Let's go out with a bang, shall we?

As we stare 2009 in the face, I realize that I don't think I told you about my near-death experience in 2008. Not that it was *really* near-death ... that's for dramatic purposes, of course. Except that ... well ... it was actually near death.

And all because I'm a klutz.

It happened on the trip to Alaska I took with my mother in September. We took the same cruise, with the same port stops, as Blaine and I had taken the year before. Since he and I had such a wonderful, magnificent, and I mean, "Holy Cow, can you believe the scenery?!?!?" experience during our float plane excursion in Ketchikan, I booked the same trip for my mom and me this year. Same pilot, same plane, same brief moment of air-sicknesses when she dipped right over that last mountain pass heading back into the cruise ship area .... but I digress.

This excursion includes a float plane trip over the Misty Fjords and around the mountains near Ketchikan, viewing glaciers, waterfalls, sea lions, eagles, and even two bears' butts last year! (Hey, what can I say? Apparently our plane scared them and they were running for the woods.) Then, the pilot lands on a lake (which is really the ocean inside the mountains but I don't understand all that geography crap) and you get to get out and walk around for about half an hour, marveling at the scenery and taking photos.



Last year we stopped at a lake in the mountains and it was breathtaking. When I mentioned to the pilot this year that I had taken the same excursion with her last year, she asked me to describe the lake as best I could so she would be sure to stop somewhere different this time. The lake we stopped at this year was smaller, with not as much "shoreline" to walk on. There was a small waterfall running right down the side of the mountain near us, feeding into the ocean at our feet, and much of the "bank" was slippery, uneven rock. Plus, for whatever reason, the mosquitoes were freaking ginormous and some kind of mutant vampire mosquitoes (yes, still thinking about Edward) because they were relentless ... constantly swarming our faces near the water. Gah!

Up where the waterfall came down to the bottom of the mountain there was a small ice-cave-sort-of-thing that I wandered over to explore. Michele, the pilot, my mom and the other passengers were standing near the water. One passenger had dropped his glasses in the lake and the pilot was digging them out with a net, then she brought out a topographical map of the area (yawn) PLUS the mosquitoes were vicious ... so I moseyed over to look at this neat ice structure.



It was really cool looking, no pun intended, and quite a bit bigger than it appears in this photo. I decided to get a little bit closer and really see it for myself.



Then I decided to get a LOT of bit closer. It was very neat to watch the waterfall inside, plus, even better, the mosquitoes wouldn't come that far because the temperature was so much lower inside the cave-part. I stood and watched the water for a few moments, then decided to get as close as I could.



This was the "point" at the front of the cave. Inside, it was probably fifteen or twenty feet high .... definitely neat to explore, but I'm the world's biggest weenie and I got cold, so I headed back down to the lake to see what my mom and the others were doing.

As I walked over to the group, I was treading lightly over the rocks near the water, balancing myself very, very, very, very carefully.

Um .......... apparently not carefully enough, because sure enough, I slipped and fell right on my ass. Just like one of those banana peel moments in a cartoon. My arms pinwheeled to the sides, and my feet flew out in front of me and I landed -- hard -- on a rock with my butt. To add insult to injury, like I wasn't embarrassed enough, my camera, which was slung around my neck, flew up and hit me right on the nose -- hard.

So I jumped up quickly because a) how embarrassing! and b) omg my new camera! and everyone looked over at me with exclamations of concern. I was trying to laugh it off because ha-ha! What a klutz I am! and of course I'm ok!

When not ten seconds later, the ice cave I had JUST BEEN STANDING INSIDE collapsed.

The crack was like gunfire, the ground under our feet shook, and everyone in our group jumped, even the pilot. The rumbling lasted for several seconds afterwards, reminding me of what an earthquake must feel like. Granted, a teeny-tiny-mini earthquake, but still .... pretty cool. Michele, a 20-year bush pilot in Alaska, immediately started telling our group how rare it was to experience something like that close up, and that our timing was incredibly lucky. I blurt out with, "As long as you all understand that was NOT my fault for falling on the ground right before hand --- I didn't CAUSE that collapse with the force of my rear hitting the ground!"

And everyone laughed, and oh, aren't we having a grand time in Alaska .....

Then my mom, visibly shaken, said something along the lines of how I was *just* in there and how lucky it was I had walked away. At which point the pilot sort of freaks out and says, "You went UP IN THERE??? Are you KIDDING??? Don't you know how DANGEROUS that is???" and then talked about how terrible she felt that she didn't see me walk away while she was digging that guy's glasses out of the lake or she would NEVER have let me walk that far up there, and oh my GOSH, I could have been KILLED, and blah blah.

And I laughed and assured everyone that I was fine ..... but it wasn't until later, when I really thought about what had happened, that I was forced to admit that it was damn lucky I wasn't standing under all that ice when it fell.



While I would like nothing more than to think the pilot and other passengers in the plane would have rushed heroically to dig me out of the pile ..... well, it *was* a little scary to think about, nonetheless.

This is the view as our plane was taking off again:



Yeah ......... should have taken my chances with the mutant mosquitoes.

And here's wishing you and yours a very safe 2009 ---- just one tip ---- don't go exploring in any ice caves in Ketchikan, Alaska.

Wildlife

Wildlife that has been seen on this cruise, both from the ship and from various locations during excursions:

Mama bear with two cubs, whales, dolphins, porcupine in a tree, bald eagles, sea otters, bears catching salmon, and many, many salmon running in streams.

Actual animals that *I* have seen on this cruise???? Two measly bald eagles. And a whale, if you count a teeny tiny black dot about a bazillion miles in the distance as a “whale”. The rest of the wildlife spottings have been reported through the grapevine, by people who are obviously much more observant than I am.

Although I did get to see the digital picture some lady took of the mama bear, during our salmon bake.

Does that count as a wildlife spotting for myself???? Does the salmon I saw during the salmon bake, grilled, on my plate, and covered in a yummy brown sugar sauce, count?

Perhaps I should have spent less time on my laptop, and more time actually looking out windows.

And binoculars. Remembering binoculars might have been helpful. Because unless a whale swims up to the ship and waves its little fin at me, or blows the message "Hi, Kristie!" through its hole, I doubt I’ll even notice it.

Absence makes the taste buds grow fonder

The setting: The Sweet Tooth Cafe on Broadway Street in picturesque Skagway, Alaska

The need: Desire to break a $20 bill so I could properly tip the shuttle bus driver

The action: Purchasing a drink, to break the $20, to get the singles, to tip the driver

The discovery: That while it wasn't so perfect as to be a fountain soda, the good folk at the Sweet Tooth Cafe actually *did* have a Diet Dr. Pepper in the back that they were willing to pour over ice in a cup

The outcome: A glistening tear of happiness rolled down my cheek

Potential Alaska posts I have started and then quit because they are too stupid and boring.

The post about how is it possible that I’ve got seven days of free food and drink on the ship, some of the nicest, yummiest, fanciest food and drink imaginable, all mine, at the snap of a finger ….. All free …. And yet I still managed to spend $19 at the local fudge shop today. No, I have no idea why I’m chubby.

The post about how I finally ran into Andrew’s Grandma J …. not once, but twice today! Yippee!!

The post about how it might have been 112 degrees in Palm Springs last week, but when you are packing to take a cruise to Alaska in September, you need to pack something a little more substantial than flip-flops, people!!

The post about how it seemed really indulgent to pay $100 for 280 internet minutes on the cruise ship, but then I realized my Sprint coverage totally sucks and I was paying $2.49 a minute for international roaming rates to call home. Suddenly, twenty-eight cents a minute to exchange e-mails with my children seems quite consumer-savvy.

The post about how during the glacier lake stop-over we had yesterday I slipped on a moss-covered rock and fell flat on my left butt cheek, causing my camera to whip around and hit me in the face, and how I was mortified someone might have seen that so I hopped up so quickly that I almost slipped and fell down again. Truly, not one of my more graceful moments.

The post about how after my big fat ass hit the ground, the weight of the force basically started an avalanche. More on this later.

Things You Don't Want

Something you don’t want to have happen to you three days before you leave for a cruise:

To be in charge of the fun, exciting, smiley-face rainbow concession stand for PTO Skate Night, which means you will spend an hour moving heavy boxes of soda and candy from the storage room at the school to your car. You will be sweating like a pig from the manual labor and then you will drop one of the boxes on your ankle because the cardboard was cheap and flimsy and I swear you will think you have broken whatever that top part of your ankle is called and you will seriously consider renting a wheelchair for the cruise because my God how much do those Airheads weigh anyway and did the school kids in the cafeteria hear me cussing????


Something you don’t want to have happen to you two days before you leave for a cruise:

To realize one of the bags of ice that you had in the back of your van for the not-as-much-fun-now Skate Night Fundraiser was forgotten, and melted, and now the back of your van smells like an animal died and rotted in it. And not a teeny tiny sweet-smelling animal, either, like a cute little chipmunk or bunny rabbit. I’m talking big, stinky, gut-rot odor like you would get from a dead yak. And you’ll have to run all your last-minute errands with that stench filling your nostrils and you will wonder if there is enough Febreze on the entire planet to help.


Something you don’t want to have happen to you the day before you leave for a cruise:

To realize that when you were unloading (see above) bags of ice out of your deep freeze in the garage for the )#($*#(%&#)* Skate Night, that you accidentally left the freezer door cracked, and all your meat thawed and is now dripping down the inside of the deep freeze. And you will beg your husband to brown all the hamburger meat, and boil all the chicken, and separate the meat out and put it in freezer baggies so you can re-freeze all of it, because my GOD you are leaving in less than eight hours and you haven’t even finished the laundry, let alone started packing, and I swear if you have to stand here for two hours cooking all the meat you will have a nervous breakdown and never be ready for your 5 am flight tomorrow…..whimper.


Something you don’t want to have happen to you on your first day of vacation:

To discover that the hotel you are staying at, while very nice and pretty and happy, apparently can’t handle the electrical demand of dual-hairdryers, because while you are blow-drying your hair in the bedroom, and then your mother turns on *her* blow dryer in the bathroom, you will blow the fuse in the room and every outlet except ONE will be non-working, so you will then flat-iron your hair while sitting on the mini-bar because good grief, birds will try to nest in it otherwise.

Something you don’t want to have happen to you on your second day of the cruise:

To be sitting in the beautiful atrium on the ship, enjoying Wi-Fi internet, and the breathtaking scenery, and listening to the strains of the wonderful string quartet before dinner, only for the musicians to break into a haunting rendition of the theme to Titanic.

Seriously?????

That doesn't exactly inspire confidence.

PS. Grandma J, are you here????

PPS. Going on a float plane in Ketchikan with my mom today ..... if that doesn't promote mother-daughter bonding, I don't know what will!!!

Alaska, Take Two

OK, well, apparently the cost of the cruise itself is rivaled only by the cost of the internet minutes I am required to purchase for my lap-top. I guess the concept of “FREE” Wi-fi hasn’t reached the cruise ship industry just yet ….. So forgive me if my updates are not as um ….. Verbose ….. As usual. And hey, I don’t want to hear any of you say that expensive internet service might be a good thing in disguise, either.

To answer your question, no, Blaine is not here with me. But I’m not alone. My mom came with me. Actually, to be more precise, *I* tagged along with my mom. And 31 other retired people that she went to high school with.

What really happened was that a group of girl friends she has lunch with on a regular basis, most of whom she went to school with, started talking about having a Girl’s Day Trip. Which evolved into an Girl’s Overnight Trip. Which evolved into a Weekend Getaway, which evolved into a week-long cruise. To Alaska. At which point most of the ladies agreed that if they were planning something that grand, they would need to (like to) include their husbands. So suddenly, it was fifteen-something couples, most of whom live in the same town, and attend the same church, and are alumni of the same high school, all planning to cruise to Alaska together. And personally? I think it totally rocks.

My mom really wanted to attend, but with my father deceased, she wasn’t about to take her chances sharing a cabin with a total stranger. They started planning this trip early last summer, and at the time, I was preparing to get pregnant in my surrogacy journey. Counting on the calendar, I knew I would deliver the baby in April-May-ish, so I told her I would LOVE to go with her. Then, we had what is called a “blighted ovum”, meaning I got pregnant, but a baby never developed in the sac. Fast forward through a miscarriage, d&c, a move to Oklahoma, and a holiday wait before we could undergo another IVF attempt. Looking ahead on the calendar, again …… I knew I would most likely be pregnant in September, when the trip was planned, and couldn’t possibly leave the country to cruise to Alaska, while percolating someone else‘s bambino. So we decided Blaine would go with my mom. A little awkward, perhaps, sharing a cabin together, but he and I agreed that my mom should absolutely NOT miss out on this once-in-a-lifetime-opportunity to take a trip this fabulous, with friends, some of whom she has known almost sixty years. So pregnant-me was out, and Blaine was in. And although I confess I was a wee bit envious, I was mainly just glad she was still getting to go.

After the second miscarriage, in March, I assumed we would undergo IVF a third time, and that I would most likely still become pregnant before September. Blaine was still agreeable, and my mom was still agreeable, so we stuck to the plan of the two of them traveling together, and me being jealous. (OK, so the me-being-jealous wasn’t part of the plan, but you know what I mean.)

Then, only a few short weeks ago, yadda yadda, personal stuff, testing, testing, testing, blah blah female stuff ….. We decided NOT to undergo another IVF attempt. And while I was sad and disappointed to realize that I wouldn’t be attempting another surrogacy at this time, the consolation prize was the knowledge that I was now free to travel on the cruise as my mother’s companion.

So that’s what I’m doing.

And I was right ---- it totally rocks.

We spent yesterday in Vancouver, doing all kinds of amazing touristy stuff, some of which might or might not have included me walking across a suspension bridge while my scaredy-cat mother stood and hyperventilated on the side and wouldn’t even attempt to cross. Wouldn’t even put one little pinky-toe on the bridge. Wouldn’t even think about it.

And more sightseeing, and lumberjacks, and ferries, and blowing fuses in hotel rooms, and trolleys, and customs, etc.

And now our group has successfully boarded the ship and is preparing for our first night aboard. And mainly, I’ve eaten my way from port to starboard, from aft to stern, and just finished dinner and am watching the clock waiting for the midnight buffet. And thinking perhaps I should have packed more elastic-waist pants.

Because even though I’m NOT pregnant, and this trip is in reality the silver lining of not being pregnant, I have a feeling by the end of the cruise, I will be as big, if not bigger, than I am when I actually AM pregnant.