Alaska, 2006
(or Northern Exposure)
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June 21, 2006 (Wednesday)
We received an early morning wake-up call at 5:30 a.m., just before the Sun Princess entered the narrow entrance to Tracy Arm, a deep and narrow glacially cut fjord that extends for miles into the interior. The naturalist will be doing a running narration between 6:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m. as we traverse the fjord. Helene and I made ourselves presentable and hiked up the stairs to the breakfast buffet in the Horizon Cafe. I was at first thrilled to see that grits were on the menu this morning. Upon further review, however, I should have been more suspicious of a southern dish prepared by a cook most likely of eastern European descent. It was grit broth, absolutely horrible. The bad grits were quickly forgotten, however, as we got our first look from the cafe at the steep walls of Tracy Arm.
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Even from behind tinted windows, the view was impressive. Helene, Steve, Judi, and I quickly downed the remainder of breakfast and headed up on deck. Despite the cold and wind, the sight of 2,000-foot crags plunging nearly straight down into 1,000-foot depths of water was incredible. Waterfalls cut through swaths of moss and spruce trees that clung tenuously to the granite. The water was nearly teal in color from the glacial runoff, and small icebergs dotted the surface; the further inland we traveled, the more numerous the bergs became. That's as best as I can describe this site, and even the camera can't do this place justice.
Unfortunately, the temperature in Tracy Arm was the coldest we'd encountered thus far. The combination of the chill and constant breeze across the bow eventually drove all of us back into the Horizon Cafe by 7:30. It was nearly time for Helene's pedicure appointment at Lotus Spa anyway, so she left and I basically spent the next two and a half hours moving place to place on the ship between decks 7 and 8 finding seats in lounges and catching up on the journal writing. The pace of events yesterday had outstripped my ability to write coherently about them except in the crudest shorthand of jotted notes and times. If you were wondering why yesterday was written entirely in past tense, mystery solved. I caught up on journaling until roughly 10:00 a.m., at which point I ended up in the casino observing people perched like vultures on the stools as they waited for the casino to open.
Of course, 45 minutes later I found myself down $100 worth of chips thanks to the continuation of my streak of drawing twos and threes when doubling down. Worst luck streak I've had thus far. While I generally resist viewing specific tables or dealers as bad luck, the last 24 hours started to change my mind where Andreia and Monica were concerned. Monica had, by that time, earned herself my personal epithet of "Angel of Death" for putting an end to my last two sessions in less than six hands each.
Since we had some errands to do about the ship, I met Helene back at the room. We checked on the status of our underwater cameras that we had sent to the ship's studio for developing and stopped by the tour office to cancel our Skagway morning excursion (panning for gold). We topped things off with the buffet lunch, where I had exactly the kind of fish and chips you'd expect to find in a cruise buffet. The ship was running a little behind schedule coming into Juneau, but it gave us the time we needed to get everything done and eat.
Juneau is the capital of Alaska, and is the only state capital that isn't accessible by highway. If you want to get to Juneau, you're either floating or flying. The town was formed as many towns were in this region, as a prospecting camp. Joe Juneau and Richard Harris discovered nearby Gold Gulch and staked a 160-acre town site that became known as Harrisburg (some say only because Harris was literate and Juneau wasn't). Later, it was renamed Rockwell and finally Juneau. The city retained a mining-based economy until the government shut down the mines in 1944. By that time, however, Juneau had already supplanted Sitka as the territorial capital, and the economy shifted from mining to civic government. Today, half of Juneau's employment is in government jobs. Juneau is also home port to one of Alaska's largest fishing fleets, and generates considerable revenue from tourism as well.
Incidentally, fortune wasn't particularly kind to either Juneau or Harris. Juneau died penniless in Dawson City in 1903; a collection had to be taken up to send his body back to the town for burial. Harris, after enduring financial and legal hardships, died in an Oregon nursing home in 1907. Both men are buried near each other in Juneau's Evergreen Cemetery.
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By the time the ship was entering the Gastineau Channel approaching Juneau, it was time to change and get in the disembarkation line. We had a photo safari to catch at the docks. Of course, we were some of the last people to get off the ship. There was also some initial confusion, as we'd planned this excursion with both the Goodes and the Davitzes. The photo safari was split into two groups, and Helene and I were in a different grouping than the others. Once that was quickly sorted out (I'll refrain from making any comment here about the Davitz family anxiety gene), we rode the shuttle up to Mendenhall Glacier National Park with our guide, Brandon, who was leading the hiking portion of the photo safari on the trails.
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Once again, the scenery was quite stunning, and all the more so because we were still in a temperate rain forest climate even this close to a glacier. We walked the trail for over an hour, with Brandon providing photo tips and commentary on the local flora and fauna. I got some nice nature shots, including a creek, a waterfall and a backlit leaf, and Brandon took a very nice picture of Helene and I against the backdrop of Mendenhall Glacier. As we were waiting for the bus to come pick us up, a park ranger said there was a cub bear feeding near the visitor center, but it turned out to be just a porcupine in a tree munching on leaves (I didn't even know porcupines were climbers). We caught the bus back to Juneau's harbor for the second part of the tour.
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At the harbor, we boarded a partially inflatable tour boat with the rest of the party and headed out into Lynn Canal near Point Retreat. The weather was damp and drizzly, but we did see a few whales along the way. Nothing too close by, mind you. However, I did manage to snap a shot of the final splash and a flipper just as a humpback breached. It was the only breach we saw the entire trip. I was able to catch a decent shot of a rainbow forming back toward Juneau. Later we saw some seals struggling to climb on a buoy, which was pretty funny. Couldn't get a decent shot of it, though. Also caught sight of a whole flock of bald eagles near Admiralty Island. Couldn't get a decent shot of that, either. The swells began to really rock the boat toward the end of the outing, and Helene was quite pleased to return to dry land (even for a little bit).
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We made it back into Juneau in time to stop by the Red Dog Saloon, which is a bit more evocative than it is historical. There was a good local singer there whose highlight song while we were listening was I Don't Look Good Naked Anymore. We split some chicken tenders, and I had an Alaska Red Lager (not bad). Following that, I snapped a shot of Helene posing with the local wildlife, and we caught the shuttle back to the cruise ship around 9:00. We stopped by the Regency dining room to catch up with the rest of the family, and I left to have a martini in the Atrium Lounge and catch up on more writing. In fact, I've just caught up to the present, where I'm listening to the lounge pianist follow up a Fiddler medley with a torchy Hair medley, so I must leave before I'm forced to bludgeon him with an ashtray. I can hear the casino coming to life anyway....
$100 Later
Hoo, boy. It was T-Shirt Giveaway Night at the casino. Get a three of a kind or better, win a t-shirt. Playing Caribbean Stud, I won five of them. It got to be a running joke. I even gave one away to one of the spectators who was with the group of north Georgia folks with whom I was playing all night. You would think that's a sign of how well I did. Nope. I was up. Then I was down. Then I got impatient and bet a green chip ($25), because I evidently still haven't learned not to do that. Of course, I got dealt a 2-3-4-5-6-7 straight. That's a 4-1 payout on the $50 to stay in, plus double the ante, so I'm staring at a potential $250 take on one hand. Of course, the dealer didn't qualify, so I won all of $25 for my trouble. Frustrated (and even more stupidly), I left both green chips on the ante and got dealt a pair of kings. That time, the dealer qualified—with a pair of aces. That swing left me with five reds ($5), which vanished in three hands.
It's 1:00 a.m. now, I'm back in the stateroom, and it's disingenuous for me to say that it took me three hours to lose $100 at the table. All it took was the last three minutes, and all dealer had to do was flop an [expletive deleted] ace-king or better for me to triple my stake. I cannot believe this triangulation of luck, timing, and impatience the last couple of days. As I'm looking over the mini-ledger I've created, I've lost over half my winnings. I'm still up at least, which is a small consolation. The hell with it; I'm turning in.
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