I wrote this great post yesterday about in 2017, I rappelled down a really deep cavern in California. I was reading my journal from the trip and was surprised to see how scared I was.
I scheduled it publish this morning, and it did. I clicked on my notification and read the journal entry. When I got to the end, I saw a picture of me in a previous post. The same picture of me rappelling that I had in the current post.
At that moment, I realized, that I had already wrote about that event! The horror! So I deleted it.
After 2 flights equaling 9+ hours, one suitcase (my husband’s) put on a “later flight”, and a 2-1/2 hour bus ride, we are on the Viking Orion for an Alaska inner passage cruise with approximately 928 other people.
We booked this trip last August. We took a Viking cruise in October of 2022 down the Seine from Paris to Normandy and back but this was our first ocean cruise. It always seemed so far away. Until it wasn’t.
The countdown started at 60 days
Our embarkation was in Seward on Saturday evening and we spent Sunday there with the ship departing at 5pm. This, we thought, was going to be the opportunity to have his suitcase delivered to the ship.
Our embarkation and 1st dayOur first view of the ship!
“Just in case”, we went shopping for hiking shoes and a fleece jacket for our afternoon hike. Because my husband only had Sketcher slip ons from our trip, we knew he would need some shoes for hiking. I knew there had to be something in town for clothing and luckily there was. We headed to Seward Outdoor Store at 8am which was a short walk from the ship. They had what he needed and it was a necessary purchase for him to enjoy the day.
We also paid a visit to a gift shop which is owned by a friend of a hometown friend! We walked in and introduced ourselves and talked with the owner about our trip and our friend who directed us there. It was nice to make the connection and to tell my friend we visited.
If you’re ever in Seward, tell Fred we said hello!
For our excursion in Seward we decided to do a hike to the Exit Glacier. The cruise has an included excursion at each port but sometimes they can be a little dull so we usually pay the money for something that really interests us. A hike is right up our alley.
At 1pm we boarded a bus right off the ship and it was a 15 minute ride to Kenai Fjords National Park. 50 of us got off the bus and divided up among four young guides. Ours was a delightful young woman named Morgan. Morgan has done more in her 24 years than some people will do in a lifetime. She was very knowledgeable about the area and the glacier.
View from the busOur guide, MorganGlacier viewing siteLookout spot on way out – the driver stopped for us
We all expected (and packed) for temperatures to be in the low 60s. Well – Sunday afternoon it was 78 degrees! Thankfully I had my own water bottle and one provided by the tour group because I needed every drop.
It was a 2.5 mile round trip which took us over areas where the glacier has retreated over the years. Morgan explained how they determine how long ago it retreated by the types of trees that have grown. We also saw the striations in the rock and the angle which tells the direction the glacier retreated. It was worth the money and the exertion!
First of many sights to come!
Sadly, we didn’t receive the suitcase by the time the ship left at 5pm. More on that in my Day 2 post!
By working four days a week, I’m getting glimpses of what retirement will look like.
I have a variety of hobbies that include knitting, ancestry research, writing for this and my family stories blog, puzzles, reading. All my indoor stuff but I also have a new e-gravel bike to ride and a boat that will go in the water next month. And travel!
I wish I had more retirement time every day to find a flow to work on my hobbies and outdoor activities!
I took a look at my Day Planner for 2024 and my phone calendar and made a list in Notes of What Happened in 2024. I was surprised at all the events from the year. Sometimes in my mind I think “I never do anything!”, but this proved me wrong. There were lunches and dinners out with friends, two trips to New York other than our yearly Christmas shopping spree, and three week long vacations!
I’m looking forward to this new year of adventures!
Do you have a favorite place you have visited? Where is it?
One of my favorite places that I have visited was Colorado!
I was in Fort Collins in September of 2022 for a long weekend to “help” my niece select her wedding gown. My two sisters and two other nieces were all there and we had a fun “girls weekend” which included her fiancé!
Very early on a cold September morning in Estes Park
In one day we saw the sunrise in Estes Park, went to the Alpine Ridge Trail at 12,005 feet above sea level, went to the CSU football game walked 100 miles to a bar after (and then back to our car!). It was a great adventure!
We went back again in September of 2023 for her wedding. Family was together and we had fabulous weather, until the day of the outdoor wedding! Luckily the rain stopped and we had indoor access.
Hiking Lory State Park
Before we met up with family, my husband and I had time to visit a good friend in Denver and also had time to hike a little bit in Boulder and visit Red Rocks Amphitheater.
Red Rocks Realization Point
On our off day with family, besides the hike, we rented bikes and explored the fabulous trail system in Fort Collins. Of course we hit New Belgium Brewery too!
The day after the wedding, we went to Laramie Wyoming, because, why not? We went to the old prison which is now a museum. First we had breakfast in a bar! Just us and a guy drinking a beer at 9:30!
There is so much to do all over the state and we both look forward to going back!
January 1, 2020 was brisk and bright when I set out for the guided first walk of the year with my sister and niece.
Machimoodus State Park was the location and it took us through the woods and towards a view of the Salmon River before it meets up with the Connecticut River in Haddam, Connecticut.
“Machimoodus” is an indigenous term for “place of bad noises” because of noisy rumblings and echos heard by the Pequot, Narragansett, and Mohegan tribes. The sounds were real and in 1981 geologists determined “micro earthquakes” were the cause amplified by a nearby cave!
We didn’t hear any rumblings, but we saw some beautiful scenery and had a brisk hike to start out the new year!
We took a Danube River cruise in October 2018 and we had a great time except…. There was sort of a pre-excursion part of the cruise where we stayed at a resort for 2 nights and were bused back to Munich for an excursion and only had an hour at an Oktoberfest. Once we boarded our boat in Passau we cruised forward for the night but then had to be bused to Regensberg and another excursion because the water levels were low and Viking took our spot in Regensberg. It created very long bus rides, shortened excursions, and cranky passengers (not us!).
We decided to cancel all our non-included excursions and woke Sunday morning to the notification that breakfast was ending in five minutes!
We got up, took our showers and headed out to find someplace for breakfast – in a country where we could barely speak the language (ok, we couldn’t at all).
Passau Germany 2018
We found this lovely passage and wandered around a bit until we found a cute little restaurant so we sat down and helped ourselves to the buffet being served. then realized the restaurant was part of a hotel!
They were very gracious and let us have our meal – thank God because we were starved!
The trip improved from there and we enjoyed ourselves traveling down the Danube.
Let’s pretend today is Wednesday! Unless you had such a horrible Wednesday, you’d rather forget it….
This was taken in October 2013. It was another fun travel trip with my sister, Janice, and her daughter Julie. We shared driving duties from Connecticut to Las Vegas, and then Jan and I would hop on planes and fly home.
We planned the trip to allow us to see a little of the area along the way. We timed our day right to stop at this site mid-morning and enjoy the grounds and the view from the TOP.
Thoughts From The Passenger Seat 