North, to Alaska
What I Did On Summer Vacation, by Doug Kreinik
For summer vacation this year, my wife Myla and I sought out an
adventure as a relief after the death of our son Charles. We wanted to
get away, do something different, go somewhere that we'd never been
before. We chose Alaska, land of glaciers, whales, seals and open space,
and booked an Alaskan cruise.
The trip began with flight delays, missed flights, and late flights,
but then we eventually landed in Vancouver, British Columbia, the second
most expensive city in the world after Hong Kong. The air was clean,
the vistas beautiful, the parks magnificent and the food great. We took a
guided bus tour around the city and discovered beautiful Stanley Park,
named after the founder of hockey's Stanley Cup. It had very tall
trees, wonderful bike paths and great views.
The ship left from Vancouver Harbor. We walked through line after
line, got our passports stamped, pictures taken, answered security
questions, had our luggage examined, and eventually marched aboard. The
first event was eating, of course, which we did and continued to do for
eight days.
It was fun to meet people from all over the world on the cruise.
Being from West Virginia is an anomaly, for most people have never met
anyone from this state, so I suspect we were a novelty to some ("We met
West Virginians!") Being on ship was like being in a floating mall,
however, and we were constantly being bombarded with products to
purchase, spa packages, special dinners and photographic moments to buy.
Myla had given me a FitBit for Father's Day, so I tracked every step I
took on board. I would often walked more than 10000 steps a day
(outwalking the sales people?). Myla had a pedometer, so we would
compete as to who had had the greatest number of steps.
Other stops on the cruise blended together in some ways. Workers from all over the world come to Alaska in the summer and work in the jewelry stores lining the main streets set up by the cruise lines. We saw the same shops in all the cities we visited on the cruise: Ketchikan, Juneau, Skagway and Wittier. In other ways, however, the stops were fun and interesting. I had no idea, for example, that Juneau cannot be reached by road from the lower 48 States. The very cute town Talkeetna, near Denali, was the model for the television show Northern Exposure. I asked a local if they catapulted pianos.
We learned many interesting tidbits on the trip. For example,
reindeer are domesticated caribou. Some of the rivers are filled with so
much sediment from the glaciers that they are not passable because a
boat will not float on the muck. The main extent of the Alaskan gold
rush last only two years. Only 30% percent of tourists who go to Denali
Park actually see Mt. McKinley (Denali) due to weather, and the others
are forced to take photos of photos. Amazing as it might seem, most of
Alaska is a cold desert with less than 14 inches of moisture a
year. Being from a small town in West Virginia, I was stunned to
discover that Fairbanks is smaller than Parkersburg, WV with only 30,000
residents.
We almost made it to the Arctic Circle, short of 2 degrees. We
almost saw the Northern Lights, but you find that only during the winter
months. We almost saw a moose, but missed by three hours. We almost
saw a pod of whales (should have gone later in the day). Early morning
tours saw a grizzly bear, but we toured in the afternoon. The tour the
day after ours saw Mt.McKinley (Denali) on a breathtakingly clear day.I did get to visit numerous needlework, knitting and bead shops through the coastal area and up towards Fairbanks. One shop I visited was Changing Tides in Juneau. They carry Kreinik threads and have a nice mix of needlepoint, cross stitch and quilting.
Overall what I did on my summer vacation was was spiritual, quiet, beautiful, memorable, peaceful and just fun. We are glad that we experienced this extraordinary expanse of our country. If you get the opportunity to visit Alaska, we recommend it.
