutia of details about the rules, suffice it to say that it is bad to have a number 3 card in your hand, especially a red one.  No idea why the game originators chose threes to be representatives of Satan, but threes are bad.  Evil.  So why do I belabor this point?  I seek only to understand.  For one of our number, dear KayLynn, in a fit of rash non-normalcy, deliberately added to her hand not one, not two, but no less than three threes to her hand.  And there might have been more that she was not revealing.  Strategy?  Perhaps.  Perhaps she knows some secrets from the dark side of the Hand and Foot Universe that as yet have not been revealed to the rest of us unsuspecting mortals.  Perhaps she has mystical powers associated with the number three.  Perhaps it is something as simple as having a favorite number ... three.  Or perhaps she was simply caught up the girls’ agony of defeat.  Sigh.  Not a quick fix, I’m afraid, for in spite of a gracious effort on the part of three wonderful gentlemen (who shall remain nameless) to to allow the ladies to experience a taste of our thrill of victory, they soon reverted to their old, set ... losing ... ways.  Yet .. we love them.

Ephesians 5:1-2 says, “Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”

Father, thank you for, well, every part of our trip so far.  Can’t wait to see what is next.  Amen.