Sports Fans Fascinated by Haines

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We had the luxury of sleeping in this morning; and, our inside cabin has the advantage of not letting in

the early morning sun in these northern latitudes. We headed up to the Lido for breakfast where Sharon got her waffle with a sprinkle of chocolate chips and I got my spicy omelet. We have a tour today; but, not before lunch! We headed for the Exploration café where I picked up two different pairs of matching Sudoku puzzles. We chose to do the Puzzleæ but, it was significantly smaller than the “double-digit” puzzles (and even they are small), and it was virtually impossible for Sharon to annotate without rendering the entire puzzle indecipherable. I finished the Easy Puzzle; but, even I couldn’t complete the Hard Puzzle (I was attempting to do it without annotations). I guess we’ll have to give the win to Sharon today; because, she beat me on the Sudoku app challenge (which we usually reserve for when we’re not on a cruise).



I tried to get an iced mocha before going back to our stateroom; but, they were out of chocolate flavoring. She offered to make it with white chocolate or some other flavoring, so I settled on almonds. I then asked for a bottle of San Pellegrino; but, they were out of that as well.



At 10AM we went to the “Digital Workshop” sponsored by Microsoft to learn about Cortana. Sharon has had her eye on this workshop for a couple of cruises now; but finding time can be hard that doesn’t conflict with a tour; and once when she did try to attend she got there late and there was no room. She made sure she wasn’t going to get shut out this time, and so she showed up 30 minutes early, I showed up a short time later with my almond iced coffee drink. We were the only ones who showed up for the workshop. Cortana can be used to lookup things for you, and she challenged us to ask it something. She repeated for Cortana what I suggested, “Cortana. What is the BUG technique in Sudoku?” And Cortana came up with a list of articles describing this advanced technique for solving Sudoku puzzles. Okay, maybe I’m a little impressed. Cortana is really good at reminders that you can set up for yourself. For example, she said, “Cortana. Remind me to buy bread the next time I go to the store.” She says that the next time she enters the store, Cortana will remind her on her phone to buy bread. Okay, that is impressive. But then she said that Cortana will also entertain you with jokes, and she gave us what she said was her favorite jokes (she said some of the jokes aren’t that funny and you never know what you’re going to get). The joke she gave us was, “What is the difference between a well-dressed man on a bicycle; and, a slovenly dressed man on a unicycle?” Her eyebrows raised when we both chimed, “A tire”. I guess our former bus driver is a fan of Cortana! She then gave an example of a live joke, commanding “Cortana, tell me a joke.” Cortana responded, “What does an impatient raven say?” The answer was “Never mind. Never mind.” She seemed not to get that one; but, I thought it was funny.



After the workshop, we headed to the Dive-In to have a Back Flip (chicken for me) and a plain burger for Sharon. We went back to our stateroom to pick up our camera and jackets and headed out to the pier to meet our tour group. When we opened the safe to get Sharon’s ID, she couldn’t find her Driver’s License and a credit card. Today was our first port; so, she hadn’t needed her ID since we boarded. It had to be in the room somewhere; but, where, that was the question. Fortunately, we had a backup with her passport. They don’t always ask for personal ID to get back on the ship; but, sometimes they do.



We were headed out to do our Wildlife River Adventure. Our bus driver was a very interesting woman who had come to Alaska and fallen in love with the state. She is a subsistence hunter and fisherperson and she is also a crabber. And she drives a tour bus about four days per week. She noted that Haines is one of two towns that the producers of “Northern Exposure” came to, to get background material for the series. Yes, moose will still walk down the streets of Haines. She noted that there was a soccer game in process at the local school, adding, “Those are some of your cruise ship’s crew playing on the field.” We looked close and I do believe she was right! (We verified this with our waiter later that evening since he said he played soccer that day) “This past year,” she continued, “Only thirteen graduates completed high school: Eight boys and five girls. The girls had their pick for the prom!” And she seemed to be of the attitude that that was the way things should be! She’s lived in Haines 14 years now and is thrilled now that they’ve finished their new place in town with running water. She had some amusing stories about ravens as well. In their old place, a raven had “befriended” her right after the loss of one of her friends, and would tap on her window and let her know that she was there. He stayed that one summer, before suddenly disappearing without saying goodbye; but, he had kept all of the other ravens away from her garden that whole summer. She said, in their new place, she’d planted her garden, and the other day she’d come home to find the whole garden pulled up, and vegetables tossed around. She worked to replant everything that could be replanted. The next day, the same thing happened. She said that she resorted to putting out a bunch of whirly-gigs; and, that these worked for a while, because supposedly ravens aren’t supposed to like shiny things. All I know is that the ones we have in our backyard don’t seem to bother the pigeons very much. Now, she says the ravens don’t give them a second thought. She said the other day she was leaving one of the three grocery stores in town and saw somebody putting a box of provisions in the back of a pickup truck and start to walk across the street to another store. She went over to the stranger and said, “You might want to put that in the cab now.” The stranger replied, “And you might want to keep your trap shut and not tell me what to do!” She let it go at that, got in her car across the street, and waited. No sooner had the door closed behind the stranger, had a group of five ravens descended on the truck, ripped open his bread, and bag of potato chips, poked a couple dozen holes in the several gallons of milk and pretty much destroyed the entire box of goods. The man was aghast when he returned to his car, pleading to anybody who might give a darn, when he spotted our driver pulling out with her car. She called to him, “You have a nice day… oh, I tried to warn you.”



We met Captain Greg when he popped on the bus to say hello, and to welcome us to Wilderness Adventures. He directed us to the food tent to chow down on some hot dogs and chili. Sharon got to chow down on potato chips. We then went to the cold weather tent and got an all-weather outer coat, a head band and a blanket. There were also gloves; but, I had my own pair. There was also a slicker; but, it didn’t look like we would need this today with the blue skies that were looking down on us but it was going to be windy on the air boat. We were milling around the outdoor fire-pit when they gave us an “Eagle Demonstration”. We’d already had spotted the eagle in a nearby spruce tree. Greg’s helper shot a syringe with air into both sides of a herring, and then chucked the herring into the water. The eagle swooped down and made an arcing pass checking out the people and fish, and then dove on the herring with an accelerating lunge that grabbed the fish in its talons a streaked off. There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason the way that we would be parceled out between the two boats; but, in the end we were directed to Captain Greg’s boat and got a seat on the rear bench, directly in front of the controls and with a back that would give us some shelter from the wind. Like a bad penny that you can’t seem to get rid of, seated in front of us were “the children from the train”… three of them. The ringleader boy to my right, who couldn’t seem to sit still (sometimes he was all the way to the left). In front of him, the boy and girl who seemed to feed off of each other’s energy, and their chatter as we boarded was already shrill. The only thing I hoped was that the drone of the engine once we were underway would mute their decibels. Both jet boats sped off, their double-jet engines forcing the flat-bottom aluminum boats across the river before diverging down two different arteries of the pristine marshy flatlands. The waters are up to six feet deep; but in places less than two feet and there are sandbars all over the place that an unwary navigator may have difficulty navigating. Through the shallows Captain Greg said that he couldn’t stop and had to maintain speed. And we did feel a couple of slight bumps as we skidded across the bottom.



Captain Greg took us to one of his favorite spots, allowing us to drift soaking in the tranquility as the glacial water slowly made its way down the surrounding mountains, through the forested greenery of the lower elevations and into the streams feeding this valley. And it would have been really peaceful; except, there were three aboard who weren’t about to sit quietly or motionless for the duration of the three-hour tour. “I’m bored.” “Why aren’t we moving?” “When are we going back?” “Why are we here?” Sharon looked at me and there was another question in her eyes, “Why are ‘they’ here?” I don’t think Captain Greg was exactly satisfied with the overall effect that this spot had on us, and I felt we left before he had intended to start looking for eagles and eagle’s nests and things at least the kids could see the purpose of and enjoy. Captain Greg talked about fledglings, and how they will be kicked out of the nest after one year, if they haven’t already left on their own. He seemed to see the merit in this system and admitted, he has a twenty-four year old who still lives with him but, he admitted that it wasn’t that bad, and they get along. In fact, I’m pretty sure that he’s piloting the other boat. Captain Greg is obviously single now, and he admitted that sometimes he sets up a spotter scope on his patio, and with the help of Match.Com can check out any likely prospects within 50 miles.



We returned to the dock, and dumped our gear on the table in the Cold Weather Gear tent. There was hot chocolate for us where we had eaten lunch, and that was much appreciated. On the way back our driver took us to check out a scenic view of the harbor, and our ship on the other side. It was after 5PM when we got back, and I requested dinner for two. when we went to the dining room because we had plans to go to the movie in the Wajang Theatre to see “Founder” at 7PM. I had the soft-shelled crab, the spring roll and the shrimp pasta dish; while, Sharon enjoyed the roast turkey. We were done in plenty of time to get our choice of seats in the theatre; but, after seeing the position of the screen we realized they’d lowered the screen so it wasn’t particularly easy to get an unobstructed view of the screen. Sharon that it would be better to watch it back at home; and, I suggested that we could go to Evening Trivia. Sharon was down with that, so we went up to the Crow’s Nest, still having time to find a choice seat on the side. We didn’t attract any teammates. I went up to get our answer sheets, and another burly guy asked Erin what the topic was tonight, and she replied “Sports Trivia”. I went back and gave Sharon the bad news. I’m not sure that we would have come if we’d known that we were going to field sport’s questions.



Erin began with the first question: “In what game might you play ‘For Keepsies’?” Okay, we’d heard that question before and we were one-for-one. But Erin had som e questions that plain hard to answer. “What golf club did Alan Shepard use on the Moon? (a) 6-Iron, (b) Sand Wedge, or (c) Putter.” I said that I didn’t know, and Sharon favored the Sand Wedge, so we went with that. “What sports trophy has the names of all of the winners on it?” We didn’t guess that the sport was hockey; or, that the trophy she was looking for was Stanley Cup. Sharon started to right down Reggie Jackson for “What player signed the richest contract ever, at the time in 2000, when he signed for $250 million over five years.” I wrote down Alex Rodriguez. Erin asked what was first used as a hoop in the game of basketball. Sharon wrote down “Baskets”. Before we traded sheets for grading, I added “Fruit” in front of “Baskets” and we were given full credit, the answer Erin was looking for being “Peach Baskets”. “Basket” by itself was award one-half point. Nobody came up with the year that women first officiated in the NBA. Everyone had answers since 2000; but, Erin said that the NBA is even more progressive than we gave them credit for because women began officiating in 1997. When Sharon heard the next question, “What 9-time Figure Skating champion was an alternate on the 1984 US Olympic Team, she immediately scribbled down Michele Kwan. “What Golf Major uses an 18-Hole round to settle a tie after four rounds?” I’m not sure if she knew that “US Open” was the right answer; but, I didn’t have anything better. “What Major League Baseball League has won the most World Series?” We both figured that with the Yankees success, it must be the American League. There seem to be a lot of Basketball questions, and we were thinking that Sharon’s brother Paul might have been able to help us out… “After 3 seasons playing with Indiana, what future Hall of Fame player signed with the Boston Celtics.” Sharon wrote down “Bill Walton” but I said that he played for Portland (and not Indiana)… Her brother would be proud though, Sharon did come up with “Larry Bird”. The final question was, “What heavy weight boxer finished his career, undefeated, at 49-0?” I think I was the only person who came up with “Rocky Marciano”. So now I don’t want to hear any grief from Sharon about my watching “Pawn Stars.” Before coming on this vacation had watched a rerun of “Pawn Stars” in which someone brought a punching bag into the store that had been Rocky Marciano’s punching bag. Among other things, his perfect record was mentioned. Erin then revealed the 4-point bonus question. “On average, what is the life of an NBA, basketball in bounces?” The fix is in! Another repeat from our previous cruise. We scored 14 points out of a possible 19, and we won Sports Trivia by one point.



We went to watch the show featuring the ship’s musicians performing to the BBC production of the seasons of Alaska. The show was quite good. We had heard that it was after we didn’t watch it on the way up, so we were glad to have a second chance to see this performance.





Sharon went to visit with Fisherman Bob, and I went back to the cabin. Bob wasn’t very nice to Sharon.

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