Soldan Family Alaska Trip - 2004

After a great family trip to Yellowstone and the Tetons in 2003, we all were thinking about a repeat this summer. But how to repeat that? The trip went so well, but we weren't sure if it was worth it to do all the driving ourselves again. So we began checking the alternatives. Mom mentioned that she had always wanted to see a glacier, so on a lark, I looked around on the web for trips that would accomplish that. We stumbled onto the cruise ship industry, and learned that Alaska had become a very popular tourist destination. This was already quite late in the summer, too late, in my opinion to plan anything for 2004. I went ahead anyway and learned there were openings, and while not cheap, they were at least affordable. I suggested the concept of a cruise to Mom, and she said, "I'd love to go, but your Dad would never do it." "Hmm, a challenge," I thought to myself.

I spoke with Dad about this, and learned that when he had set foot on dry land after twice crossing the ocean as a Marine in WWII, he promised himself he'd never go on a ship again. "We were so crowded and miserable when the weather was rough," he told me. I told him that he would undoubtedly find that this ship would be nothing like the troop ship he had been on, and he caved in. Now all I had to do was finalize the arrangements, and we were good to go.

We chose the Norwegian Cruise Line, mainly because we like their approach to cruising. There were no formal dress requirements except for certain restaurants at night, and you didn't have to plan ahead where you wanted to eat. Just show up and eat, when you want, and where you want. Cool. I found the most cost effective cruise for us to be aboard one of their newer ships, the Norwegian Star, starting July 11 in Seattle, and ending back in Seattle 7 days later. Most important, the ship scheduled one whole day in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, so Mom would see her glacier.

As I was booking the flights to and from Seattle, Travelocity posted a message saying, "Sorry, the fares have just gone up." Go up they had, to the tune of $200 each. We had hoped to travel to and from Lansing, but suddenly couldn't afford the flights. A much less expensive option presented itself, but we had to fly out of Detroit Metro instead. I hated the thought of the extra drive both directions, but couldn't see an alternative, so we booked the flights.

The magic day finally arrived. We tried to pack as light as possible, but still had quite a bit of gear for the four of us. I had replaced an axel on a small suitcase cart we had used on a previous trip, so we piled the gear into our little VW Golf, plus the cart, and headed for Lansing. Next morning we loaded up the car and headed east to Detroit. Let the adventure begin!

Detroit Metro has undergone some renovations since I was last there, and it shows. We got there plenty early, got our gear onto the shuttle, up to the Continental check-in, and fortunately in the line of a friendly clerk. Check in was by touch screen terminal, and none of us had ever done it this way before. I made one mistake, and bypassed the luggage check in process! The friendly clerk came around, and got us on the right track, and we soon saw our luggage being sucked into the massive magic airport conveyer belts. With just our carryons, we hiked to our gate.

Airports are nice places to chill. There is nothing to do but wait, and they want you to get there hours early, so wait we did. It was time well spent, since this trip was about resting, and we all had some unwinding to do.

The flights were long, probably longer than necessary, since they routed us to Houston, and then to Seattle. When you shop for the cheapest flights, you don't necessarily fly the shortest route. We arrived safe and sound in Seattle around 5:00 PM local time, retrieved our gear, and I waited in line at the rental car place, while the rest stood guard with the luggage. We rented a car in Seattle, because rather than flying just in time for the cruise, we decided to take in some of the Olympic National Park this trip. Seeing this park had long been a dream of Dads and mine. I shopped for a rental, and found a full sized car for $26/day at Travelocity. Having just been bitten with the cheap flights, I was concerned to learn what our $26 was going to buy us. It was a Chevy Impala, roomy, nice to drive, and with only a few thousand miles on it. It took us a good hour, but we were finally on our way to the Sol Duc Resort in the Olympic National Park.

One of the great features of Seattle is the beautiful Puget Sound of the ocean. It is also a barrier for folks traveling west as we were. You can either travel out of your way to get across, or ride the ferry. Liking boats as I do, I opted for the later. I armed Alice "the navigator" with directions, and we fearlessly headed for the downtown waterfront. The road signs filled in the gaps for us, and after only one mishap, we found ourselves in line for the ferry. After paying the man at the booth, I asked for help. "I've never done this before," I told him. "Just go where they tell you," he said. "The hardest part of the whole thing is paying me." He was right. This system is so well worked out that you couldn't mess up if you wanted to.

Riding the ferry seemed to be about waiting in lines. You can see the back of our car in the center of this picture. We had about an hour to wait for the ferry, and about another hour to do the crossing to Bainbridge Island. I figured that once we were on the other side, we were within an hour or two of our destination. Wrong.

We had been warned about distances being deceptive on the Olympic Peninsula. I had figured that we would be at the Sol Duc Resort about 9:00 PM local time. It turned out there was a construction delay on a bridge we had to cross, and other delays crossing towns or looking for food along the way. We had been on the road a good many hours already, and were anxious to get to sleep. Well, 9:00 turned into 10:00, and we were still a good way from our destination. The back seat of the car got quieter and quieter, except for the occasional, "are you sure you know where you are going?" from my Dad.

We finally arrived at the resort at 11:00 PM local time, making our first day about 19 hours long. We had made arrangements to pick up our room keys in case we were late, so we did that, hauled our luggage into our respective cabins, and went to sleep.

We awoke to find ourselves in a lovely little valley in the temperate rainforest of the Olympic Park. Our cabins were rustic, with no TV or phone, but very comfortable. We'd come to hike in the rainforest, so after a great breakfast the next morning, we set out for the trail to the waterfall on the beautiful Sol Duc river.

Well, what can be said about the magnificent rainforest? I have seen pictures like this one, but to actually see the trees... well the expression on my Dad's face says it all. Alice and I are trail stewards for the Estivant Pines nature sanctuary, where some of the largest white pine trees in Michigan are located. Those trees would look like babies if transplanted here. We spent a lot of our hike looking at trees.

Our trail crossed the river on the way to the falls. Everything I saw spoke about the ancientness of this untouched place. What amazed me was that people that preceded us saw these trees not as the monuments they were, but as board feet of lumber. Cutting down one of these trees for the wood seems to me like bulldozing a cathedral for the bricks. Yet, this sanctuary represents only a tiny fraction of what once existed here.

We crossed the final bridge over the river, and had a nice view of the falls. Along the way, we met a family whose camera batteries had died, so we took pictues of them and promised to email them when we got home. After the hike, our appetites were sharp, so we chowed at the hot springs outdoor cafe.

Ah, the hot springs. I had two good soaks that day, I figured out a way to relax everything such that only my nose was sticking above the water. My arms floated free. I even managed to fall asleep a few times, only to awaken when a ripple in the pool invaded my nostrils. After my second soak, I noticed all the stress from the trip, and the last 10 years of my life had melted away. I felt my posture was better, and even my outlook better. Mineral hot springs are cool!

Later on that day, we hiked the Ancient Grove loop trail. It was raining then, so bedecked in our raingear, we tried to encircle one of the giants. The splotches in the pictures are raindrops illuminated in the flash.

There were lots of deer in the park. This one was just the other side of where we parked our rental car. On our way back to Seattle we missed one by inches after slamming on our brakes, and almost getting rear ended in the process. We made the ferry landing just as one was pulling out, so had another wait, during which time Dad and I tamed a friendly crow with some stale Cheetos. Once aboard the ferry, Dad and I were treated to the view of the Seattle skyline. We also had a pretty good view of the Norwegian Star, which was docked and preparing itself for our arrival.

We had to return the car to the airport, grab a cab, load our gear, and get ourselves back to the dockside around 1:00 PM for boarding. We had a fairly narrow window of 1:00 - 4:30 to board, with the ship departing at 5:00. With all the logistics involved, we were pretty proud of ourselves when we pulled up to the dockside at 12:59! After waiting in several lines to prove our identity, divest of our luggage, and finally board the ship, we were separated at the last moment, since our staterooms were on different sides of the walkway. I turned around to see my parents standing looking at us walk away, and decided that the heck with it, we were not about to just leave them there, so we went in the wrong line, and everything worked just fine. We quickly shed our gear and walked around a bit to get our bearings. The Star is over 900' long, and a bit bewildering at first. Once settled, we really got to like our rooms. Our cabins were called, "obstructed view" cabins, because they looked out over the lifeboats. We got pretty friendly with them after a while.

Deck 7, just one floor below our rooms, was called the promenade. We spent many happy hours hiking around the ship on this deck (4 laps was 1.4 miles). The lifeboats were suspended just above head height on this deck.

After spending a whole day at sea, we made our first landfall at Juneau, Alaska. This ship really pounded out the miles, going about 27 MPH the whole way. We had booked a shore excursion here, to visit the gardens, and the Mendenhal Glacier. Although the picture doesn't show it, Mom had a tear in her eye when she finally saw her glacier.

The next day, we arrived in Skagway, Alaska, where we had tickets for the White Pass and Yukon Route railroad trip, which is one of the few remaining narrow gauge railroads. It was built to accommodate the miners during the Klondike gold rush. This train follows a very steep grade through some spectacular scenery. The tour guide told us that 2,000 men worked on the project at any given time, carving the rail bed into the sides of this mountain. After a brief shopping stint in Skagway, with tourist shops like those everywhere people with credit cards travel, we headed back to the ship.

The next day, we steamed into Glacier Bay. Alice and I positioned ourselves on the bow of the ship, while my parents decided to sit amidships one deck below. Our tour guide said that this bay had been discovered 200 years ago, and the ship captain observed that the glacier came all the way into the open ocean. This means that this particular glacier has receded over 40 miles in 200 years. We cruised all the way up the bay to the Margerie Glacier, which we were lucky enough to observe calving about a half dozen times. With over 3,000 people on this boat (including crew) we were surprised at how few chose the best vantage point on the whole ship to view the action. On the way out of the bay, we joined Mom and Dad at their table on deck 12. Mom got pretty proficient with the backpacker binoculars she got me for my birthday last year.

Among the many nice places on the ship, one of our favorites was the Grand Atrium. This room extended all the way from deck 7 to a skylight on deck 12. Our rooms were on either side of this place, so we passed through it many times per day. The cyber cafe, which I visited once each day, was just off the atrium on deck 9. It cost 75 cents per minute to cruise the web, and a whopping $4.00 per email to send! I appreciated my home DSL connection after that.

Having worked on the Great Lakes on a ore freighter, I knew a little about ship navigation. I explained about the small boats that approached our ship each time we neared a port. These boats carry the pilots that command the ships navigation through crowded and/or hazardous waters to and from ports. They come along side and match the speed of the ship, while the pilot is hoisted aboard or returned. I was lucky enough to go over the side on a bosun's chair when I worked on the Great Lakes, and have to say it was a thrill when you swung off the deck and over the open water 40 feet below.

We were positioned at our favorite table when we arrived in Victoria, British Columbia. Our shore excursion this stop was to the Butchart Gardens where the Saturday Night fireworks display was also part of the festivities. Mom, who loves flowers, was in heaven. We arrived quite late, because Saturday night is the busiest for the gardens. Our bus got stuck in traffic on the way in, and the air conditioning went on the fritz. Several people had to leave the bus to get some air as we crawled down toward the entrance. It was dark by the time we got to the rose garden.

We got back to the ship late, and we all went to bed right away, because we were to dock in Seattle early the next morning. Our flight left at about 12:20, so we were anxious to get to the airport as soon as possible. Once we cleared customs, we hailed a cab, and made the airport in record time. This time we were pros at running the touch screen kiosk, got our luggage checked, and made our way to the gate. They routed us through Memphis this time. Our flight from Memphis to Detroit was the most empty I think I have ever seen. I think there were probably less than 20 people in the regular section of the plane. Once we made it to Detroit, we retrieved our luggage, like pros now, and grabbed the shuttle to our car. From there it was an hour and a half, and we were back in Lansing, seasoned travelers all.