We had four full days on the boat as we traveled to
Yakutat, Juneau, and Ketchikan in route to Bellingham. We passed the time reading, playing games,
exploring the ship and watching off the deck, and even went to a movie in the
ship theatre -- "The Adventures of Tin Tin." On one of the calmer days the kids blew
bubbles off the deck. Each night we read the next chapter of "Where the Red Fern Grows."
Hubby & LS went ashore in Yakutat and had a nice walk. There was not much to see, but there was an old train car to climb on and a very old crashed warplane. LS thought it was cool and very much enjoyed having some alone time with Daddy.
We tried going ashore in Juneau, but instead of landing
near town where the cruise ships dock, our port was 12 miles away. We enjoyed
the walk but didn't walk all the way to town.
We came back on the boat and had ice cream instead.
Ketchikan would've been a more interesting port stop
(there was quite a bit within walking distance of the boat), but of course it
was raining that day. We spent the
entire day in the forward observation lounge playing games and Hubby and I
finished piecing a 1000 piece puzzle that someone else had started and left
behind. While we were there we watched
the live safety briefing about how to don life jackets and muster in the case
of an "abandon ship." LB volunteered for the demonstration of
childrens' life jackets, and they gave our whole family free ice cream bars for
dessert to thank us. He did really well,
though I could tell he was dying to blow the whistle attached to one side.
For meals, we ate our own food that we had brought
onboard. Everything we brought for dinner could either be microwaved or heated
in a hot pot. This saved a lot of money
and the kids thought it was an adventure. We decided to have our last dinner in
the onboard cafeteria. This enabled us
to repack most of our foodstuffs back in the van during one of the car deck
calls on the day before we arrived in Bellingham. We hoped this would make our
departure feel less hectic on Saturday morning.
It was a nice boat trip, and it surely beat driving down
the AlCan for all those days. Just the
same though, I was pretty excited to get off the boat and looked forward to a
more comfortable bed than the foam ship "racks." LB and LS would be
happy not to have to share a tiny bed anymore. I also couldn't wait to get to
my parents' house and see them and our sweet puppy Basil again, even though we
had at least a few more days of traveling ahead of us first.
Our last night on the boat it was amazingly warm. Steve and I stood on deck for a few minutes
after the kids went to bed and marveled at two strange sensations: warmth and
dark, which we had not felt in combination since moving to Alaska.
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