Day 3 Admiralty Dream at Juneau

Photos

Monday, September 2, 2013

I woke up a little past 5am this morning and saw some blue and pink sky out the window with a bright crescent moon visible. I was so pleased to see sky, moon and mountains that I got right up. Clay was not far behind. We seem to be much nearer civilization than we were yesterday. It looks like it might be a beautiful day today. The sky is clear and there are snow-capped peaks in the distance. Lovely. We’ll keep our fingers crossed for a beautiful day (or a row of them here). Well, we can see Mendenhall Glacier in the distance so I’ll sign off for now and be back to report on the day.

Clay had pancakes for breakfast. I had raspberry yogurt, one fried egg with bacon and English muffin. We sat with a couple from the South Island of New Zealand and we heard again about our visiting the wrong island. Maybe one day in 2015 we’ll make it right.

The bus to Mendenhall Glacier was to depart at 8:30am and it was late leaving. Clay and I went out early to have a look around, though the boat’s staff really didn’t want to let us. Several people onboard blew off the included activities and did their own thing by flying somewhere for the day. I am not sure if Lee drove them where they needed to go or if they waited for cabs, but only Jon and Lynette came with the bus. There was quite a bit of confusion as Marge our bus driver had orders for one bus and 46 passengers and her bus would seat 52 but we have 62 ship passengers. It turned out that the people who went off to do their own thing left a seat or 2 empty. But by the time we left Mendenhall we had a 2^nd bus anyway.

We only had 1.5 hours at the glacier. We walked first to the bear viewing platform across the parking lot. As we arrived we met a local woman who said she stopped every morning on her way to work and she led us along and told us about the red Sockeye salmon that had arrived in the Mendenhall stream on August 1^st. She said she had only really seen one bear around there each morning since and not every day. Anyway, the stream was really full today and everyone told us that yesterday was a terrible day in Juneau with very heavy rain. You could see how high the stream had been and she pointed it out. We looked with her but no bears feeding.

Marge had told us there was a baby porcupine hanging around the parking lot for the past week and to look up in the trees. We found him. Who knew porcupines climbed trees? He was sitting up there in the skinny branches pulling off leaves with his little paws and stuffing them in his mouth. Adorable.

Then we walked over to the Visitor’s Center and took photos of the lake, glacier and roaring Nugget Falls. I also used the restroom. We really had to race up and back to make the 2-mile trail round trip in 40 minutes or so and did not have time to see the film. Marge advised that it was really well done about the life of a glacier. We know all about them so hopefully we didn’t really miss anything.

We had 5 hours in downtown Juneau. Our next included option was the Mt. Roberts tramway. Alaskan Dream Cruises provided us with wristbands for the Mendenhall Glacier visit, with tickets for the Mt. Roberts Tramway and $20 vouchers for lunch. We had a choice of Baranof Café, Zen Asian (which was closed today) and The Hangar which is where we ate. There were 4 mega-ships in town today. A Princess ship was already docked and unloading when we arrived at 11am. We went up to Mt. Roberts in the first tram up when they opened at 11am. We shopped, watched a film on Tlingit life, saw an eagle in a big cage and walked a .5 mile Alpine Loop trail that wound up being almost entirely vertical up and down. There were some amazing views from up there today with the blue skies and bright, hot sun. We saw a bald eagle gyring overhead and watched it for a while. Clay decided to put his big lens on his camera and we both had our heads down for about 20 seconds to get it changed and when we looked back up the thing was just gone! We could see 10-12 mountain goats on neighboring Mt Juneau. We were up there almost 2 hours.

At the bottom again, we bought some kettle corn, watched seaplanes taking off and landing in competition with Celebrity's tendering operation and then went to lunch. I looked at another yarn shop with insanely expensive yarn that I did not buy and then we had lunch. Clay had a reindeer brat and sauerkraut sandwich and an Alaskan Brewing White Ale. I had a teriyaki beef rice and salad bowl and water. For dessert I had a flourless chocolate cake with fresh raspberries and Clay had vanilla ice cream. Our tab was $40.89 so we used up our $20 each. We weren’t even expecting that from ADC and it was a great gesture. We really appreciated it. After lunch we shopped a bit more. I haven’t found what I was looking for at a price I would pay. But I got another great apron today at the top of Mt. Roberts Tramway. It is covered with totem faces. We had planned to spend the bulk of our day today at the Alaska State Museum, but our bus driver to downtown, Smokey, said it was closed for Labor Day. Oh well, we are sorry to have missed it but we had a good day.

We were to meet the bus where it dropped us off at 4pm. At 4:15 or so we finally left missing a couple of people. Evidently they arrived in a cab a little before the bus did, no idea what happened there. We are on our way to Orca Point Lodge now for our dinner on private Colt Island. I am still full from our 2pm lunch so a protein bar should serve me just fine. I hope Clay gets his salmon and has room for it after our big late lunch. We should be there in about another half hour and I have no idea how long we are staying or what time we are leaving. We haven’t heard anything yet about tomorrow’s plans and since we’ll be off the boat for dinner I’m not sure how or when they’ll tell us. We have never gotten a daily sheet in the cabin as was promised. Oh, today when we got back to the cabin there was a 2012-2013 Alaska photographs calendar on the bed. Another nice gesture.

I packed 6 sweaters that are not coming home, 1 got left behind in Sitka, 2 so far onboard with 3 more to go. That should buy us all the space we need in the luggage for the trip home with souvenirs. I had put the sweater in the trash 2 days ago and it got removed and left on the floor. I put it back in the trash yesterday along with the one I had worn yesterday. Today they are gone, so I guess we got that figured out, thankfully.

That kettle corn I got in Juneau is awful! I wish I had only gotten the small bag. It has an overabundance of big hulls that gag and choke you and get caught in your throat. I think I accidentally inhaled one all the way to my lungs in a fit of coughing and sneezing and yakking to get a big dose of them freed up! Yucky!

We are back from Orca Point Lodge. They had a gift shop and I found what I was looking for at a much better than expected price! I was looking for some kind of artwork with a face or faces on it like the Tlingit traditional art that was made by some one local. We found the same exact artist’s work in downtown Juneau for double the price and I balked and didn’t buy it. Now I have what I was looking for at a good price!

Clay did not get his salmon, contrary to the pre-cruise descriptions no salmon was served. But, he did find that he really likes king crab and he ate his fill. I had some salad and got a couple of kabobs they had grilled. Unfortunately they were not still hot, but close to room temperature and with my fear of food poisoning I couldn’t eat them. I ate some salad, a protein bar and had a glass of Riesling. Clay had an Alaskan Brewing White Ale. It was the same beer he liked at lunch today. He got a t-shirt for it today in Juneau. We were sitting at a long table alone by desserts and the bar when the Captain came along with a plateful of crab and asked to join us. He had a Diet Pepsi. It was an enjoyable evening.

They had fondue for dessert with brownies, strawberries and marshmallows unfortunately they put Grand Marnier in the melted chocolate and we both hated it. The good news is that they did have a fire going outside and had extendable forks to toast the marshmallows. They had the graham crackers and Hershey bars as well as Reese’s, Twix and KitKats! Clay expertly made himself a huge deluxe with 2 whole grahams, a whole Hershey bar and 3 marshmallows. I ate 5 toasted marshmallows alone, no s’more. That was the best part of the evening. When Jon was telling us what to expect this evening, he told us that we could order whatever we wanted from the bar and give our room number and it would be billed to our shipboard account. Clay & I were a little surprised because ADC told us that beer & wine was included at lunch and dinner. Lynette corrected him when he gave her cabin number and told people to bill it to her. Beer and wine were still included with dinner ashore. But, we are thinking that this was another difference between the Orbridge charter and the regular cruise. We have also realized as Jon talked that we are overnighting at Hobart Bay and spending a 2^nd day there were we are expected to kayak, atv and Zego play. We have never done any of those things primarily because we wouldn’t choose to and this explains what happened to our ports of Petersburg and Kake. Oh well.

Tomorrow we spend all day on the Admiralty Dream as we sail Tracy Arm up to South Sawyer Glacier. Jon says we may take some trips around the glacier or the falls in the inflatable, but we’ll have to see when we get there. That would be cool. He said that there were usually no whales in Tracy Arm. Well that’s about it, so I’ll stop for today and be back tomorrow with more to report. Southeast Alaska is beautiful and grand and spectacular. It is a special part of the world. The people are warm, friendly and welcoming. What more could you ask for?

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Day 2 Admiralty Dream in Glacier Bay

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Sunday, September 1, 2013

We were up about 5am today as we came into Bartlett Cove to pick up Stephanie our Park Ranger and Faith our Huna Tlingit cultural interpreter for the day. Jon came on the intercom with our wakeup call at 6:30am. There was fruit and Danish in the lounge from 6am on. Breakfast was at 7am. We went to the dining room. I will wish for yogurt and coffee with hot cocoa mix in the lounge from now on and that would be perfect. We’ll see. We shared our table with Lynette, the Orbridge expedition leader onboard with us as the leader of the half-chartered sailing. Clay and I were out front as we set off from the Glacier Bay Lodge dock and saw some sea otters, a horned puffin and a humpback whale. Sadly, it was too dark yet for any photos but it was very exciting. Horned puffins have white bellies and tufted puffins have all black bodies with little colored tufts on either side of their heads.

We sailed up Glacier Bay and spent about a half hour at South Marble Island which was covered with Steller sea lions, kittiwakes, cormorants, pigeon guillemots, common murres, murrelets and then at sea some tufted puffins and horned puffins. There was also a humpback whale and an orca. As we left we passed a raft of cavorting sea lions porpoising and jumping and rolling around.

Stephanie and Faith gave talks in the lounge and then we pulled into Tidal Inlet to look for bears. We saw more puffins and lots of other birds, 3 bald eagles, one grizzly bear and a handful of mountain goats on Gloomy Knob as we exited.  Also on Gloomy Knob we saw a juvenile bald eagle fledging from the nest to the ground and then to a lower tree’s top where he stretched his wings. Good stuff.

Now we are sailing past Jon Hopkins glacier in the distance heading for Margerie Glacier, before we start back down Glacier Bay. Jon just announced that lunch would be delayed 30 minutes so we can go into Russell Cut to look for more wildlife. This evening they hope to get us back to the Glacier Bay visitors’ dock in time to let us off for an evening hike before sunset at 9pm or so. We’ll see. Back outside into the cold for me. The good news is that it stopped raining and though there are still lots of low clouds the sun has come out!

We had a very substantial lunch. I had creamy tomato soup that I really liked and chicken parmesan with fettuccine. It was too much. Clay ordered a hamburger with chips and another Alaskan Ale. He really likes it better than any of the 6 beers he had at Baranof Island Brewing. Alaskan Ale is brewed in Juneau. For dessert they had sour cream blueberry pie which people really seemed to like. We didn’t have any. They had wild berry sorbet and Clay got it. I didn’t because I was sure it had blueberries in it, but Clay said he only tasted raspberry and lemon. Anyway, I skipped dessert. Just as well since midmorning during the ranger and cultural talks, I had a hot chocolate/decaf coffee/French vanilla creamer concoction that I mixed up for myself. After lunch, the skies cleared and we had brilliant sunshine and blue skies until we had sailed most of the way back out again. Then, we got back in the grey low clouds again. 

When we arrived in our cabin yesterday, we had a very dirty and very wet open window. I touched it and found it was drippy and foggy from the inside. So, I took a washcloth and cleaned it. I completely saturated the wash cloth from the window and sill of, I guess just condensation. It got the white cloth very dirty and soaked so I put it on the floor of the showerlet. Today I had to do it all over after we slept in here and the crew very nicely washed and squeegeed the exterior of the window. I put that washcloth on the floor too. When we came back after breakfast the washcloths were missing entirely. So when they told us if we didn’t want to reuse a linen to put a card on it or put it on the floor, they didn’t mean they would replace it! The next time I used the bath floor mat to clean the window and just hung it back up over the showerlet door. We only have 2 hand towels and 2 bath towels left. 

So we wound up seeing no more wildlife other than some birds in the Russell Cut. We had lunch as we sailed up to Margerie Glacier. We could see the Grand Pacific Glacier as well. But, Margerie is the big tidewater glacier at the end of Glacier Bay. The sun was shining brilliantly and it was blue. We sat at the face of it for about an hour and got one pretty good calf. The captain wisely turned the nose to the glacier and rode out the big waves it caused. Unlike our glacier falling experience in Antarctica!

We saw HAL’s Volendam going in and out of Glacier Bay. We saw HAL’s Amsterdam going to Margerie when we left. We saw HAL’s Oosterdam in Sitka. They have a large presence here. We saw 4 kayaks in front of Margerie as well! Lee, our other expedition leader, who is a local Tlingit told us that the closest they could have paddled from was 2 hours away and that they would have to go back to camp overnight because that was the closest that camping was allowed. That is crazy. We sailed through so much floating ice to get here that we really expected more calving. Even now sailing back down the bay and looking at all the ice, I would have expected to see more calving.

On the way out, we stopped briefly at 2 more tidewater glaciers. We saw a brilliantly sunlit Lamplugh Glacier with Mount Cooper behind and Russell Island to the side. It has an ice cave with a river flowing out of the center at water level and there was a muddy water/blue water boundary at some distance from the ice. We sailed across it and into the brown water area so there must have been a whole lot of melt water coming out of there. Stephanie, the park ranger, called it a melt water river. The last glacier we saw was Reid Glacier, it was the least impressive as it was smaller and you couldn’t get as close to it.

Margerie Glacier was a mile across the face and 200 ft. tall above the water with another 100 feet below. Lamplugh Glacier was about ¾ of a mile across and about 200 ft. tall again. The Grand Pacific Glacier is receding into Canada and you can see Canada from where we sat at the top of Tar Inlet.

The day is still chilly especially in the wind on deck, but the sun is shining brightly with clouds clustered around the mountain tops. It is spectacularly scenic.

I went and looked at the dinner menu. Not good for me! First course is cream of broccoli soup. Second course is roasted pepper, mushroom and asparagus salad. Choices for main course are grilled lamb chops, rock fish and grilled lentil cakes. I hope dessert is not blueberries!

So, we just had an announcement that Faith, our Tlingit guide for Glacier Bay, was going to give a PowerPoint presentation in the lounge. We went and Clay got a cookie but I missed the window of opportunity. It seems to be getting cloudier out there the rain is still holding off. Hopefully, it will continue to do so, so we can get our hike this evening. It is now after the talk and Jon is announcing that there will probably not be a walk because we will get there too late. We really slowed down during her talk, almost to a stop and we crept along on glassy water. We were trying to figure out why and now I guess we know. Anyway, they are setting up tables in the lounge for snacks and Social Hour which I assume is the same thing as cocktail hour, so we cleared out of there. Dinner should be around 6:30 to 7pm. I didn’t understand what he was saying and it was a convoluted explanation about why they haven’t told us the plans for the day because they don’t know and we’ll have to wait and see, but not to expect a walk now and maybe not even to get off because they can use the skiff to take Stephanie and Faith back ashore. Anyway, whatever happens I will report it here later. It has been a pretty amazing day.

For dinner, I had creamy broccoli soup and a chicken breast with roasted potatoes. Clay had rock fish and roasted potatoes and cauliflower. We both had a warm apple dumpling with vanilla ice cream. It was good but I had to pick out walnuts. We sat with an Australian woman and had a nice chat. She is traveling alone across Europe and now the US for 6 months by herself. That is a big trip! Right before we finished our meals, Lee one of our expedition leaders came in and announced a big pod of orcas off the starboard side ahead. We mostly stampeded out there and it was a really good sighting. I actually saw one breach enough, close enough, that I could see the white part and tell it was a black and white whale and not just a huge black fin.

After dinner we did have about 45 minutes to walk ashore but it was full dark so there was no forest hike and it was so dark that we could hardly see to walk. But, we did walk up to the Glacier Bay Lodge where the interpretative center upstairs was open and the gift shop downstairs. They were both very tiny and we were only ashore maybe 30 minutes. It gave everyone a chance to use the magnet board of checking on and off ship though before Juneau tomorrow.

 Juneau is our only actual “port”. We should go ashore at 8:30am. Wake up at 6:30am, breakfast at 7am, all ashore at 8:30am. They will bus us from Auke Bay to Mendenhall Glacier and around 11am bus us to downtown Juneau. They will give us vouchers for the Mt. Roberts Tramway and for 2 open (& 1 closed!) restaurant for lunch. I think we will go to The Hangar. We were also given another option to take a whale-watching tour for 2.5 hours instead of the Mt. Roberts Tramway. You had to sign up for that right then if you wanted the boat. We figured we had enough boats and had enough whales too even if we don’t see any more this week.  All aboard is 4:30pm. I guess they will tell us where to meet the bus back from Juneau to Auke Bay. Admiralty Dream will then take us to an Allen Marine-owned private island called Colt Island where we’ll have all you can eat king crab legs at Orca Point Lodge. I already know how many I can eat = 0! Our documents say salmon and crab, but onboard they just say crab. Clay was looking forward to the salmon, so I guess we’ll see. I’ll be having a protein bar. Followed I hope by the promised campfire roasted marshmallows or even s’mores.

Then we went to bed. What a day!

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Admiralty Dream - Embarkation Day

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Saturday, August 31, 2013

We were up at 6:45am again. It seems to be our natural wake up time here. We slept with the windows open again last night and we could hear it raining steadily for hours. It looks pretty well socked in and rainy as far as we can see. So this is probably more typical weather than we had our first day here. We don’t mind it getting colder, a little cooler would suit us just fine, but we‘d really like to see the mountains in the distance a little more with higher or fewer clouds and lighter rain if possible. Not to be a complainer, but just sayin’.

We could see the National Geographic Sea Lion docked by the Petro Marine this morning. There are people here in our hotel who I overheard telling they were getting on today to sail to Seattle. It’s really small and I hope they have some way to get there without entering open ocean. I wouldn’t want to be doing it.

I could see part of another small ship under the bridge at the Visitor’s Dock maybe that I think was our Admiralty Dream. It was gone when I got out of the shower and when we came downstairs the room off the foyer labeled Alaskan Dream Cruises was filled with people sitting around surrounded by luggage. They were still in there when we came back from our morning walk, they were waiting to check in to Totem Square Inn and just don’t want to get wet. Some of the people were National Geographic/Lindblad's and some were Alaskan Dream's.

We went out this morning after our in room breakfast for about an hour. We walked up Castle Hill, down to check the Yarn Shop which was once again closed and then we went over and up to check out the reproduction Russian Block House, which was only signage and visible from the outside. Then we came back to the room to get dried out for a while before we join our Alaskan Dream group downstairs and turn over our bags.

Before we go back down to meet up and turn over our bags here is the day’s schedule. 10:30am meet for the walk over to the Hospitality Room at Centennial Hall for a brief orientation talk on Sitka. Then the Expedition Leader will offer a guided walking tour from 11am to 2:30pm that includes the Russian Bishop’s House, St. Michael’s Cathedral, an open hour to get lunch, and Sheet’ka Kwaan Naa Kahidi Dancers. At 2:30pm at the Totem Square Dock we board a sightseeing boat for the Sea Otter and Wildlife Quest tour (lunch provided on the boat?). This boat will serve as our transfer to Admiralty Dream. So signing off now to go begin!

We met Jon, one of our expedition leaders downstairs in the Alaskan Dream Cruises room off the hotel entry. He walked us half way across Sitka to Centennial Hall where we were offered drinks and pastries. We were there about 8 minutes where provided some incorrect information about where to meet the tour boat and then corrected himself when another passenger pointed it out. Then back out into the rain for about a 5 minute walk to the Russian Bishop’s House. We were there about an hour and watched a video and had a guided tour. ADC paid our $5 pp admission. Then back out into the rain where we walked about 5 minutes to St. Michaels Cathedral with a pair of bald eagles perched atop the cross on the dome. ADC again paid our $5pp admission. Then we had a free hour to have lunch or do what we wanted. We had crepes. I had ham and cheese and Clay had Alaskan which had salmon and cream cheese with tomatoes and other things, as well as kelp pickles. Then we shared a banana and Nutella crepe. We used the restrooms there. It was kind of like a food court in a building called Homeport Eatery. From there we browsed shops and went to the soda fountain at Harry Race Pharmacy. Clay had chocolate ice cream and I had a marshmallow milk shake. We walked on to the dancers where we watched a diverse age group sing and drum and dance for about 20 minutes. Finally we walked across the street and boarded Allen marine’s St. Ad-something boat for our Sea Otter & Wildlife Quest tour and transfer provided by ADC.

Well it was a 2.5 hr. or so fairly calm transit from Sitka to Peril Strait to meet our ship, but it was only a comfortable and quick transit. There was no sightseeing or animal viewing so that was a pretty big disappointment. There were definitely a lot of otters that we only saw briefly as we were flying by. We were told that our ship can only sail through Peril Strait twice a day and to make it to Glacier Bay on time tomorrow morning that it had to get through in the afternoon, so it left Sitka without us and we caught up later. That was fine, they just shouldn’t have advertised it as an included excursion of touring to see wildlife since that is clearly not what it was. We have to hope that will be our only disappointment. We traveled quickly through Olga and Neva Straits to get to Peril Strait.

Anyway the terrible heavy rain continues and within minutes on the sightseeing boat you could not see out the fogged up windows. They served wrap sandwiches, chips, pasta salad, and hot and cold drinks as well as sold t-shirts and other souvenirs. The t-shirts were great with an otter on the back and at $15 each we each got one. I mean we did see the otters even if we didn't slow down to get photos.

We tied up alongside the Admiralty Dream and transferred over one at a time and were all seated in the lounge. We departed quickly and then they escorted each cabin-full to their cabins. Ours is 202, the first one aft and port side from the lounge. There are only 4 cabins on deck 2 between the lounge and restaurant and they are some of the only ones with interior doors. There are some windowless cabins one deck below us, but I wouldn't like that! So far it seems like a good choice. The life vests had Spirit of Columbia written on them, so I guess this used to be a Cruise West ship. Also they have the “no knock knots” and no key doors as Cruise West did.

Our cabin, 202, at 93 square feet is not the smallest we’ve ever had, but it is the 2^nd to smallest. The bathroom setup is definitely the weirdest and most cramped. It has a “showerlet”. A toilet and shower inside the same plastic lined enclosure with the sink outside beside my bed. It actually wouldn’t be that bad if the water held a consistent temp, but it fluctuates wildly from scalding hot to freezing cold and you can’t get out of it because there is no space. There is a toggle switch on the shower head to turn the water on and off, but it never completely shuts off the flow. The toiletries are from Wintersong Soap Company in Sitka. There is a bath gel and a herbal shampoo made for ADC with no ingredients listed so I didn’t use them. They also provided the Rainforest Mist Soap Gel for washing hands at the sink and it listed aloe but it was all they provide so I used it with no ill effects, so there couldn’t have been much aloe. Anyway, we walked past the Wintersong Soap shop on Lincoln Street several times and noticed some cool totem art tea towels and coffee cups, but we never went in. Clay had no comments about the bath gel and shampoo he used, but then he generally wouldn’t.

The other really weird thing is the light switches on the ceiling over the sink and the only 2 electrical outlets in the room are there in the ceiling over the sink as well. That meant that to recharge things you had the cords dangling in the room and over the sink. It also meant we had to use a flashlight as a nightlight in the toilet/shower enclosure.

There was a shelf at the foot of our beds that held an ice bucket that you could get filled at the bar anytime someone was behind it. Also, a leather notebook with ship information, stationery, postcards and 2 very handy Cruise Map & Field Guides. I love maps and this way we could draw ours to follow the electronic screen in the lounge as well as the big hand drawn one they were keeping up on the wall just inside the lounge.

We had the abandon ship drill right after seeing our cabins. Everyone mustered outside on the aft of deck 4. Once everyone had answered when their name was called,  we put away the vests and reconvened in the lounge until dinner at 7pm. Dinner was noisy as I expect all the meals will be. All the chairs except 4 at 2 round tables in the back are facing sideways and just those 4 face forward. One of those tables is where I sat. Dinner was fine. Clay got an Alaskan Ale and salmon finally. There was cream of mushroom tarragon soup followed by a goat cheese and roasted tomatoes on wild greens salad followed by a choice of salmon or beef tenderloin. Dessert was ice cream or strawberry shortcake. There is always available sirloin steak, chicken breast, baked potato and salad. We thought our food was very good. The beef tenderloin was extremely tender and tasty.

There was another presentation with introductions in the lounge where they told us to expect a sheet delivered to our cabins every evening giving us the plan for the next day. The menus should be posted at the bar each evening. After 9pm, they finally stopped and we fell into bed, after Clay had a shower.

So, it turns out that about half of our ship is an Orbridge charter and most of them came from a disastrous (according to at least one) few days of pre-cruise to Denali. Jon, one of our expedition leaders, told me they are the reason for the altered cruise schedule that we were informed of after final payment. He also said they were the reason that we did not have the wildlife quest tour yesterday when I asked about the difference between the letter and the reality. He said I had gotten the ADC letter and Orbridge has a different itinerary and I should have gotten theirs. It is fine and I suppose this must have happened after we booked, so I guess it would have been too late to offer us a cabin on a sailing with the itinerary we actually booked, but I still think it would have been proper for ADC to have informed us of the changes prior to after final payment. But, the information came in the post-final payment cruise documents with no explanation at all. There was no announcement of the itinerary change,  just the new itinerary that if you compared with the original one you would see had dropped the 2 ports of Kake and Petersburg.

Clay slept fine. Me not so much. I am next to the window and Clay is facing the window. We slept with the window and curtains open again. No stars because the clouds are too low.

We did not receive a sheet with tomorrow’s program in our cabin.

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Sitka Day 2

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Friday, August 30, 2013

We were woken up this morning by a very loud roar of something that sounded like it was right under our window starting up and taking off. We didn’t realize it was a sea plane until it happened a 2^nd time and we saw one. Then it started raining and we finally gave up and got up. We ate our breakfast supplies in the room then went out. It had stopped raining and was still pretty warm, though not sunny today. It was predicted to be about 5 degrees cooler today than yesterday. It wound up being overcast or cloudy and rainy all day. I think it was closer to normal weather for here. It was still fine.

We set out walking across Sitka to start our day at the Alaska Raptor Center. Admission was $12 each. It opened at 8am and we got there at 10am. They were not busy and we got a private guided tour. We learned a lot. We saw about 13 eagles, 6 owls, 3 falcons, and 3 ravens. We watched a kestrel (a small falcon) slurp up a mouse tail like a spaghetti strand. Pasta anyone? I don’t know why, but since I was little I have been scared of eagles. Today’s visit will probably give me nightmares! We walked the center’s loop trail and saw another section of the Indian River that was jam-packed again with spawning and dying salmon. It is incomprehensible. We must have seen about 100 giant ghost slugs there on that trail. Before we left, we used the restrooms and visited the gift shop where Clay got a nice $7.99 T-shirt and I got an apron with a map of Alaska on it. 

We set out for our next destination which was Baranof Island Brewing Co. They said they open daily from noon to 8pm, so we walked slowly through the rain. We even stopped at a convenience store and got some snacks and sat on a covered bench in front of the Post Office killing time. While we sat there we watched 2 eagles fighting/playing with each other flying out of or over Sitka National Historic Park and Sawmill Creek Rd. That was exciting. When we reached the gravel part of Smith Street, there was a loud alert noise that startled us and we both stopped and looked around. A man walking into the New Archangels Dancers building saw us and laughed out loud. I made eye contact and shrugged, he called across the street to me that it was the tsunami siren. I was stunned and asked, there’s a tsunami?! He laughed again and said no not now, they sound it every day at noon to make sure it’s working and have been for about 3 years since they installed the system. He said he didn’t know how many speakers there were but that you could hear it from any point on the island. Amazing. When we got to Baranof Brewing after 12pm, they had a sign on the door that they opened at 11am. Anyway, they said they served lunch so that was what we went for, plus Clay wanted to try the beer. It turned out they only had delivery pizzas, but that was fine with me. We each had 2 slices of pepperoni pizza and root beer. It was all good. Clay also had a $14 6-beer flight. That was 6 4-oz. glasses. He liked the Halibut Point Hefeweisen and the Peril Strait Pale Ale and not so much the Redoubt Red Ale. He did not like the Silver Bay IPA, the Baranof Brown Ale, or the Medvejie Stout. I don’t know if that had anything to do with the alcohol content increase as he went up the color scale they were arranged in from lightest to darkest as well as lightest alcohol to highest. He really liked the root beer too and we had 2 12-oz glasses of it. It was a fine way to fill an hour or so of a pouring rain day.

We walked back down to town through the Sitka Nationa lHistoric Park. We looked for more slugs and didn’t see any. We saw some more totem poles lying under cover behind the building that we had missed before. I went in and asked a ranger what was up with the slugs and why they were only on the uphill side of Sawmill Creek Rd. He said they aren’t. He described their slugs and I described all we had seen. He was pretty surprised and said that they were called banana slugs and while they were in the park he had only ever seen one of them and thought they were pretty rare. Clay and I had to differ and advised him to go across the street and check out the Raptor Center.

We walked on toward town. We stopped at the Sitka Sound Science Center & Aquarium. It was very small, basically just some touch tanks. We did get to see a little decorator crab though. They told us to be sure to walk out by the hatchery where they were very busy today. As we left, we walked out past the hatchery and watched some workers harvesting eggs from humpies for next year’s salmon. It was $5 each.

Across the street we went in the Sheldon Jackson Museum. It was very interesting. I really liked it and Clay was just ready for dinner and bed, or maybe his back hurt. I don’t know. I had way too much fun with a collection of rubber stamps and a list of artifacts they represented. I also had to open every single artifact drawer. Anyway, we wound up leaving Bob there and after we walked about halfway back to the hotel we had to walk back and retrieve him!

Dinner was problematic. We wound up eating at the Dock Café downstairs at the Totem Square Inn which had halibut 6 ways and maybe 6 other things on the menu. It seemed like about half the restaurants in town were closed on the Friday night of Labor Day weekend. At least 3 that we tried were closed and there aren’t that many here! Clay found out the sodas in the hotel’s vending machine are $1.50 and he bought 2 at the grocery store halfway across town for $1.99 each!

Tomorrow is predicted to be cooler again and rainier too. The long term forecast looks like clear about 60 degrees F in the day time. But, we’ll see.

Tomorrow at 10:30am we meet our tour leader for our Admiralty Dream cruise and turn over our luggage. We tour downtown sights and see some dancers if we walk from 10:30am to 2:30pm when we board a small boat at the dock here at the hotel for a sea life and otter tour on the way to Admiralty Dream. Thus begins our Alaskan Dream Cruise.

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Sitka Day 1

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Thursday, August 29, 2013

We had planned to sleep in but Clay had gone to bed at 7:30pm and we were both up before 7am again. That is fine, it makes for a calm and quiet start to the day. We ate our breakfasts and got packed and ready to fly again.

We wound up leaving the hotel about 8:45am instead of the 9 to 9:30am we had originally planned. We walked about 5 minutes in the famous Seattle rain. Heavy enough to know it’s raining, but not hard enough to put on a rain jacket or get out an umbrella. It was actually much less humid and cooler out today, so it was really quite pleasant. Still glad for our 2 warm sunshiny days and hope for clear and dry in Alaska! Fingers crossed!

We got our tickets and had just arrived at the platform when our train arrived and we were first on and got our rolling bags stowed and got front facing seats nearby. So, all good and we sat back for the ride until we got on the elevated portion and Clay’s spinner bag kept escaping from the luggage area. We were through security with little delay or trouble and rode a little train to our gate at N10. We were settled in there by 10am and they should start boarding by 11:30am for our noon flight to Sitka. We had a fairly empty flight. I would say only 1/3 of the seats were taken. We could all have had our own row of 3 seats. Clay and I sat in one row with an empty seat between us. The flight lasted about 1.5 hours which was less than the almost 2 hours projected. The amazing thing was that only maybe half a dozen passengers on this jet were NOT going to Sitka to attend a wedding. Everyone else all knew each other and they were all going to the same weekend wedding.

The Sitka airport is pretty tiny. One gate. One baggage claim carousel. We had to go to it to find the courtesy phone to call the Shee Atika Totem Square Inn for our ride to the hotel. It is about a 5 minute drive. The hotel is just across the bridge from the airport. It overlooks a dock and marina and is right on the corner of the main street across the waterfront of the town, Lincoln Street. We are in room 406 on the corner so we have 2 water views. It is a nice room with 2 full sized beds, a table and 2 chairs, a chest of drawers, TV with HBO, one nightstand, a mini-refrigerator, microwave, and coffee maker. The bathroom is small with a shower over tub. It is clean and ok. There is no AC and it is hot in our room. The windows open but one side is directly over the noisy vent fan of a ground floor restaurant. Oh well. We’re only here for 2 nights. 

Alaskan Dream Cruises had a welcome packet waiting for us. It contains 6 filled out luggage tags, our name tags on lanyards and a letter of instructions for us about embarkation day. They will meet us here at 10:30am Saturday and take our luggage to the ship while we have a walking tour of some sights in the center of town.  We’ll leave those ‘til then. I don’t remember if I’ve talked about booking this cruise. We had heard of Allen Marine because they are very popular providing cruise ship day excursions in SE Alaska. After Cruise West went bankrupt, Allen Marine bought sold of the old CW ships and started Alaskan Dream Cruises. 2013 is their 2^nd season running their own cruises. I hadn’t heard anything negative and when I checked out the prices and itineraries on their website, we picked this one; August 30^th for 8 days on Admiralty Dream in cabin 202. I called ADC on July 25, 2012 to get an early booking discount before it expired on 7/31/2012. I guess we wound up with a better price because of some wrong information on their website about cabin categories because the quoted price was higher than what was online and I objected. Joanna agreed that she saw online what I was talking about and put me on hold. When she came back the website had been changed and ADC was willing to honor the price I was calling about. We appreciated that and paid $4216.48 for the 2 of us in a category AA cabin #202 on deck 2. Joanna told me that wine and beer were not included and some paperwork up to final payment said they were included and some not. In the end, beer and wine were included with lunch and dinner. It turns out that while you could buy drinks, we were more than happy with the included with lunch and dinner beer and wine. The only other cost we expect that is not included in the fare is tips.

We spent the afternoon in Sitka walking since it was warm, bright and sunny today. We saw about a million salmon spawning and dying in a few hours. It is epic! We walked across town to the Sitka National Historic Park. We walked the trails around the Totem Park and the site of the Battle of Sitka 1804.  We crossed the Indian River and then turned back. We found a grocery store on the walk back and bought some drinks, yogurts and muffins for breakfasts. We had dinner at The Pub. We had nice views from the 2^nd floor window seats but that was the best thing. Clay liked his fish & chips and ate most of my chicken tenders and fries, but I can’t say I liked it. It was probably good for fried food, but it just seemed too greasy to me. It was very busy though. We have another full day here on our own and Saturday we join Alaskan Dream Cruises.

When we got back to our room, I was standing in front of the TV taking off my jewelry and watching a fishing boat with people cleaning its nets when I noticed a ruckus in the water in the next set of boat slips. I scrambled for my big binoculars that I had left in the chest of drawers. It was a big seal or sea lion of some kind. It was very light colored with some darker spots and it was just thrashing a big fish to kill it. It had it in its mouth just shaking its head back and forth, whipping the thing. Then it swallowed. It looked around some and then dived and did the same thing again. It dived and swam around the whole marina area and finally swam off to the east away from the sunset and under the bridge. (We later learned it was probably a Harbor seal.) We love having the corner view, but the problem with these windows is that there is no where you can sit and really look out. You have to stand up to be able to see anything other than sky.

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Seattle Day 2

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Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Clay was raring to go this morning and I was moving at my normal early morning pace. It was raining all morning, we had the curtains open and I don’t know where he thought he was going so early. We had stopped last night on the walk home after dinner at an IGA and Clay had bought 2 drinks and I bought 2 Brown Cow Maple yogurts. I thought they and the tub of cheese curds were for our breakfasts. I made myself a cup of coffee and a glass of ice water and had a cheese curd and a tub of yogurt. (The Red Lion Inn Keurig provided coffee was suitably enough, Starbucks Pike Place Roast and it was very good.) Clay sat in the desk chair and glowered at me. Then I unpacked and repacked my backpack for the rain today. Then I showered again to wash my hair for today. Then I brushed my teeth and did some other bathroom business. We talked about what the plan was for the day and the first places we wanted to go didn’t open until 10am.

Clay wanted to walk back down to Pike Place Market for a cinnamon bun. Bob wanted to see Rachel the Pig! We noticed a shop on the way down called KuKuRaZu.  It was closed, and it had nothing but gourmet popcorn! We stopped at the Hard Rock Café gift shop. Clay got his cinnamon roll and we walked back to the same park with no pot smokers this morning. We sat on a bench overlooking the waterfront under a big totem pole. Then we walked to SoMuch Yarn on Elliott. I did not find anything to buy. It was too rich for me!

We walked on to the Seattle Space Needle and this was our longest walk of the day and none too scenic either! There was a lot of street and sidewalk closure due to loud heavy construction work and we probably didn’t choose a scenic path which is another problem with GPS vs. a tourist map. Anyway, it was only about 15 to 20 minutes. We saw the Frank Gehry building that houses the EMP Museum but didn’t go there. (I will note that we debated whether to ride the monorail roundtrip, or just one way. Clay argued for walking and so we did, but in hindsight we should have walked back up to the monorail station from Elliott St. and taken the monorail to the Space Needle for $2 each way. Because you want to be at the front of the front car heading to the Space Needle because the monorail goes right through the middle of the Gehry building before letting you off behind the Space Needle and that would have been awesome to behold. But, we didn’t know that before we rode it back this afternoon.)

We paid $36 each for a ticket to both the observation level of the Space Needle and the Chihuly Garden and Glass. The most impressive thing we saw all day was the Chihuly Exhibit! But, first we went up the Space Needle. There is a full restaurant up there at the top and we checked the menu before we bought tickets and I didn’t see anything I would eat and it was very expensive to boot. On the Observation level, we shared a Kobe beef hot dog with chili with beans on it while sitting inside. It was such a mess we had to use knives and forks. It cost about $7.50. I watched a seaplane take off and fly up to and past the Space Needle while Clay was getting the hot dog. That was pretty incredible. Clay walked away from his string pack here after we finished eating and fortunately when he realized it later after we had walked all the way around the outside, it was still there on the floor under the table. Clay said my forgetfulness must be catching. I say we are just too old and loopy! We had complimentary photos taken at both spots today. We emailed them to ourselves and hopefully I’ll be able to post them here after we get home.

We came back down and went to the Chihuly next. It was amazing and just beautiful. We loved it! This was our favorite thing of the day. Clay doesn’t think this was here when he was in Seattle previously. We went to their café for a little more to eat. We had very small plates of fried Beecher’s cheese curds (delicious!) and gnocchi (so-so) and then shared a big good dessert of brownies, bananas and caramel ice cream with salted caramel and chocolate sauce. There were toffee bits scattered over the dish with peanuts, but the toffee bits were not well cooked and nearly pulled our teeth out. Ouch. Clay also had a beer and I had a root beer. We were full enough with 2 very small lunches, dessert and drinks after the chili dog. I like it when restaurants have a choice of size for each dish. Dessert was huge. 

We bought $2 one way tickets and took the monorail back over to Westlake Station. We crossed the street and went underground at Nordstrom’s to take another $2pp ride over to Pioneer Square. I wanted to go on the Underground Tour and I had downloaded a 2nd walking tour from Frommer’s for Pioneer Square. We wound up taking too long and Clay wanted to get to Elliott’s for dinner at 5pm since we didn’t have any reservations, so we didn’t ever actually take the Underground Tour. Something to do if we ever come back here. The most amazing building we saw all day was right in front of us when we came up from the Link station at Pioneer Square (which is just the name of an area of Seattle). There was a building that housed The Arctic Club and all around the 2^nd floor were carved statues of walrus heads with big tusks. There must have been dozens of them. I figured that building had to be at least a hundred years old since no one since that time would have ornamented such a purpose-built building like that! It made me laugh out loud. It turns out that it is now a hotel! How did I miss that? Neither of us thought the location was quite as convenient as the Red Lion Inn though.

So, we went to the top of Smith Tower and that was fascinating. Smith Tower was an early skyscraper. When it was built in 1914 it was the tallest building west of the Mississippi and that stayed true for over 50 years! You take an original Otis elevator to the Chinese room on the 35^th floor where there is a public observation deck. Smith of Smith-Corona typewriter built the building and the last Empress of China gave him the money to build the room after he visited her in China with gifts. It was all impressive. We still couldn’t see Mt. Rainier. I asked the woman who sold us our $7.50pp tickets up there where it was and she pointed out where it would be if it were clear. I would like to point out that I was actually sunburnt by this point. It had stopped raining by the time we set out this morning and the morning’s puddles had dried up well before noon and the sun shone all day long! But, evidently it was either cloudy on Mt. Rainier or between here and there because although we looked for it all day, we never saw it. The top 3-4 stories of the pyramid atop the building are a private apartment on a long term lease and they have to take stairs up there past the 35^th floor. They have access to the big glass ball atop the building. How amazing would that be?

We walked through the Foster/White Gallery since they sell Chihuly glass work. There was a better selection at the Chihuly Gift Shop, but they were very friendly and welcoming. I will say that was almost uniformly true of people working here and asking us about where we were from and how our stay was etc. It was like Ireland all over again in the warm and friendly, welcoming environment for tourists. From there we walked to the Waterfall Garden Park, which was nice but inexplicable. What is it doing there? Why? And why wasn’t it thronged with homeless people and pot smokers like every other park we saw? It was a strange calm cool dark oasis. The roar of the probably 2-story tall waterfall drowned out all city noise. Mysteries.

Then we went to the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park which was really just a building housing an exhibit. Admission was free. It was well done and air conditioned so we sat through a 25-minute black and white film that well explained the 1897-98 gold rush instead of going on the Underground Tour. It was good. We walked through another park to see totem poles and the fallen firefighter’s memorial statues.

We stopped at Cow Chip Cookies for Clay to get his breakfast for tomorrow and walked through an art glass studio and shop. Then we walked about 6 blocks to Elliott’s for dinner. Elliott’s had just opened when we got there and we were seated inside with no waiting.  Clay had a local draft beer and a flight of raw oysters. Six in all, 2 each of Peale Bay, Shigoku and Stellar Bay. They went from saltiest to sweetest. Clay liked the saltiest best because they tasted most like New Orleans to him. Then he had the biggest fried oysters he had ever seen for dinner. He was in oyster heaven! I had a glass of OR Riesling for $6 followed by a $26 pork chop with gnocchi and apples. We both were well satisfied by the end of dinner. We both thought it was a great setting out there on the pier with the boats and ships and ferries coming and going. The portions were large and while we spent more money for more food and the setting and views, the prices seemed much more reasonable than last night’s. Then we got the dessert menus and had some more to be pleased about. For dessert we shared another salted caramel sundae thing with a house made chocolate covered caramel with it. Salted caramel seems to be the flavor of the day here right now! It was much better than lunch’s which was smaller and more expensive! 

We left there stuffed for the walk back uphill. Clay found a small booklet-like case for sale at Ye Olde Curiosity Shop to hold all the smashed souvenir coins he has been collecting not just here in Seattle but for a few years now. We took the nearby Harbor Steps (106!) on the way back uphill. We stopped at KuKuRaZu and got a small bag of salted Hawaiian caramel popcorn for a snack on the plane tomorrow. Then back to our room at the Red Lion Inn on Fifth and showers. Clay drank one of his sodas and I typed up our notes.

Our flight tomorrow is at noon. We plan to leave the hotel for the trip back and through security at 9am in the morning. We will go back the same way we came and should have plenty of time. Next 2 nights are at the Shee Atika Totem Square Inn in Sitka, Alaska. When we booked this hotel last October, it was tribally owned and recommended by Alaskan Dream Cruises. It has since apparently been sold, but ADC seems to still be working closely with them. We did not realize there had been a change of ownership, I should note. Only when I went looking for their website and found the news story did we know about it. Our rate for a corner waterview room for the 2 nights was $410.36.

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Day 1 Seattle

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Alaska Trip Notes - at last!

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

We were up at 4am today and out of the house at 5am. We drove to Syncfusion and Clay’s co-worker Jake drove us on to RDU and parked Clay’s car back at the office. There was absolutely no line at security this morning and we walked through the whole process pretty quickly and sat near our departure gate to await departure. Clay asked me if I wanted breakfast and I walked around and decided not. I had a glass of juice before leaving home. We both read the newspaper and then it was time to board. The nonstop flight to LAX was about 2/3 empty. We had also paid extra to get the economy plus seats or whatever they were calling the seats with extra space. Anyway, the whole plane except the full business class section each had a row of 3 seats to themselves if they wanted it. I walked all the way to the back about 3 hours into the flight and all but a couple of parents with small children were asleep in rows to themselves. It was great. It was a smooth and painless flight. I lay down across my 3 seats and slept for at least half the flight. I think I saw us cross the Mississippi River before I pulled my window shade down and I think I saw the Grand Canyon a little after I woke up. They served us Cokes and cookies at the beginning and end of the flight. The plane was very cold!

We got to LAX early by about 20 minutes. We had to ask where to find our next flight because it was not on a departure board. Since we were ticketed through Alaska Air and this was a Delta plane we had to change terminals for our Alaska flight to Seattle. We landed at Terminal 5 and walked through an underground tunnel to Terminal 6 and found our gate. Clay went and bought a brat sandwich and I shared a few bites. I walked away from my new blue rolling Samsonite suitcase and almost boarded the plane without it! A woman who was sitting next to me went and told an airline employee and he came and queried me about it. I didn’t even realize I was without my suitcase! Getting too infirm to travel!

This flight to Seattle was packed. They said they had equipment problems with the first flight of the morning to Seattle and had to cancel that flight and that most of those passengers had been moved to our flight so it was jam packed. Clay let me have the window seat and he took the middle seat. It was a little rougher and warmer and stuffier, but it was also shorter. It was about an hour and a half. We flew over Crater Lake!

In Seattle, we walked toward baggage claim looking for signs to the Sound Transit Link Light Rail train into Downtown Seattle. Signage was sparse but we knew we needed to cross a sky bridge into the parking deck to find it and once we were inside the parking garage there was plenty of signage and you couldn’t miss it. It was about a 15 minute walk to the train. You buy your tickets from an ATM-like machine on the wall and then go upstairs to the trains. They take cash or credit cards. There is nowhere to scan your tickets or anything; you just have to have a ticket to show for random checks onboard. We didn’t see any ticket checkers though.

The train starts out elevated then it travels in the middle of a road and then it enters a tunnel that it goes in and out of the rest of the way to the end of the line. There are 13 stations in all. We had to travel the entire length of the Link Light system from SEATAC to Westlake Station so our fare was $2.75 each. The ride had 11 stops and lasted about 38 minutes. We exited Westlake Station at 5^th Avenue and turned left and walked up a slight incline for about 2 blocks or 5 minutes to arrive at the Red Lion Inn. We came out by Nordstrom’s and right across the street was the Monorail Terminal too.

The Red Lion Inn is very nice and very conveniently located. We booked online with an AARP rate and paid for 2 nights a total of $475.64. We are in room 1104 and have a partial view of the waterfront and Pike Place Market. We have a full view of the Hard Rock Café. The Pike Place Market is about an 8 minute walk downhill from here. We have 2 queen sized beds, a desk, a chair and ottoman, a small refrigerator and a Keurig machine. There is a big flat screen TV with a poor selection of channels and free wifi Internet. The bathroom is marble with a shower over tub and the tub floor is a couple inches higher than the bathroom floor. Why do they do that? It is very awkward, but it wasn’t a disabling or dangerous height difference for either of us. We got some restaurant recommendations from the front desk and headed out for the afternoon shortly after check in. It was hotter and much more humid here than we expected.

We walked down to Pike Place Market and stopped at the Information Kiosk and picked up a free Guide to the Pike Place Market. I had printed out a Frommer’s walking tour, too. So we tried to follow that. I think we saw most of what we wanted to see. We arrived first at Rachel the Pig by actually following the cloven hoof prints of brass inlaid in the sidewalk to it. Clay told me to put Bob up there and we both panicked when we realized that I only had my purse and Bob was still clipped to my backpack in the hotel room. Bob was pretty steamed at me and Clay was beginning to think I am losing my wits entirely. Bob was pretty pissed at us for causing him to miss the first day in Seattle.   Bob can hold a grudge. 

We saw some fish tossing through the crowds behind Rachel the Pig and down the stairs right by Rachel you can go down to a cobblestoned alley and see the Gum Wall. This was pretty crowded too and as disgusting if not more than the fish. We walked around the stalls of produce and flowers and crafts, past Chukar Cherries where we were verbally assaulted by a very aggressive staff member who did not want to take a no to her offer of free samples, or a free tote bag.

We crossed Pike Place and I got a red bean sesame bun at MeeSum Pastries and Clay had an almond cookie. I got a sesame seed in my bra! We looked at the cinnamon buns at Cinnamon Works. We crossed Pine St. and went into Beecher’s Cheese and bought a small tub of fresh curds. Then we walked on down Pike Place past the 2^nd ever location of Starbucks coffee where I put Jeremy’s birthday card into a mailbox. We went in Piroshky Piroshky and bought a meat and cheese piroshky to share. (If you can imagine and we had looked at the menu at Wild Ginger on the way down and decided to go there for dinner at 5pm!) We crossed Pike Place again and walked down to Steinbrueck Park and sat on some stools overlooking the waterfront. We just about got a contact high as we sat there and ate. I didn’t like the piroshky much, it had too many onions in it for my taste. I ate some and some cheese curds.  

We went back through the market again and it was getting less crowded. We walked around downstairs some more and found some more art, a giant squid and a wooden Sasquatch. We stopped at Bottega Italiana and each had a small gelato. They were good. Clay had pistachio and I had salted caramel with chocolate chips. Yummy! Clay finished mine and thought it was better than his.

We headed out for dinner at Wild Ginger. It is huge inside and there was hardly anyone there at 5pm so we did not need reservations. We shared 4 chicken potstickers. Clay had a local beer and I had water. Then I had 7 flavor beef with jasmine rice and Clay had Mongolian noodles. We shared. I didn’t really like anything. I didn’t even like the chopsticks which were too bulky at the top and too pointy at the bottom, so were too difficult to use. I guess maybe I just wasn’t that hungry anymore and I was too hot, tired and sweaty. We skipped dessert and walked back to the Red Lion. We had ordered all small portions, so that was a good option but I still think it just wasn’t that good!

I had sweated so much I needed to wash my bra and blouse to wear for the next flying day. Clay also wanted his shirt washed. We both had showers. I flipped through the TV channels and found the movie The Proposal just starting. We thought that was topical since we are on our way to Sitka. So we watched most of it, me more than Clay! But, I had to go to sleep before it ended. We both know how it ends anyway and it also wasn't filmed in Sitka! We both had a good night’s sleep and were up around 6:45am.

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