Marcia’s First Trip To Disneyland

October 5, 2008 · Filed Under Entertainment, Vacation · Comments 

This weekend we took a trip to Disneyland with a group of friends from work and we drug our action junkie friend Marcia along for the ride, too. It was Marcia’s first trip ever to Disneyland. Now, before you think she’s lived a sheltered life, you need to realize she was born in Minnesota, now lives in Las Vegas and has been to California 2 times in her life. Once to San Diego and once to Santa Barbara Santa Monica. Believe me, she’s anything but sheltered.

The trip started out by me taking the day off on Friday. Chris, the kids and I left early for Cali. Marcia was working, so we flew her in and picked her up at the airport in Long Beach. It may sound crazy to have done it this way, but it was the only way for us to be able to get there in time to go to Captain Kidd’s for dinner on Friday. In our minds, it was totally worth it. Plus, this allowed us time to get the kids over to Grandma’s house for a visit as well. See, we aren’t entirely crazy.

After dinner with friends and family on Friday we headed back to my sister’s house in Lomita to crash for the night. Disneyland opens at 8 am on the weekends and we wanted to be there when the gates opened so we could cram in as many rides as possible before the crowds started to grow too long.

We got up around 5:30, showered and were out the door by 6:45. We stopped for some McDonalds (breakfast of champions) and made it to the parking lot of Disneyland by 7:30. We got a killer parking spot and headed for the front door. Picked up some tickets, took a few quick photos and then waited no more than 5 minutes to get in to Disney. I’d say our timing was pretty much awesome!

We rushed in the gates, secured a locker and then hit Space Mountain. Total time in line: 5 minutes. Next it was Star Tours which had no line at all. We then crossed the park to try and ride Indiana Jones. Unfortunately it was broken down at that time, but they said it would be back online later. We hit up Pirates of the Caribbean (no line) and then the Haunted Mansion which is all decked out with Nightmare Before Christmas garb for the holiday season. 4 rides in under an hour and we were cruising!

We made sure to get Marcia on all the “important” rides at the park. She rode Dumbo, the tea cups, Matterhorn, Big Thunder Mountain and several others. We took dozens of pictures and you can see most of them over here.

One of the rides we rode on with the entire group was Buzz Lightyear’s Astro Blaster. If you’ve never rode it before, it’s like being in a giant video game. You ride around and shoot targets with a laser gun and score points for hits. While in line there was a fairly heated discussion about who was going to end up with the highest score. There were 10 or 12 of us at the time, and almost all of us said that we were going to be the winner. Rob and Matt both scored in the 90 thousand point range. That’s pretty good, for a couple of beginners. Those scores were only good enough for spots #2 and #3. With a score of just over 167 thousand, I’m happy to say, I kicked their ass. Even though I took nearly 200 photos that day, this right here may be the most important one.

Oh, one final tid-bit. Before we got to the park, we had been told by a few people that since it was Marcia’s first time to the park, we needed to stop by City Hall on Main Street and pick her up a “First Time” button. As we rode in on the tram we told everybody within ear shot that it was her first time. 2 or 3 of the cast members also mentioned City Hall for the first time button. After our initial rush to hit some rides, we stopped back by City Hall. Chris and Marcia waited in a LONG line to get in. When they reached the front the lady explained that hey stopped making the first time buttons a long time ago. Instead they gave her a “Happy Birthday” button but wrote the word “un-” on it. It was supposed to say “Happy Un-Birthday”, but they wrote it in the wrong spot so instead it said, “Un-Happy Birthday” which seemed really funny to me. Almost as funny as having every cast member for the remainder of the day, along with SEVERAL park visitors, yell out “Happy Birthday” to her every chance they got. Ahh, good times.

We had a great day at the park. It’s always fun to hang out with friends from work AWAY from work. I hope we get to do it again real soon!

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2008 Braun Brothers Reunion, Challis, ID

August 12, 2008 · Filed Under Entertainment, Music, Partying, Vacation · Comments 

This past weekend Chris, Jake, Diane and I took a trip to see a concert; The Braun Brothers Reunion. What’s about to follow is a very wordy recount of our trip. If you aren’t ready for a good long read, you may want to turn back now. You’ve been warned.

Thursday afternoon I got off work around 4:00 PM. When I got home, Chris and I ran to the store for some last minute supplies for our trip. Over the past week or so we have flip-flopped on which car we were going to take for the trip. When we started pulling out all the items that we were taking, it became obvious that we had to go with the Charger for the extra space in the trunk. We began packing the trunk and when we had all our stuff in, the trunk was roughly 3/4 full. Unfortunately we hadn’t picked up Jake, Diane or any of their stuff yet. No problem, we’ll figure it out when we get to their house.

We arrived at Jake & Diane’s around 7:00 PM. We quickly came to the conclusion that we could leave their tent behind and all share the 6 person tent we already had packed. We took out some of the stuff we had packed and then tried to organize everything so we could make it fit. Here’s what was in the trunk: 2 ice chests, 4 sleeping bags, 1 suitcase, 1 gym bag, 1 camera backpack, 1 tripod, 2 full sized pillows, 2 sleeping mats, 1 tent, 1 inflatable air mattress, 2 jackets, 1 air pump, 1 bag of snacks. I think that about covers it. It took us a few minutes, but we made it all fit and we were on our way.

Thanks to Google Maps, our route would take us up the 15 freeway, through Salt Lake City in to Idaho. The drive to SLC is long. Driving it after you’ve already worked a full day is not a lot of fun. But, to be honest, I’m a TERRIBLE passenger. If I’m going to be in the car, I want to be driving. And, for the sanity of everybody else in the car, it’s best you let me have my way on this one. As we were approaching SLC, it was a little bit after 1:00 AM. We had passed the half way point of the drive, so I decide it was time to pull off the road, find a hotel and rest until morning. The first exit we tried had 6 hotels. All of them had no vacancy. No problem, we’ll just stop at the next exit. Once again, no vacancy. Rinse, Lather, Repeat. They would tell us, “Just go a little bit North of here and you’ll have better luck.” This same scenario happened for the next 3.5 hours. Finally, at some point after the sun started rising, we found a place that had rooms available. This was in Blackfoot, ID. That’s 188 miles away from SLC. Needless to say, I was super tired by this time and it took only a few minutes for me to go to sleep.

At one point on our drive in the middle of the night, we went through a stretch of road that was inundated with flying bugs of some sort. They were pelting my car leaving their lips and assholes all over the place. When the song playing on the CD ended, I realized that you could hear the constant sounds of the bugs hitting the windshield. When we made our next stop I got to see the carnage that happened on my front bumper and grill. It was not pretty. You can see it here if you’d like.

We woke up Friday morning and drove to Arco, ID where we stopped and had breakfast at Pickle’s Place. As a bit of a joke I picked up one of their frequent diner cards. After 10 visits we get $10 off our next meal. If we make this trip annually, it’ll be a while before I get that discount. After breakfast we finished up the drive to Challis, ID.

We arrived at the camp grounds in the early afternoon. We checked in, found our spot and made quick work of unpacking the trunk and setting up our tent. The ground was hard as hell, and even though we had a hammer, it was quite difficult to get the anchor rods in the ground. We did the best we could and called it a day. Since the show didn’t start until 6, we had some time to kill, so we drank some beer and played some cards sitting in front of our tent. Then the rain started so the game moved inside the tent. The sky dumped pretty hard for a little bit and the wind was blowing making the sides of the tend bow in towards us. I wasn’t sure it was going to stay standing, but it did just fine. We hung out in there until it was time to head to the show. By this time the rain had stopped and it was back to being nice and hot.

Our campground was just about 2 miles away from the venue. Some people chose to walk it, but I thought it would be a much better idea to drive. I was thinking more about how it wasn’t going to be much fun to walk the 2 miles back at the end of the night as I expected we’d be standing on our feet for the next 6 hours. When we got to the show, they had us park in dirt field. I don’t know if you know this or not, but a Charger is NOT an off-road vehicle. I was crossing my fingers that we didn’t have a huge downpour that would turn the already soft dirt in to a giant mud puddle. Thankfully, that didn’t happen and we were able to get out of the dirt with no problems at the end of the night. On our way to the show, my “low tire” warning light came on. Not a lot I could do about it at the time, so we went to the show and I figured I’d deal with it in the morning.

When I say we drove to the venue, by “venue”, I mean Golf Course. The show takes place on the driving range of the Challis Golf Course. From the parking lot it was still a pretty good hike to the entrance. When we got there we were informed that we had to finish our beers prior to being let in. They were big boy cans that we had just opened, so this took a few minutes. Finally we got in and the music was already going.  They were doing a “guitar pull.” There was a group of guys sitting on stools and each was taking turns with the guitar and the mic. When it was their turn they’d take center stage and play an acoustic song or two and then pass the mic to the next in line. The line-up was: Robert Earl Keen, Willy Braun, Muzzie Braun, Micky Braun, Cody Canada, George Devore & Randy Rogers.

One of the bands that was supposed to play had to pull out at the last minute, but that didn’t slow the show down. Next we saw George Devore. This was our first time seeing him play (other than the guitar pull, of course) and I have to say, Chris and I were blown away. The guy has a fantastic voice, his songs are catchy and you could tell he was genuinely having a good time. This came through in his music and made instant fans out of both of us! We picked up his CD “Wonderland“, and I suggest you do the same.

Next up was Robert Earl Keen. I had found out a couple months ago that he was playing this show, so I went in search of a CD by him. I found out he has about 19 of ‘em. So, I picked up his greatest hits called “Best“. Most of his stuff is pretty mellow and I’ve really enjoyed becoming familiar with some of his songs over the past month or so. Getting to see him play live was a real treat. He, too, has an excellent voice and is a great song writer. During REK’s set, the weather started acting up a bit. The clouds had rolled in and there was an awesome thunderstorm. They made an announcement that they had to cut the power to the stage for a while and wait for “this stuff to pass.” About 20 minutes later they started back up and he finished his set. If you don’t pick up his CD, at least give a listen to “The Road Goes on Forever“.

Finishing up Friday night’s show was Reckless Kelly. They were one of the 2 main bands we were here to see. Chris and I have both been listening to these guys a lot and absolutely love their music. It’s funny, with this type of music, I always tell people that they are a “country” band. But once you get these guys on stage, it’s all Rock and Roll. These guys definitely rock. They played all the songs I had hoped to hear and, as was pretty common with most of the sets prior to theirs, they had members from other bands join them on stage for different songs. I loved that the show was a little less like a formal show where there’s a specific set list and each song gets played exactly like it was played the time before. Pick up their CD: “Reckless Kelly Was Here.” It’s a two disc live set and it rocks.

After RK finished up, we made the walk back to the car, easily made it out of the dirt and the parking lot and found our way back to camp. We figured out that our neighbors 4 spots over had also bought their tent at Walmart. They had the exact same tent as ours. I pulled up and realized we were in the WRONG spot. Hope my lights didn’t wake anybody inside. Oops.

When we did find our spot, I pulled out the camera and tripod to try and take some photos of the stars. We just don’t get to see that many stars in the sky here in Vegas. After a few unsuccessful shots, I headed to bed.

We got up the next morning and I watched Jake brush his teeth using Michelob Ultra to rinse. He was giving me shit for being a pansy and using water. I told him that the thought of using beer had never even crossed my mind. I felt like such a rookie to camping. After that, we went and had a nice breakfast at a little restaurant. We got there just in time as the place filled up quickly and it would have been a bit of a wait for a seat had we been a few minutes later. After breakfast we headed over to the store for some beer and a can of Fix-a-Flat. As we were nearing the door, two older ladies were standing outside smoking cigarettes. As we approached one of them reaches over and snuffs hers out and says, “You can’t even have a cigarette in this fucking place!” and storms inside. It was all I could do not to bust up. Thankfully it wasn’t our approach that caused her to yell. She was bitching about a guy standing at the check-out counter who she had to go wait on. We presume she was upset that another employee didn’t come help him. Either way, it was funny as hell. 

We ran in to Robert Earl Keen while in the grocery store and my wife later laughed at me saying that was the first time she ever heard me tell another man, “You were great last night.” You really gotta watch what you say when you hang out with a bunch of 12 year olds. Everything turns in to a dick and fart joke.

We stopped by the gas station for some help with the low tire. The great thing about small towns is that the older guys that work in the service stations are really pleased to help you out. This nice guy advised against using the fix-a-flat unless it was really flat. He said to just put air in it and if we had any trouble we should just come right on back. He filled the tire with air for me, I thanked him and we were on our way back to camp.

The girls took turns taking showers. The guys had no time for such nonsense! A quick change of underwear and a couple swipes of deodorant was all that was needed on this trip! We vowed not to shower while out “roughing it”, so damn it, I wasn’t about to go against that! We hung out and played some more cards for a while. The show was going to start at 12:45, but the first band I wanted to see wasn’t on until 3:45 so we had some time to kill, so Chris and I decided we wanted to take a nap. Big mistake. Jake and Diane took off on foot towards Main street for some beers and some shopping. Chris and I laid in the tent, which felt more like an oven thanks to the mid-day sun beating down on it. After about an hour of not-so-restful rest, we gave up and headed towards Main street to meet up with our friends.

While looking for Jake and Diane, we stopped in to a place called Buxs Place Bar. This place was RUSTIC! Unfortunately we didn’t stay. I would have loved to belly up to the bar and knocked back a few beers in there. Next time, I guess. We found J&D and set off for some food and beers. We found the beers, sadly no food, inside another little bar. This place was also awesome. But for different reasons. They had a full sized shuffle-board game (the kind you play on a table with sawdust) that was being played by guys wearing flannel shirts with the sleeves ripped off. There was a guy sitting at the end of the bar drinking “Natural Light” from a can. To call him a regular at this bar would have been an understatement. I’m certain if he ever moved off the stool he was on, you’d find his name carved in it. We also watched the bar tender open a new bottle of Wild Turkey. This means that somebody finished the old one. Remember, it’s 2:30 in the afternoon. I also watched the waitress pour a round of shots of Jack Daniels. No, she didn’t use shot glasses, she used paper Dixie cups.

By the time we finished our bucket-o-beers, time was running short and we needed to get to the show. When we got inside, Jake and Diane headed up the hill to relax on the lawn. Chris and I are more of the “Up Front” crowd, so we headed towards the stage where Pinto Bennett was already playing. Just as we found our spot to stand, a piece of ice landed a foot or so away from me. I thought we may have stopped in front of somebody and were blocking their view and they were using ice as the method to convey their displeasure. But, I turned around and didn’t see anybody who looked upset, so I turned back around and went back to watching the show. Then another chunk of ice. Then another, and another. Turns out it’s hail. The sky opened up a bit and let loose with chunks of ice that were roughly the size of quarters. That may not sound big, but when you get hit with one, damn that smarts! I took one on top of my shoulder, nearly on my neck and it hurt like a bitch. We turned around to watch the crowd huddling up trying to take cover under chairs or anything that would block the ice. Nobody panicked, nobody looked upset. The hail lasted about 5 minutes and then gave way to some rain. 5 minutes after that it was back to being 95 degrees and sunny. Pinto and his band never stopped their set. He only offered these words of sage advice: “Don’t look up.”

This was my first time seeing/hearing Pinto Bennett. He’s an old timer who plays some good ol’ country music. There were quite a few people dancing to his music and signing along. I didn’t recognize any of his tunes myself, but his music sounded good. I downloaded a couple tracks from iTunes to check him out. One of the songs that he wrote was performed by a different band this weekend. It’s called “Carolina Morning.” Great tune. You can hear it on his MySpace page if you want to check it out.

After Pinto was Randy Rogers Band. Here is another band that would be hard to squeeze in to the “Country” box. Actually, these guys will tell you that they are more “country” than the crap you hear on today’s country radio station. He is not a fan of any of it. These guys like the old school country, with a heavy mix of rock and roll. I’m noticing a pattern to the type of bands I’m enjoying the most these days. This guy has catchy tunes, an amazing fiddle player and puts on one hell of a show. I sure hope these guys will make it to Vegas! They have a bunch of CDs to choose from, but the guy at the boot suggested I check out the one called “RollerCoaster.” We bought it and gave it a couple listens on the drive home. I definitely recommend it!

Next was the Braun Family. This was a lot like the guitar pull from the previous day, but it only included members of the Braun family, of which there are plenty. This is one talented family, I have to say. Muzzie, Gary, Willy, Cody, Micky and a few others who’s names I’m forgetting took turns singing all sorts of tunes. I was thinking that it must be a pretty big thrill for the parents to be on a stage and watching their kids play, too.  That has just got to be cool.

Next on stage was Cross Canadian Ragweed. I’ve spoke about these guys plenty of times in the past. I’m a big, big fan of their music. We’ve seen them here in Vegas 7 or 8 times and we’ve driven to St. George, Utah to see them as well. It’s only fitting that they were part of the show that had us drive 700 miles to see. Once again, CCR put on a kick-ass show. We were right down front buried in the mass of people rushing the stage and we wouldn’t have it any other way. Live music should enjoyed from up close and nice and loud!

CCR did something that I had heard about at one previous concert, but never actually took part in. At the end of the first song, Cody Canada took off a bracelet and says that at the end of their show you can go up to their t-shirt booth and purchase one of these bracelets. It has a flash drive built in and it will contain the recording of tonight’s show. When the show ended, we went up to the booth and waited. By this time the sun had gone down and so had the temperature. It was windy and started to get pretty cold. After close to 30 minutes and still not being able to get one of the bracelets, I was just about to give in and walk away. But, they fixed the issue they were having and started selling them. We got one and headed back down to the stage. I listened to a small bit of it this evening and it’s excellent. What a brilliant idea these bracelets are. I expect to start seeing them at a lot more shows as people/bands start to learn about them.

One final note about the CCR show. When we saw CCR in St. George, we saw a very drunk/obnoxious girl at the show who was also from Las Vegas. She was dancing by the stage and professing her love for the lead singer between every song. It was amusing, but at the same time annoying. Wouldn’t ya know it, during the show in Idaho as we are standing in a very packed area in front of the stage, here she comes again. She plows past us without any sort of courtesy. Then I realized who it was. I was no longer surprised by the lack of manners.

Finishing off night 2 was Micky and the Motorcars. We had seen them once before when they opened up for CCR at the House of Blues here in Las Vegas. But since then they have put out 2 new albums and really started making a name for themselves. Based on the crowd reaction this weekend, from what I can tell, MMC was one of the big draws for this show. I have to say that I’m not as familiar with their music as I am with some of the other bands, but man these guys can rock. They have a brand new CD out called “Naive.” I bought it on iTunes and definitely plan on paying more attention to it. I’m definitely looking forward to seeing these guys again!

After the show we headed back to camp. It was a fair boot colder than it had been the night before. It made for a bit of tossing and turning in the night as I tried to stay warm. Had to do over again, I’d actually zip up the sleeping bags and sleep in them instead of using one under us and one over us. Live and learn.

The plan was simple; whoever gets up first, start waking up everybody else so we can get packed up and on the road. Around 7:15, Chris did just that. We all got up and in less than an hour we had backed up all our gear, loaded it in to the car and were on our way back home. Several people had told us that we should take highway 93 back to Vegas. The lady at the store even suggested she knew somebody who made the trip in 7 hours. (I have to call BullShit on that one) So, we figured what the hell. We’ll give it a shot and that way we would know for next time which route to take. We head on out towards Vegas and make our stop in Arco, Idaho for breakfast at Pickle’s Place. We got ourselves a second stamp on our frequent diner card, so we are that much closer to $10 off. Sweet.

It’s in Arco where we have to finally decide for sure which route we are going to take. 15 or 93. To this point, it’s all the same. We make the turn for the 93 and away we go. The navigation system in my car starts complaining immediately. Turn around in .5 miles. Turn around in 5 miles. Turn around in 13 miles. Basically, it really wanted us to take the 15. We pushed forward and after 2 hours of the car telling us to turn around, it finally figured out that we can take the 93 and recalculated the route and ETA for us. Based on the time it was telling us, this was going to take longer than the 15. But, it’s too late now, we have to push forward.

We stop in a small town and I took some photos of a couple cool old buildings. We then had to stop in Twin Falls as we passed over Snake River. The view there was absolutely amazing. Then we hit Nevada. I don’t know if you have ever taken highway 93 through Nevada before, but I will tell you this; never again. There are stretches of road where you can go 50 miles without seeing another car, let alone a place to stop and get a drink or gas or help of any kind. Thankfully we were doing this during the day. Had it been the middle of the night, it would have been scary as all hell. Pitch black with no end in sight.

Everybody has a list of things they want to do or things they want to have happen in their lives. I’m no different. I have such a list. I’m happy to say that on our drive home down highway 93, in the lovely city of Ely, Nevada, I was able to cross one of those things off my list. Ya see, I have always thought it would be cool to have a police officer speeding past you in the opposite direction, hit his lights, make a U-turn and fish-tale his car to get back on the road and come chasing after me. I can now tell you, yep, it was pretty cool. The officer walks up to the window and says, “I clocked you at 89.” I said, “I had my cruise control set at 83.” He says, “The speed limit is 70.” I said, “I understand that.” He then asks for my license, registration and proof of insurance. I, of course, can not find my current insurance card. He says no problem and heads back to his vehicle. He comes back 5 minutes later and has me sign the ticket. He wrote me up for doing 80, which is pretty cool. He could have been a hard-ass, but he wasn’t. He shows me on the ticket that I need to pay $84 for the fine. I also need to fax a copy of my current insurance. He points out the total amount of the ticket is written for something just over $800 because of the insurance issue. He says “Just fax the insurance and send the $84. Don’t send the whole $800.” Uh, OK. No problem there. Yikes!

I’m really bummed that I didn’t ask the officer if he minded if I got out of the car and took a photo of his car with it’s lights on pulled up right behind me on the side of the road. I think it would have been a nice addition to the batch of photos I took. Oh well, next time. ;)

So back on the road we get. More stretches of absolute nothingness, only this time I have my cruise control set at 73. We roll through a bunch of virtual ghost towns that can’t have more than a couple hundred population each and their only reason for existing is to force you to slow down to 25 MPH as you go through. Finally, after what seems like an eternity, we see the Vegas skyline. We make it to Jake and Diane’s place at 8:15. A full 12 hours after leaving Idaho. We quickly unpack them (yes, we came to a full stop before kicking them out the door) and headed home. It took me a while to wind down after driving 700+ miles in one day. I messed around with some photos for a bit, downloaded a bunch of new music from iTunes, watched a few minutes of the Olympics and then fell fast asleep.

This was the first time Chris and I have ever gone camping together. It’s taken us 19 years of marriage to make it happen. And like everything else in our lives, it’s not like we do it the easy way. We don’t just go and camp a couple miles from home to try it out, we have to drive 700 miles away to do it. There were several people who questioned our ability to survive after they heard about how little we knew about camping and how little camping gear we were taking with. I’m glad to say we proved all them suckers wrong. We came back unharmed and ready to go back again next year and do it all over again. We’ve already started making a list of improvements for next year’s trip.

Thanks to Muzzie Braun for putting the whole show together. We had a great time and look forward to seeing you all again next year!

Photos from the trip can be seen on Flickr.com.

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Cruise: Day 7

June 13, 2008 · Filed Under Vacation · Comments 

Ahh! Sleeping in is so awesome. I would have slept longer if my bladder wasn’t screaming at me. Once I got up to take care of the bladder it was too late to try and get back to sleep. Drat.

Today is our last full day of our vacation. We travel at sea all day today heading back to Vancouver for our flight home tomorrow. When we looked out the balcony, today is by far the prettiest day of our vacation. The sun is out, virtually no wind and it’s not cold at all. I plan on doing as much as I can today!

We started off with breakfast in the main dining hall. Here’s a tip, when they say the dining area closes at 11:00, do not show up at 10:30. the wait staff is already in the process of shutting that sucker down! They didn’t make us feel rushed, but it took me quite a while to get French Toast and even longer for this other lady to get her pancakes. So long that her husband had finished his entire meal before she had taken bite number 1.

After breakfast I played some air hockey with the kids. Then we went to the “Loyalty Ambassador” to look in to booking another cruise. They give you a few hundred bucks off if you book a second trip while you are on the ship. Plus, if you decide not to go, they give you a full refund of your deposit. Unfortunately, after waiting nearly 40 minutes, we were turned away as they had to close to go do something else. Though, they set us up an appointment for 2pm to come back. So we headed back to the room for a while to pack up our luggage. We then headed back to the Schooner Bar and had a drink with a nice couple we met. Then, back to the Loyalty Ambassador.

After booking our next trip (South America, here we come), we grabbed some lunch from the Sea View Cafe and then went and explored parts of the ship that we hadn’t yet seen. This includes my first attempt at climbing the rock wall. I was able to make it to the top the first time, but when I tried the second time my arms and legs reminded me that I’m a fat bastard and I should remain on solid ground. I didn’t fully get the message until I tried a third time which also ended in me falling off the wall.

We then hit up the casino for a bit and then headed back to the room to rest up before dinner. Chris wasn’t feeling well so we cancelled our plans to eat in the steakhouse. She ended up visiting the medical station and getting a shot. Ouchy. While she was doing all that I took care of some errands related to exiting the ship tomorrow. It’s quite a process, I’ll tell ya. Since we have to go through customs to enter Canada and then a few hours later when we enter the US again.

I ended up having dinner with Blake while Paxton went to the Windjammer Cafe and Chris finished packing and then got some more rest. I spent the next couple hours roaming around the ship taking all sorts of photos. Once again it was quite empty so I was able to set up some decent shots. I was pretty pleased with the results.

Headed back to the room, shed my clothes and was asleep in a matter of minutes. The end of a long day and the beginning of an even longer one were about to collide. Plenty of sleep is going to be needed for our trek back to Las Vegas.

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Cruise: Day 6

June 12, 2008 · Filed Under Vacation · Comments 

I usually learn lessons the hard way. This vacation has been no different. For the 3rd time, we’ve had to set an alarm to wake up early thanks to planning an excursion too early in the morning. Having to set an alarm while on vacation is just wrong. On our next vacation, I will not repeat this mistake.

Today we arrived in Juneau around 7:00. We have been amazingly lucky and it’s been basically dry everywhere we’ve been on our trip. It was cold, but not horribly so. There wasn’t much wind, so that certainly helped, too.

We had to use the tenders again to exit the ship. That process is a little bit annoying, we’ve decided. I was glad to have done it once for the experience, but two out of three ports is ridiculous. But, thanks to our early morning excursion, we were basically put at the front of the line for tendering, so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

We met on the dock and waited for our entire tour group to show up. They loaded us up on a bus and sent us on a 25 minute drive to an amazing bay that we would use as the launching point for our rafts. The bay is very still and the water is quite cold. Our guide told us that a week or two back this bay had frozen over. Even still, they had to row through it as they had a tour going through that day. Though it wasn’t frozen over today, there were still several icebergs floating in the bay. Absolutely beautiful scenery.

Thank to the waiver we had to sign and the amount of times that we were told we would be getting wet, I went ahead and left my camera in the supply van that they drive down to the finishing point. I am incredibly bummed that I did. On our 6 mile, 2.5 hour trip, there is roughly 100 yards worth of “rapids”. The water is the tiniest bit turbulent, but no more than a cup full of water actually entered the boat. It would have been totally fine and I would have had some amazing photos to share. Bah!

Even though I wasn’t able to take shots while on the this excursion, it was by far my favorite of the 3 we took on this trip. Not only was the scenery amazing, but we also passed by Chuck Norris’ summer home. Apparently our guide has seen him out and about a couple times heading down river. How can you compare to that?

Our ship is only stopped in Juneau for a short time. This left very little time for shopping in town. But, we agreed that we are all pretty well pooped and nobody was really upset about the brevity. We headed back to the ship, grabbed a little snack and Chris went to the room while I found a deck chair in the solarium to lounge in while we left Juneau behind.

After a nice nap in the Solarium it was time to get dressed for the second formal dinner. Tonight was steak and lobster night. I’m not a huge fan of lobster, but given that it was all paid for, you bet your ass I was having some. I started off with a bowl of onion soup then moved on to the lobster and shrimp plate, then the steak and potatoes. A fantastic meal.

After dinner Chris and I hit up the Schooner Bar for some trivia and a drink. Then we did a little gambling in the casino. We then headed back to the room to put on our swimming suites and hit the jacuzzi around 11. Amazingly enough, we were the only ones in there. It was fantastic. We sat in there until we were both pretty well cooked and then headed back to the room. We changed in to some dry clothes and then I drug Chris along with me as I walked around the ship taking some photos. It was a great time since there was virtually nobody up and around so I was able to set up shots without bothering anybody.

By the time that was done, we were both pretty tired so it was back to the room to crash. And, for the first time we slept in all the way to 9 am. Woo Hoo!

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Cruise: Day 5

June 11, 2008 · Filed Under Vacation · Comments 

We woke up early this morning to head out on our excursion in Skagway, AK. As we pulled in to port, it was amazing to see 3 other huge cruise ships already docked. Considering the size of Skagway, these ships will likely quadruple the city’s population. We ate breakfast via room service and headed out. Our excursion tickets said to meet at 7:15, so we arrived around 7:10. We were then told that we were 30-40 minutes early. That’s what we get for following directions, I guess. Our prize for being early was to get to stand in the cold and wind.

We finally loaded up in the van and headed off for the 9 mile trek to the musher’s camp. On the way the tour guide gave us a great narrative of the area, it’s history and such. He said there are about 800 year-round residents and another 1500 or so that live here during the summer months to handle the tourist trade.

Once we arrived at the musher’s camp, we were loaded up in to custom made wheeled carts that get hooked up to a string of dogs. As we exited the vans and were getting loaded on the cart, the dogs are all going nuts and barking up a storm. It’s quite loud and difficult to talk. As soon as we were loaded in and the musher gave the word to go, the dogs immediately stopped barking and took off running. These dogs are born to run. You could see them all pulling at the chain waiting to run. One other interesting fact. Even though the movies all show a string of blue-eyed Siberian Huskies with beautiful coats of fur pulling their sled through the snow, this just isn’t the case. The dogs that really do the work are a bunch of mutts bred with specific dogs for their talents. These are finely tuned pulling machines.

After our ride we were treated to a 15 minute talk with a musher. This guy raced in the 2007 Iditarod. He started with 16 dogs pulling his sled, but crossed the finish line 1100 miles later with only 8. No, none of the dogs died. Some had injuries, some got sick and some got too tired to continue. All the dogs get flown back to the starting location where the mushers return after the race to collect their dogs and head home.

After our excursion we had the tour guide drop us off in downtown Skagway. We did what everybody does in Skagway; shop. After walking the entire length of the town (about 8 blocks), we walked back to the ship, had a snack and then took a nap.

After our nap we got ready for dinner. Tonight I kept it to only 2 appetizers, 1 entree and 1 dessert. The halibut chowder was great, but I didn’t care much for the salmon. They bake it on a cedar plank. A little too much plank flavor took over the salmon.

We polished off the night by playing a bit in the casino and checking out the onboard shopping. After that it was time for bed as we have another early morning excursion tomorrow. It’s going to be a cold one. We are going on a float trip in Juneau on the Mendenhall river. Sure hope we stay dry!

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