Alaska - It Only Makes Sense

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Our journey to our Alaskan cruise actually began almost two weeks ago. It really shouldn’t take that long to get from Ohio to Vancouver; but, then you’ve never travelled with Sharon. First we had to fly to Seattle so that we could drive to Portland and spend most of the first week with Sharon’s mom. She currently lives with her youngest son Sean; or as Erin (Sharon’s much, much younger sister) would say, Sean is Sharon’s much, much, much younger brother (he’s also Erin’s much, much younger brother); but then you know what they say about what payback is. Sharon used to introduce Erin as her much, much younger sister (at least that’s the way that Erin remembers it). My wife has an excellent memory and this is provable by some of her amazing scores on Luminosity memory games (I don’t even come close). And now we’ve been introduced to Trivia Crack which is quite addictive, and both Erin and Sean seem to have no trouble besting both Sharon and me; but, I’ve come to suspect they may have seen some of the questions more than once before. Some questions in entertainment and sports are pure guesses for Sharon and me… I mean, who remembers who won the National League Cy Young award in 1999? I’m sure Randy Johnson remembers; but, I’m only saying.



Shirley (Sharon’s mom) has recovered incredibly from a broken hip last fall (from a fall). We took her out to Fuddruckers for a burger and shake, and over to the coast to eat at Mo’s where Sharon had excellent halibut fish and chips and I had probably the best clam chowder I can remember (at least in the past twenty years) as well as great blackened cod fish tacos with a crazy good cilantro sauce dressing. The best man at our wedding (Ron) always criticizes me for mentioning food in these blogs; but, then, how would he know where to go if he’s ever up near Portland on the coast of Oregon? The real purpose for our detour down to Oregon was to attend a niece’s wedding (Katrina and Adam), a lovely informal affair last Saturday and with some tasty barbeque afterwards. I’d met both once before at Shirley’s 85^th birthday party held last year before she broke her hip.



The day after the wedding we drove our rental car back to Seattle, using SixT rental agency for the first time. We had a full size car which they upgraded to a BMW and this car WOWed me. It came with Sirius radio and Sharon and I both enjoyed the “Prime Country”. We then flew to Las Vegas; because, we had to change our initial itinerary to spend five days in Nevada to finalize option details for the house that we are building. We made all of the decisions that we needed to make in the time we had, and I think that even the builder’s associates were impressed that we crammed so much into such a short window. We had planned to spend a few extra days in Vancouver before boarding; but, alas, that was not to be. We used some of our timeshare points to stay in Las Vegas, so with this change in travel, lodging and all, we actually ended up saving $31. We still have just a patch of dirt in the dessert, but on a nearby lot the house is fully framed (which it was not even started just six weeks ago when all of the lots were bare. Two additional lots in our neighborhood have been sold since we bought about six weeks ago.



Now to explain how our trip became so long. Since we were going to Oregon for the wedding, and how since we had to be there anyway, Sharon thought we might as well go on a cruise to Alaska, since we were already on the West Coast. And since no single cruise really went to all of the places she wants to visit again, it only makes sense to take a one week cruise out of Vancouver to cover the Inside Passage, and to follow that with a two week cruise out of Seattle to get to some of the quainter less commercialized spots like Homer and Kodiak. And with the two cruises we cover both Glacier Bay and Hubbard so we expect to enjoy some spectacular scenic cruising. So it only make sense (at least to Sharon)..

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Comments

[Penny Grimes]

Was wondering how things were going
Hi Sharon, It is good to hear from you. I wondered if you were going to do a blog about your travels. I'm looking forward to viewing the pictures & hearing about the food. Best regards, Penny