Alaska

If you have been following along you know that we took a big trip last summer. Our group that travels together went on an Alaskan Cruise and I am a big chicken about flying so I talked my husband into driving me from Texas to Seattle – but not the short way – we went to San Diego and drove up the west coast. So far I have taken you across New Mexico and Arizona and up the coast to northern California. We have been through deserts, the big zoo, Hollywood, San Fran Bay, through a big tree and finally it’s time to get to Seattle, meet up with our family and friends and board the ship for Alaska.

We are cruisers. I have come to the conclusion that cruising with a family is the best value around plus when you have everyone contained on one boat, they can’t get away! The kids have to put up with their parents. We usually cruise from Galveston because it is driving distance for us and you already know how I feel about flying. I am not doing any advertising but we have a favorite cruise line and when they promote their “Fun Ships” – they really are. But some of our group wanted to switch over and try a different cruise line. I was game. We travel in a large pack so I knew we would have a good time no matter what line we cruised on. I wasn’t so sure that the other cruise line was ready for us.

We travel with a very diversified group, all tied together by livestock shows or divorces. Our ages range from my youngest daughter that is 15 to the oldest which is around 80ish. So we had 2 high school kids, 3 college kids, 1 best friend, 4 gay men, 3 senior citizens, 1 husband, 1 ex husband, 1 ex husband’s girlfriend and a partridge in a pear tree. Yep, my ex husband and his girlfriend cruised with us too. We fit very well on the Fun Ships – they are a welcoming group. The new line we tried was a little stuffy. Our group lowered the average age of the passengers. My kids said that they will think about cruising to Alaska again when they are sixty but will actually wait until they turn seventy. So you combine some gay men, one of whom loves to sparkle in everything he wears with some beverage loving college kids and you get the picture – we had a great time – the other passengers either joined in and had a good time with us, stood and stared at us or snubbed us.

We managed to still have a great time in Alaska although the hottest day on my entire trip from the tip of California to Alaska and back was in Skagway, Alaska when it topped 80 degrees. We saw Glaciers, upside down trees, Governor Palin’s House, a fish hatchery but no whales. Well not yet anyway…


This is a glacier. I went to Alaska not really knowing what a glacier was but here it is. Glaciers are huge. Notice the little people in the foreground of the picture. That's the GQ Public. That's how big a glacier is.

This is an upside down tree. Alaska is the only place I have run across one of these. There is actually a whole botanical garden full of them. The owners take the trees that die, plant them upside down and add all the foliage. They lined the walkways and were really pretty and quite a novel idea for dead trees!

This is a flower hanging from one of the upside down trees!

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