Alaska on a Cruse ship with Brant and Mikki, 2008 Early September

 

The summer is over.  At work I finally hang a large painting I donated to the wheelchair program.  I can only hang it now because I am leaving.   The painting is 4 ft by 3 ft of the Sierras.   It’s one of those paintings that I have kept coming back to, reworking and reworking.  Sometimes happy with the changes other times not.    Because of this I can not hang it where I work, in the main gym until I am leaving.  I have donated six or seven paintings to the wheelchair program.   Money from the sales is to buy wheelchair equipment for low income family where insurance will not cover.   Money is to go directly to the wheelchair therapist, whom I trust deeply.    No red tape, goes to the source, the way I like it.    I put a 450 dollar price tag on it. It makes me very proud, it is one of my best.   Hope it sells.  

 

I am leaving Santa Cruz, my place of employment for the summer.   I have worked here in years past and have been fortunate to develop   many close friends there.   From Santa Cruz I am leaving for Alaska then returning home to my Sug who is working in Chapel Hill.  

 

I pack my summer bags, sign the title of my car over to a co-worker.  The car is old, she tells me I can use it when ever I want.  I can not take it with me and it is not worth the money to store.  

 

Frizzy haired Terryn got herself off work early.  She drove me back over the Santa Cruz mountains over the windy pass back to the airport.  She talked of her new boy friend, her daughter.   She is putting all of her saving together to take out a loan to buy a condo.  “I don’ t really want it for me.  At this point I just want to leave something for my daughter.”   “ Christ.”  I say, “You are only 43.”    “I am 45 Mike, thank you, you are very sweet.”      I am still worried about the housing market.  I tell her this as best as I can.   She is set, her mind is made I can tell.   I am a little worried.    She tells me I am a beautiful person.   She means it in the most sincere way.    I am touched by the generosity of her heart.  If only more people had the love of Terryn, the world be a better place.    A wonderful therapist, I will miss her and others friends of mine just as good.    Good fortune is health and friends like her.   

 

I fly to Seattle to meet with Melissa.  We are happy to see each other it has been a long time apart.   We stay in a hotel which gives out warm cookies upon check in.  This makes us very happy.   I know that all desserts for the next couple of weeks will be compared to these warm oatmeal chocolate cookies.   Brantley and his wife Mikki arrive the next morning driving up in the Honda up from their home in Portland.  The car is very full from luggage.  Back window filled up.  Melissa sitting to my left at five foot three is now no longer visible from the luggage stacks.  We stop off at a liquor store and pick up our allotted one bottle of wine per person.  Big bottles mind you ain’t no screwin around at this point.   

          We park, I leave some stuff in Brantley’s car and begin the check in boarding process.   A man with long hair smiles as he lifts our luggage clunk bang, bang onto the conveyer belt. 

It was Brantley’s birthday.  I listened as Melissa, Miki and Brant all talked about how happy they were to be there.  Work was hard but doing these things makes it all worth it.  I had worked 6-7 days a week for the summer, I was also glad to be here.  Brantley is very excited, we buy several buckets full of beer.  Toast to Brantley, toasts to cruise ships, toasts to each other.  Toasts to the buffet.  Toasts to the ocean.   Toasts to vacations.  

 

The buffet, don’t really know why I do it.  Give people the option to eat as much as you want of good to mediocre food and we all feel the need to stuff our faces.   Not till we’re just full, but nauseated from fullness.  Brantley wakes early each morning and runs along the small track on the gym deck.   I tell him I will join him but I never do. 

 

After dinner we change into our swimming trunks and jump into the outdoor hot tubs and swimming pool.   Most of our fellow passengers are in full winter jackets wool hats and bundled up.  Brant and I dip in the pool and are pleasantly surprised by the warmth.  

Day 2

This day is our first full day at sea.   Our 17 story high cruse ship travels 25 miles per hour.  Brantley loans me his extra sunglasses which I assure him I will lose, which in turn he assures me only costs 5 bucks.  Later that day we go to the bowel of the boat.  We are watching the sun set.   The wind is blowing, I am in a thick hooded sweat shirt and long paints and I am cold.    I lean forward slightly over the rail.  The sun dips, we are looking for that famous green flash at sun set.   No real flash, an injured sea gull is unable to fly out of the ships path.  We watch it slide under the bowel, under the ship out of sight.   “Well guess you got to break some eggs to make an omelette.” Brant quotes.    I look to the right, the wind blows and Brantley’s  sunglasses slip off my face and fall down into the sea.    Glasses sharing the same fate of the sea gull, omelette got its second egg. 

We eat a late dinner, have too much dessert which sends us all to early bed.  Bellies full.  

Day3 We wake head out to the bowel of the boat to keep our eyes peeled for whales.    We spot several spouts and take as many pictures as we can.

 

 We arrive at Juneau Alaska at about 12 noon.  Here we have signed up for a 10 mile bike ride tour followed by all you can drink at the Alaskan Brewery.    It is raining, they provide rain gear, most everything is fogged over.  We ride along the local college campus around some fogged over views and arrive at a glacier lake.   Layer of fog wove and layered white and blue chunks of floating ice.   Shadows of a large glacier loomed in the back ground.   We took many pictures. 

Another stop brought us closer to the visitor center at the glacier’s base.    Next to the road leading to the visitor center was a stream.  Salmon were running.   “Keep your eyes open, when the salmon are running you will see these large fluffy type things.  Keep your eyes on the look out!”   Sure enough on the way back we took many pictures of a brown bear fishing for salmon.  Melissa was once terrified of bears, she remains calm and excited.   Moves closer for a better picture.    

 

We boarded our bikes onto a trailer and piled into a transport van which took us to the brewery.    We all had plenty of free beer seeing who could drink every sample of bear offered. I don’t think anyone did but we sure gave it a good try.   Bought tea shirts and were very happy.   On the drive back to the ship the driver asks, “You saw whales, where did you see whales?”    “On the ship!”   Melissa exclaims with child like gleefulness.   We were all grinning from ear to ear.  

 

We arrive back on the ship and eat dinner.    Melissa requests Chicken adobo a Filipino dish.   The waiters are Filipino and were very excited.   Mikki tries out different Tagalog words to the delight of the waiters.  

Day 4

The next morning the boat arrives in Skagway.  Our trip of the day is a mountain top kayaking trip followed by a train ride back down to the ship.   We all dress very warmly.   We are all in heavy coats, hats gloves.   The kayak guide, Dylan, we meet on top of the pass.   He is standing with full bushy beard, rubber boot waders, red fleece and in shorts.   “Yes sirree wear shorts here year round, round here.”    Melissa and I are in a tandem kayak.   The group paddles for about half a mile then turn back.  Melissa takes many pictures and we all have a good time.    I talk with one of the guides about guided fishing tours.    The lake is glacier carved and is extremely deep.   Mountains surround our open scenic view.  Red grasses line the hill sides.  

The train we road back to town was an old 60-70 year old train with kerosene  stoves.   I stood outside on the platform for most of the ride.   I enjoy the cool crisp air and take many pictures.   It is outside you can hear the rhythmic rocking and atonal squeals and metallic sounds of the train.   We head into Skagway with some time remaining and go straight to the brewery.    We order fries and a good pitcher or two of beer.   We make it back to the boat for departure, eat a big dinner and again head to bed. 

Day 5

We awake to find the boat in a fjord.  A fjord is an extremely deep narrow water passage that is carved out by glaciers millions of years ago.   Same stuff that carved out Yosemite valley.  Has very much the same feel.    It was a foggy raining morning, narrow cascades of water ran down the sides of these steep towering mountains.  These mountains rose straight out of the sea 2000-3000 ft high.  Evergreens, Hemlock , spruce grew up the extremely rugged steep banks.  The ship followed the passage often times only a mile across.   Very beautiful spectacular chunks of blue ice would float along.   We all sat in the skywalker lounge, an over look bar on the 17th floor.  Blue chunks of ice were older chunks of ice.   The ice is blue because it is so compact the wave length for the color blue can not pass to it reflects off the ice giving its blue color.                                                                                    

 

A very extravagant announcer came over the loud speaker.  The kind who would talk just way too slow, would hold onto syllables of many words just way longer then any normal person would.   He read his own poetry and encouraged us all to write our own haiku poems.   We thought this just way over the top and spent just a little time haikuing about seals, ice and red ice and seal afterbirth.  

 

The ship traveled down a passage blocked by a glacier which we could not see through the fog.  The boat turned around then headed out.   

Latter that day outside on the deck I spotted humpback whales, I ran inside pulled Brantley, and Melissa out of the art auction.   Through binoculars we watched as one performed a half breach head fully coming out of the water.                                 

It was cold and we traveled back inside to the art auction.   The art dealer was a buffed up blond haired blue eyes who was auctioning off many different canvases.   With auctioning an expensive painting he threatened to send his Filipino helpers back to Manilla if they dropped his canvas.   Melissa was extremely offended.  

 

In after thoughts of the situation I imagine myself calling him out right there during his auction in front of everybody.  A simple  “Hey asshole why don’t you treat people right.”  What would he have done, I am a passenger, and more then that may have been in the right.  I imagine myself now yelling out in front of everybody, him standing up there, his oiled hair, nice shirt and gavel in hand.    This did not happen however, my initial response in reality was laughter.   Did he really just say that?   Wow what a dick.    Melissa filed a complaint about him as did Brantley and Mikki at check out.   

 

I was not impressed by the quality of work, some of which were damaged.    People bought it, buying prints with paint on them thinking they were buying originals.  One person purchased a 5000 painting that if you looked closely was damaged.   One thing he forgot to mention.     We stayed though, sat through all three of his auctions while on board.   I guess we found it entertaining in a bad way. The dealer was a shit.   

Mikki and Brantley won a print.  They both walked up on stage and picked among several prints on stage.    Mikki chose one with a vet, as she is applying to vet school sometime soon.  They paid to have it framed which of course was not free.   

 

That night our waiter, Danny set us up with Calderata a beef stew, Nilaga, a beef broth with vegetables.   Both I believe were Filipino dishes which Brantley loved.   We ate again way too much and soon after dinner fell once again fast asleep.

Day 6

Melissa woke me at 6 am and convinced me to call over to Brantley and Mikki’s because we had all agreed to wake up this early the night before.    This I distinctly do not remember agreeing too.   We need to wake early because the boat is only in Ketchikan for 4 short hours.   We are interested in seeing the town.   We did not purchase any of the travel trip packages for this town.  Ketchikan, the Salmon capital of Alaska.  The main street is built on pilings right on top of the river.  From the walk ways you could see hundreds and hundreds of adult full grown salmon adjusting themselves to fresh water in preparation for their migration upstream.   Hundreds of fish gathered in the small brackish section of the river.  Tourist stores lined the walk ways.   The town was nice, I was tired.  We stopped in several stores Brantley bought a wall carving and Melissa and I bought a nice Eskimo mask.

There was a booth to get your picture taken with an eagle.  One dealer offered lower prices on her art work in honor of Sarah Palin getting on the vice president ticket with McCain.      We get back on the boat.    Later that day I buy Brantley drinks to make up for the lost sunglasses, We swim in the pool and get pleasantly drunk. 

 

The trip is winding down, we feel its completion, we know we will be soon separate from the luxurious lifestyle.   The buffets, Danny the waiter, Marco, who picks up our cabin twice a day.   The general pampering, the gluttony. The next day is mostly on the boat, our last night we spend briefly in Victoria,  British Columbia.  We sit, talk of our trip and have drinks at a indoor waterside bar.  The next day we depart the boat, Brant and Mikki drop us off at the airport with hugs and goodbuys all around.   Melissa and I board the plane, sitting next to each other finally united together and going to the same home.   This after my being gone for a long summer in California working as a contract therapist.   It was my returning to a home with her.   My parents brother live close by, a home that I had been months away.