The call of the wild or cruising to Alaska with Randi Rhodes.

Cleita

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Wed Aug-22-07 06:53 PM
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The call of the wild or cruising to Alaska with Randi Rhodes.

Edited on Wed Aug-22-07 07:18 PM by Cleita

I�m not much of a writer or a photographer so bear with me, but this is my cruise to Alaska as I remember it. I didn�t take too many pictures so there are sights that I wish now that I had taken. Randi Rhodes embarked on the same cruise but this is not her personal memory of the trip but mine.

There are many pictures I can�t post because they have people in them that were on the ship and I didn�t want to publish them in a public forum without their permission. Randi and the dancers know they will be published somewhere so I didn�t mind putting them up. I hope Randi finds the pictures flattering. I thought they came out well. I didn�t take more than two pictures of her because I didn�t want to look like I was stalking her.

So here it is. At the last minute a friend of mine from Los Angeles decided to join me so I shared my stateroom and hotel reservations with her. We met at the Seattle airport where DUer Seattle Girl met us and drove us to our hotel. It took about an hour for all of us to find each other but finally we all got together and had lunch on the Seattle waterfront. It was very nice. Thank you Seattle Girl.

The next day we boarded the ship. After so many security measures and photographs, I felt like a celebrity myself being followed by papparazzi. It turns out they were the cruise line�s photographers hoping to make a few extra dollars selling the pictures back to us. Our ship, the Amsterdam had a departure party on the aft deck for everyone with champagne and appetizers while we sailed through Puget sound (very scenic) and toward the Juan de Fuca straits. It was a beautiful cloudless day. We would have such devinely ordained weather throughout the whole trip and not a drop of rain until our last stop in Victoria, B.C., Canada and it was only a drop, just enough to freshen the abundance of flowers around. One of my dinner companions opined that God blesses liberals. I believe that she was right because our accommodations and the weather couldn�t have been more heavenly.

We barely settled in and went to the first of two cocktail parties with the Randi Rhodes special group and to meet with Randi who graciously signed autographs and spoke to her fans. She was surrounded by admirers so my friend and I didn�t speak with her but with the other passengers on the cruise. Of course we were all on the same page ideologically. Those were pleasant and informative conversations. It was like we had known each other all our lives.

Since we spent the next day out at sea, there wasn�t much to see so we spent the day exploring the ship. It was like a huge hotel decorated in art deco. I wish I had taken pictures indoors now, but I didn�t. We found out how easy it was to get lost in it because our usual built in orientation anchors, mainly the sun, didn�t work. Everytime the ship turned direction, the sun moved and there we were at square once again trying to figure out directions. Now I see why they refer to port and starboard, aft and foredeck. I didn�t need to exercise after running back and forth on the ship trying to find the shop or caf� that I could have sworn was there before. They said three and a half times around the ship was a mile. I think I did several miles a day.

We got to Juneau on Sunday. The first thing that impressed me was the lack of clear cuts in their forests. I was to find out subsequently that they had kicked out the lumber companies a few years back even at the cost of their jobs. Kudos to the Alaskans for that. Of course these little towns on the panhandle can only be accessed by airplane or ship, so they remain small, basically one street towns you can pretty much walk around and we did. However, I joined the Randi group for a salmon bake and a trip to the Mendenhall glacier. My friend couldn�t get a ticket and managed to find her way into the Red Dog Saloon. (More about that in a bit.)

Two of our dinner companions were a lesbian couple from San Francisco who adopted us two old ladies for the duration of the trip. We had so much fun with them. They looked after me during that field trip to the salmon bake and glacier as I was on my own. The trip was full of gays both male and female because Randi is an advocate of gay rights as I am and most Duers are. The other passengers weren�t sure it seemed sometimes and some were quite rude to them. They were refused service at the Red Dog Saloon. They found an Irish bar down the road that they were welcome at though.

We spent the next day cruising Tracey Arm and then Glacier Bay. Since there appears to be no civilization nor people other than the cruise ships here, it really gives you a feeling of isolation. The ship is your planet in this vast wilderness universe. I was surprised not to see birds flying here at least, but maybe they stay out of sight when there are people around. We did see some sea otters, but otherwise all seemed so empty and spooky other than the grandeur of the scenery unfolding before us.

Now Sitka and Ketchikan are pretty similar. The First Nation people live side by side with the non-natives just like in �Northern Exposure�. It seems that there is only one reservation in all of Alaska and that is an island near Ketchikan where a Catholic priest took a clan who were being persecuted in Canada back in the nineteenth century and they settled there. Alaskans are conservative but yet have one of the most liberal programs going to share the resources of Alaska among every single one of them and yet they can�t see it as socialistic. They also don�t understand why we object to the bridge to nowhere. They just want to build an airport there. It sort of makes sense to me but since I couldn�t research while on the ship, I have to leave it there. Internet access was .75 cents a minute, which was way too pricey for me.

Leaving Alaska for another day at sea, the casino and jewelry shops on board had sales upon sales. I mean there was some majory bling being sold on this ship. I did a bingo game and decided it was too rigged in favor of the house for my liking. We watched our friends gamble at the tables but it�s not for me. I did manage a bridge game with one of the girls as my partner. I didn�t see Randi at the gaming although she might have when I wasn�t around.

My favorite port trip was a dance exhibition by the Tlingit in their tribal hall. The women danced with their babies in their arms and I found that thoroughly charming as the children seemed to enjoy it as well. My second favorite was Victoria for the shopping. There was all that beautiful imported china and crystal. I didn�t make it to the gardens because I didn�t get a ticket in time. My friend and I had dinner at an Irish pub and met a nice Canadian couple who loved that we hated Bush and were more than happy to listen to our cautionary tale about letting their conservatives do to them what our�s have done.

The next morning we had to leave as the crew had to get things together for another cruise. The crew, filipinos, balinese, burmese and other Indonesians were all wonderful, but they are worked so hard. I wonder how the cruise lines get away with it. They work fourteen hours a day seven days a week for eleven months before they get time off. It doesn�t seem right to me. I suppose they make money because there is nowhere to spend it while you are on a ship.