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I fear that retirement means I’ll be mopping the bathroom floors in some Wal-Mart until I die. Or maybe I’ll need heart surgery I can’t afford, and I can only stay alive by hooking my femoral artery to an electric pump that I drag behind me on a Radio Flyer wagon until I drop dead. You may have these same fears, if you’re within screaming distance of retirement age like I am.

I also fear that my modest retirement savings won’t be shored up by Social Security payments as I had once hoped. In fact, I now worry that when I retire, the social safety net will consist of Social Security employees creeping around my house at night looking for stuff they can pawn to pay down the national debt. That’s a lot of fear there. It makes people do dumb things. It makes people believe the most ridiculous things.

A lot of generous people out there want to help me overcome my fear. They want to empower me to take control of my retirement destiny. They promise to teach me how to transform my meek, disorganized savings into an army of financial conquest. I’ll need to pay them for this generosity, of course. Nothing worthwhile comes without suffering. Dozens of movie training montages have taught me that.

The thing that makes these teachers so astoundingly generous is that they won’t just help me shoot my retirement fears in the chest like I was Wyatt Earp. They will also teach me how to transform my humble savings into a huge, roaring pile of money, so I can buy opulent houses and Italian sports cars. Not only will I never have to worry about money again, I can make everyone else feel bad because they’re not as rich as me. It’s like these teachers are giving me a horse in a town where everyone rides goats. That’s a lot of greed right there. It makes people do dumb things. It makes people believe the most ridiculous things.

Fear and Greed are two of the four horsemen of bad decision making. Fear kicks you in the stomach, and then Greed punches you in the brain. Together they can make people do and believe almost anything.

For example, there are some dudes on the radio in my town who have been pimping their investment seminars for years. I turn on the radio in the bathroom while I shower, so I hear them on the weekends. They always talk about how much money their students make. Years ago the returns were impressive but theoretically possible. After a while they started talking about bigger returns, which I guess someone could achieve with a lot of luck. Then they began describing returns that you could only reach with a magic lamp or half a dozen senators in your pocket.

While I was shampooing my hair this morning I thought I heard these fellows say that their most effective investment technique is now yielding a 100% return every month. I assumed I was having a stroke, or perhaps hallucinating because a brain-eating amoeba was swimming up my nose. But as I toweled off a few minutes later they said it again.

Bear with me while I illustrate how stupid and outrageous that statement is. Say you took $10,000 and started investing with their technique this month, which is September. At 100% return per month, by Halloween you’re at $40,000, and by New Year’s Eve you’re up to $160,000. By April Fool’s Day next year you’ve passed a cool million, and by Halloween next year you’ve leapt ahead of Bill Gates to become the richest person on the planet.

In a little over two years you’ll own all the personal wealth on planet Earth ($223 trillion). Congratulations. My birthday’s coming up. My Amazon Wish List is updated, and I’d like either Mary Winstead or Allison Janney to pop out of my cake.

Of course this example is carried to a ridiculous extreme. But that doesn’t make it any more ridiculous than what these fellows are saying on the radio. Yes, they include a quick disclaimer that the results discussed aren’t typical and shouldn’t be used to make investment decisions. Their butts are covered. And frankly, I expect low-lifes to be low-lifes. It lends a certain comforting predictability to the world.

I am rather put out with the radio station though. This is an old and reputable organization, and since it operates on the public airwaves I think it bears a little responsibility for what it splashes across those waves. If this is the way it’s going to be, maybe I’ll start teaching people how to double their money every week using my secret, patented method for processing lithium out of cat feces and selling it to battery companies. Sure, it’s just taking advantage of desperate people, but Wal-Mart’s going to need somebody to mop their bathrooms.

Will I be driving this to the country club and the spa for confident straight guys when I retire?
Will I be driving this to the country club and the spa for confident straight guys when I retire?

Photo by Robert Paprstein
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by theFree Software Foundation.

Or will this be the only Lamborghini I can afford to drive to Big Lots and the liquor store?
Or will this be the only Lamborghini I can afford to drive to Big Lots and the liquor store?

Photo by ChiemseeMan (public domain).

I pity Sigmund Freud, because he didn’t have Facebook. I feel bad for Karl Jung, and Carl Stumpf, and those other fathers of modern psychology too. How were they able to drag this discipline out of its infancy without the armada of diagnostic tools that’s recently appeared from over the horizon of social media? I refer to evaluations such as:

15 Unmistakable, Outrageously Secret Signs You’re an Extrovert
23 Signs You’re Secretly An Introvert
23 Signs You’re Secretly a Narcissist Masquerading as a Sensitive Introvert
10 Ways to Tell if You’re Confident – or Arrogant
5 Ways To Know You’re Watching a Spielberg Movie

Those represent just a tiny fragment of the avalanche of mental health/personality syndrome quizzes we are enjoying.

I can’t help tossing my pebble into the landslide. I found a gap in the flow of helpful questionnaires, and I’ve applied my profound lack of expertise to the challenge if filling it. I present “Nine Ways To Tell If You’re a Raccoon.”

Just answer the questions using the five-point scale below. Be honest. This thing doesn’t work if you aren’t honest, and then you walk around for the rest of your life in doubt about whether you’re a raccoon. Once you’ve finished, add up your points and read your results!

The Five-Point Scale
5 – This is me. It describes me perfectly.
4 – This sort of describes me. Maybe when I feel nostalgic or I’ve been drinking.
3 – Eh. Maybe this describes me, maybe it doesn’t. Is Walking Dead on?
2 – This doesn’t describe me too well. It might once in a while, like on Halloween.
1 – This isn’t me. You’re talking about a squirrel, or a goat or something.

The Questions

1. ___ I can always find my way back to a place with good food, such as Fuzzy’s Tacos or the garbage can in your garage.

2. ___ I enjoy social activities like tormenting your cat until it cowers behind the air conditioner in a neurotic stupor.

3. ___ When the weather is cold, I like to snuggle down into a blanket made from the insulation under your Jacuzzi.

4. ___ If you make your garden unpleasant by blasting talk radio all night, I’ll just chew through the screen on your utility room window and pee on your clothes.

5. ___ I like the night life. I like to boogie.

6. ___ I think food always tastes better when someone gives it to me for free. That includes birdseed in a feeder hanging from a greased pole sprayed with Tabasco sauce and adorned with peppermint-soaked cotton balls stuffed into pantyhose. That also includes French fries on an unattended plate.

7. ___ I’m secretly laughing at everyone around me.

8. ___ I find ornamental ponds so compelling. I especially love those goldfish that swim around in them.

9. ___ Even though I have opposable thumbs, I rarely find an opportunity to poke some idiot in the eye with a stick.

Now let’s see how you scored!

Under 20: Sorry, you’re not even a good simulation of a raccoon, and you’re probably not too cute, either. Move to Cuba (where raccoons are extinct).

21-35: You have strong raccoon tendencies, which you can cultivate with some effort. Chew your way into the attic a few times, and wash your chicken wings in the gutter before you eat them. There’s hope for you.

Over 35: Hooray! You are among nature’s most insidiously destructive cute animals! Let’s go tear some shit up and eat garbage!

Don’t feel bad if you aren’t a raccoon. We all have our place in the magnificent tapestry that is existence, and although you suck you might be lucky enough for a raccoon to eat part of your body after you die.

Procyon_lotor_(xndr)
Yeah, you know that you wish you were washing cockroaches in your neighbor’s pool.

Photo by Svdmolen
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Alaskan Cruise, Days 10 and 11 – At Sea

If a cruise is going to suck, it will probably suck on the days you’re at sea. You paid to visit fascinating places by ship. When you’re not at the fascinating places, you’ve just got ship. I grant that it’s a marvelous ship, with liquor near the hot tubs and pizza a short walk from the string quartet. But in the end it’s a hotel full of strangers you can’t get away from. The cruise line tacitly admits this by packing each day with entertainment and educational opportunities. But at some point you’ll want to choke the hillbilly at the next dining table to death with his own beard, and no number of cha-cha lessons will change that.

However, the ocean offshore of Alaska is more fun than any of the places you might visit on shore. The ship has a guy whose job is to look around for cool things, such as a sea lion climbing the face of a glacier (just as an example). Then he tells everyone to look off the port bow for this amazing thing. After half a dozen people are trampled to death while everyone tries to figure out where the port bow is, people pack the railing four deep to collectively snap a quarter of a million photos of one perplexed sea lion.

It’s great.

Rather than babble about how great it is, I’ll include a few of the 5,000 photos I’ve taken over the past couple of days.

To start with, here’s a glacier. Yes, I know it’s just another wall of ice, but I think the picture is pretty.

Glacier In The Mist

I’ll follow that with a couple of humpback whale shots, one jumping around like a dachshund, and two more just hanging out, wondering where to go for dinner.

Whale Jumping

Two Whales

I happened to catch a glacier calving, which means a hunk of it is falling off. Look for the red circle on the first shot—that indicates the hunk that falls off.

Calving Frames 1

Calving Frames 2

And I’ll finish with a traditional farewell whale shot.

Whale Butt

Tomorrow—puppies!

Alaskan Cruise, Day 9 – Whittier

Ninety-five percent of the people on this ship disappeared this morning. The ship has reached its northern-most port of call and will begin sailing back to Vancouver tonight. Most people travel just one direction on this trip, but the cruise line doesn’t object to selling you a more expensive ticket if you want to go both directions. My wife and I are among the few who thought that would be a keen idea.

In the past week we’ve frequently heard the question, “Why do you want to turn around and spend another week seeing all the stuff you just saw?” The people asking this have a point. We will now be forced to once more look at all those mountains and glaciers and whales and sea otters and other stuff we may never see again. Watch us suffer.

By the way, here’s a sea otter we sailed past yesterday:

They don't have blubber on their paws, so they float on their backs with their cute little paws in the air to keep them warm. And to keep them poised to tear your liver out if you get too close.
They don’t have blubber on their paws, so they float on their backs with their cute little paws in the air to keep them warm. And to keep them poised to tear your liver out if you get too close.

Hanging in there for the return trip is benefiting us in a way I never expected. A whole ship-full of new passengers came aboard today, wide-eyed and anticipating their passage to Vancouver. And they don’t know a god damned thing about this ship. Their bewilderment binds them together, and it allows us to feel superior to them. My wife and I hear their plaintive cries as they wander the passageways like Spinal Tap, and we smile.

Here are some of their most common questions, along with the answers I’d give them if I had any kind of empathy or pity.

Which way is the front of the boat?

First of all, it’s a ship, not a boat. The distinction may not seem important, since both will drown you if something bad happens, but boats are small and ships are big. I don’t really know where the demarcation lies, but any vessel big enough to host a Def Leppard concert is certainly a ship. Second, to find the front of the ship you should look over the railing and note which direction the ocean seems to be moving. The front of the ship is the other way, unless you’re sailing to Canada in reverse.

What do I have to pay for on this ship?

The cruise line provides, free of charge, everything you need to keep from dying. That includes food, water, tea, and black coffee. Also, they don’t make you pay to sing karaoke, and you can watch all the singers, dancers, musicians and magicians you want. Everything else costs extra.

Do I have to sing karaoke?

No, you can play bingo instead if you want. However, everybody in the karaoke bar is getting hammered and working up the guts to sing Copa Cabana, so they’re a pretty accepting bunch.

Why isn’t there a single clock on the ship?

The immediate reason is that the cruise line doesn’t want to force any time pressure on you that might mar your relaxing, worry-free holiday. The underlying reason is that they sell watches in the atrium every day, and they want you to buy one.

How do you ever find anything around here?

Forget finding anything. Cruise liners are like hotels twisted and crammed into a ship’s hull by omnipotent howler monkeys. The ship’s geography resists human understanding. By the time your one-week cruise ends you may have memorized the path to the closest source of martinis, but no guarantees. Your best bet is herding. If you’re hungry, follow the people who look hungry. The strong ones will lead you to the buffet eventually.

Here’s a picture of our ship. You can see that it’s larger than a mountain, at least from certain angles.

I'm pretty sure I saw a minotaur at the piano bar last night. He was requesting a lot of Billy Joel.
I’m pretty sure I saw a minotaur at the piano bar last night. He was requesting a lot of Billy Joel.

Despite the vessel’s awesome scope, my wife and I are now initiated into its mysteries and can find the hot tubs that are off-limits to kids. That makes me kind of dread going back home where I can’t even find the right laundry detergent at Tom Thumb.

I console myself with this photo of four sea otters floating in front of four glaciers and serenading us as we sail away.

The farewell song of the sea otters.
The farewell song of the sea otters.

 

Alaskan Cruise, Day 7 – Glacier Bay

Before I left home, a friend warned me that I must not fail to be on deck to observe Glacier Bay when the ship enters it. She told me I’d have to get up early to experience this event, but it would make the entire trip worth the effort.

So, this morning I bounced out of bed at 5:00 a.m., just an hour after sunrise. I dressed myself in every piece of clothing I possessed. My wife lay under the covers and didn’t say anything. She merely watched me the way she watches one of the cats just before it rolls over in its sleep and falls off the dining room table.

I knew that the ship was approaching Glacier Bay, and I didn’t want to miss anything. By 5:30 a.m. I was standing on the tallest observation deck with my camera, binoculars, and high expectations. I scanned the horizon for magnificent vistas, but we had not yet reached any areas of magnificence. Occasionally another passenger joined me, shivered for a few moments while glancing at the lovely but customary Alaskan landscape, and then they trotted back down the stairs. The wind and cold were ghastly. Had I not been clothed in the equivalent of two sheep, I’m sure I would have died instantly.

Two hours into my shatteringly cold vigil, my wife came looking for me. She found me braced against the railing, examining the coastline for any sign of glaciers, or a bay, or even some chunks of floating ice in the water. My wife said, “You should consider the fact that your definition of ‘early’ and other people’s definition of ‘early’ might not be the same.” Then she led me downstairs to the breakfast buffet.

By 9:00 a.m. I was back in my firing position on the observation deck. Glacier Bay chose that time to show itself. My friend hadn’t lied. It was astounding. I snapped off 938 photos, three of which I consider decent. The rest captured the bay’s glory no better than I could have with a Crayola between my toes.

Here’s a shot of the mountains over the bay:

I chose to crop the bottoms of the trees out of the frame. I hope it looks artistic rather than like I was drunk on Alaskan Rhubarb-flavored vodka.
I chose to crop the bottoms of the trees out of the frame. I hope it looks like an artistic choice rather than a blunder inspired by Alaskan rhubarb-flavored vodka.

Here’s a photo of a glacier because, heck, it’s Glacier Bay:

I don't remember the name of this glacier, but as far as glaciers go this one's a badass.
I don’t remember the name of this glacier, but as far as glaciers go this one’s a badass.

A bald eagle surprised us by springing aloft from a floating chunk of ice and flying past the ship:

 

I'm shooting downwards at this fellow because cruise ships are about 1200 feet tall. I could be wrong about that. They're probably taller.
I’m shooting downwards at this fellow because cruise ships are about 1200 feet tall. I could be wrong about that. They’re probably taller.

Glacier Bay was every splendid thing I’d imagined. I’ll never forget how wonderful it was.

Alaskan Cruise, Day 8 – Glaciers in College Fjord

More ice, more water, seen it all before. Blah, blah.

Alaskan Cruise, Day 6 – Wilderness Exploration

Today we went on a “breathtaking tour in which renowned naturalists, magnificent wildlife and an exploration of six ecosystems – ocean, estuary, river, lake, muskeg and rainforest – await in this town aptly nicknamed the ‘Valley of the Eagles.’”

That’s how the brochure described it. It could also be called “Four hours on a bus hanging out with Stacie and Terra.”

The brochure was accurate in every respect. Two young women who know more about wildlife than everyone in my hometown put together took us to all six of those ecosystems and showed us animals. Yet the tour wasn’t how I’d imagined it would be. I had imagined we’d be pushing through the brush like mountain men, spying on bears down by the stream as they knocked back a few jumping salmon. I don’t care that watching wild bears eat is about the stupidest thing you can do. It’s what I expected.

Stacie and Terra gave us something infinitely cooler than my expectation, which would have ended with my entrails flying around like streamers on New Year’s Eve. They showed us a few birds as we drove past, and they told us about the dozens of God’s creatures that God decided not to let us see today. They also spent a lot of time telling us about life as an Alaskan tour guide, living in a tent and recycling everything but toilet paper.

The whole experience was like a laid-back party after a day at the renaissance fair, but without the drum jam.

Terra also took advantage of the beautiful, warm weather by leading us on a short walk through a muskeg, which is another name for a bog. She didn’t explain why they don’t just call it a bog and stop screwing with us stupid people. She then led us on a short walk through the temperate Alaskan rainforest, which looked a lot like the muskeg to me, except that the ground didn’t try to suck off our feet.

Here’s the muskeg/rainforest:

This is a temperate rainforest. It's seems to be a bog as well, since we got back on the bus with two fewer kids than when we got off.
This is a temperate rainforest. It’s seems to be a bog as well, since we got back on the bus with two fewer kids than when we got off.

Stacie and Terra delivered even more than the brochure promised by visiting two additional ecosystems:

First, we visited the “side garden ecosystem” of a nice lady who let us watch wildlife through telescopes beside her house as long as we didn’t disturb her goats. That was fantastic because bald eagles were nesting across the river. With the naked eye, their heads looked like tiny white blobs. Through the telescope, their heads looked like slightly bigger white blobs.

I swear this could have been a burrito wrapper stuck in the tree and I'd have never known the difference.
I swear this could have been a burrito wrapper stuck in the tree and I’d have never known the difference.

The day’s final ecosystem was “Haines City Park.” The community of Haines is the town nicknamed “the Valley of the Eagles.” In the park we ate grilled chicken Cesar wraps, Sun Chips, and oatmeal cookies. The brochure had been entirely mute on the subject of cookies, so we had Stacie and Terra to thank for this flourish.

Eating cookies with our new friends Iman, Isam, and the children they have remaining after the muskeg.
Eating cookies with our new friends Iman, Isam, and the children they have remaining after the muskeg.

If you’re ever in the Valley of the Eagles, I recommend that you visit Stacie and Terra. In fact, I advise it with immense gravity. Their tour fulfills the only criteria that matter when seeking a successful and enjoyable life experience.

You don’t die, and you get a cookie.

Alaskan Cruise, Day 5 – Juneau

My wife and I resumed our prophylactic anti-heart-attack walking regime at 7:00 a.m. Alaska Time, a lazy three hours after sunrise. A gale hurled drizzle across the Celestial deck. It would probably have destroyed our roof back home, but we didn’t care. We had cocooned ourselves in the shirts and sweaters we’d bought in Ketchikan, and we looked like two rolls of toilet paper with legs power-walking around the railing.

During breakfast I bounced in my chair like a chained terrier because today’s main activity would be a whale watching tour. Mid-morning we skipped away from the cruise ship and down the pier through a freshening rainstorm and thickening fog, and half an hour later we boarded a high-speed catamaran. The crew welcomed us and smiled, but they shuffled their feet while warning that we might not see anything in this weather. After all, you can’t just summon a while like you would a pizza.

An hour later we ran across this fellow:

The consensus among the tour guides was that this guy was just dinking around having a good time.
The consensus among the tour guides was that this guy was just dinking around having a good time.

He was soon joined by his five buddies in the killer whale pod:

There were two more killer whales swimming around with these, but never once did all six of the inconsiderate bastards all stay on the surface for the 10 seconds I would have needed to get them in focus.
There were two more killer whales swimming around with these, but never once did all six of the inconsiderate bastards stay on the surface for the 10 seconds I would have needed to get them in focus.

An hour after that a humpback whale dropped by to visit:

Sixty seconds later he crushed that boat like he was Moby Dick. Well, he probably thought hard about it.
Sixty seconds later he crushed that boat like he was Moby Dick. Well, he probably thought hard about it.

Finally, we ran across these sea lions draped all over a buoy like cheap glass angels on a Christmas tree.

I felt exactly the same way after the Chocolate Buffet.
I felt exactly the same way after the Chocolate Buffet.

It was a pretty cool afternoon. On the bus ride back to the ship we passed the gauntlet of Juneau’s watch and jewelry stores. We also saw an alpaca products store that we promised to visit another day. When we drove right past a “Fudge for Sale” sign, our entire bodies convulsed at being unable to stop the bus.

We finished this evening in the ship’s Italian restaurant. There the maitre d’ managed to clean, gut, skin and bone a striped bass right beside our table and make it not only appetizing but artistic.

Today we were victorious.

Alaskan Cruise, Day 3 – Sailing North

I’ve found that cruising is about three things: food, booze, and karaoke. The booze isn’t free, and my tolerance for $12 martinis is limited. Nobody would ever sing karaoke unless they were lit up like Chernobyl. That leaves food, which is available 24 hours a day in quantities limited only by the fear of your heart exploding.

My wife and I have faced cruise ship buffets in the past, and on this trip we resolved to gain no more than ten percent of our body mass. Our strategy is to never step into an elevator. If we can’t climb the stairs to our destination, we do without. This has two benefits. First, we work off a few calories whenever we go anywhere, because the most interesting thing on our deck is the Laundromat. Second, before I climb the nine flights of stairs standing between me and the buffet, I have to want veal cutlets and mashed potatoes a whole lot. I think the strategy’s working, and I figure I’ve only gained about a pound a day.

We came here with a second strategy to keep us from dropping dead the moment we get home. My wife and I planned to walk around the top deck some heroic number of times every morning to keep fit. This morning we climbed all the way up past the Promenade deck, the Emerald deck, and the Lido deck to the Celestial deck, where we stepped outside and realized we’re morons.

When we left home we were enjoying normal mid-summer weather, which is to say a daily high temperature of about 100 degrees. In Vancouver we adjusted to the brisk 75 degree afternoons pretty well. At sunrise on a ship in the Pacific off British Columbia it was 50 degrees, which we’ve experienced at home several times. The 30 mph wind put us to the test, but we’re pretty tough. However, on deck we learned that a ship sailing at 25 knots into a 30 mph wind on a cold day with 100 percent humidity is what kills people from Texas. Here’s a picture of my wife on deck before we ran back to our cabin and put on all the clothes we’d brought with us.

My wife, freezing to death against the railing. You can see where the Grim Reaper has marked her chest.
My wife, freezing to death against the railing. You can see where the Grim Reaper has marked her chest.

Okay, we had to buy more clothes. However, buying clothes from a cruise ship store is financially unwise, like cashing in your IRA and giving the money to chimps. We’re scheduled to dock in beautiful Ketchikan, Alaska tomorrow, so we hope to survive until then.

Alaskan Cruise, Day 4 – Ketchikan

Ketchikan is beautiful. It’s dim and awkward, with a disproportionately large number of bars and tattoo parlors. Every house and shop is painted a different color, and in the sunlight it would probably look Disney-esque. Under today’s low, dripping skies it looked like a black and white photograph that’s been colorized in a few quirky spots. But two things in particular endeared it to us: no wind and cheap gifts.

Here are a couple of views of Ketchikan:

My first view of Ketchikan. It's like they knew I was coming.
My first view of Ketchikan. It’s like they knew I was coming.

 

It looks like where the Hobbits would live, if they were all tuna fisherman and drank Jim Beam.
It looks like where the Hobbits would live, if they were all tuna fisherman and drank Jim Beam.

I learned from a shopkeeper that 800 people live in Ketchikan, and 8,000 cruise ship tourists swarm the place every day. I expect that’s why the residents need a large number of bars per capita. Today, I think all 8,000 of those tourists were packed into three downtown blocks, picking through gold stores, diamond stores, jewelry stores, gold and diamond jewelry stores, art galleries, and a trendy shop selling bamboo sheets. Another store sold dead and skinned examples of every creature native to North America. Yet another carried smelly candles and lotions and soap, which I believe are all exactly the same stuff but in different packages.

None of those things interested me at all. I wanted to find a crass tourist mega-store that sold reasonably-priced souvenir sweatshirts with glittery wolves and bears glued to the chest. We needed a few of those to keep us warm in the northern ocean. I found the place I wanted right there on the waterfront—we couldn’t have wished for an establishment more crass and tawdry. We purchased the sweatshirts we’d been searching for, and we left with them. By coincidence, we also left with some t-shirts, a Christmas ornament, a novelty hat, a quilt, a pair of white fur gloves that could be worn by a hooker, and two pounds of fudge.

I believe that Ketchikan has saved our lives.

As our ship steamed north towards Juneau this evening, I stood on our balcony, toasty and even sweating a little under three Chinese-made Alaskan sweatshirts. I’d been wanting to photograph the sunset, and now I could endure the cold long enough to do it. One of my shots is below. You might notice that the sun has not set. It’s about 10:45 p.m., and I’m tired of waiting for the damned sun to set already. I’m going to bed.

Jeez, the farther north we go, the later the sun sets...

Jeez, the farther north we go, the later the sun sets…

When our meticulously planned European vacation-of-a-lifetime was canceled by God, my wife and I found a great last-minute deal on an Alaskan cruise. We grabbed it and undertook this new adventure with shockingly little planning. Really, I’ve seen better-organized demolition derbies. I almost forgot to pack underwear and lithium. But now we’re underway, and I will record a few observations here in case we’re trampled to death by a caribou herd, and we never return with our thousands of glacier photos taken from minutely different angles.

Alaskan Cruise, Day 1 – Vancouver

The cruise would depart from Vancouver, and to lower our stress level we planned to get there a day early. Vancouver’s a beautiful city. Well, all the parts that I haven’t seen are beautiful. Our taxi driver took us through the nastiest, busiest, and most disorienting parts of the city to reach our hotel. It was like being dragged through The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari by a surly Filipino in a pea-green Audi.

I now love the people of Vancouver. One lady saw us staring at a directory on the street corner like goldfish waiting to be fed, and she stopped to tell us about all the great restaurants three blocks away. Even though we didn’t eat at them because we didn’t want to spend $120 for lunch, she was sweet. And the wizened guy who ran the dim, claustrophobic crépe shop managed to communicate, through frowns, grunts and extra roasted peppers that he thought of us as his kids.

Officially one of the coolest statues ever. By the Vancouver Convention Center. (photo by Kathy)
Officially one of the coolest statues ever. Beside the Vancouver Convention Center. (photo by Kathy)

Alaskan Cruise, Day 2 – Embarkation

We don’t often drink coffee, but Vancouver has coffee shops on at least half the street corners, so we tried one for breakfast. The coffee was lousy, and I didn’t drink much, but the cinnamon roll as big as a baby’s head made sure I stayed peppy even without caffeine.

A couple of hours later we wound through the cruise line’s security/immigration/boarding pass gauntlet. We had arrived early and were rewarded with two hours in a waiting area until the ship was prepared to receive us. While waiting I noticed that we were younger than 95% of the other passengers. I’d been warned to expect that. I also noticed that about half the passengers were Chinese individuals visiting Alaska to examine the parts they intend to buy during the next decade. I spent most of the wait reading Christopher Moore’s Bloodsucking Fiends and becoming increasingly depressed because I’ll never write that well.

We boarded and found our stateroom, which was as far forward as one can get without being cantilevered off the anchor. I didn’t care, since it had not just windows but also a balcony. On a prior Caribbean cruise our cabin had made me feel like I was Cool Hand Luke spending the night in The Box. We unpacked and met Panya, the gentleman who would be taking care of us.

Our packing had been a miracle. My t-shirts, cargo pants and sweaters came out pristine. My suit and dress shirts looked like something pulled out of a wino’s armpit. Panya promised to help, as long as we could pay the laundry bill. I felt compelled to agree, else I’d be attending formal dinners in my Jack Skellington t-shirt. As I looked around at our closet and drawers, a doubt skittered up my back on spider feet and whispered that we may have packed incorrectly.

Tomorrow… Day 3

Our room. Yes, those are real, live balcony doors, through which is pouring real cold ocean air.

Our room. Yes, those are real, live balcony doors, through which is pouring real cold ocean air.

I should be arriving in Vienna right now. The lovely Danube River should this very minute be gurgling along 20 feet beneath my plump, bratwurst-fed hindquarters, delivering me into the classiest city in the world. The Viennese don’t seem to make any effort to be cultured, yet no one in the world is more cultured than they are. They don’t even have to try, so I’d say that makes them the most civilized folks on the planet.

However, I am not looking at the sunrise behind the Vienna skyline right now. By the way, it would look kind of like this, without the sunrise part:

Elegant Vienna. It is not okay to swim in that fountain. If that’s what turns you on, go to Italy.

I am instead looking at this:

It looks messy, but I can find anything within 5 seconds, as long as I don't care what that thing is.
It looks messy, but I can find anything within 5 seconds, as long as I don’t care what that thing is.

The reason I’m looking at this Welsh tinker’s nightmare of a desk is that our European river cruise, for which we’d saved and planned rather a long time, was canceled at the last minute because God turned most of Central Europe into a freshwater lake. I thought all of that flooding meant our boat could just bounce around wherever our fancy led us, as if Europe were a gigantic pinball machine. But our travel agent explained to me why that was not so. I think it had something to do with hydrodynamics, low bridges and tall churches. I said, “Uh huh,” a lot, and she refrained from mocking my hopeful ignorance.

This is not my wife’s fault. I want to say that right now. I admit there’s a certain amount of evidence that disagrees with me on this. Back when she joined Girl Scouts every activity the troop planned got canceled due to rain, measles outbreaks, chemical contamination, or some other damned thing. However, once she dropped out of the troop, the plague of misfortune ended. A few years ago we visited Disney World, and a hurricane shut down the park for the first time ever. We took a Caribbean cruise the week Hurricane Rita smashed through the Gulf. When we drove through New England to see the fall colors, we found that a spring drought had produced leaves as washed out as a tie-dye skirt from your granny’s attic. And now the worst European flooding in 500 years.

I repeat, it is not her fault.

Although schedules prevented us from re-booking the European cruise, I don’t want to complain too much about the canceled trip. Our agent helped us find and book a last-minute Alaskan cruise instead, which is nothing to whine about. And I’m not complaining about the complete change of plans, or the non-refundable hotel deposits, or any of that.

I’m complaining about the luggage. I had convinced my wife that we could thrive for three weeks in Europe with just two carry-on bags to hold everything needed to cover our nakedness. She resisted at first, but she came around after we researched the topic for a few weeks. After I built a box the size of our not-yet-purchased bags and she practiced packing in it, she agreed it was possible. It even became entertainment, as for months we discussed packing strategies and microfiber underwear instead of watching TV. Our logistics for two small bags became every bit as sophisticated as the load-out for Apollo 11.

That plan is now blown to hell.

Somehow Alaska requires more clothes than Europe. I was surprised, since we’d planned to look fairly sharp visiting those German cathedrals and the Vienna Opera House. I figured for Alaska I’d just need a couple of sweaters and a pair of jeans. It turns out that an Alaskan cruise involves formal clothes, and dressy clothes, and extra scarves, and an improbable number of shoes. I could have photographed quaint Danish streets with my serviceable, cigarette-pack-sized camera. In Alaska I’ll need a big camera with a big lens, because I might spot a moose or some salmon a quarter of a mile away.

So we’ll be checking all the bags we can check and carrying on everything we can lift. I feel oddly defeated over the packing, but that’s a quibble, really. Each day I’m getting more excited about sailing north on a ship while our house sitter lounges around our home with my wife’s Remington 870 tactical shotgun:

This season, discriminating homeowners are accessorizing their tactical shotguns with paintings of naked people.

And we’re timing this vacation right. Even though Alaska experienced record heat earlier this summer, with temperatures in the 90s, that’s all over. The weather’s settled back down to its normal cool, welcoming climate. Although this morning I did hear that the hot weather has spawned record swarms of horrible Alaskan mosquitoes.

But that is not my wife’s fault.