(The Alaska Cruise, concluded)

The day after that other day, late night

Something about being under a leaden sky told me I wouldn’t have that teleconference I’d planned, and sure enough: NO CARRIER.

Whatever. I was looking up at a glacier in a sea of ice, and that seemed to be the most important thing at the moment. (Picture above. The small boat gives you a sense of scale.)

After however many days on the water on this beast of pleasure it’s hard to tell what day it is or what matters more or what matters less; I do know that we spent most of today racing south for Prince Rupert, which is like running as fast as you can to get to Wal-Mart before they run out of pickles.

Right now I’m ignoring the chocolate buffet, where chocolate is presented in all possible forms. There is a chocolate planet from which a chocolate woman is emerging and she is giving birth to a child who is shooting syrup from his mouth, and it all cascades down steps made of chocolate into a chocolate bowl filled with chocolate. Most people leave the event and chunder buffet over the port side of the ship (Sorry, the left side of the boat; I need to use the right terms) whether they had chocolate or not. It’s just so much chocolate, and that’s a hard concept for some to handle. One: that so much chocolate exists. Two: that it exists and they kept it from us until now. 

Gnat and wife are at the chocolate buffet. I am in the “Internet Café,”  a generally failed concept that will be removed from ths ship soon, I’m sure. They saw this as a social place where “cyberhipsters” would gather and “interface” but there’s hardly anyone up here, and the sofas and tables and chairs are never used. Given the line’s ability to extract money from every square inch of the ship, this won’t stand.

I’m out of here; this is lame.

Now I’m outside on deck seven, around midnight, typing as the water roars past below; we’re just booming south out to sea . . . and Gnat and Wife just returned from the chocolate buffet with items for me, and they’re headed back to the room, so I guess it’s one last dessert.

Midnight, and my child finds me on a ship with 3000 souls!

We wandered into Prince Rupert today, a town that sounds like someone named it in the middle of a belch. I have no idea why we stopped; a giant killer wave could strike at any moment!

The downtown was charmless. We spent ten bucks on a museum devoted mostly to native arts, including those totems that freak the holy hell out of Gnat. I fixed the picture so she would appear to be a ghost, and hence scare them:

There was another touristy area called “Cow Bay” which I suspected was named for the day when a ship bearing a herd of Guernseys broke apart in the bay and a hundred cows washed up a day later, but no: turns out a fellow brought cows to Prince Rupert and let them graze down here, and thus the bay was renamed. No cows now. Just little shops where you could buy “British Sweets” and candles and other items to bulk up your suitcase. I did enjoy this little box from the Winston Churchill period of commercial design:

Okay, I’m off to the Chocolate Buffet. Get some pictures. This sounds like the ultimate cruise ship decadence.

Update: yep.

FRIDAY:

Had breakfast with Gnat. The last leisurely breakfast. As the staff put fresh tubs of eggs and bacon into the steam table slots the speakers played an Italian-language version of “Don’t Dream It’s Over.”

Tomorrow we get off the Ship and head home. I’m ready. I’m so sick of food I would prefer to be fed by a tube for the next week. The food has been wonderful – at the restaurants, that is. The buffet line grub was ordinary, and given the other problems with the room – it’s noisy, and it smells of dead meals and soiled towels. All the kids say it stinks. This does not dissuade the Gluttony Brigade, who may have heard horror stories of small portions in the fancy restaurants, and load up their plates so high it looks like they’re carrying an wizard’s hat made entirely of meat.

Well, today’s Gnat’s birthday party – it’s not her birthday, but we’re going to have the stateroom (funny name; if it’s a state, it’s Rhode Island) decorated with balloons and a banner, and all 13 members of our party will be crammed into the room to shout surprise. Then we will wander around before supper and then we will wander around after supper, I suppose. Right now I’m going to shoot the ship in case I missed anything, and come home with endless video of the water and the shore. Which is possible.

Here, for example, is the Blue Lagoon Cafe. The name has nothing to do with the decor, but you can see why I might like it. Didn't spend much time here; didn't eat one meal here. But the coffee pot was always on, and I poured a cup almost every time I passed, Diner style.

SATURDAY

Airport. What a painful day. Leaving the ship was easy enough; we arranged to have the bags taken from our room and checked through to Minneapolis. Or at least I assume they’ll show up in Minneapolis. For all I know they were stolen from the hallway in the middle of the night. We trundled through customs, which consisted of handing a slip of paper declaring we hadn’t bought much and weren’t smuggling in foreign fruits packed in raw cow meat buzzing with pestilence-bearing flies, then walked around Seattle for a day. I wish we hadn’t. I enjoyed the city a great deal, and had a grand time at the Public Market:

But I was carrying everything I couldn’t check, which mean the computer, cameras, other sundry stuff – sixty pounds, plus Gnat’s heavy bag. Dead, I was. We encountered some Street Persons – two who were attempting to squeeze through a chain-link fence, one of whom was holding a brand-new shiny purse liberated from some unfortunate. Outside the aquarium I witnessed a drug transaction – a bum came up to a fellow sitting next to me, offered the fellow some beef jerky stolen from some place, and the fellow asked what the guy wanted in return. “Heroin,” said the bum, and the fellow nodded and got up and they walked off. Ohhhkay. They passed a sign that declared the aquarium a “drug free zone.” Oddly enough, the sign appeared to have no effect – unless they crossed the street, of course.

An expensive cab ride to the airport, then the usual security theater, as it’s called. Shoes off, water bottles away, soft-tissue scan, buttock palpating, groinal wanding with the buzzy stick. A subway ride to the gate; on the plane, and up. Uneventful flight, except for the part where I realized that they no longer provide circular divots in the seat-back trays to keep your drink from sliding around. I discovered this when the drink slid around and dumped six ounces of Diet Pepsi in my lap.

Home at midnight: the house was intact. Nothing missing, no windows broken, no bodies on the floor laid low by my poison-dart security system, which is good, because the windows were shut and the smell would have been horrible. Gnat was delighted to be home, and no one got to sleep for hours.

And it was warm. It was hot. My wife and I sat out in the gazebo in the midnight heat and relaxed and wondered: that was fast. Seemed like it took forever but now it seems to have happened overnight. All gone. Ah well.

But that night I could still feel the ship. I dreamed I was riding a whale. Good trip? Well, as I sang on the last karaoke night: oh baby. That's what I like.