Jim's Place

Great Vacation and Then...

We returned from our Alaska cruise on Sunday night. The trip was great and we were amazed (although others had told us) how beautiful and big Alaska is. It really is, for the most part, an unspoiled area. Our flight to Seattle was long with two intermediate stops. Because we were going coast-to-coast we decided to fly to Seattle the day before the cruise started so we wouldn't be hurrying to make the ship and then be tired at the beginning of the cruise.

We set sail on Saturday and sailed straight to Juneau, Alaska docking there mid-morning on Monday. As I mentioned before, we booked this cruise through Inspiration Cruises who handle Christian groups. Ours featured David Jeremiah and singer Steve Green. We were all booked on the ms Osterdam from Holland America Lines which holds almost 1800 passengers and was sold out. We were amazed to find out that their were 583 people signed up for the David Jeremiah group--almost 1/3 of the ship.

We had our first service on Saturday evening and we immediately knew it was going to be great. Besides David Jeremiah and Steve Green, they also brought their drama team, Gus and Gladys (if you listen to David Jeremiah on Faith Radio, you might have heard some of their routines although they are much better in person), and the new worship leader for Dr. Jeremiah's church--Charles Billingsly, who also happens to be a solo Christain artist and was formerly the lead singer for Newsong for 2 years. In fact, Charles just joined Dr. Jeremiah's church the 1st of July so that was truly an added bonus. In fact, although I like Steve Green, sometimes I find him too mellow, so I actually liked Charles Billingsly more.

Throughout the week (we met everyday for 1 1/2 hours) he preached a great series on Heaven. During each session, they had drama, worship led by Charles and a song or two by Steve Green. All the sessions were in the evening except for our Sunday morning session. The only difference throughout the cruise was that on that Wednesday, the entire 1 1/2 hours was a concert by Steve Green.

After arriving in Juneau, Lucy and I took a helicopter flight that was absolutely awesome. We flew over mountains and glaciers and eventually landed at a dog sled camp on a snow-covered glacier. Once there we had the opportunity to ride on dog sleds. We all got to both ride sitting down and standing up in the back driving the dogs. What a great, fun experience. After that we took a different route back to the helicopter service and got to see more parts of that beautiful area. You can hear stories and see pictures/movies, but until you see it with your own eyes, you cannot imagine the immenseness and beauty. Only God could create something so magnificent.

Tuesday was an entire day of sailing and we sailed up to and explored (from the ship) Hubbard Glacier. Again, that was very breathtaking.

Wednesday we docked at our second port, Sitka. We didn't take any excursions/tours, but simply got off the ship and walked around sightseeing and shopping. On Thursday, we docked at Ketchikan, our next port, and did the same thing we did in Sitka.

Friday evening we docked in Victoria, Canada. We had visited Victoria when we lived in Tacoma, Washington so we stayed on the ship and rested and packed. On Saturday morning we docked back in Seattle and disembarked.

Again, because of the time difference, we couldn't get a decent flight back to Tallahasse that day so we had arranged to stay in Seattle on Saturday night and fly home on Sunday.

The flight home on Sunday was long, but unevently. Then, the fun started:

- If you've flown into Tallahasse much you probably know that they are notoriously slow in handling baggage. We arrived at 7:00 pm and were the only flight waiting for our luggage and it took 45 minutes for it to start showing up on the carousel. Then, my main suitcase was missing. I spend 32 years in the military flying all over the world and never had a suitcase not get to my destination with me. Now, this had happened to me twice in the past couple years with this same suitcase (the first time was going to Guatemala last year). To make it worse, mine wasn't the only one missing so I had to stand in a line for almost another hour while the one girl filled out all the paperwork. (NOTE: My suitcase was delivered to my house the next morning).

- After I finally finished with the suitcase paperwork, we lugged the rest of our bags out to the long-term parking where we had left our van. The good news is that the van was still there; the bad news was that it had a flat tire. Needless to say, we go home very that night.

- Despite getting home late on Sunday night and being tire, I just had to play golf on Monday morning. We got 8 holes in before the heavens opened up and we got rained out. Not only that, now the battery in my van was dead and I had to call roadside assistance and then go and buy a new battery.

- We had left our cats at the kennel while on our trip and when we picked them up one was sick due to something she had picked up there. She didn't get better the next day, so Wednesday, I took her back to the vet (same place as the kennel) and when we went to leave there, the BMW had a flat tire. The vet was great and since our cat had obviously caught something in the kennel he didn't charge us for the visit or the injections.

I didn't do much today because I figured if I just sat around the house, nothing much else could happen. The bottom line is that the vacation was great, but after these last few days I need another one.

posted by Jim @ 6:05 PM