ALASKA CRUISE BLOG 2015

How much has melted? That was my first thought in April when I heard we were going to Alaska. I was thinking about the Mendenhall Glacier, a fast-receding glacier I had visited for the first time in 2012. A quick internet search showed that a feature I was keen to visit, a huge ice cave at the bed of the ice, had collapsed in 2013. I wondered if I would be able to visible recognize the melting that had occurred since my last visit. Fast forward to July. A big group of us (Tim, Nik, Marine, Christine, Becca, myself) took a taxi ride to the West side of Mendenhall Lake, opposite from the visitor center. I've never been to the visitor center despite having been to the glacier four times now. The visitor center's claim to fame is that it was under ice during World War II. In a testament to how fast glacier are disappearing, it's now about 2 miles from the ice front. We hiked along a nice trail for about two miles and then things got a bit "full-on". The lake level has risen over the old trail and so we had to take off our shoes and hike through the chilly, silty glacial waters. As we got closer to the glacier, the trees got smaller and smaller, indicating that there had been less time since the land was covered in ice. Scrambling over some exposed, low-angle bedrock we got our first enormous view of the ice. The lower reaches of glacier are tortured: 5-story tall crevassed towers of ice fight each other to break off into the proglacial lake. We just had enough time to carefully make our way up a loose moraine and step onto the ice for about 10 minutes. A nearby wall of ice, plastered onto a south-facing hillside and now orphaned from the main glacier trunk, was dislodging huge chunks of ice down towards our path. We had to re-navigate to a safer route. We had tricky time walking on the ice without crampons. We ended up grabbing big rocks to use as a brake in the event of a fall. I'm not sure they would have been that useful, but they provided psychological comfort. We then backtracked and made it to the trailhead with a cozy 15 minute window before our taxi returned us to the boat. The variety of food we enjoyed throughout this trip was delightfully extensive. Eating on vacation always has many perks. Being able to bring together ten of my family members to share food with will be memories in my mind for a lifetime. Even though dinner was our only obligatory meal each day, most of us spent breakfast, lunch and shared snacks together daily. There are not many things I enjoy more than having a meal with loved ones. Every day including our last one on the ship, most of us started our days with breakfast at the buffet. The food was similar each day but we all agreed that waking up to an already prepared meal was always delicious. One of my most enjoyable moments each day was waking up and walking sleepy eyed to the twelfth floor of our cruise ship and walk through the lines of the buffet. Once food and coffee in hand, we would meet and share our breakfast at the back of the boat that had an open air seating area. Even though most days were quite chilly, I never have the opportunity to eat breakfast facing the open ocean with the chilly Pacific Ocean air blowing through my hair. Lunches were spent many places for our group. Some wandered back to the buffet several hours after consuming breakfast while others took advantage of the other restaurants on board. A group favorite was O’Sheehan’s Bar and Grill located mid-ship which contained Irish fare and coffee cocktails as well. Many lunches and afternoon snacks were consumed here, making it a meeting point for many of our group each day. One of my personal favorite meal was found in Skagway, Alaska at Skagway Fish Co. Tim and I were in search of Alaskan King crab and our cravings were delightfully satisfied here. We ordered a pound of King Crab, two king crab cakes and a couple of Alaskan IPA’s. To say we were enthusiastically pleased would be an understatement. The crab was so fresh that a simple crack to the shell showed us that large chunks of succulent crab literally fell from each shell. It will be hard to eat crab back in California for us now. My all around highlights from this cousin’s trip come from our nightly dinners with one another. Each and every day we met Tsar’s Restaurant at the Aft end of our ship. We changed times daily to accommodate certain activities. As we all enjoyed three course meals and bottles of wine, we caught up on our daily lives back home and our days’ worth of events in Alaska and on the ship. Each night we sat in different formations around the table to enable new discussions and to ensure we were able to talk to one another. Being stuck in the corner of an eleven-person table for a week gets a little boring after about day two. There is not much better than hearing stories and inspiring insights from your grandparents after a long hike to an Alaskan Glacier or a stroll through a little city on the coast of Canada. This trip was one that will stay with me forever because of the time I was able to spend with my family. I am heading back to Los Angeles from Seattle Airport with a grateful heart! Skagway - by Jen Skagway was so beautiful! Christine, Becca, Drea and I set out from the ship in the morning planning to just wander around and explore the town. We stopped in several stores for souveniers and went into an old tavern that had been turned into a museum. It was great to learn about many of the characters who lived in town during the gold rush days. While we were strolling and window shopping we ran into a booth offering bus tours of the area for significantly cheaper than what was offered on the ship and we decided to go for it! We were taken on a tour of the area and saw several waterfalls, glaciers and valleys. We had some really breathtaking views and took some amazing pictures. The tour actually crossed into Canada, something we weren't told about prior to booking it so we didn't bring our passports. It ended up being fine but there was a lot of confusion on the bus as several others were in the same situation. Bridge lessons! - by Drea One of things Jen and I were most excited about for this cruise were to get bridge lessons from Grandpa Bill. Jen had a lesson about 5 years ago, but I've never played. We both love cards and have been wanting to learn the game. We knew that we couldn't ask for a better teacher than Grandpa Bill and a better setting to learn than on a cruise. On our first day at sea, several members of our travel group dropped in for our lesson. But, later in the cruise it was just us die-hard card sharks that stuck around. We learned conventions, rules of play and how to think like a bridge player. It is definitely a complicated game, but we had so much fun learning from Grandpa Bill and can't wait to play more!