Clay was up early for his treadmill time this morning. He came
back and woke me around 6:30am. Since it is Sunday, we went down to the main
dining room to see if they had a special menu. They only had out the lunch menu
and didn’t open for another half hour so we assumed it was just the normal
daily breakfast menu and went up to the Lido Buffet. We stopped on the way to
look for Portuguese tarts that we had heard so much about at the Bistro. It is
not the first time we’ve looked at various hours of the day and still haven’t
found any 6 days in. I ordered a mocha latte to go since everyone says the best
coffee on the ship is made at the big Italian espresso machine in the Bistro. The
guy that was working there, walked over and ripped open a packet of Swiss Miss and
dumped it into a paper cup. He stopped at the one touch coffee machine and shot
some hot water in there. I had asked for a mocha latte made with skim milk so
he went over to the big espresso machine and steamed some milk and poured that on
top of the little mud patty he had created at the bottom of the cup. I tasted
it as Clay swore he had seen the guy pour a thimble of espresso that had been
sitting on the machine into the cup but there was no coffee at all in that cup and
I had been watching and he hadn’t made or poured any coffee in the cup. I
dropped it off near Tastes. We don’t need to do that again. In Lido, I had muesli
and yogurt as usual. Clay had a bacon and tomato sandwich. We wandered Palm
Court and the Promenade deck watching as we approached Nome. We did a lot of maneuvering
to line up with the opening in the breakwater and then to turn the port side to
it and hold there. Eventually, a couple of lifeboats/tenders were lowered and
the announcement was made that the ship had been cleared. It was overcast with
low clouds about 50F and raining. It pretty much stayed that way all day. It
cleared for about 20 minutes once but it never stopped raining. Everything was
muddy. We had complimentary city tour tickets for 10am to 1:30pm. We were in the
Stardust per direction and they called 4 buses of people to leave at 10am.
Problem was they only had one tender ready. It took us about 40 minutes to get
ashore after they called us. They people who made it over on the one tender that
was there when they shipped 4 busloads out of the theater were not loaded into
one bus and start the tour. No they were directed to any bus so they filled the
first 4-6 rows of all four buses and sat staring out at the rain for the next
40 minutes of so that it took for all the tenders to get everyone over. It was
a cluster cuss. This is why we hate ship’s excursions! I don’t think we’ve ever
been on any cruise line that had a good logistics planning tour department and Crystal
is clearly no exception. We can only hope that they get better because the only
way we can go ashore at most of the remaining ports is on a zodiac excursion.
Since it had taken us 40 minutes to get ashore and we only had 2 hours between
excursions, we decided to remain ashore between them. On our complimentary city
tour, we learned about placer gold mining and I panned some flakes. We sat and
watched a roadside herd of wild musk ox. We saw a dead walrus on the beach. We
learned more about gold in Nome. We learned about life in Nome. We met an
Iditarod competitor and his sled dogs. Nome is the finish line of the Iditarod.
We visited the start and the finish and saw sled dogs in both Wasilla and Nome.
Our last stop was a Jam Berry Festival in the civic center which was very small
and warm and crowded. They were selling crafts and souvenirs and food. I couldn’t
stay there. We walked down Front St. to CenterPoint (I think that was the
name.) It was a youth activity center that was open to us to use restrooms and they
were fund-raising by selling moose chili, fry bread and blueberry delight. All
items our school teacher guides recommended. Clay had all 3. I had all but
blueberry. It was good! We walked most of Front St and back. I got a patch at the
National Park Service Bering Land Bridge building where we had earlier seen and
heard from a marine mammal researcher. Clay had an Alaskan beer at the oldest bar
in Nome. I got a shirt at the gift shop on Front. It seems we hadn’t been informed
about Bering St. and missed everything there. We went through the berry
festival on our way back to the small boat harbor to meet our next tour. The
bus showed up after the tender full had arrived and we had to work to board the
bus 2nd after we had stood in the rain for an hour to load first.
They were school buses so it was even harder to see than in a normal bus. In
actuality, it didn’t matter on the morning or afternoon buses as the guides
stood in the front and completely blocked the forward view anyway. This morning
we had 2 school teachers. School starts tomorrow. This afternoon we had a
school teacher and a fish scientist. So, this afternoon was the $400 worth of
Tundra Wilderness Adventure that Clay decided we should do at close to the last
minute. It was not worth anything close to that especially compared to the free
tour! The wildlife we saw was the same musk ox we had seen this morning. At
least that team also pointed out the dead walrus and all the birds we passed. This
afternoon we mostly learned about gold mining, now and historically. We got off
the bus to go look for some little plant with an edible root. They dug one up
and sliced it up so people could taste that it was like a parsnip. There was
musk ox poop all over the tire ruts we walked and a pond covered with noisy
birds but not a mention of those. We heard we would stop at a beaver dam but
that never happened. We stopped next at the foot of the wind farm and got out
to pick and eat blueberries. Clay ate some. It said his were a little tangy or
sour and blamed musk ox pee. I didn’t eat them. The ground was covered with them!
The guides this morning said they have polar bears here and the fish guy said the
only bears here are brown. Go figure. We didn’t see any bears but the skins hanging
at the National Park building and they had one of each. I don’t think we were the only ones
disappointed. We rode the elevator up from the tender deck with some people who
had picked a lot of blueberries and brought them back. One was teasing them
about their $400 worth of blueberries. The whole bus had been going on about
there not being any blueberries onboard. I have had blueberries served to me at
least once every day and I see them all over the ship. Clay and I were
mystified by all the complaining about no blueberries. I mean I haven’t seen
bowls of them on a buffet or anything, but there are 2 in every bowl of muesli
every morning. Anyway, $400 for a half-quart baggie of Nome blueberries. The
world’s most plentiful and most expensive blueberries. We didn’t get to dinner
until 7pm. It was not very appealing. We each only had a main course. Clay had
liver with onions on polenta. He said it was good. I had a filet au poivre. It
was OK. I shared it with Clay when he finished his and it caused him an episode
so dinner was over. We both caught grief over skipping dessert. After the reaction
of the waiter who picked up Clay’s sodden napkin, I was afraid of the doorbell
ringing with someone to medically evacuate us from the ship before the next 4
sea days. We move the clocks forward an hour tonight. So here is hoping for
calm seas for the next several days.
Little Bob hits the road
Little Bob hits the road
