Alaskan Trip Journal Part 1

The following is a journal of my vacation to Alaska. I started out writing at random times then at the end I was doing daily entries to make it easier.

5/23/10 11:36PM

We are on the train and rolling. Mike and I got to get on the train early because we were traveling together. We also got to each have our own row because the train is not going to be full. That will definitely make the ride much more comfortable, and we won’t have to fight over the window. The people in front of Mike and I can’t seem to find their tickets or the stubs with our destination that we were given when we got on. They are really stressing out about it. Its funny to watch two grown adults searching every nook and cranny for these little stubs. The guy across the aisle from me has taken his shirt off. Its just weird to see something like that. He is as large as I am if not even larger, and he is just sitting there trying to sleep with no shirt on. That’s awkward for everyone, and its actually not all that warm on the train. I am really enjoying looking out the window. Its dark out but I can still see lots of things as we are not that far out of the Cities.

5/24/10 12:45AM

The pair in front of us finally found their little slips and seem extremely proud of themselves for finding them. We have just left the first stop since getting on the ride, in St. Cloud. I read my book most of the time since my last entry in this journal. I am enjoying it a lot so far(Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter). I am a little apprehensive about using the bathrooms on the train because I am not sure what I should expect from them. I am sure I will go before I try to sleep. I am currently watching the lightning ahead of us which looks really cool against the surrounding darkness. I am the only one in my train car that has a light still on, its not that late and I am not all that tired right now.

5/24/10 3:50AM

We just stopped in Fargo, ND. The rain was pouring like crazy. I feel bad for the people who had to walk through it and then sit on the train for hours on end. Like an idiot I left my sweatshirt in my checked bag so I am quite cold sitting on the train trying to get to sleep. I really hope I get some more sleep tonight.

5/24/10 9:12AM

I guess I got a little sleep here and there. I knew I would be very dehydrated by the time this train trip was over. I drank a lot of water after playing tennis with my dad the day of leaving, but most of that ran right through me. There is water on the train, but it has a taste to it. I am not quite sure exactly what that taste is, but in my opinion water should not have a taste. I might adventure into the lounge car soon to see what it is all about. I was not expecting to sleep all that much on this train ride. I have not yet seen the sun on this trip. It is still solid cloud cover and we recently passed Minot, ND. There was a lot of cool lightning to watch last night.

5/24/10 2:29PM

I have been sleeping on and off since my last entry. We just passed through Chinook, MT according to the town’s water tower their school mascot is the sugar beeters. I am not even sure what that means. Do they beat people with beets or what? We are now into Mountain Time.

5/24/10 4:08PM

Border Patrol comes onto the train for a surprise inspection in Havre, MT. Two in the front of our car are removed from the train because they did not have valid papers or something. All the agents asked me was if I was a US Citizen, I said yes and he moved on.

5/24/10 8:07PM

We are going through Glacier National Park. There is a ton of snow on the mountain tops. You can see the remnants of trees that remain from the most recent forest fire they went through. We have officially passed the continental divide and are more than halfway to Seattle.

5/24/10 9:00PM

The first glimpse I have had of the sun all day is as it peeks through the clouds while setting. Such a sneaky bastard.

5/25/10 5:10PM

Today started with the final leg of the Empire Builder. Mike and I arrived in Seattle about half an hour before we had originally been scheduled to do so. We were unsure how to get to the light rail while staring at the map a man offered to show us the way. We had a good talk with him while walking a few blocks. The man had been through some unfortunate events so of course I gave him a generous tip.

Some of the light-rail stations are cool; they are under street level and are a combination of bus stations and light rail stations right in the same area. I guess it uses the most of limited space. We took the light-rail from there to the Airport. We needed to find some place to store our bags before we would go explore Seattle. We didn’t really feel like carrying around duffel bags all day. We found a place at the airport to store them, even if it was for a fairly expensive price.

We hopped back onto the light rail and rode it all the way to the other end of the line. We got to go past Safeco Field, but didn’t get out to look at it. Of course it sprinkled on and off for some of our ride, but that’s what I would expect from Seattle. At the end of the line we went to the surface, which put us in the middle of a mall. Looking outside there was a nice pedestrian mall that we could have gone down, but I saw a sign for Pike’s Place Market and we headed that way, it was only a few blocks away. We wandered through the market seeing all sorts of interesting knick knacks that were available. We sampled some perfectly ripe peaches in the market, definitely can’t get peaches like that in Wisconsin.

We picked a seafood place that was in the market. It was a little expensive, but its vacation so it was tolerable. After lunch we wandered the lower levels of the market. After which we decided to go back to the mall and hop on the monorail. I was unaware that the monorail only has 2 stops on it. The science fiction hall of fame and some music museum were actually built right around the monorail which was definitely interesting. We exited the monorail at the Space Needle. We got out and examined the Space Needle up close. We decided not to go up because of the price. We took some pictures around it. We then went into the museums to just check them out, but once again we didn’t pay to go in.

We were kind of tired from all of the walking around after not having been on our feet much for a day and a half. We took the monorail back to the mall then went down like 4 or 5 levels to the light-rail and rode that back to the airport. We got our duffle bags, checked them then waded through security. By the time we got to our gate we were about 2 hours early. We had to take a little underground train to our gate.

The Seattle Airport has free wifi available so Mike and I were glad to use that. We watched some of the Twins game on Mike’s laptop while we let everything charge on the few outlets that we could find. We had to hop back onto the train to take us back to the main terminal because our gate was changed at the last minute. The plane didn’t begin boarding until well after the scheduled time but we made up for that time in the air because there was a strong wind on our side. Mike and I worked on a crossword puzzle in the in flight magazine most of the flight, time went by pretty quickly.

We landed in Ketchikan and grabbed our bags. The airport there is actually on a different island than the city so everyone has to take a ferry across to the other side which costs 5 bucks each. It sounds like a racket to me, but I paid anyway. Our mom picked us up and Mike’s girlfriend Kendall was there waiting for us as well. We went back to the apartment had some delicious Hawaiian Pizza and relaxed the night away.

5/26/10

Got up at about 8am and I woke up naturally which is always good. Mom had made some of her whole wheat pancakes that only have natural sugars in them. I had some strawberries and a banana with them. It was a great way to start the day. Mike got up a bit after I did and we waited until a little after 10 to leave the apartment and start our sightseeing tour. The first thing we did was drop the dog off to get a bath.

We went to a wilderness area as far to the northeast on the island as the roads would take us. I can’t remember the name of the place we went. It had trails going off in different directions and some paths going down towards the water. When we were there the tide was fairly low so we were able to see all sorts of different things exposed on the rocks that might have otherwise been underwater. There were a great many tiny little mussels out of the water. There was also a lot water plants on the rocks that made them somewhat slippery to walk on. The coolest thing that we saw here were some purple star fish or sea stars depending on what you want to call them. They have both purple and orange sea stars in the area.

After that we went along one of the trails toward a waterfall. We went on a bridge that went over the water coming from the waterfall. Apparently people come to bridges like this all over the island to watch bears catch salmon, when the salmon are going up stream so they can spawn. One of the plants growing in the forest is known as skunk cabbage because of the terrible smell that it gives off when the stalks are broken. Bears eat it to clear themselves out after hibernating. There is another plant called Devil’s Club that is the only thorny plant in the forest. It is known for its medicinal properties and how it was used by the native people as a cure for many things. We hiked back up a bit of hill to the end of the road. From there we followed the road back to the parking lot where we had started.

The next stop along the way was a place known as Totem Bight. This is a place where they have started recreating totems in the fashions of the natives. There is also a clan house here where different types of gatherings would be held including dances. Little known fact that I may have blogged about before: the lowest thing on a totem pole is the most important, which is contrary to the phrase low man on the totem pole.

The first day there we could not have had better weather. It was dry and in the mid 70’s. Ketchikan is part of a rain forest so it rains most days at some point. Most people think of tropical rainforests when they hear rainforest, but this is a temperate rainforest.

We went down to the tourist district of town right near the docks for lunch. I had some sort of seafood medley for lunch, I don’t remember exactly what was in it, but it was good. After lunch we walked down to an area called Creek Street, which is used to contain all sorts of shops, saloons and bordellos back in the olden days of Ketchikan. A back path down the side of the hill to get to this area is known as Married Man’s Way because married men used to sneak out at night and come down the hill for different types of pleasures.

Most Alaskan cruises stop in Ketchikan, usually either the first stop or the last stop on the voyage. There is a large population of people who come to town just to work different jobs during the tourist season. My step father works as a driver for one of the cruise lines. He drives people to do different activities on the island. Mike’s girlfriend Kendall works giving different tours at different locations around the island.

We went back to the apartment to relax the rest of the day. From the front windows of the apartment you can see right out onto the narrows. There are sailboat races going on as I write this. Someone my mom works with participates in these. Barges have to bring in all the groceries for the island, so everything is a little bit more expensive. An empty barge left pretty recently. There are so many seaplanes in the area that take tourists on “flightseeing tours” all around the area.

We got to watch the Twins game on ESPN which ended up being a disappointing loss to the Yankees. It is really hard to stay up late in Alaska because there is nothing on tv that late. I really think I would be able to live in the Pacific Time zone or the Alaskan Time zone, because I can watch everything I want to watch in a night then get to bed at a reasonable hour.