Alaska Cruise part 1: Ketchikan and Juneau

We’re back!  Here’s the itinerary of the trip we just took.  We started in Seattle, made stops in Ketchikan, Juneau, and Skagway on the way up – then Prince Rupert on the way back.  We ended the cruise in Vancouver, then took a bus for about 4 hours back to Seattle to fly home.

We took this particular trip because it was organized by the Parkinsons Research Foundation.  Jim’s Dad has Parkinson’s Disease.  The Bahamas cruise we took last January was also a Parkinson’s cruise.  It worked well to have the extended family do this trip together.  There were 7 of us all together … Jim, Jim Sr., Me (Chris), Mom (Marilyn), Jo Ellen (Jim’s ex-wife), Debbie (Jim’s sister), and Bob (Debbie’s husband.)  Jim roomed with his Dad, and I roomed with my Mom and Jo Ellen.

Seattle and Mt. Rainier

I’ve visited Seattle several times in the past – actually lived there when I was 5 – so I knew how spectacular Mt. Rainier is and I was prepared with my camera in the plane.


We stayed the night at a Holiday Inn near the airport, then transferred to the Norwegian Star cruise ship on Saturday morning.  Here’s the view of Rainier from the ship.

Ketchikan and Misty Fjords

In Ketchikan Mom, Jim and I signed up for a boat tour to take us into the Misty Fjords Nat’l Monument.  It was cold, rainy, and windy – but that’s OK, it felt like we were really experiencing Alaska!  And the Fjords were SO beautiful!  We took a tour on a jet boat – very comfortable inside, plenty of room outside to get a better view.

A very comfortable tour boat with very knowledgeable crew.  The tour guide was a native Tlingit woman.  In telling us about the fact that men outnumber women by a considerable amount in Alaska, she added some advice to single ladies, “The odds may be good, but I’m afraid you’ll find that the goods are a little odd!”

Back to the Norwegian Star cruise ship.  I think the ship is bigger than the town!

Juneau

Juneau is the only US State Capital that is inaccessible by road.  You must either fly there or go by boat.  On the way to Juneau, the cruise ship took a special side trip to Sawyer glacier.  What a sight!  On the way up the fjord, we were taking an exercise class … does your gym look like this?  I love exercise classes on cruise ships – precisely for the views – but this one tops ‘em all.

Sawyer Glacier:

I’m glad I have my Jimmy to keep me warm!

Everywhere you look were more views of glaciers, rock walls, and waterfalls.

Look at that Blue ice!

Right in Juneau we took the Mt. Roberts tram up the mountain for some more views:

This is Jo Ellen with a view from the Tram.

No, this one is not a painting … although it should be!

After the tram ride and a beer at the mountaintop restaurant.  We were told we had to stop for at least one more beer at the Red Dog Saloon – while the moose on the wall watched us!

I’ll post more tomorrow … meanwhile there are more pictures on the web album at http://picasaweb.google.com/chrisguld/2010AlaskaFamilyCruise#

ON vacation and OFFline!

Trying to get dozens of last minute things done in preparation for taking off on our cruise in Alaska.  We leave today.  We plan to be offline for 10 days ... I'm already feeling withdrawal symptoms!  We’ll be back home (at the RV in Fort Lauderdale, Florida) on October 4.

Well, we will have our Droids with us, so, anywhere there's Verizon signal we will be checking email and facebook.  But, we won't do much responding.  We won't be handling business.  Although I do have to get our newsletter out tonight ... I don't think I can let that go till we get back.  I am taking our little netbook computer – mostly as a depository for all the pictures we plan to take – so I’m planning to finish our newsletter while on the plane and upload it from the hotel room in Seattle.  But, once we’re on the cruise ship tomorrow … then we’re really on vacation – honest!

Odie stays home

I so prefer RV travel where you take your whole home with you – pets and all.  Usually, if we need to fly somewhere, we can leave Odie with my Mom, or Jim’s Dad … but they’re going with us on this trip!  Jo Ellen, Jim’s ex-wife, has also offered to take Odie on occasion … but she’s also going with us on this trip!  :-)  Yes, that needs to be a whole other blog post doesn’t it?!  Jo Ellen is part of our extended family.  We thought about some other friends, but when we learned that our across-the-street-neighbor (Max) at the RV park had just started a dog-walking service ;-) we figured he’d be happier in the RV than at a friend’s house where he’d never stayed before.  And Charlie, our immediate next-door neighbor promises to look in on him and give him a treat every day! 

Use Facebook

Meanwhile, be sure to follow us on Facebook.  Facebook is just so much easier to post short updates … it is becoming our ‘mini-blog.’  It also helps that we can so easily update our Facebook status directly from our Droid cellphones.  So, while waiting in line at the airport we can post a quick note about our whereabouts.  Or, when getting ready to board the cruise ship, we can take a picture of the ship (with the Droid’s camera feature) and, with one click upload that picture to our facebook profile.  Or, when we’re taking the train ride up the gold rush trail to White Pass, we can take video of the amazing scenery and upload that to youtube or facebook.  Okay, okay, we’ll put the phones in our pocket and just enjoy the scenery for some of the time!

Business page: www.facebook.com/geeksontour  anyone can go there and read our updates. 

Personal pages: www.facebook.com/chrisguld and www.facebook.com/jimguld  you must be a confirmed friend in order to see these posts.

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Geeks 2010 ‘Tour’ is Over

Wow!  What a summer.  Below is a map of our summer.  Doesn’t it look like we’re trying to Lasso Nebraska and South Dakota?  What a great summer!  We love this traveling life.

Our route was determined by the Rallies where we were booked to give our seminars:

1. FMCA Convention, Albuquerque 3/22/10 (We flew there)
2. RV-Dreams Rally, Longs SC 4/7/10
3. RV Lifestyle, Education & Safety, Bowling Green, KY 6/3/10
4. The Rally, Louisville, KY 7/22/10
5. FMCA Convention, Redmond, OR 8/11
6. Gypsy Journal Rally, Elkhart IN 8/30/10
7. Escapade, Goshen IN, 9/12/10

Next year will be somewhat similar, since The Rally is in Redmond, Oregon.  Here’s what we know of our 2011 tour so far.  The entries marked with ? are ‘penciled in!’

1. FMCA Convention, Perry Georgia 3/14/11
2. ? ‘Geek Week’ – post-rally Geeks on Tour computer workshop planned for nearby campground to Perry. March 19-22
3. ? RV-Dreams, Sevierville, TN April 12-17/11
4. The Rally, Redmond, OR, 7/14/11
5. FMCA Convention, Madison, WI, 8/10/11
6. Escapade, Gillette, WY 8/28-9/2/11

We will be in Florida for the winter, primarily hanging out with family in our old home town of Fort Lauderdale.  Jim likes working in the office at Paradise Island RV park.  But we are planning to get away for a few events to present our computer education:

1. Lazy Days RV ‘Friends & Family’ in Tampa, FL 11/3/10
2. Holiday Travel Resort, Leesburg, FL, Jan 23-30

Right now, we’re taking a day at Thousand Trails, Orlando to clean up from the last rallies and just to rest our road-weary bodies.  Then, we’ll be in Fort Lauderdale tomorrow and off to our Alaska cruise on Friday.  This will be the first time since we launched our business/membership website in 2008 that we’ve been offline for that long.  We’ll probably check in a couple of times, but that’s a whole lot different from being constantly available like we normally are.  I know it looks like we’re always on vacation … and we certainly are having fun … but, it is good for the creative juices to really get away for a while.  Here we go!

Escapees Rally – The Escapade

This was the last rally of our ‘Summer Tour.’ And it went great.  The Escapees RV club has been around a long time.  This was the 50th Escapade.  There were about 800 RVs there, which represents nearly 1600 people. 

We presented 3 seminars: Internet on the Road, Managing Digital Photos with Picasa, and Narrated Slide shows with Photo Story 3.  This picture comes from our Internet class … notice all the Show and Tell goodies on our table: Wi-Fi antennas, cellular antennas, tethered Droid.

And here’s the Photo Story 3 class:

And, for 5 1/2 days we had a booth.  We usually don’t have that much time where we’re just hanging around and can see people.  It was great!  In addition to our normal DVDs and Books with tutorial videos, we helped a lot of people with little computer issues, handed out free trial disks of Streets and Trips, and swapped Droid stories with lots of new Droid owners.

We let Odie out a couple times a day, but for the most part he had to stay in the motorhome.  Odie doesn’t like rallies!

And, we were always prepared to visit with friends at happy hour time … note the wine bottle in my pocket!

Thanks to Sharon Del Rosario for those last two pictures.  Ah, and Alice Gibson sent us this one of the two of us in our booth.  Just to prove that I was there!  So, there is a reason for my aching feet!  5 days standing on concrete floor … if we do much of this, we’ve got to get those spongy floor tiles.

Now we’re off to Florida.  The whole family is getting together, flying to Seattle, and taking an Alaska cruise.

What a Difference a Year makes

We’re at the Escapees rally in Goshen, Indiana.  It’s the 50th Escapade.  We came for the first time last year, and, other than a few vendors – we didn’t know many people.  Most of our time was spent in a booth twiddling our thumbs.  Probably the best thing that happened last year was meeting Phil and Tracy May from Techno RV.  They have a great booth with lots of cool techie gadgets.  They’re from England originally and they now travel the US in their motorhome with their 2 teen agers Ally and Josh.  We’ve since gotten together with them for wine-tasting in Albuquerque and beer-tasting in Redmond, Oregon.  Last week we joined them for the Amish dinner and buggy ride I wrote about in a previous post.  This past Friday they threw a birthday party for Ally and Josh here at the fairgrounds and we had a blast.  We were too busy eating and dancing to even take any pictures!  But, we were tagged in an album of Phil’s facebook photos.

Sunday was spent in the booth all day … and it was a steady stream of people saying “Hello, we’re members and we love your videos!”  OR “Hi Chris and Jim, we saw your seminars in Albuquerque and can’t wait to attend more here.”  OR “Oh, there are the Geeks!  Let’s give them a big hug and take our picture with them!”  and lots of, “Hey Geeks on Tour, we love your website and have learned so much, thank you!”

I think this is going to be a great week!