Alaska - Day Six

Woke up early again. At least in the Caribbean they let you sleep in! Here our call was only until 12:30 so we were up early again. Dawn. Off to Ketchikan, Alaska. We walked around town for a bit, then off to the Lumberjack show. This was almost $40 for a one hour show, it was scripted, the tricks were cute enough, the script kind of made it bearable, over priced though I thought. Alberto liked it.

Back on the ship for another pool game, then a disco nap. Everything on this cruise is gay, even a nap is a “disco nap”. Went to book another cruise, this one on the Baltic coast, Berlin, Helsinki, St. Petersburg, Russia. I asked how would could all go to Russia without being arrested and he said not to worry, it wasn’t that bad. It’s more a fight for ideology than anything else. But the people on the news getting punched in the face didn’t seem to have their ideology wounded.... Still I’ve always wanted to go to Russia, it was only $1,000, so I booked.  July 2014, stay tuned.

The dating game was next and dinner with Jude and Larry, new friends from New York. They’re booked on both my February cruise and the Baltic one so we’ll see them again.

Back to Michael and Andy Do It, but it was a repeat so I didn’t stay for the whole thing.

Off to the Our Lady J finale show, then the biggest party, which was for leather. I’m not so into the big night parties so I just did a couple walk-throughs. The best part was this guy Alberto doesn’t like kept talking to him. I insisted on a couple of photos of them together and Alberto kept shooting me looks like he was going to kill me and I was doubled over with laughter.

Also before the leather do I got to meet Stephen Guarino from Bear City 2 and Happy Endings

This guy was the guy I liked the best. I really like tall skinny guys and find they never usually wear this little as they are usually self-conscious, but I really liked him. Unfortunately standing next to him, we look like Abbot and Costello.

Alaska - Day Five

Woke up a little later and went into town as our tour wasn’t until noon. Sitka is very small, tiny, like Minden where I grew up. Small. So we walked through the town which took 10 minutes and managed to have 5 minutes on the internet before our trip. Mark and his partner Mike just happened to be along, which was cool. 

These were photos from the wandering before our tour. Alaska used to be owned by Russia we started at a Russian Orthodox church. No chairs, the devout must stand.

Alberto has an amazing camera, I actually just now bought it off eBay. A Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-H70. I liked his photos so much better than mine that it convinced me.

First stop was a fish hatchery. We saw salmon swimming upstream and learned how a hatchery works. We got to touch some water animals but they were mostly slimy and I screamed like a little girl at least twice. Everywhere we went the Salmon were trying to swim upstream. Even in their cage.

Another reason I hate this camera, it turns photos and won't let me turn them back!

Stop two was a bear sanctuary, which was the best stop of the three. Loved watching the bears, could have done that all day. They’re so big but they love to play and would come and say hi.

Stop three was a raptor centre which had about 20 bald eagles, a whole lot, in one room. One way glass prevented them from knowing we were there which was good for their nerves. After that we sat in a room and saw a short video, then a man walked in with a real bald eagle on his arm, a “teaching eagle” and that was awesome. There were plenty of smaller birds outside, including some charming owls, and then rush back to the ship for an early departure.

Back on ship we were starving to death. We had a quick lunch, then off to the disco t-dance to see Mark do his number, then off to see Kathy Najimy with her comedy show.

 

Now I’m in my room dressed in drag waiting for Alberto to come back from the show so we can go out. Oh my. I walked around in the heels earlier, it wasn’t as easy as it seemed!

I’m watching Sister Act.

Back now, I can’t believe how much those shoes hurt. The costume contest was fun, the winners were bad girls of the eighties and they deserved it, they had a great act.

We had our pictures taken professionally but I can’t believe how much they were, $40 for a photo!  Yikes!

The interpreter was very young and cute.

Alaska - Day Four

Woke up a little late this morning as the alarm was set for PM but Alberto made it in time. We went out for our tour, and took the bus about 20 minutes to the dog musher’s camp. The road was crazy, it was more of a little dirt trail with precipitous cliffs than a road. The bus just made it in. They said Juneau is a town of 30,000 people with a million people coming through on cruise ships each year. Anyway, the dog camp was amazing, the dogs were smaller than the huskies I was expecting. They were all very excited and cute. One of the most amazing things was the dogs obeyed the very slightest command of our musher leader. She’d say this quiet tiny word and the dogs way in the front would turn left, it was crazy. They stopped for a small break after pulling the 7 of us and I asked as we were in the back if we could switch for the front and they let us. Very cool.

Back at the camp we got to pet all the dogs, who smelled a bit like wet dog, but were all very charming. After that a little talk in camp and then the puppies! Loved them! I had one puppy who was antsy, but the next one I got fell asleep on my shoulder! I loved it, I wanted to take it home.

I really wanted to take it home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had to leave it there and went back to the boat. We bought a ticket to the Mendenhall Glacier for $16 return which was a good deal. The woman who drove the shuttle was crazy. Once we got there we saw salmon swimming upstream. Off to the glacier in the rain, only a 2 mile walk. It was very wet and starting to get cold but amazing views, very glad I went. We got to touch glacier ice back at the visitor’s centre and on the way back to the bus we saw a bear family eating the salmon in the stream, it was a mother and her 2 cubs. She was very close and didn’t care about us at all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We got the shuttle back and still had just over an hour so we paid $31 to take the tram to the top of the mountain. Well, I thought it was the top, but once you get there it’s just more climbing, I thought it would never end. Was very tired but there was stunning vistas, very glad we did it. Started running out of time to come back but we made it with about 15 minutes to spare.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Had a shower to wash off rain and the scent of dog, then to dinner and a show, Amy and Freddie. They were cute for a taste. Tonight is the desert extravaganza. Another photo opportunity to see my friend Mark.

Tomorrow is Sitka and drag at night!

There was a rainbow outside our restaurant window.