Home Again...

Sans Frank Wildhorn (or Linda Eder, for that matter), but it's an appropriate title regardless.

I've recently finished unpacking from the Washington trip. We arrived back in waterlogged Indiana this evening after dodging (in Mom and Dad's case) or flying right through (in mine and Mark's) a bank of nasty storms through the middle of the country. Indiana is still dangerously flooded in some areas -- in fact, I have a friend working to rescue stranded animals from flooded houses using flat-bottomed boats -- but miraculously, all of our houses seem to have avoided the worst of the water. My basement is a little damp, but that's to be expected since my property is divided by a creek that drains a good portion of the township to the south.

Yesterday being our last day in Seattle, we did some walking and shopping. We ended up back at Uwajimaya (I had to go back to buy a sweet red bean bun for Laura, along with every volume of Kuroshitsuji that has been published thus far -- can you tell I'm enjoying the manga?) and Pike Place. We returned to the hotel to watch the Belmont Stakes (an amazing leading run by Da'Tara!), and then had dinner at Ivar's Acres of Clams. I had the honey-glazed salmon over wilted arugula and spinach. Mmmmmm.

This morning we got up ungodly early (it was really only 6:45, but the people in the hotel room directly above ours started a wild, noisy party at 12:10 a.m., so some of us didn't get much sleep...) and drove a rented car to SeaTac. Mark and I were booked on a different airline than Mom and Dad, so we went to our gate and watched a couple of episodes of Code Geass (almost... done... with... first... series...). On the flight to Denver, I busied myself scrawling a longhand translation of chapter 4 of Kuroshitsuji on the backs of receipts and flight confirmations. This was for Mark, who wanted to read the manga but does not read Japanese. (There are fan translations of the first three chapters available online; he had already read those.)

We hit a whole lot of turbulence flying into and out of Denver and over Illinois; I later learned that this was due to a major storm system covering most of the central U.S. On the second flight I translated the rest of the chapter, though the ride was so bumpy that at times I practically lay on my tray table in a futile attempt to keep it steady so I could write.

Mom and Dad got in late -- their nonstop flight from Seattle to Indy was rerouted over Texas to avoid the storms -- but after we'd all found our luggage, we called Laura and Jon and met them for dinner (none of us had had a chance to eat, since airplanes no longer serve food or snacks). We ate around 9:30 local time, which was only 6:30 body time. Ah, jetlag...

Upon returning to my (musty, humid, sweltering, stuffy) house, I was mobbed by a couple of muddy Velcro Dobermans and yelled at by a couple of cranky cats. The cats live in a big two-story kitty house in the basement, but they didn't appreciate the water that had crept into the floor of their residence...

The air conditioning has been on for a couple hours, and the house is gradually returning to a vidable climate. Valenzia is passed out on the bedroom floor (the cool hardwood is apparently preferable to her fabric beds), and every once in a while she squirms and kicks and grumbles, trying to make the hard floor more comfy. When that doesn't work, she comes over and does a cute chin-rest on the edge of my mattress, hoping that I'll invite her up on the bed. It's really too hot to snuggle with an animal that has a 102-degree body temperature, but since I've gone two weeks with no dogs... she might make it up here after all. :)

Sci-Fi & EMP

(No, not electromagnetic pulse... though that's useful for repelling Sentinels, one of which I saw today. In person, even.)

Short entry today; I've just returned to the hotel and haven't yet had dinner.

Today, we visited the Science Fiction Museum/Hall of Fame and the Experience Music Project. The Sci-Fi exhibits were very interesting, with lots of original TV/movie props and fascinating relics of early fandom (one favorite was a page from a 1930s convention program listing a Who's Who of fandom, including a young aspiring writer named Isaac Asimov, who had written twenty stories and had already sold six of them for publication!). There was even a small exhibit on fan conventions and costuming, and -- although they got the country of origin of the word cosplay wrong -- they correctly attributed the start of fan costuming to Ackerman at the 1939 WorldCon in New York. (Take that, anime cosplay elitists.) ^_^

I really enjoyed the Sci-Fi museum, but I thought it should have been larger, primarily to give more time to certain subjects that weren't covered in the exhibits. For example, virtually no credit was given to comic books or the role they played in popularizing science fiction in the mid-20th century. Also, the focus seemed to be largely on American science fiction, with occasional flashes of foreign literature and film. There were a few references to specific anime (a three-second clip of Evangelion in a montage; specs of the Bebop; robot models from Mobile Suit Gundam; a rather inexplicable scene from a harem show...), but it was spotty, with very little on Japan's influence on American sci-fi in the '80s. There were brief references to Hitchhiker's Guide and Doctor Who, but not much else out of Britain. Overall, the museum seemed less like a cohesive and educational exhibit, and more like a walk through Paul Allan's garage full of sci-fi collectibles.

Also, the gift shop was kind of pathetic. They weren't even selling books! After spending two hours looking at the work and influence of authors like H.G. Wells and Poul Anderson, you'd expect the museum to offer visitors a chance to pick up a few classic sci-fi paperbacks...

The Experience Music Project was wonderful -- if you're a Jimi Hendrix fan. There was a full room dedicated to his life, music and smashed guitars. For the rest of us who are not into orange-and-pink butterfly suits, there was an interesting history of the development of the modern guitar, a very brief walk-through of music from the 1960s-1990s (with an understandable focus on metal and grunge, which largely developed in Washington), and a section on Mexican- and Latin-American-influenced popular music. Much as with the Sci-Fi side, though, there were large holes in the timeline that weren't really dealt with (although the British invasion was referenced a few times, there wasn't much of it represented, and it seemed like we jumped through the 1970s and '80s within about ten feet of display space).

In short, what the museums have on display is, on the whole, done very well. The exhibits still need some expansion to be really balanced, though.

Underground Seattle, manga, and lots of sugar...

This morning we went on a guided tour of Seattle's underground (the true ground-level city dating from the 19th century, before all the streets and sidewalks were raised by 15 to 35 feet to solve flooding and sewage problems). The history of how the tunnels came about is fascinating, but is too complicated for me to recount; go look it up somewhere. Most of the early buildings in Seattle actually have a floor or more underground, and many of the tunnel-like sidewalks are still passable, with original glass-block skylights set into the "top" sidewalk to let light into the tunnels below. (On my previous trip, I noticed all the glass block set into the pavement, but I thought it was just Seattle being artsy...)

I don't normally care much for guided group tours, but this one was very entertaining and informative! I just wish we could have had more time to examine all the junk, artifacts and pieces of history that are strewn about the tunnels.

After the tour, we had lunch at the Grand Central Bakery and visited a horse-themed store in the same building. Mom and Dad headed for Elliot Bay (she wanted to pick up the new book on Dan Patch) and Mark and I walked six or eight blocks to the International District to visit Uwajimaya.

Just as a note, it's really dangerous to turn me loose in Uwajimaya. It contains a big Asian grocery, which by nature sells things like Ramune (which I bought) and Pocky (which I bought in greater quantity). It also has a Kinokuniya bookstore on the premises (where Mark and I spent several hours browsing and listening to new J-pop singles in the music section).

I couldn't find any Matantei Loki or Weiss Side B in any language I could read (Loki was available in Chinese, but not Japanese or English), but I did discover something called Kuroshitsuji, which translates to Dark (or Black) Butler. I hadn't heard of it -- it's apparently fairly recent, since volume 4 was on the New Releases table -- but it looked interesting (and I'm a pushover for anything about butlers!), so I bought the first volume. I have a feeling it will challenge my Japanese translation skills. ^_^

[At right: The cover of Kuroshitsuji volume 1.]

Mark bought an Angela CD single and the latest volume of Flame of Recca, and then we split a sweet red bean roll (down, Laura!). Afterward, we browsed briefly at Pink Godzilla and another import shop a block or two away, then came back to the hotel.

For dinner, the four of us went across the street to an Italian restaurant called Mitchelli's, which was WORLDS better than the Italian dinner we'd had the night before (a place two doors down from our hotel, which cost about $30 per person, had mediocre food and was pretty lousy all around). Then -- because we still had our wristbands from the Underground tour, which promised us a 10% discount -- we went up the block to the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory, where I bought the world's largest chocolate-covered strawberry, a mint truffle, and a brick of chocolate-and-nut-encrusted English toffee.

Mmmmmmmmm.

Then we came back to the hotel, where my stash of Pocky and the chocolate and cherries we bought at Pike Place are currently located, and found mints on all our pillows. If there's one thing that is NOT in short supply on this trip, it's sugar!

Browsing in Seattle

Two days condensed into one post, for your convenience (and mine).

Yesterday, Mark and I got up early to drive back to Seattle (our rental car was due back at the agency by mid-morning), took the Kingston-Edmonds ferry back across the sound. We dropped the luggage at our hotel (the Pioneer Square Best Western, the same hotel in which I stayed on my visit three years ago) and then spent a few harried minutes going in circles around city blocks because the road we needed to take was closed for construction. We managed to find the Budget office eventually, then walked back to the Pioneer Square area.

Since it was still morning and our hotel room wouldn't be ready for a while, we detoured to a nearby antique mall and killed several hours browsing everything from antique camera equipment to vintage comic books. Mark ended up buying a 1984 Hulk comic book, in which... well... Hulk goes crazy and just starts destroying stuff. I bought an overpriced issue of NOW Comics' mediocre Speed Racer -- a volume I didn't have, in which Speed drives the GRX -- and a 1944 training and nutrition manual published by Purina called Dog Etiquette. (As it turns out, my mother had a paperback copy of the same book in the 1960s.) The training and dietary information is horribly out of date, of course, but it's interesting to read and see the prevailing attitudes of the day. The book has some cute artwork, too. My favorite picture in the book is a line drawing of an expressive Doberman being choked while his owner commands, "Heel!" The look on the dog's face illustrates perfectly why we don't train that way any more...

After the antique mall, we grabbed some pizza and garlic bread at a local eatery, then checked into the hotel and spent a few minutes arranging the room and planning the rest of the day. We decided to do a little shopping, since Mom and Dad weren't due in until evening. Our first stop was Simo Silk, where I bought a couple of nice Chinese silk outfits last time I was here. Then we headed to the Elliot Bay Book Company -- my favorite bookstore in the world -- and spent several hours book-browsing. Since my luggage space is very limited, I bought only one book: The Secret History of the Pink Carnation, by Lauren Willig. I picked it up because of the Scarlet Pimpernel tie-in (as pretty much everyone reading this knows, I am an avid collector of Scarlet Pimpernel books, merchandise and memorabilia). I hope it's good. I'll review it on Goodreads after I've read it.

One thing I like about Elliot Bay (beside the facts that it's in an awesome historic building, is four stories tall, takes up half a city block, and is crammed full of all kinds of BOOKS) is that they have book reviews written by their staff members posted all around the store. While walking through the fantasy section, we found a stack of Patrick Rothfuss' The Name of the Wind with a review card stuck under it. And, of course, I took a photo [at right]. I seem to be taking a LOT of NOTW photos lately... ^_^

Today, we walked to Pike Place market and spent the day wandering, sampling fresh produce, browsing and occasionally supporting the local economy. By mid-afternoon Mom headed back to the hotel and Dad, Mark and I killed another three hours in a comic book store, browsing comics, flipping through anthologies and giggling at weird merchandise.

The store had cute Speed Racer keychains and magnets, but they were all overpriced. :P Where's all the cheap kitsch?!

Stimulus Reversals - Daiseikou!

That means "big success," for those of you who aren't into Japanese. ^_^

Going into today's workshop session, I had very little hope of accomplishing both my stimulus reversal projects. As of this morning, I had one chicken who had been evaluated for color discrimination (in which the chicken pecks only at a certain target -- in this case, blue -- every time, and WILL NOT peck another target, even when the "hot" target is removed and the chicken is prompted to peck red or yellow), and one chicken who was still working on shape discrimination (same idea, only the chicken is pecking at a specific shape, and there are more targets to choose from). In order to complete all the tasks of the discrimination training, a trainer needs to graduate both birds from their respective discrimination tasks, and then, in only one training session, use pure shaping (no prompting, target manipulation, luring or baiting -- just clicking/feeding) to reverse the discrimination so that the bird will choose another target instead of the old hot target, no matter in what order the targets are presented.

Since only one of my birds (the cooperative one) had graduated to being ready for stimulus reversal, I had only four training sessions in which to complete my shape discrimination with my schizophrenic chicken, have that bird evaluated, and then perform stimulus reversals with both birds. My table partner was in the same boat, which meant that we actually had only half the training time, since we both needed to do our SRs.

[At left: Shaping the chicken to peck only yellow, after four days of being reinforced only for pecking blue.]

However, things moved a little faster than I expected, and I ended up getting the shape bird evaluated during the first session, performing the color stimulus reversal during the second session (in a little under 17 minutes), and performing the shape stimulus reversal in the third session (at around 19 minutes).

I know we aren't supposed to anthropomorphize and attribute human emotions to animal subjects, so I can't call this "frustration" or "vengeance," but during the stimulus reversal my partner's chicken went for a particularly long period without being clicked. After a minute without reinforcement, she came over to my side of the table and went after my watch (shiny object is more interesting than paper targets, apparently!). Her pecking actually chipped the edge of the crystal. Annoying, since the watch is an antique that belonged to my grandmother... but it makes a good story, I guess: "Oh, you're bragging about your scar? Well, this watch still bears the mark of a dangerous chicken attack...!"

Since my partner ended up completing only one of her stimulus reversals, I actually ended up with a few minutes of extra training time, so I got to play with shaping my color-discriminating chicken to stretch a giant rubber band... though in the three minutes of shaping I did, I ended up with something closer to a kill-shake. (That'll teach me to halfheartedly shape indiscreet behavior when I'm tired and can't focus on criteria...) ^_^

[At right: Bob, me, Terry.]

After trainer graduation (during which Bob played an interminable loop of "Pomp & Circumstance"), I had Bob autograph my Legacy T-shirt and then spent a few minutes talking to Terry Ryan. This is Bob's last year of chicken workshops, but Terry will be running a similar set of workshops next March. They will cover much of the same material, but have more of a focus on applying the concepts to canine behavior and dog sports. I really want to come back for the next three sessions... Maybe I can work it into my schedule somehow.

After bidding everyone at the workshop farewell, I came back to the motel and uploaded a bunch of photos to my online gallery (for the purpose of sending them to everyone who attended the workshop), and then crashed for a two-hour nap. It takes a lot of brainpower to shape all those stimulus reversals...

Mark and I ate leftover Chinese for dinner. We leave early tomorrow morning for Seattle, where we will spend the next five days. VACATION, at last! (For something called "AVA's Vacation Blog," there hasn't been much vacation stuff lately.) Uwajimaya, here I come... ^_^

Legacy, Day 2: Uncooperative Chickens

If there were a Kentucky Fried Chicken in Sequim, I suspect it would be very crowded about now.

After the second day of chicken training, a lot of the participants in this week's Discrimination workshop are thinking wicked thoughts about the Colonel's secret recipe and mashed potatoes. (And, because we're sick and twisted people... note the materials container on the table in the picture at right.)

I have one chicken who is very gentle and cooperative, but apparently narcoleptic -- she's nearly asleep every time I bring her out -- and another who is extremely fear-aggressive and attacks me every time I try to open her cage. (This is the one I'm training for shape discrimination.) I'm still considering names for each of them, and will entertain any suggestions from the peanut gallery...

The workshop so far has been fun, but intense. Bob Bailey is a great teacher, and keeps things moving, but -- as I've learned after several years attending ClickerExpo -- there is only so much behavior science one can cram into one's brain in a single day. I haven't reached my limit yet, but that's primarily because a certain amount of the information is review (overlapping with Kathy Sdao's Advanced Clicker Training seminar and the aforementioned ClickerExpos). The homework text reads like a college textbook on silica gel, but I think part of that can be attributed to mental fatigue at the end of the day. (I did not post yesterday because my brain was FRIED by the time I finished my reading assignment, and I was really longing to go to bed and dump information.)

Speaking of reading assignments... I still have one to do tonight, so this will be an abbreviated post.

Laura, the B. F. Skinner shirt you gave me last year was a big hit. I've had about six people ask me where they could get one. :)

At left: Bob uses a dog target stick (because Terry was still looking for a laser pointer) to explain a diagram of applied behavioral economics.

My standing with the tree slugs has increased by one point.

And now, it's time for another "Good Idea/Bad Idea."

Good idea: Hiking in Olympic National Park.

Bad idea: Hiking 5.5 miles in the mountains in 90% humidity when you're horribly out of shape.

Today we headed to the Elwha area to do some more hiking. We started with a short (.2 mile) walk up to a scenic waterfall (at left) on the way into the park, then checked out the hiking trails posted at the ranger station. Our ultimate goal was the Olympic Hot Springs (we didn't make it there, alas!), but before we hiked out to soak in the hot and smelly, we thought we'd do a few miles through the woods. We had gotten a local's recommendation to take a particular trail at Elwha; it was listed as "moderate" and ran about 2.7 miles each way, so we planned to do that trail and then hike up to the hot springs and soak for a bit.

This was a perfectly decent plan. However, it did not take into consideration the fact that I live in Indiana, at near-zero elevation (I think my area is officially 12 feet above sea level). I'm also completely out of shape, due to a respiratory infection that took me out of commission for several weeks earlier this year, so the five-plus miles of trail -- largely climbing up and down hills, which I am also unused to -- pretty much wiped me out. By the time we finished the first trail, my clothes were soaked through with sweat and my feet were starting to swell. Still hopeful, we checked the trail guide to see if the trail to the Olympic Hot Springs was any easier -- but learned that not only was it the same length as the one we'd just finished, but also had an even higher elevation increase. We decided to call it a day.

Still, we did get some pretty good hiking in with the first 5.5 miles. Apparently it is banana slug migration season here in Olympic, by which I mean every slug on one side of the trail has decided that it wants to be on the other side of the trail. I lost count of how many giant slugs I stepped over, guided Mark around, or scooped gently onto a leaf or piece of bark to get them out of the walking path, but it was at least a couple of dozen. There was also a cute little snake (at right) who tried to play dead across a sidewalk and almost got stepped on; I shooed him off into the grass.

As expected, there was also some nice scenery on our hike. The areas we hiked through alternated between Douglas fir and maple forest, and the undergrowth was mostly huge ferns. Very green, and very pretty! There weren't many spruce trees -- which was frustrating for me because before we started the hike, Mark pointed out a notice explaining the legal quantity of edible plants that hikers could collect from the park, and I really wanted to eat some spruce tips. Fortunately, I did find a single spruce tree later in the hike, so I got to munch a handful of tree bits. (They tasted better in Alaska, though... these were a little bitter.)

We also had to cross several streams and rivulets on the hike. Some had bridges, and some were fordable, but there was one crossing that did not instill me with confidence. It was the same type of bridge we'd crossed the day before, a cut log with a railing attached... except that in this case, one railing was missing, and right beside it was the old bridge -- identical in design, but broken in two (!) and lying partially in the river. Fortunately, the one-railed log (at left) held up just fine, and we crossed it twice without falling in.

There was only one real casualty from our hike, apart from the sore muscles I'm going to have for the next couple of days. While walking through the tall plants lining the trail, I managed to brush against a nasty weed with tiny little thorns that have some kind of burning toxin in them. Even now -- four hours later, and after a bath and a shower -- I still have stinging welts across the backs of my hands. Ouch.

After leaving the park, we drove back to Sequim and stopped at the local Pizza Factory for a very late lunch (it was around 4:00 by the time we ate, and we'd had breakfast at 9:00). While we waited on our pizza, both of us had fun playing the Star Trek pinball machine (at right) that was in the restaurant's little arcade area. I've never really played pinball, but Mark tells me I did pretty well. I ended up with around 7,500,000 points, whatever that means... I don't understand pinball scoring. Anyway, the game design was fun, with lots of character quotes and images from the original series (complete with Uhura and Chapel in skimpy '60s outfits).


And, finally... I've been driving past this place on highway 101 for three days now, and today I had Mark snap a photo of it. I loved the sign, although I confess I don't know what a "dolphin room" is for...

Olympic National Park

For whatever reason, it seems that I only remember to update this blog when I'm in or around in Washington State. Oh, well. Since I happen to be staying in Sequim for a training seminar, I think it's time I resurrected it.

Our train ride out here, while... memorable, was not the most enjoyable experience I've had on Amtrak. Poor service, lower-quality meals in the dining car, and The Kid From Hell (an uncontrolled and squalling toddler whose parents I wanted to throttle), combined with my caffeine-ruined sleep schedule, conspired to make the trip fairly mediocre. Still, the scenery hasn't changed -- it's still pretty going through Glacier National Park -- and Mark (who is traveling with me) and I had a lot of fun playing old SNES and Sega Genesis games on my laptop and watching anime at double-speed to clear it off my hard drive. (Naruto Shippuden Gekijouban: Not worth watching, unless -- SPOILER -- you really want to see Naruto die. In that case, watch the first thirty seconds of the movie, and quit.) I verified that after 15 years I am still really bad at the water levels in Sonic 2, and that digital hedgehogs can't really swim...

We arrived in Seattle midmorning on Monday, which happened to be Memorial Day, and -- after a bit of trouble with the rental car company, which had not been answering their phones for the previous two days -- picked up our rental, a Chrysler HHR (a model with which I was not familiar; it looks kind of like the bastard offspring of a PT Cruiser and a Chinese take-out box). After hopping through a series of wireless networks until we could get to Google Maps to confirm our driving directions, we started for Sequim, which is on the Olympic peninsula.

After a half-hour ride on the Kingston-Edmonds ferry and a couple hours' creative highway driving, we finally made it to our hotel, the Sequim EconoLodge, which is notable for its overgrown (probably haunted) mini-golf course and rather sparse continental breakfast. It's located on the eastern edge of downtown Sequim -- a town that is only about two and a half miles from end to end -- and is adequate for our needs, if not stunning. (Truth be told, I made our reservations here largely because the motel offered free wi-fi, which is actually a rarity in much of Washington.)

We went to Applebee's for our one meal of the day (we missed breakfast on the train -- see above re: bad service), then hit the local Wal-Mart for junk food and beverages, as we learned at check-in that there were a refrigerator and microwave in each of our rooms at the EconoLodge. (Since Laura is currently 2,000 miles away and can't complain about the smell, Mark and I picked up a two pound package of Twizzlers for snacking...) We then stopped at a local drive-in for dessert, returned to the hotel to watch some Code Geass and the new episode of YuGiOh: The Abridged Series, and after that I finally got to SLEEP -- something I hadn't done much of since last Wednesday night.

Today we sampled the mediocre continental breakfast, then hopped in the HHR and drove out to Olympic National Park for some hiking. We stopped by the visitors' center, went on to Lake Crescent, took a short trail, then for lunch went to the Lake Crescent Lodge (at right -- and yes, Mom, I looked through all of the antique books in the case on the left side of the photo!), where we met an entertaining waiter named Timotheus who, in addition to being personable and funny, has read The Lord of the Rings trilogy at least ten times. Lunch was fish & chips -- you just can't get fresh fried halibut in Indiana! -- followed by blackberry honey lavender ice cream, which is made locally in Sequim. I hadn't expected the lavender flavor to be strong, but it was actually pretty potent, and made for a very interesting (and tasty) mix of flavors. Lunch at the lodge was particularly nice because we had a lovely view of Lake Crescent from the dining room (the view from our table is shown at left).

After lunch, we hiked about three miles to and from a waterfall (at right), and then drove through Port Angeles on the way back to our hotel.

On the two short hikes, I took almost 200 photos. I think I'm going to have a lot of sorting to do.

My seminar doesn't start until Thursday, so we have another day to go hiking, sightseeing, or whatever. It's kind of nice to be able to make up the vacation as you go...

Oh -- and Laura, Mark blames you for the cold he's developing.


ADDENDUM: My mother informs me that I need to have some photos of ME on this trip, so here's the one shot I have of me so far. I'm standing on a narrow bridge (a long log with a railing, more or less) over the lower cascade of the waterfall in the previous picture:

Day 13: SATURDAY

Full day on the train today. The time change is still messing me up a bit; Alaska is three hours earlier than Indiana, so as we go east we keep losing time. A loss of three hours in as many days is kind of jarring.

Last night was even more ridiculous than I recorded, because as it turns out, David the attendant has only been doing this for about a month, and apparently hasn't quite figured out how the beds work. I noticed, when trying to squirm into my bunk around 1 a.m., that the vertical metal strut that attaches one end of the bed to the ceiling wasn't hooked. I figured this was just an oversight (though a major one, since only one end of the bed was supported), so I wrestled with it and finally got it latched properly.

This morning, I call David in to make up our beds and convert them back into seats. He slowly arranges the mattresses, folds them up, puts everything on the top bunk, and pushes on the bunk to stow it. Nothing happens.

Push.

Push.

He goes to check between the bed and the door to make sure something's not wedged between them. Nope, nothing wrong there.

Push.

Push.

Nothing happens.

At this point, I feel obligated to point out the big metal pole at the end of the bunk. “It's still latched on this end,” I say, pointing to the brace.

David turns and stares at the strut for a few seconds as if he's never seen it before. Finally, he goes over and pushes on it a few times, and after several tries gets it to fold down so the bed can be stowed.

Needless to say, this does not fill me with confidence...

Anyway, aside from that, today has been pretty normal. I spent part of the morning napping, since I didn't sleep well last night, and most of the afternoon blogging or reading Loki. We've done a little photographing and scenery-watching, too. We went through the Cascades yesterday, and this morning we passed through Glacier National Park again. We've also seen lots of cattle, a fair number of horses, some wild pronghorns, and a pretty cool ghost town.

Laura and I got out at Havre and danced a little to get the blood flowing. (On the way west, we got out at Havre and did DDR steps from memory to get our daily exercise in.) This time we were doing swing, though we had to quit and get back on the train shortly after we started. I already miss Leah and Patrick's daily dance sessions...

It's now a little after 4:30 local time, which is 5:36 Indiana time (we're changing time zones again this evening). Dinner is in either one or two hours, depending on when we actually change times. I've already had two large meals, and I've done nothing but sit around all day. I absolutely don't need to eat again.

Day 12: FRIDAY (addendum)

Okay, it's finally happened. We have Broken. It always happens at least once on every vacation, and this time, it culminated in fifteen minutes of Mom and me convulsed in breathless, tear-streaming laughter. It's been that kind of day, and one thing after another has happened, so it figured that there would have to be some kind of tension release.

We were discussing whether or not to try to track down the attendant to have him make up our beds, when the roses fell over again, right onto Dad's seat. Dad, mouth full of the pills he was trying to swallow at the time, began making desperate squawking noises that sounded a lot like “Mmmmmmmmph! Mmmmph-mmmph! MMMMMMMPPPHHH!” and which I accurately translated (thanks to the flapping motions of his arms) as “Towel! Towel!”

Of course, Dad's clothes had just about dried from the last incident when this happened. He, the pillow, and the seat were now thoroughly soaked. Two of our towels were damp as well.

Mom and I had finally reached the point of ridiculous returns, and were laughing too hard to help him blot the puddles. We then sent Dad (who was the only one wearing shoes, and train rules require shoes at all times in public areas) to fetch David, the car attendant. When he arrived we shoved Dad out in the hall to make room, while I (sitting in the only chair, and trapped in the room by luggage) became a depository for all the things that had been stacked on the bed. Mom balanced against the wall next to me, trying to stay out of the way and keep luggage from falling off of my lap while Daniel set up the bed. We were both still laughing.

Of course, things couldn't happen normally from this point on. Mom had calmed down enough to make conversation, and she happened to comment on how the previous train's berth had had a tendency to jostle itself back up into the seat position while they were trying to sleep on it. In fact, on the last train, she fell out of bed because it shifted so much. So, of course, as the attendant tries to set up the bed, it keeps popping right back up into the vertical seat back, looking suspiciously like a catapult. This set us off all over again, and we were laughing too hard to explain to David what was happening.

Finally, David took our one remaining dry towel and, while leaning on the bed with three limbs to keep it in place, wedged the towel between the seat and the wall to keep it from bouncing up again. So far, it's working. (Incidentally, this is also the technique that we and other passengers have been using to keep the walls between the adjoining compartments from rattling...)

This left us with only two pillows and no towels, so David brought us new ones and then fled before we could do any more damage. (By the way, we still have only two bottled waters.)

Dad came back, and we had to recap the whole ridiculous scene for him, which set off another fit of laughing. And then, when we finally had ourselves back under control... the neighbor's toilet began to flush. Repeatedly. Four times, I think, in a period of about three minutes (how many people are in that room?!).

I can't explain exactly why that's funny, but it is. Especially if you're in this room, discussing the downstairs toilets that have built-in fans in the wrong places, and questioning whether or not the bathrooms in your car are possessed, when it flushes with a rocket-engine sound through the wall beside your head.

So, anyway, we're back to (relative) normality now. But we're still prone to fits of giggles every time the passengers in room E flush their toilet. Somehow, I can't help feeling that I've wandered into a Marx Brothers movie.

Shoot, Mom just did it again. Sitting in the same seat where the last two water mishaps happened, she opened a bottle of water and took a drink... and managed to pour a copious amount of it down her front.

It's that seat, I'm telling you. It's haunted by a kappa. Just like the downstairs toilets.

Day 12: FRIDAY

I miss Vladimir. I miss Mahajir. I miss Patrick and Leah.

Oh, and this train is haunted.

More on that later, though. I'll begin at the beginning, which was obscenely early this morning.

Due to a time change and disembarkation procedures, we had to be up at some ungodly hour this morning when my body thought it was supposed to be asleep. I had stayed up late the previous night to pack and fill out the requisite shipboard and customs forms, so I was pretty much ready (though rather loath) to go. I woke up a little before seven (which was five, by my internal clock), got dressed, threw my last few things in my computer bag and went down to meet everyone for breakfast. We had our carry-on bags with us, as well as the gorgeous red roses that Vladimir gave us the night of the midnight buffet (they made it through customs okay, and are currently traveling with us in a plastic water bottle wedged against the wall of the train compartment).

Because of our stateroom level, we had priority disembarkation, so we didn't have to wait long before we were called to exit the ship, go through immigration and customs and claim our luggage. We had said most of our farewells to Vladimir and the rest of our service staff the night before, since we knew we wouldn't see them before we disembarked. Patrick was manning the gangway, and we stopped and said goodbye to him, too. I had Jon take a photo, which I will post with the rest whenever we get the chance to dump all the photos onto the computers and sort them (some weeks from now, I suspect)...

We left the ship a little after 9 a.m., and our train wasn't scheduled to leave until 4:30 or so, which gave us another afternoon to play around Seattle. We spent a large part of it sitting in an outdoor park (it was actually installation artwork – a fountain and benches constructed from large chunks of pillow basalt, commemorating the Pleistocene era in the Pacific northwest – and no, I'm not making that up. Seattle is SUCH an artsy city. I'd absolutely love to live there if it didn't rain so much). The time we were not sitting in the park we spent across the intersection in Uwajimaya, one of the largest Asian markets in the country. It contains a full-sized grocery, a huge food court, a Kinokuniya bookstore, a gift shop, and more.

Yes, you may have noticed the danger here. I had a six-hour layover in a place with a Kinokuniya bookstore. Wheeeee!

Actually, I think I showed remarkable restraint (mostly due to the size of my carry-on bag). I bought only three Copic markers and two volumes of Matantei Loki, and I bought those only because Mag GARDEN won't license the first series for English-language distribution and I wanted to read them in order and have the full background for Matantei Loki Ragnarok. (I also flipped through some current periodicals, like the Japanese Playstation magazine. I found some new screenshots from Advent Children and Dirge of Cerberus that I hadn't yet seen, although I'm sure they're all over the gaming sites by now. There's a great shot of Cloud and Kadaj, which is also a major spoiler. By the time the movie comes out this fall, nothing will be a surprise. We will have seen every stinking scene in the magazines and trailers!)

Of course, there was also the Asian grocery, where I bought, in addition to lunch and snacks, four bottles of Ramune and five boxes of Pocky (multiple varieties). Out of curiosity, Laura and I split a sweet red bean roll* from the bakery, and WOW. I have never tasted anything that sweet in my life – not even the super-lux cruise ship desserts I've been eating all week. It's like eating crystallized honey. As Laura (bouncing mid-air at the time) exclaimed, this certainly explains a lot about Gokuu's personality! What a sugar buzz.

Around 3:45 we headed back to King Station, and boarded the train around 45 minutes later. After the morning's hassles, we were looking forward to a chance to relax, sit back, perhaps stretch out and take a nap after the short night's sleep... Little did we know what awaited us, or we might have done our relaxing beforehand. /sigh/ Did I mention that the train is haunted?

The first and most troubling problem involved Laura and Jon's tickets. Through some mishap, they had tickets for July 4, not July 1, and so their compartment was double-booked. Since the sleeper cars were sold out, they were told that there was no place for them on the train. This meant that they had to either pay for another set of tickets and ride in coach, or get off the train and try to make their own arrangements to get home.

This was not helped by the fact that the surly conductor, Alexander, was doing everything in his power to complicate the problem. He confiscated their tickets and wouldn't even give them back so Laura and Jon could call a travel agent. (He *still* has the tickets; he didn't even give them stubs, which are their only proof that they paid for a sleeper, and they should have the stubs even if they'd used the tickets.) First he was going to put them off the train; then he offered to give them coach seats, to which they agreed. However, he took their original tickets and then informed them (after the train had already left the station) that by staying on the train, they had also agreed to forfeit the cost of their original sleeper tickets, as well as the two days' worth of meals and service that they'd paid for.

Laura didn't take that too well.

An hour later, after a number of phone calls, discussions, haggling, and MUCH frustration and hair-pulling, the word came down that the conductor, lo and behold, DID have a compartment open in the next car, and if they would pay an upgrade fee of $87, they could use it. (We're still trying to figure out what the “upgrade fee” was; Laura theorizes that it was the difference in fares between the rate at which they booked, and the more expensive rates charged at time of departure.)

Anyway, Jon paid the difference, and now they have a place to sleep. But I'm sure that Amtrak will be hearing about the trouble they went through, and the distinct lack of service on board. Especially from the conductor. (He was rude to us, too.)

That was the first of many small catastrophes. On the way west, we had a wonderful attendant named Patrick (no relation to the dancer) who anticipated our every need, and answered calls almost before we made them. Unfortunately, our sleeper car attendant on this trip, David, is not Patrick. He does not answer calls (we pulled the call button, waited ten minutes, watched him go by the room twice without responding, and finally gave up). The first thing we did when he introduced himself was ask him for a third bottle of water, since we had three people. He said, “Certainly. If you need more water, you can just let me know.” We still, as of 11:00 p.m., have only two bottles of water.

Not all of the trip's problems can be blamed on the train's staff, though. The downstairs toilets are also evil. One of them doesn't flush. Okay, I can understand a malfunction or mechanical failure; those things happen. However, toilets are NOT supposed to have an electric eye installed in the toilet bowl to have a high-powered fan blow on your backside every time the beam is broken. (That's our theory, anyway. There's certainly something weird going on with that one!)

Actually, all of the plumbing is kind of strange. We're in a more recent sleeper car than we were on the last trip, and these new sinks have push-button faucets, presumably for purposes of water conservation so you can't leave the water on too long. The problem with this is, they are not set to shut off right away... so you can push the button, lather and rinse your hands, walk to the other side of a room, get a cup, come back and fill it, and the water is still running. How is this conserving water, exactly?

Our biggest problem with water, though, has nothing to do with the plumbing. It has to do with Vladimir's roses. They're currently residing in a water bottle, the only convenient travel container that would hold three stemmed flowers. So far, they had traveled pretty well since leaving the stateroom, through breakfast on the ship (they made a nice centerpiece), through customs, in a taxi, on the luggage cart, through the train station, into the checked baggage room (yes, we checked the roses briefly while we ran around town) and then onto the train. When we got to our room, we put them in the table drink holder alongside the window The problem is, the roses are just a little top-heavy, and trains tend to go around corners... which means that the makeshift vase will randomly tip over, soaking the pants of whoever happens to be sitting next to it.

Mom was the first victim. Dad was the second. So far, I've managed to avoid the ire of the water bottle, mostly because I've been sitting in the chair on the other side of the compartment. (Although I did have a couple of things fall on my head from the luggage rack above my chair, so maybe it balances out.)

For the most part, I've been vegging since we got here. I spent the first hour or so reading Loki, and I think I'm actually doing pretty well with the translation (it's aimed at younger teenagers, so it's an easier reading level, and it has phonetic hiragana next to all the kanji I don't know). Then we went to dinner; it was New York Strip for me this time. Not bad – typical restaurant quality – but disappointing by comparison to what we've been eating all week. Plus, I really, really miss Vladimir. He would always tell me exactly what was good in the kitchen, and which items he thought I would like best. He would bring me extra entrees or desserts to sample if I couldn't make up my mind. He always knew exactly how I wanted my meat cooked. He would flit around behind our chairs and silently exchange the flatware. And he was just generally perfect, which is a really hard transition to make to a harried train waitress who doesn't know you and is trying to service eight tables at once.

After dinner, I brought what was left of my can of Pepsi and my Chocolate Bombe back to the compartment and started typing, which is where you find me now.

The dessert, at least, is good. It's almost like the cups of chocolate mousse that the waiters used to bring around after meals on deck 11...

* A soft bun stuffed with youkan, usually seen disappearing down the gullet of a ravenous anime character such as Usagi, Lirin, Son Gokuu or Miaka.

Day 11: THURSDAY

Today is our last day on the ship; we have to disembark very early on Friday. I am once again taking advantage of our private balcony, because the weather here is simply gorgeous. It's sunny, about 70 degrees, with just enough puffy white clouds in the sky to keep it from getting too hot. The sea is gray-blue and calm, with the occasional whitecap alongside the ship. We're running through a channel of what I suspect is British Columbia; the scenery consists of huge bulbous mountains – I'm guessing 800 feet or so high, but distance is deceptive over water – covered in dense evergreen forest. We pass the infrequent boat, some private vessels, others tugging huge bundles of logs down the channel.

The whole day hasn't been this sedentary, though. After breakfast, I went to my acupuncture appointment (I can now empathize with Keanu Reeves' stand-in from The Matrix, as I suspect I looked a little like a porcupine with needles in my neck, shoulders, back, hips, hands and ankles). When I was done there, I joined Laura and Jon at the dance session, which was basically a review of what we'd done in the previous three lessons. I didn't have a partner, so I got to dance one round with Patrick. Yay! I like Patrick. Not only is he nice and pleasant to talk to, but he's a brilliant dancer (and he can do things like mid-air splits five feet off the ground, which is probably how he got the job). And, for once, I actually got to dance with a partner who knows how to lead properly! We chatted for a bit about previous cruises and dancing, and Patrick improvised a nice little ending step with a turn and a dip. :) Then another man showed up alone for the class, so I had to relinquish Patrick and go dance with the other guy. He wasn't good at leading, wasn't as cute or talkative as Patrick, and had a tendency to turn me the wrong way, often into furniture. /sigh/ The transition from one partner to the other felt like shifting from a sleek new Porsche to an old VW microbus with a flat tire.

I really need to find some place to dance back home. Oh, and a dance partner would be nice. Preferably one who doesn't smack me in the head on turns or step on my feet during travels.

After the lesson we chatted for about 15 minutes with Leah, the dance captain and the one who (along with Patrick) has been teaching our classes all week. She's very personable; we've talked with her before, after our previous dance classes. We told her how much we'd enjoyed the classes, and what a great job the dancers had done in the production shows. We spent some time sharing stories about failed dance moves and other things that go wrong during stage performances. She said, as we had suspected, that the jumps are the most dangerous to do on a moving vessel because you never know where the floor will be when you come back down. (The daughter of one of Mom's friends worked as a dancer on a cruise line, and she did some serious damage to her foot when she landed wrong on a rocking stage.)

After that, we went and played the last round of Battle of the Sexes trivia. Laura and I helped the women bounce back and win (though at the semifinals, women and men were only one point apart. We won on the final question!).

After that I wandered out to look at scenery, then returned to the room to pack. Our luggage has to be out of the room to be checked by 11 p.m., which is only just after tonight's show ends, so we have to pack everything we're not wearing tonight in advance.

Of course, I got sidetracked by the nice weather and scenery, so Minekura and I are out on the balcony instead of inside packing... :)

Tonight's dinner is casual, and the last show of the cruise will consist of the obnoxious comedian, a performance by Sustained (the a capella group), and excerpts of the video filmed on the ship this week (available for preorder tonight, only $19.95!). Mom and Dad are positive that Laura and I are in the video, because the woman with the camera was following us around the dance floor during swing dancing and the sock hop.

Oh, we're passing a little port now. It looks mostly industrial, with a few barges and a couple of empty piers. Someone is wavehopping on a speed boat about a quarter mile out from our ship. Mom spotted some orcas earlier today, but I haven't seen any marine life since the humpback whales a few days ago.

I'm going to miss this scenery when I get back to Indiana...

Day 10: WEDNESDAY

I have never seen Ketchikan when it wasn't raining. Neither, I suspect, have many Ketchikan natives. The city gets approximately fourteen to fifteen FEET of rain per year. Raindrops are the only thing in the sky more plentiful than sea planes, which are only slightly higher in number than the bald eagles that kept dive-bombing the boats and pier.

We hadn't planned any specific excursions for this port, so we rode the tender in and wandered around for a little while, more for sightseeing than for shopping. Within a few minutes, we were drenched. My hair, jacket and two layers of clothing were soaked through before we reached Creek Street (the heart of the tourist district, so named because it is built on pilings over a small river).

Our trip was fairly uneventful, except for dealing with a very snarky and rude shopkeeper who violated federal law right in front of us when she threw a disabled woman out of her shop because she had an assistance dog with her.

Bad move, lady. Particularly when there are two professional dog trainers as witnesses. Compounded by insulting said trainers and using foul language when one of them tries to explain federal disability requirements. Even worse when those trainers are in touch with over 4,500 other trainers and animal professionals around the world, and can spread news very quickly via the Internet. Furthermore, we know that such a violation, reported to the proper authorities, could result in up to a $25,000 fine...

The short version is that we left the shop (without buying the jewelry we were considering) and hung out with the disabled woman and her dog to make her feel better. We reported the rude and ADA-violating shop owner to the ship's shopping director, who will likely be having a nice chat with the owner on the next trip to Ketchikan (you don't ruin a paying cruise customer's day and get away with it!), and Laura and I have written letters to send to the Feds and various assistance dog organizations. The shop owner, despite what she told us, has not heard the last of this.

By the way, the shop is called Storm Island. If you ever have occasion to visit Ketchikan, I encourage you to join us in boycotting it.

After dealing with that unpleasant situation, we waited in the rain for the tender back to the ship. We ate lunch on deck 11, watching more than a dozen bald eagles vie with little sea planes for airspace near our ship. One of the eagles was still a juvenile, and had the gorgeous gold-and-brown pattern over its entire body. They're so pretty in that stage, before the white feathers grow in on their heads and tails... Unfortunately, they were circling too far away to get a good picture, and when they came near the windows they were moving too fast to photograph.

After lunch, I wandered to the other end of the ship and made an acupuncture appointment for the next day (hey, it works for dogs; I'll try it).

Then Laura and I joined Mom and Dad at Battle of the Sexes trivia. This has been going on all week, with the score carrying over from day to day. When we joined the game, the men were ahead, but that's because Dad has been playing and we haven't. :) Laura and I contributed some answers, got outvoted on some, and learned a few things we hadn't known. The questions are straight out of Trivial Pursuit, all categories. I'm not that great at Sports, but I'm pretty good at some of the others.

We had a little time before dinner, so I worked on one of the daily crossword puzzles for a bit before getting dressed. It was the second formal night, but I was wearing a full-coverage dress and keeping my hair down, so there really wasn't anything I had to do to get ready except change clothes and jewelry, brush out my hair and dab a little Chanel #5 behind each ear. Poof! In ten minutes, I'm ready for dinner. :)

I was torn between the salmon and the fillet mignon. I finally went with the salmon, because I'd had beef the previous night.

After dinner, we went to the third big production show, A Touch of Broadway, which consisted of excerpts from various musicals: The Producers, Crazy for You, Hairspray, Contact, Cabaret, and The Lion King. It was by far the best of the three shows, mostly because there was a point to it. :) The singers were very good, and showed off their versatility (switching between Hairspray and Cabaret is serious stylistic whiplash). The dancers, as usual, were incredible. This show had a ton of lifts and jumps that are doubtless incredibly dangerous to do on a moving ship. We were sitting in the center of the front row, and I think I saw Patrick wink at us from stage during the bows. It's nice to get to know people working on the ship. :)

After the show, we returned to the stateroom, and I started packing (I don't want to think about leaving yet, but I know what last-minute panic is like) while waiting for the midnight buffet. Tonight was the Grand Buffet, which for some people is worth the entire cruise just to see the thing. Ice sculptures, chocolate paintings, lutes made of bread, peacocks and phoenixes made of fruit and vegetables, roast turkeys decorated with scenes of vegetable fish and seaweed, and more things you can't begin to imagine until you've seen it. All of it is at least partially edible. Laura and Dad went down early to photograph the buffet, since it's open for photos for half an hour before you can eat.

At about 12:15, when the doors opened, we went through and stuffed ourselves shamelessly. (Like we needed more food!) The beef wellington was excellent. The smoked salmon was delicious. The desserts were deadly. Yum.

Toward the end of the buffet, when the culinary masterpieces were beginning to be removed, we ran into Vladimir (our regular waiter, who is great). We talked and joked with him for a few minutes, and Laura took a photo with him. Then he surprised us by bringing roses for each of us, taken from one of the buffet displays. Awwww...

We were in port in Canada for a while tonight, but we weren't allowed to disembark. It's just to satisfy the U.S. maritime requirements, which stipulate that a ship of a foreign registry cannot travel between two U.S. ports unless the final destination is a foreign port. Since it is vastly cheaper for ships to hire foreign workers at lower pay and not have to follow U.S. regulations for emissions and environmental impact, nearly all cruise ships are registered in foreign countries. The Mercury is registered in Nassau; the Century was registered in Liberia. I can't remember what our Princess and Norwegian ships used. Of all the lines I've traveled, only Delta Queen had domestic registries, and that's because all of their travel is within U.S. boundaries. (They also charge more for their cruises to pay for it.)

Tomorrow is our last day on the ship, and it's spent at sea. I'm going to get poked with sharp pointy things, and dance one last time, and try to enjoy the little time left I have on the ship as much as I can.

Day 9: TUESDAY

Time: 12:58 a.m.
Location: Stateroom 9138
Physical condition: Slightly elevated body temperature; fatigued muscles; blistered feet; mad endorphin rush.

More on that later.

First, let me start with this morning's events. After approximately two and a half hours of sleep, I dragged myself slowly out of bed and got dressed to go see the Hubbard glacier. The glacier, a huge blue monstrosity that abruptly walls the ocean off from the mountains on either side, is roughly six miles wide and 300 feet tall, and most ships consider it a good day if they can get within half a mile of it. (Icebergs and weather conditions often prevent close viewing.)

Today was a good day for glacier viewing, by which you should understand that it was cold, windy, and occasionally raining on us. (Sun bleaches out the glacier's true color, so it's best to see it on an overcast day.) Hundreds of passengers huddled on the decks, wrapped in sweatshirts and wool blankets, watching intently to catch sight of the glacier calve into icebergs.

When I went out on deck, I was of course impressed by the length and height of the glacier – and then I discovered that we were still over half a mile away, and the huge cliff face that towered over the water was actually more than twice the height of our ship.

Oh.

Because of the unusually clear (of icebergs) water and fairly cooperative weather, our ship was actually able to creep up to within 1,200 feet (¼ mile) of the glacier – the closest it has ever been! During our hour-long observation we saw some impressive activity, too; chunks of ice that from our ship looked relatively small, but were actually the height of a five-story building, broke off with the distinctive gunshot-like sound of calving. Fissures opened in the ice, and small pieces shattered or exploded in the ocean (air pockets in the ice will sometimes cause the piece to burst when it hits the water). One impressive sight was the steady flow of fresh meltwater that jets out into the ocean from beneath the glacier – an underwater waterfall that is at least 150 feet wide, and juts out into the sea with ripples like a firehose into a swimming pool.

Glacier-watching occupied us for the first part of the morning, but even after our extended stay, when we began to pull away from the ice mountain, it was only a little after 8:00 a.m. I went back to the stateroom, pulled the covers over my head, and went back to sleep for several more hours.

I got up after 12:00, showered and dressed, grabbed a very quick lunch upstairs, then dragged Dad to the salsa lessons. We were a couple minutes late, but Leah caught us up quickly on what we'd missed. Laura, Jon, Dad and I practiced salsa for an hour (it's fun and easy! You should do it, too!), then wandered off to do our own thing for the remainder of the afternoon. For me, that was doing laundry in our stateroom sink, waiting while the repairmen came and went (our electronic safe was on the fritz, and then my bed refused to fold up properly), and then reading my current book (Good Omens, by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett) until dinner.

After dinner, we went to the show, which was an incredibly lame set by a foul-mouthed comedian whose material consisted primarily of fart imitations and the sexual deficiency of the elderly. The worst part was that most of the audience was roaring with laughter. Honestly, I don't understand why people think this is funny. I was utterly repulsed.

Fortunately, we didn't have to end on that note, because it was '50s Night. We went from the show to a musical trivia contest (identifying song and artist from a brief sound clip). Laura and I earned bonus points for our team “for creative choreography” because we danced during the song clips, but it was Dad who won the contest and earned us the free Celebrity Cruises T-shirts. We could have predicted this; my father's knowledge of '50s and '60s music is practically encyclopedic. Give him any song from those decades, and he can tell you title, artist, record label, year (sometimes month) of release, and often how the song fared on the radio charts. It's not that he's a huge fan; he just grew up in that era, and he never forgets ANYTHING. (I inherited the half of that talent that retains utterly useless information, as you may have noticed. Unfortunately, I don't remember the things I'm supposed to. I can tell you that the Beach Boys recorded on Capitol Records, and that Arnold Palmer's birthday is September 10, 1929, but I have no idea what the mileage on my tires is or when I last changed my air filter.)

After the trivia contest was the 1950s sock hop. Laura and I dashed upstairs to change (we were still dressed semi-formal from dinner), then came back to dance, because we hadn't done enough of that on this trip. :) Top Secret was playing covers of '50s and early '60s songs. We freestyled for a while, then started a Fosse dance line and were quickly joined by ship dancers Patrick and John. Tons of fun!

Gradually the other passengers and dancers faded off the floor, leaving only the four of us dancing (Jon was upstairs with a headache). We held the floor alone until the band shut down, except for the thirty-second bursts when a group of teenagers would dare each other to go dance, and they'd rush out, wave their arms around, and rush back off the dance floor as if the spotlights would cause them to spontaneously combust. I don't know what they were worried about. By the end of the set, we were exhausted and dragging, but still having way too much fun to step off the floor.

According to Mom, who alternated dancing with photographing from the sidelines, most of the people in the room stayed just to watch us dance. Dad once again stole the show, both with his superior Twist talents, and because he repeatedly performed the signature Chuck Berry duckwalk (no easy feat on a rocking ship!) The ultimate compliment came at the end of the evening, when one of the sk8ter boys caught him on the way out and said, “Man, you got some moves!” Not many men of 55 years would be able to impress a bunch of 16-year-olds in wallet chains and baggy drop shorts.

My family is so awesome. :)

Day 8: MONDAY

I am writing this at 1:15 a.m. local time, which is 4:15 a.m. in Indiana. (Very disorienting to see the clock in the corner of the screen...) Our ship, which spent the day in the shelter of a fjord, has returned to the open ocean and is now experiencing the full effect of the waves. The entire ship is swaying dramatically, and every few seconds I have to lean one direction or the other to stay upright. It's a gentle rocking, not enough to make one seasick (although I'm not one to ask, as I've never had a problem with motion sickness), but it does remind you where you are. Despite appearances, it's not a luxury resort. It's just a big, pretty boat out in the middle of the ocean. Carrying tons and tons of food. :)

Today was very busy. Our port of call today was Skagway, Alaska, a town that largely owes its existence to (and played a huge role in) the 1898 Klondike Gold Rush. We had purchased tickets a year in advance to ride the narrow-gauge White Pass & Yukon Railroad. We rose fairly early, because we had to eat and meet the train by 9:15.

The history of the train system itself is fascinating. I won't recount all of it here (I think there's a website, something like www.wpyr.com, where you could get the whole story), but here are a few highlights:

Over 20,000 men were employed over two years to clear the way for the tracks. This involved blasting through solid granite mountain walls, carving out tunnels, and constructing bridges – one of which was, at the time, the largest in the world. (The whole project has since been recognized as an International Historic Civil Engineering Landmark, one of the thirty-six greatest engineering feats in the world, along with the Eiffel Tower, Statue of Liberty, and Panama Canal.) The men worked year-round in unimaginable conditions, such as dangling off cliffs by a rope and working in actual temperatures of 60 degrees below zero (wind chill was considerably lower). Laborers were paid 30 cents per hour, but could only work one hour at a time, or else their bodies would freeze. Amazingly, despite the life-threatening conditions, there were only about 35 deaths among the workers during construction.

The train originally carried supplies and cargo into the mountains for the gold rush crowd. After the gold fever died down, the railway was used during the 20^th century to carry ore and metals. In 1982, when world metal values dropped, the company suspended use of the railway. A few years later, it was refitted and opened as a tourist attraction.

The train is really the only way, short of long-distance backpacking through restricted park territory, to get into the mountains along the White Pass trail (the longer but less steep alternative to the famous Chilkoot Pass trail – see the works of Jack London or any famous gold rush photos for more info). Not only is the scenery breathtaking – jagged sawtoothed mountains, glaciers, a waterfall that cascades 6,000 feet (that's over a mile!) down the mountain, wildflowers, mountain goats, and more – but you can still see the trail that was tramped down by tens of thousands of hopeful, but ultimately doomed, gold-seekers. Artifacts line the way; broken shovels, wooden crates and old tools are still visible along the trail, even from the tracks on the other side of the valley. Saddest of all are the bleached horse bones along the aptly-named Dead Horse Gulch, which claimed the lives of over 3,000 horses – some of whom, overburdened and driven hard, willingly walked off the cliff to their deaths rather than continue up the mountain carrying nearly their own weight in supplies.

For a history nut like me, the three-hour, 48-mile train ride was fascinating. Everyone seemed to have a good time. Dad spent at least two hours out on the platform between cars, taking photographs of the scenery. Jon took approximately 250 photos with his digital camera. Even Hannah and Gracie, the young LaVier children, oohed and aahed at the dozens of pretty little waterfalls we passed.

After the train brought us back to the dock, Laura and I set out on foot for Skagway (which is about half a mile from the pier). We spent some time in the National Park Service museum, which documents many aspects of the Gold Rush with period photographs and artifacts, then browsed a couple of shops. In early afternoon, we returned to the ship for lunch and, more importantly, water! It had gotten fairly hot during the day.

After lunch, we settled in with our respective books for a little reading and lounging as the ship turned around and headed out of the channel (a trip of about six hours). We wanted to be someplace we could see outside, because we'd been told that the scenery on the fjord was spectacular (and it was!). The upper decks were both crowded and windy, so we used the chairs on our private balcony and propped our feet up on the tables. We read, interspersed with moments of looking at the mountains and admiring the blue glaciers. After an hour or so, we gave up on reading altogether to watch the humpback whales, who were apparently lounging close beneath the surface of the extraordinarily calm water. We saw about a dozen whales breach and spout over the course of an hour.

Then came dinner – semiformal night; Mom ate lamb, Laura ate steak, I ate roasted quail – and after that, the much-touted Swing Train show. This was purportedly a marriage of train imagery and swing music from different parts of the country. I was looking forward to the show, because I love swing dancing, and you probably know by now how our family feels about trains.

Unfortunately, cruise shows can't stick to a theme to save their proverbial sterns. There were, indeed, two songs in the hour-long show that might have had their roots in swing. And there were a couple songs that had to do with trains – “Chattanooga Choo-Choo,” “Midnight Train to Georgia,” and “Love Train,” to name a few. (Did I mention that this was advertised as a swing show?) There were also such classic swing/train tunes as Santana's “Smooth,” Ricky Martin's “She Bangs,” and a host of forgettable songs about New Orleans. Um... right.

Disappointing, really. Still, the dancing was very good. I've been pretty impressed with the performers themselves; they do a nice job. And tonight's show was a perfectly decent variety show – just not one that should be called “Swing Train.”

After the show, Mark, Cindy, Laura, Jon and I retired to the LaViers' suite to play cards for an hour. We were waiting for Motown Night to be over so we could go dancing. Finally the time came, and we headed up to the nightclub for some pseudo-clubbing action. The music, unfortunately, was still lame – in fact, it was the exact same track list the DJ had played during the '70s retro night. There were a lot of people dancing, and most of them looked drunk. /sigh/

Fortunately, he was taking requests, and we put in (at Cindy's suggestion) “Jump, Jive and Wail,” which he played – eventually – after a set of bad '80s songs. Laura and Jon cleared the dance floor when they started swing dancing, as other dancers realized they were outclassed. There were collective cheers from the entire club as they twirled and performed lifts. When they slipped on the metal floor and went down during a move(smoothly and without injury), everyone gasped, then cheered when they just popped back up and continued dancing. That song was such a success that the DJ followed it with another swing number, which Jon and I danced (with slightly less flair, both because Jon was getting tired and because I rarely dance with Jon, and therefore am not as good a match as Laura).

After a couple of dances, Mark and Cindy bailed and went back to their room to get some sleep. Jon left shortly thereafter. Laura and I stayed, stunning the (slightly inebriated) nightclub crowd and eliciting (somewhat lubricated) cheers and praises for our interpretive dance. We took down our hair and head-banged to the '80s rock songs; we danced pseudo-flamenco to the Latin numbers; we dutifully performed line dances to the Macarena and the Cha-Cha Slide; we even performed a mock sit-in to a slow Bob Dylan song (no, I don't know why he played it, either. Somebody requested it). By the end of the session, we were tired but energized. And, predictably, we were attracting a fan base. I was asked to dance by an overly-friendly man who smelled strongly of cigars, and blatantly ignored his none-too-subtle compliments during the half song I danced with him. He bowed out after that song, and I went back to dancing with Laura.

And the same guy from the previous dance session was there, and he promised to see us tomorrow at salsa dance lessons. Hmm. You know, I'm sure that Dad wants to learn how to dance salsa... yes, that's it... I'll take Dad tomorrow. (At least Dad can dance, when he wants to; it will be a far more productive session.)

The nightclub song list only went downhill after Bob Dylan, and around 1:00 Laura and I retired to our rooms long enough to pack up our laptops and go scout out an open lounge. That's where I came in on this report. Laura has been alternating between working on Kingcraft V and editing effects on her Nightwish AMV. I've been blogging, and occasionally watching her video and offering suggestions.

Anyhow, it's now 3:03 a.m., and we're supposed to be up tomorrow morning by 6:30 to see the Hubbard Glacier (we'll only be close to it for about half an hour before turning and heading on to Ketchikan). At this point, I'm debating going to bed at all... But I should really get some sleep. After all, I have salsa dancing lessons tomorrow.

Day 7: SUNDAY

I am VEEERRRRY tired, so I will write as much as I can remember about today before I fall asleep...

Woke up a little late (compared to what I've been doing the past several days). I blame that on the late hours and physical exertion of the previous night. I went straight to swing dance lessons (I already know how to swing dance, but it's always good to stay in practice). Laura and Jon met me there. Anyone who has ever seen them dance knows that they don't need any lessons either, but they were going for fun and practice as well. As luck would have it, I ended up partnered with a guy who had seen me dancing in the nightclub the night before, and he was more than happy to be my partner.

They're everywhere. Apparently my repel-vibes aren't strong enough.

He also wasn't much of a dancer – which is forgivable, I guess – and I spent the entire hour showing him how the steps went, and where he was supposed to be leading me. I completely lost him on the sugars; that was the point at which I gave up trying. (He invited me to join him at '80s Retro Night tonight, but I'm afraid I didn't make it.)

From there, we went to lunch. While we were eating, the ship docked at Juneau, and after lunch we arranged to go haunt the downtown tourist district for a while. We drifted through cheesy souvenir shops and visited the Red Dog Saloon (now in its third “original location” in eight years), but didn't really get out of the heart of Touristville. (I bought postcards and stickers for Darwin, and... oh, yeah, I bought more books. I've lost count of how many I've bought on this trip. From my bed right now, I can see five paperbacks; I know I left two more in Laura and Jon's room, and there may be more in my briefcase. At least I'm not going to run out of reading matter anytime soon.)

I had to come back early from Juneau because I had an appointment for a massage in the AquaSpa. Although it costs two and a half times here what it does at home for a massage, I really needed it. And, forty-five minutes later, I was able to stand up straight for the first time in three days. Nice feeling. Everything still hurts like mad, but now it's only sore muscles – not the tearing and grinding that's been going on for several days now. I'm physically trashed, though. I just want to sleeeeeep....

Of course, more than half of the sore muscles can be attributed to the dancing. Four consecutive dance sessions in two days (two of them in four-inch heels) are not kind to the body when the body is used to dancing approximately, oh, twice a year. But it's a good kind of pain. :)

After the massage I had to run back and shower before we went to the salmon bake. The Gold River Salmon Bake is one of only two shore excursions we booked in advance, because we've done it before and it's wonderful. Despite being right in Juneau, the setting is rustic, within 50 yards of an abandoned gold mine and the gorgeous waterfall that once powered the air pumps and electric lights for the mine. It also involves food, of course, which is the real draw. :) Fresh salmon, grilled over an open flame, drizzled with a brown sugar glaze. Baked beans and reindeer sausage. Caesar salad with flaked salmon. Homemade cole slaw and seasoned wild rice. Barbecued ribs and chicken. Honey cornbread. Blueberry cake. Yum...

So, anyway, we ate until we nearly made ourselves sick, then waddled back to the ship. We staked out a row of chaise lounges and read on deck for an hour or two, watching the late Juneau sunset (it was still daylight at 10:00 p.m. when we had to go inside). Then we went down to the theatre for the evening's performance, which involved a juggler/physical comedian (who was actually quite funny!) and a world-renowned hammer dulcimer player, who performed accompanied by his 12-year-old daughter on piano. He was absolutely incredible. I'm always stunned by people who can play the hammer dulcimer, because of the precision and exact control needed to strike one of more than 130 strings in just the right spot. In addition to an amazing traditional hammer performance, this musician also incorporated pizzicato and percussion on the instrument.

After the show ended, we dragged ourselves back upstairs. There were lots of events scheduled tonight that should have been LAST night, when we were looking for something to do – '80s night (which, while still not the perfect theme, would have been better than yet another repetition of “Night Fever” or “Disco Inferno” last night in the nightclub), the party band Top Secret playing in another club (they're fun to dance to) – but unfortunately, we're all so trashed that we all just want to go fall over. The only reason I'm still awake to type this is because Dad is reading a magazine, and has the light on. Mom's been asleep for twenty minutes.

I should probably end here and give in to the urge to fall asleep, because we're scheduled to pull into Skagway at 7:00 a.m. (only 6 hours from now!) and we have to meet our guide for the narrow-gauge railway trip shortly after 9:00.

Blah. I don't want to get up early...

Day 6: SATURDAY

Internet access from the ship costs 75 cents per minute, so I doubt I'll be able to post any of this before I get home. Ah, well... I'll keep writing, anyway.

Today is pretty darn cold. This is our first full day at sea, far away from land (though Dad and I finally spotted an island at about 11:30 a.m.). That means we're feeling a little more motion than usual, and the weather is a little harsher. I had planned to spend part of the afternoon out on deck or on our stateroom balcony, reading a book, but as it's only about 50 degrees with 25+ mph wind... I'm staying inside.

This morning I got up to attend a golf seminar. I figured I ought to learn something about the game, considering my father's proficiency. That way, if I ever have occasion to be around other golfers, I won't be quite as much of an embarrassment to him. :)

We had skipped breakfast, so from the seminar, we went to the buffet on deck 11 (there's always food being served somewhere on this ship!) and had brunch. Currently, I'm vegging in my stateroom, exercising my right to do nothing at all as I please. :) Next on the schedule is a seminar on acupuncture and Oriental medicine, followed by cha-cha dance lessons in the nightclub. I'm also considering going to the AquaSpa for some massage or relaxation treatments (I did something nasty to my shoulder while carrying luggage, and it's been bothering me for a few days. I'm sure it's not helped by sleeping in cramped spaces and abusing my body like I have been).

Tonight is the first formal night, which involves dinner and the nightly revue, as well as the Captain's Gala Toast (my second glass of champagne this year; the first was yesterday, at boarding) and other excuses to run around the ship in fancy clothes and be photographed.

Saturday, Cont'd. (late night entry)

Met Laura for lunch at the Asian buffet and discussed acupuncture, then went to cha-cha lessons... wow, talk about a workout. My abs and hip flexors are going to be sore for weeks. After that we went to the AquaSpa and sat in on the end of a makeup/bronzing seminar (mostly an excuse for us to sit on the exercise balls). Then I went back to the room and stretched out across Mom and Dad's bed to try to stretch my right shoulder, which didn't exactly work. I took a shower and got ready for formal night.

We had dinner, and posed for photographs, and Laura and I stunned people with our unique dresses (no tripping waiters or heart attacks this time, though!). She wore her red designer dress from Spain; I wore the blue pants/train thing with the open bodice and front.

After dinner we went to the Captain's Gala Toast, where I sampled champagne and red and white wines before finally getting a Coke because everything else was too dry to drink. :-P Following that was a good, albeit fairly typical, performance of award-winning songs from movies and Broadway shows.

Post-show, Laura, Jon and I wandered through lounges in search of something to do. We wanted to dance, but there were only two places to do it – one was the slow, fall-asleep-while-swaying-to-the-music couples dance in the central lounge, and the other was the '70s Disco Party in the nightclub. Neither of those was really our speed. We tried to get Mark LaVier to come out and play cards with us, but he had already changed for bed, and took a rain check on the partying.

Finally, after wandering the ship for an hour, we returned to Laura and Jon's room and decided to watch Kare Kano. But first we wanted some appetizers (the midnight buffets of old have been replaced by waiters with trays of nibbles wandering around public lounges), so we went back out in search of food. As if we needed any more to eat...

The first place we looked was in the nightclub, which was deep in the middle of the '70s Disco Party. As we entered, Rick James' “Superfreak” came on, and Laura and I – being our own silly selves – started improvising goofy dance steps to what we initially thought was MC Hammer's “You Can't Touch This” (the two songs have the identical intro, because Hammer shamelessly stole the backbeat).

That was the beginning of the end.

An hour later, after exhausting every danceable song from the 1970s, entertaining the DJ to no end, starting our own dance line to a Village People song, getting half the room out of their chairs and on the dance floor, and completely pulverizing our feet in the process (we were both wearing 4-inch heels), we finally quit dancing and headed back to the stateroom.

We watched two episodes of Kare Kano and then called the party on account of exhaustion.