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.

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!

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!

By the time we finished our breakfast, we had nearly reached Hubbard Glacier Bay. We started seeing a fair amount of ice in the water and some small icebergs. It was really quite thrilling. We ran up to the room to grab some warmer gear and headed on out to deck 5. This would get us as close as we could get to the glacier itself. When the ship had pulled as close to the glacier as possible, we were less than half a mile away. The ship then rotated slowly in place for the next hour or so. This gave everybody a chance to get a spectacular view of the glacier.

We moved up to deck 12 and found a great spot along an empty railing. Within 10 minutes or so we had front row seats for viewing the glacier. The weather outside was fantastic. For a while I was wearing only a t-shirt and undershirt with my sweatshirt wrapped around my waist. While we were watching the glacier, we were treated to an amazing display as we got to see TONS of ice go crashing in to the bay as huge chunks dislodged from the glacier itself. This is called carving. I’ve seen it on TV, but seeing it in person was absolutely awe inspiring.

Once we set out to open sea again, Chris and I entered the slot tournament in the casino. I took first place in my round which put me in the finals. In the final round, my machine didn’t hit like before and I ended up in 3rd or 4th place.

In the afternoon we finally tested out the solarium. This is an indoor pool that is for adults only. But, from noon until 4pm kids are allowed to swim, too. Our daughter is 1 year too young to swim in there full time, so we wanted to take advantage of the available time. The water in the pool is quite salty. We hung out in the jacuzzi and chatted with some fellow passengers. Then we all headed back to the room and took showers and got ready for dinner.

I would say that I have definitely figured out how to order on the cruise ship. I ordered 2 appetizers and two entrees. After I was finished with the second appetizer, the waiter offered me a third appetizer that he already had on his cart. Of course I took it. Then came round one of dinner; Lamb shank. It was fall-off-the-bone tender. I followed that up with an order of jumbo shrimp. And then, for dessert warm chocolate cake with ice cream on the side. It’s amazing I didn’t burst.

After dinner we waddled back to our room. We have an early excursion tomorrow, so we hit the sack. We are set to dock in Skagway at 7:00am. We meet for our excursion at 7:15. Big day on land tomorrow. We don’t need to be back on the ship until 8:00 pm.

It was wicked cold and rainy so Chris and I ended up buying waterproof jackets before we went on our tram tour. Somehow we didn’t pack enough warm clothes. Everything we read before our trip indicated it would be warmer than it is. Add to that the fact that I’m a wimp…

Our tram tour was pretty cool. Unfortunately the only wildlife we saw was a single bald eagle in it’s nest. Our tour guide had a high-powered binocular that she set up and let us all look through. It was pretty amazing. As it turns out, this area of Alaska houses more than half the bald eagles in North America.

By the time our tour was over, we were all quite cold and ready to head back to the ship. We came back and took some warm showers, rested up and then headed on down to dinner. I believe I’m getting the hang of ordering dinner on the cruise. It sounds something like, “I’ll have the beef and veal tortelinni, then I’ll have the salmon and then I’ll have the steak. And for dessert, I’ll have the pineapple coconut cake.”

After dinner we toured the ship a bit more, hung out on our balcony and by 10:30 the sun had still not set. We closed the drapes and called it a night. Vacationing is tiring work…

Our ship is at sea all day today traveling towards Alaska. We will arrive at Icy Strait Point tomorrow morning, but until then, it’s open ocean. There is plenty to do on the ship, and they are kind enough to give you an itemized list each night of the next day’s activities. This is a big help.

After lunch, Chris needed to go to the Infirmary to get something to battle the sea sickness she was feeling. While she took care of that, I headed back to the room for more rest. All this vacationing is tiring business.

A little later I signed waivers for the kids that would allow them to use the rock climbing wall whenever they want. No need for a parent to be with them. There are actually a bunch of activities available JUST for kids, so that’s been nice letting our kids have the freedom to come and go as they please.

We had been on the lookout for whales since we heard several different people mention they saw them today. We did finally see 2 whales, but they were far off and not easy to see other than their spout. We did, however see a pod of dolphins. There were at least 20 of ‘em. They were just swimming alone dancing in and out of the waves. Generally having a good time.

Tonight was the first of 2 formal dinners. It was also the first meal we have had in the big dinning room. We somehow managed to get a table for 4 rather than for a group. This is cool and not-cool. Cool because we can just sit and enjoy our family, but not cool in that it would be nice to meet and chat with other passengers. One funny thing did happen at dinner tonight. after finishing my steak, our waiter came up and removed my plate and asked if I’d like a second steak. Had the steak been a little better, I may have taken him up on it. While the steak was simply “OK”, the rest of the meal was great. Lobster Bisque, Escargot, good veggies and baked potato capped off with Vanilla, Coconut layer cake. Yum!

After dinner our son ran off to go play Guitar Hero. Unfortunately the PS2 was broken so that activity got shelved. We went to the stage show instead. Before the show they had an auction for the Make-a-Wish foundation. I placed a bid on an unlimited wi-fi access package that would cover the entire week. Unfortunately, the bidding went too high and I had to give up. However, after the show I found out that there was another auction to be held before the next show. That was less than 30 minutes away. I went back for the start of show number 2 and was happy to see the show was only half full this time. While the first package sold for about 80 bucks, I was able to pick it up for only $50. What a sweet deal. Turns out that the joke is on me. After 45 minutes of trying I went back to customer service where I was informed that the wi-fi service is only available for the PC and not the Mac.

I don’t even know why I was surprised.

Actually, I would be skipping some of the fun if I didn’t mention the night before. I went online to print out our boarding passes for the flight. I didn’t have the exact number Air Canada wanted so I ended up having to call them. This phone call saved me $200 bucks. After getting me the number I needed, the phone attendant answered some questions for me. One of which led to the fact that any bag weighing over 50 lbs is subject to an excess baggage fee of $50 per bag, per direction. After hearing about this charge I weighed our bags on our home scale and 2 of them were 55 lbs. so we pulled out an extra bag and dumped some clothes in from each of the two heavy bags. Crisis #1 avoided.

After the repacking I took the 5 bags to the car to load them up the night before so we wouldn’t have to do any loading in the morning. Turns out this wasn’t on our side either as the 5 bags would not fit in my Charger’s trunk. We ended up cramming the 5 bags in to the back of our Scion. It made for a cramped ride to the airport, but hey, we made it.

We got to the International terminal at the Las Vegas airport at about 5:10 am. There was virtually no line to check-in, drop off baggage and go through security, so by 5:30 we were sitting at the terminal waiting to board the plane. The flight was delayed about 20 minutes while they reset some sensor, but other than that, it was uneventful. I watched the movie “Jumper” and part of “Hellboy” and by 10 am, we were in Vancouver.

After we trekked through the Vancouver airport, we went through customs and got our first stamp in our passports. Woo hoo! We found our luggage, paid a porter $14 to carry our luggage about 100 feet to the Royal Caribbean counter and drop it off. We then headed outside to catch the bus to the dock. After a 45 minute ride we arrived at Port Vancouver and saw our MASSIVE ship.

When we first arrived we were informed that our trip has been delayed twice already. First was a coast guard inspection and second was due to an outbreak of the flu on our ship last week. They had apparently cleared the entire terminal, scrubbed it down head to toe and had done the same to the ship. They have placed automatic Purel hand-disinfectant dispensers in a few spots at the terminal and all over the ship and ask you to wash your hands every time you pass one. Also, there is a no-hand shaking policy for the crew so they don’t catch and pass on any germs between the passengers.

First we waited in line to go through security just like the airport (without having to remove our shoes, though). Next we waited in line to check-in and get our room keys. They have you put your credit card in the system and it’s all tied to your room keys, so once you are on the ship, there is no need for cash. They don’t accept it anywhere. You just swipe your card. I think this is going to be dangerous… Next we waited in line to go through customs again as we would be leaving Canada and entering the United States. Stamp #2 in our passports. And finally we were seated and waiting for our group number to be called to board the ship. At 2PM, we set foot for the first time on the ship.

It took me exactly 3 seconds of being on the ship to get yelled at (politely) by the crew. I had stepped on board first, turned around to take a picture of Chris getting on the ship. Turns out they don’t want you taking photos right there. At first I thought it might be some Homeland Security thing, but thinking about it later, they just don’t want you holding up the line. Makes sense.

Our staterooms wouldn’t be ready until about 3:30, so we had some time to kill. Only problem is we were all still carrying our carry-on luggage from the plane. We toured the ship a bit. We found the arcade but didn’t play anything after finding out it’s $1.25 per game to play anything. We then played a round of mini-golf and went and had a bite to eat. I tried to order a couple sodas with our snack. The lady asked if I had the “Soda package” sticker on my room key. I looked at her blankly and she informed me that it’s $42 for the whole week and you get as much soda as you can possibly drink all week. I picked up 3 glasses of water and headed back to the table. “All inclusive” my ass. I have to say that this is the first thing that has really pissed me off about the trip. I expect there to be unexpected costs, but for soda? Seriously?

We made it to our rooms and proceeded to unpack. Well, actually we unpacked 3 of our 5 bags and found that we have brought far too much stuff for the space we have in the room. We now have a luggage maze to get from one end of the room to the other. We hung out on our balcony and watched the ship set sail and we immediately headed off for dinner.

For our first night on the ship we decided to upgrade our meal. We went to the steakhouse which turned out to be a brilliant move. For $25 per person we were treated to a FANTASTIC meal. There was virtually nobody in there since it was the first night. The staff told us this is typical. We had a table right by the window which made for an amazing view as our ship left the harbor, went under the bridge and headed out to sea.

By the time we were finished with dinner, we were all exhausted. The kids left the table early to head back to the room. Chris and I finished up dinner, walked around the shops a bit and then headed back as well. We all hopped in to our jammies, and watched the water for a bit looking for whales. No dice. By the time we shut the curtains at 9:15, it was still light outside. The kids were both asleep instantly. Chris followed soon after. I laid in bed and began writing this blog. I fell asleep mid-sentence during the second paragraph.

Day 1 was a FULL day. Day 2 we are at sea all day traveling towards Alaska. There is a list of activities for the kids to take part in so we expect them to be off galavanting most of the day. As for me, I’m looking forward to doing not much of anything.

I had printed out score sheets that we handed out to each judge while we were at each restaurant. Each judge scored the burger on the following criteria:

Taste: max 20 points, most important part so it’s worth the most points.
Size: max  5 points, were you able to eat the whole thing and were you still hungry.
Prep-Time: max 5 points, did you have to wait a long time for the burger.
Distance: max 5 points, how far away from the office,
Value: max 5 points, total overall value based on size, taste, distance.
Bonus: max 5 points, pretty much anything you wanted to give it bonus points for.

After all the burgers had been eaten and the votes had been tallied, Here is how they fared.

#6) Claim Jumper, The Widow Maker (average score: 26.9)
The Widow Maker was big, the place is pretty close, they cooked it pretty quick, but the taste just wasn’t that great. It wasn’t bad, just not really a contender for the Best Burger.

#5) Nikki Lee’s, Pizza Burger (average score: 27.2)
If there was a category for messiest burger, this would win hands down! The Pizza Burger consists of the burger with marinara sauce and mozzarella cheese. I was expecting a little more creativity.

#4) Yard House, Western Burger (average score: 28.8)
I gotta say, I was expecting the Yard House to do better in this competition. I had eaten here before and had the chicken fingers and they were excellent. This burger was pretty average in the taste category.

#3) American Grill, Cowboy Burger (average score: 31.8)
This was a good burger! It had bacon, cheese and an onion ring plus some BBQ sauce. The sauce had a bit of a kick and that turned off a few of the people causing it to score a bit lower. It’s because of the American Grill that we threw in the bonus category. While we were waiting for our food they brought out 2 plates of chicken wings and a plate of chips with melted bleu cheese.

#2) Burger Bar, American Kobe Burger (average score: 33.4)
We almost disqualified the Burger Bar because of the cost. Burger, Fries and a soda ended up costing about $25. The quality of the beef on this burger is second to none. It really is a great burger. Cost, prep-time and the difficulty of getting to it quickly during lunch is what stopped it from winning.

#1) Steiner’s, Kobe Burger (average score: 38.4)
Let me start with the one downer about the burger, it didn’t come with fries. Other than that, this burger is nearly perfect. The cost was reasonable at $11.99, the place is less than 5 minutes from the office, we were served quickly and we all walked away plenty full. I will definitely be adding Steiner’s to my regular rotation of lunch spots!

Next time I go to Steiner’s I’ll make the following changes to the burger; grilled onions, add bacon. I think those two minor changes will make this the heavyweight champion of lunch-time burgers!

Next up, Pizza Wars. I’ll keep you posted.

My current obsession with the pinball game Creature From the Black Lagoon remains in tact. The current grand champion on the game has just over 1 billion points. The next score is around 750 million. I hold the final 3 spots on the leader board at 620, 440 & 420 million. The 620 came this past weekend, but I gotta tell ya, I’m not giving up until I have that #1 spot. On my way home from the last visit I came up with a plan on how I think I can achieve the score. Unfortunately it’s going to be 2 weeks before I can get back to test out my plan.

Next up has been Rock Band. First I went out and bought a set of drum pads to help quiet the noise made by the sticks hitting the plastic. I had been using a set a guy at work made, but these are way better. They have cut the sound in half. Plus, these have the added benefit of deadening the vibration, so you are better able to hit all the notes in rapid succession. Next I went and bought some new sticks from Guitar Center. It was a funny conversation when I told the guy that I don’t actually play drums, but just played Rock Band. Apparently I wasn’t even close to the first person to come in looking for replacement sticks. The new sticks I bought are a little bit shorter (which I don’t care for) and a bit lighter (which I love) than the set that came with the game.

With the new equipment in place, my son and I set out to conquer the endless set. This is a 58 song set that you can’t stop and restart. Once you begin, you can push pause, but that’s it. You have to finish all 58 songs to get credit for any of it. So, he played guitar on hard and I played drums on medium. I went with medium because there are parts of Run to the Hills and a few other songs that I just wasn’t positive I could make it through. I would have hated to play for 4+ hours and then have to quit because I couldn’t get through a song. But, on a Friday afternoon we started around 4:50 PM and ended just short of 10 PM. We made it through the set scoring 5 stars on each song. It was challenging, but a ton of fun. Unfortunately we didn’t earn any new fans because I was playing on the lower level. We have already capped out the amount of fans we can earn on Easy, Medium and now Hard. To earn any new fans we need to play on Expert. To think that only a couple months ago I had never played drums before (other than just screwing around), I’m pretty pleased with my progress.

Speaking of drums, I saw the new drum set that’s going to come out in the new Guitar Hero 4, World Tour game. Just.Wow! 2 Tom-Toms, a snare, 2 cymbals and a bass drum. Apparently they are going for the most realistic video game drum set ever. So basically, if you can play drums on the harder levels of the game, you should be able to hold down a beat on a real drum set. I’ve heard that before, but don’t know that I really believe it. Yeah, I can play some songs on expert on Rock Band, but seriously, I’m just good at following the dots on the screen and hitting at the right times. That’s just years of video game play helping out. Last I checked, on a real drum set, there is no screen with scrolling dots telling you what drum to hit and at what time.

Back to pinball. My brother-in-law had been telling us about a game he’s been playing on the PS2 called Pinball Hall of Fame: the Williams Collection. I picked it up over the weekend and holy crap is it fun! First off, the list of pinball games they have in the game is fantastic. Funhouse, Black Knight, Pinbot, Taxi and 5 or 6 others. The game play is amazingly realistic. The bounces, gravity and even some of the nuances of the game are all accounted for. I just saw that Amazon.com has it available for the PSP. I may just have to buy it as well. This would be a fantastic game to kill time on a plane or in a waiting room.

I also recently picked up the game Lost: Via Domus based on the TV show Lost. I quickly realized something. I do not have the patience I once had for video games. Wow, I really suck at the game. I’ve made it through the first “episode” of the game, but am now at a point where I have to walk through a pitch black cave using a torch for visibility. I have died by falling in to the same pit several times. Thing is, it takes me 5-10 minutes to get to this point and then I have to start over after I fall to my death. As cool as the game seems to be, I think this one is bound for the dust collecting shelf. 

Like I said, there are thousands of these groups available. Some want you to take a shot of yourself doing something different every day. New place, new pose, new angle, etc… Some want you to take a photo of a new object. I guess the first thing I need to do is decide what I want to get out of it. I do know one thing, if I take a photo a day for the next year, by the time I’m done I should definitely improve as a photographer. Honestly, that is my greatest inspiration for starting this project.

I’ve decided I definitely want to take on the project. I don’t think it’s going to be easy. I’m sure there will be days where I either just don’t feel like shooting, or perhaps I’ve taken a few dozen photos and none capture what I’m trying to convey. Regardless, I believe the project will be worth it in the end. The only thing to do now is pick the project and group I want to take part in.

My first thought was to do a self portrait every day. But, I’m just not that narcissistic. If I were to do something like that, I would want to do something silly like Running From Camera. Since that’s already been done, I’ll have to do something different. I could take a shot every day at the same time like Todd over at 606diaries.com. But, I’m just not the social butterfly that Todd is. I believe even I would get tired of checking out 365 shots of my computer screen. So, what to do?

So, my theme? 365 shots. Yep, that vague. So be it. I’m going to focus (no pun intended) on taking one quality photograph every day for the next year. I already take part in several photo-a-week projects that all center around a specific topic. My daily shots may come from those photo shoots. They may be of a doorknob. I don’t know what each day will bring. But, I’m excited to get started. All the shots will be posted here on the 365 shots page.

Wish me luck.