2017-9-8 Bill Fell--Funny story

I was awakened by an odd noise on the Amsterdam at 6 a.m.

Me: What are you doing?

Bill: I lost my balance. I thought I would get down here on the floor to look for it.

Me: You fell just now? Are you okay?

Bill: Yes.

Me: What were you doing?

Bill: Trying to pull my pants up.

Later:

Me: Any aftereffects from the fall?

Bill: Just one. I am going to be more careful pulling my pants up.

2017-9-11 Chihuly Garden and Glass visit--continued

2017-9-11 Chihuly Garden and Glass visit

We went up in the Space Needle to take pictures but we were not able to get close to the window because of our power chairs. I took one reasonable picture of Mt. Ranier in the background of Seattle. We took lots of wonderful pics from the Chihuly glass exhibit next door to the Space Needle. We bought tickets online that covered both places. 

2017-9-10 Utah Man Murders Wife on Cruise to Alaska!

Sadly, that actually happened a few months ago and we read about it in the papers in Utah. This case is a little different. Here is what happened:

Bill got up at 3:30 a.m. to use the bathroom. To do that, he had to turn off his CPAP machine and then unplug his scooter from the battery charger. Rather than unplug them both, he just turned off the power strip. About 15 minutes later, he realized that when he turned off the power strip, he had accidentally turned off my CPAP, too! He was suddenly certain that he had killed me in my sleep! My CPAP was also plugged into the same power strip. 

He got all kinds of upset. He feared that I was in such a deep coma due to taking Ambien that I didn’t even wake up but just suffocated quietly! After he turned the strip back on, he listened to see if I was still breathing. He doesn’t hear well especially over the sounds of the ship, so he couldn’t tell. 

He crawled over to me and held his hand over my face to see if I was expelling any air. I was, so he relaxed a little. Then, he started to worry that he had shaved ten points off my I.Q. (He said the first test would be to see if I could remember my passwords to sign in to the computer.)

I was really was struggling to breathe while he told me this story because I was laughing so hard. It was the best belly laugh I have had in a while. Poor guy. I did wake up enough to notice that the CPAP was off but I thought the ship had some kind of power failure. (We were on a ship once that had them frequently.) I fell back to sleep while I was still thinking about it and a few minutes later, the CPAP came back on.

I actually slept pretty well last night. We need to get going and get off the ship but, since we are driving, we are not in as much of a hurry as most people. We are planning to see a few sights in Seattle before we leave but the Space Needle doesn't open until 9. I want to see the Chihuly Gardens, too. 

2017-9-8 Sitka, Alaska

It was pouring down rain in Sitka this morning so we decided to stay on the ship. I took a few pictures. One pic shows where some of the other handicapped and elderly cruisers go on these excursion days. The beautiful Russian influenced cabinet is just part of the art on board the Amsterdam.

I didn’t sleep well last night and actually fell asleep on my chair while we were driving to the elevator for breakfast. This is totally unlike me. It has to have something to do with Ambien.

My chair is a technical miracle and it has a backpack feature where a person can drive the chair from the back. Once Bill realized that I was asleep, he turned on the backpack and drove me back to the room in the chair.

He said I got out of the chair and laid down on the bed. He put a blanket over me and I settled in to go back to sleep. He told me he was going to go to breakfast and I told him to bring me back a bun. I eat oatmeal for breakfast so I don’t know what I meant by that. He brought back some bun type things.

At lunchtime, one of the Lido directors came over to ask questions about my chair. He heard that a chair like this one costs as much as a car. I said that this one cost about $17,000 when it was new. But I bought it used from Marc’s Mobility in Florida for $3700. Marc sent it wrapped up on a pallet. It had all the information with it as well as new batteries and he didn’t charge sales tax.

Many people ask us if it’s possible to fly with a chair like this. It is but I was afraid to do it. We had a walker broken by the airlines once and they replaced it but you are without one for a period of time. Also, one of the people on our last cruise had his scooter damaged in transit. He had to rent one from the cruise line. That worked out fine because they still had one to rent. Later, they were all rented and a man was looking for a cane to use on the ship. We loaned him one of Bill’s canes.

We are watching the news coverage of Hurricane Irma on MSNBC. They reported that thousands of cruise ship passengers were basically dumped off in Florida without their luggage and, more importantly, without their medication. Many of them were not from the U.S. They can’t get on a plane to get out of the area. Other people were in line to get on planes and were turned away after they had already put their luggage in the system. That’s why we always put our pills in our carryon and keep it close to us. We have peanut M & M’s in that bag for similar reasons.

2017-9-7 Visiting Hubbard Glacier

It was cold and rainy as we approached the glacier. Not much to see along the shore as the visibility was poor. Holland America does a good job with glacier viewing but they can’t control the weather. The crew handed out Dutch pea soup and hot chocolate on deck which was very welcome.

When we got all the way up and close in to the glacier, the weather cleared up nicely. Everyone had a chance to get a good look and take some pictures. The glacier performed well by calving at least five times while we were out on deck. Then we all crowded into the Lido for lunch.  

Hubbard Glacier is one of the few that is growing and not retreating. It’s been called a galloping glacier. There are other glaciers right next door to this one but they are dark and dirty. I took a few pics but I deleted them because they can’t compete with Hubbard. 

2017-9-6 Kodiak is Canceled

Bill considers himself to be a laundry professional because he spent six months working in the laundry of the USN Markab, a U. S. Navy repair ship. When he enlisted in 1960, the Navy promised to train him to be an electronic technician. They made good on the promise but he had to wait for an opening in the ET program before he could start.

After his time on the Markab, he was sent to Treasure Island for six months to learn his trade. Then he was assigned to a base at Kodiak, Alaska. His job was to protect the DEW line which was the Distant Early Warning of Russian airplanes violating our air space. The Russians were not our friends then and they are not our friends now.

Unfortunately, the Amsterdam will not be stopping at Kodiak tomorrow because of rough weather. The entrance to the island is between two reefs and our captain says it is too much of a risk to enter during the storm that is expected to start any minute now. We have been to Kodiak before so it’s not a big deal for us. There isn’t much there.

This storm is expected to have peak winds at 35 miles per hour. The last one peaked at 60 miles per hour.

When we visited Kodiak the first time, Bill told me the story of when he and a friend climbed Barometer Mountain in April 1962. He was 19 and was much more agile than he is now. They climbed all the way to the top to slide around on a glacier. They would take a run and slide down standing up. Then they climbed back to the top and slid down again.

When they got tired, they still had to make the steep climb back down the mountain. There was a lot of grass and the slope looked to them like a giant slide so they decided to slide down on the seat of their pants. They hit outcroppings of rocks a few times but it didn’t stop them.

When they got to the bottom of the mountain, Bill discovered he had both split out his pants and lost his wallet. They were walking back to the base when their commander and his wife drove by. They stopped and offered them a ride back. Bill said he was embarrassed by not being properly or totally dressed. The commander’s wife thought that was funny and promised him she would not look.

The following spring, someone found Bill’s wallet on the mountain and gave it back to him. It didn’t look bad at all except the pictures were a little bit waterlogged. The man was honest enough that he even returned the money. Bill dried it all out and it was fine.

2017-9-5 Homer

We have arrived in Homer and this announcement just came over the PA system:

“For your own safety and the safety of other guests, I ask you AGAIN not to congregate near the gangway or on the stairs. Remember, I can see you all.”
(This was the third announcement about not congregating.)

Homer is not a very big place but we were planning to take the shuttle in, anyway. Bill went down to check on whether there is a lift on the shuttle and there is not. However, the person he talked to said we can ride in on our scooters. It would be better to do it right away because it is going to rain this afternoon.

So, we went into the Spit area about a mile and a half looking for the general store. We bought some peanut M & M’s.

Lots of eagles and seagulls in Homer. We saw this eagle being chased by a seagull. 

This is a pic of Bill with two of our waiters. They are dressed like lumberjacks. 

2017-9-5 On the Way To Homer

“Living on earth may be expensive, but it includes an annual free trip around the sun.” Anonymous

For those of you who are concerned with how we are sleeping:
Bill says he is sleeping okay in the bed--after a fashion. He falls asleep on his side. When it hurts too much, he sits up for a while until it eases up. Then he can go back to sleep again.

I fall asleep with the rolled up sleeping bag under my legs. I break my Ambien in half and take half when I go to sleep and take the second half when I wake up about 3. I am in pretty serious pain by then so I also take one of my morning gabapentin pills early.

2017-9-4 Visiting Anchorage

As soon as the Amsterdam turned into the shelter of the islands around Anchorage, all the violent motions of the ship ceased and we sailed smoothly into port. This morning, we took the shuttle into the city proper. Since it is Labor Day in the U.S., there was not much traffic. The bus driver told us a little about Anchorage. We crossed a small river where men were fishing for salmon. The driver said Beluga whales sometimes chase the salmon part way into the mouth of the river.

The ship had docked and started off-loading passengers at 8 a.m. We waited for an hour so we would not be in the way. There is an extreme differential for the tides in Alaska. When I looked over the rail at 8:00, the off ramp looked almost flat. When we showed up to leave at 9:00, they shut the door and said they were moving the ramp up to the third floor because the tide had risen. So, we went up there to wait.

After we got off, we had to wait for a bus that was equipped to handle us. We were manually hoisted on and off of the shuttle bus which took about twenty minutes. There was a 15 minute drive each way into town. We got a map and made our way to the Anchorage Museum. Out of a four hour visit, we were actually only in the museum for an hour. We didn’t have time to see much of anything. We left the harbor at 9:30 and came back on board at 1:30. We needed to get back to the ship so Bill could have the low sodium lunch.

We had a new waiter today. He had an unusual name. He said his father gave him a Japanese name hoping that he would one day be admitted to a Japanese university. That didn’t work out for him so he is working for Holland America. We tried to encourage him with our stories of graduating college when we were older. 

2017-9-3 On the Way to Anchorage

Stormy weather today. The captain told us to batten down the hatches. By that he meant that we should remove things that might fall off our shelves, etc. Last night, all the deck chairs were removed and stowed so they don’t bang around on the deck.

And…we were upstairs an hour ago when we went into a very big roll to port and everything fell off the counters at the coffee bar and off the desk of the cruise consultant. Flowers, vases, files, brochures, cups, trays—they all came tumbling down and spread out across the rug.

The captain told us that he is using the stablilizers as much as possible to smooth out the gyrations of the ship. I haven’t heard of any bad falls yet so that’s good. The passengers are just a step above the clientele of your average rest home. He doesn’t want anyone to get hurt.

A few years ago, I met a woman in the elevator who said she had fallen on that very ship and broke her hip just six months before. She was back on another cruise but using a cane.

We have had very mild weather thus far and could hardly detect any motion of the ocean. Bill and I haven’t had even a hint of seasickness.

Yesterday, we went to an Adaggio performance. I saw people looking out the window so I asked what they were looking at. I hoped there were some more whales spouting. But they were just looking at the mountains. I said,

"Pshaw. I wouldn't turn around to look at the mountains. We see them every day at home." 

It turned out they weren't really looking at mountains. They were looking at enormous glaciers at the foot of the mountains. I took a couple of pics but they aren't great because the windows were streaked. 

2017-9-2 Juneau and Icy Point Strait

I enjoyed our stop at Icy Strait Point much more than I thought I would. 

Icy Strait Point is the only man-made destination in Alaska (so far) so I wasn’t expecting much but it was worth a stop. It is the brainchild of the Huna Tlinglit tribe. They have a zip line as high as the Empire State building going over a primordial forest. People said it was great.

There is a short nature trail through the forest that goes uphill behind the building and then down by the shoreline. Bill said he couldn’t make it up in his scooter. My chair has larger wheels and it goes like the wind. So, I said I would be back in fifteen minutes. When I got around to the shore part of the trail, I was afraid it was too steep to go down in my chair so I turned back.

As it happened, a man walking ahead of me on the shore side slipped and fell. He either broke or dislocated his hip. We are waiting for a helicopter to evacuate him right now. One day, you are the one on the zip line and a few short years later, you are the one being taken to the hospital for a simple fall.

The Huna Tlinglit are the ones who were driven out of Glacier Bay by the very rapid advance of a glacier in the mid-1700’s. A representative from the group came on board the ship the last time we were here and told that amazing story. In 1944, their village was destroyed in a fire. Then, they had a cannery here that went out of business in the 1950’s. So they have had their troubles but I think their new business model will be a winner for them.

The last pic is Bill cleaning the crud off my tires with a broom. He didn't want to drag it into our cabin. 

We went up to the Lido to get some ice cream about 3 pm. The captain said we were passing by Glacier Bay on the starboard side and we should keep an eye out for whales. We moved over there and Bill saw one come up for air some distance away. So, we stationed ourselves next to the window and saw a small one breach twice. We wondered if it was really a whale but then we saw the fluke. We all clapped. 

Yesterday, in Juneau, we took the tram up to the top of the ridge and took some pictures. The ship and the brochure definitely over-promised on the tram trip. Supposedly, there is an eagle nesting there but we didn’t see it. There is a natural history museum but it was inaccessible to us.