A week and a half ago…

I was doing some of this:
 

to head out for a 9 day adventure pack vacation and experience this:

Today ”H” send me some of the pictures that were taken with his camera (yes we had ourself a bit of a photographers competition in the works and guess what? he TOTALLY kicked my ass). And while most are of landscapes of mountains, rivers and water that take your breath away (Alaska does do that to people)… the ones that I remember the most are the ones were we were all together, goofing off, trying to look cool while enjoying the best thing that life has to offer:

conversations about how much farting can be found in enclose spaces, like, uh, say… A CRUISE!

Yes, folks…having that type of family (which know you so well, that none will run to hide, because seriously did she ”just say poop in our conversation loud enough to have people hear us?”) around you is priceless, specially for me, since I have a hard time editing myself sometimes…

*cough, cough* ok, ok.. MOST of the time…

fine! ALL of the time!

San Francisco… part two

Since we left off here is the rest of the stuff we did in San Francisco….

We took a mandatory cable cars…with the unmistakable ding! ding! announcing their arrival the cars are a throwback to the late 1800’s. Today they still bustle along. We took it all the way to downtown, crossing San Francisco from one end to the other. I learn that this is the only National Historic Landmark in the US that “moves”. The actual turning of the cars at the end of the line is done all by two (or three) BIG guys by hand… they are the ones that move the car unto the platform and then pushes them around in a 90 degree to face the tracks up the hill. As demonstrated here:

The car comes to the platform (as shown above) and then they make it turn …

Then you fight your way into it (the only people that ride them are tourist) and pay the enormous fee of $5 to ride it, and for only one leg! I wanted to hang out and I got my wish by having it so full, that I got the prime spot of the handrail, facing the opposite way from the front. After about 5 min on it and the fact that I was scared to death of falling off it and being hit by incoming traffic, I took the camera and manage to take some of these pictures:

this one shows the hill side the best:

See I told you I was on the outside rail… but then… THEN… we were going downhill! DOWNHILL… into the end of the line smack in the middle of downtown…

My utmost respect to the conductor!

As we got off, the bustling city was all around us. It reminded me a bit of New York City, with people walking and going in and out of shops – I finally realized how much I hate MALLS… I love having the shops right there, in the middle of the street. Because you will just not find this kind of thing in the mall:

Yep… you read it right…

God I LOVED SAN FRANCISCO!

Out to sea….

and fortunately no rocking!  I could sit and write about all the activities onboard, but then I would not have enough time on the internet.. because remember its costing me freaking .50 cents per MINUTE.  And most of those minutes is waiting for the page to load up…. so  I will tell you we are working our way to eating mass amounts of foods, catching on our sleep and then lounging around (close to the hot spots) looking at the sea all around us.

Last night our present from our cabin steward:

And while they were doing that, we were doing a bit of this on the top deck:

Poles and Lumberjacks!

We arrived at our last port of call in Alaska to .. try to guess???

Yes…. RAIN!!! The rain would just not go away, but this time, it was worse than any other port of call, it was really coming down and to top of it it was cold and windy, so it made it more COLD and MISERABLE.

The town of Ketchikan awaited us. This was the first Alaska city (according to the guide book and the big sign as soon as you walked into town) , it was actually the biggest of all the ports we had been thus far, something that all of us were very happy about. We were starting to feel a bit isolated and part of extras in a movie set. But like the towns before it, it had its small town look….what we liked best was the fisherman look was all around us:

The town is heavy gear toward the indian ancestors and all you could see were evidence of the many references to the Totem poles. After much deliberation, we decided the only thing to do in the weather was take cover and we headed to the end of the pier to purchase tickets to the Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show. The girls in the group decided that we needed a bit of man looking and if they were the rugged kind, even better… the show did not disappoint. If you are ever in Alaska, go to it. Its funny, great audience participation and they almost made you forget that you were sitting under a cold, raining and windy day.

This was our team above (the theater was divided unto 2 groups – each behind 2 lumberjack team the US and the Canadians). Wonder if I could bring home someone that could do this:

That is 50 feet up!

After this we walked a bit more and took some of these:

Part of a totem pole with my sister at the end (each portion of the pole has a specific meaning) and the actual constructions of one is labor intensive and done by a native carver.

We had to sample their smoke salmon and my sister and I bough enough cans of the stuff to keep us happy for the rest of the year. We then hunted for food, and ended up in this place:

It was recommended by a local, so a MACA tip: always ask the local were they eat, and don’t follow the tourist anywhere! If you are ever there, order the calamari, which toss in a oriental sweet and sour dressing and OMG, they are delicious. Of course we had to try the chowder, since we are in the hunt to see who has the best one (this place moved up on the rankings)

While there we saw a sight we thought we were not going to see ever: THE SUN.. it came out! the blasted rain had finally stopped! We all could not put our coats fast enough to get out of there and out to the open air without the umbrellas.

We obviously went click happy:

All Aboard… cho-cho!!

On to Day 4 of our adventure… on this day we hit our second port of call: Skagway, with a cloudy, 57 degree weather we were pretty much guarantee another wet day. Apparently the thing to do is mark your territory:

We originally had set a tour to bike down the glacier, stopping to take pictures of waterfalls, and scenery that would take your breath away. It was raining by the time we finish our breakfast and none of us felt secure in the knowledge that even our expertise in using hand break would save us from sliding down the wet train in our butts. So we did what sane people do: We opted for the nice, HEATED, ride aboard the world-famous White Pass and Yukon Railroad tour.

A bit of history: The White Pass & Yukon route was designated an international Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in 1994. And after riding it, you realized that these men who were part of building this famous route had to account for many difficult and hazardous obstacles: design challenges, granite mountains, steep grades, cliff hanging turns and unimaginable weather conditions.

We first made a quick walked over to the town, which encompasses 455 sq miles of land and 11 sq. miles of water. It is the home of 850 year-round residents and you can pretty much see it in under an hour. We say about 1/2 of the town in 20 minutes. Were else in North America you find views like this:

Yes, its a toilet, right in the middle of the seaside walk into town. My sister made sure to check for its authenticity:

Then while walking into town we found the mother load people:

Do I need to say more?

Then we walked a bit more, and found a local internet cafe, were we plucked the bargain price of $5 for 1 hour of internet service… I checked email and then I tried to post… and was unable to … (hence the late posts).

After picking up the bus back to the ship, we boared up the train and off we chu-chu up the mountain (to the tune of 2,888 feet!), we we saw a bit of this:

And some of this… which unfortunately pictures do not do them justice

Tomorrow we hit another port of call…. but last night we found this in our cabin, apparently housekeeping crew has a great sense of humor around here:

Wondering what its in store for us tonight.