How boring! ANOTHER fabulous weather day in the supposedly rainy month of July in Alaska. My cup has truly run over as far as weather goes on this trip- thanks, God!
The day's magic started early- we decided to eat breakfast at our hotel's restaurant before purchasing our excursion tickets for a day out on the sea, viewing the abundant wildlife of Resurrection Bay. We were led to our table and no sooner sat down than we were shocked to see that our server was none other than Nicole, the same wonderful waitress that served us our great meal last night at the Exit Glacier Salmon Bake Restaurant! What are the chances of that? We'll she did another fine job and despite working at two different restaurants and handling back to back meal service duties, she displayed the same delightful, smiling, informative, personality that she displayed last night. You go girl!
After breakfast, The Bev went to the gift shop to browse while I walked across the street to buy our $69 excursion tickets for the 3 1/2 hour noon boat tour of Kenai Fjords National Park. Disaster! At 11:05 the sympathetic gal at the ticket counter told me that there was only 1 ticket avaiable for the noon departure! Ah, crap!
Our only alternative was to grab the 6-hour, much better and more extensive tour leaving at 11:30 A.M., in only 25 minutes! New cost? How's about $149 per person, plus tax? Argghhhhh. But what could we do? When ever would we have another shot at seeing such wonders? I ran to Bev to update her to the change and time crunch and ran off to buy the tickets for the 11:30 sailing and I hurriedly dragged our packed up luggage to the rental car, grabbed the necessaries for the voyage, and met her at the dock for boarding with just a few minutes to spare.
The good people at Kenai Fjords Tours took great care of us during our 100+ mile catamaran-based tour of Resurrection Bay's bald eagles, colorful puffins, seals, sea lions, porposes, Humpback whales, and rare Orca whales. We shot some wonderful video, especially of the playful and speedy porposes, just a few feet from my feet at the front of the catarman. For me, the high point of the day's marine tour was the time opposite Aialik Glacier, hearing the crashes as chunks of the cliff-like edge of the glacier broke off and fell into the water. The low point of the day for Beverly was the significant bouncing of the ship as it attained its 40 MPH top speed causing her severe sea sickness and a lengthy purging session in the ship's restroom. Yech.
There was a bit of drama on the way back to the dock. We were on track to return to Seward at our scheduled 5:30 P.M. docking time, when inexplicably the ship did a complete 180 degree turn and accelerated hard, heading away from Seward! We could see a plume of smoke rising from something ahead of us on our new course. Our female ship captain told us that we were heading to help out a "marine incident" that was reported over the ship's radio. My heart sank, thinking that I would now miss the 6:00 P.M. Alaska Railroad departure due to this emergency situation. After a few minutes of full throttle, the captain cut the speed and swung around, executing yet another 180 degree turn back towards Seward. She told us that there was a boat fire in progress, with three individuals in the water, but they had been fished out of the water and were safe, with at least 10 boats on site, with at least one with large scale fire-fighting equipment on scene, so we weren't needed on site. Whew!
We ended up docking virtually on time and I quickly found a shuttle bus to deliver me to the nearby Seward Train Station for a long-awaited 3-hour train ride to Girdwood on the Alaska Railroad. The Bev was scheduled to walk around Seward a bit, then drive our rental car to Girdwood ahead of the slow-moving train, and pick me up at 08:50 P.M. at the tiny Girdwood Train Station.
I had carried with me during the ride to Alaska, a cool photo torn out of a brochure, showing a conductor of the Alaska Railroad standing up on the railing at the front of a locomotive. I was determined to ask if I could be similarly photographed in the same pose, on a locomotive, wearing the conductor's hat. Crazy, no?
I got to the Seward Train Station by 5:15 P.M. for the 6 P.M. departure and I picked up my boarding pass at the ticket office and headed for the "C" car. When I asked the female attendent for car "C" how I might go about having my photo taken while up on the front ladder of the locomotive, she told me that wasn't allowed. Sadly, I boarded the car and found my seat. Dumping my stuff on the seat I decided to give my photo dream one last shot. I hopped down off of car "C" and told the attendent that I wanted to take a picture of the front of the train. Who should be on the platform heading towards the rear of the train as I was walking towards the front? You guessed it- Vern the Conductor! I showed him the photo and told him of my dream photo. He told me absolutely not, that it wasn't allowed for me to climb up on the front of the train, but I could stand in front of the train and have myself photographed. I thanked him and started walking toward the front of the train and asked him who I might ask up there to take my photograph- he volunteered to walk up front with me and take the photo himself!
What a character he turned out to be! When we got to the front of the locomotive, he said to me, "You are not permitted to get up on the train ladder- okay, get up on the train ladder." (????) So I climbed up one rung on the ladder. And he said to me, "DON'T CLIMB UP THE LADDER; okay, climb up the ladder." (?????????) So I climbed up all the way up on the ladder. I then asked him if I could borrow and wear his hat for the photo, and he said to me, "No, you cannot wear my Conductor Hat"; he then took off and handed me his Conductor Hat and told me, "put it on" and he took my picture while I was standing on the deck at the front of the locomotive- my dream photo had come true thanks to Vern!
The train ride was great fun and I ordered and thoroughly enjoyed the highly-touted, super-tender pot roast for a very reasonable $16. I moved around from the dining car to the gondola car and finally on to the domed observation car to take in the superb scenery. The 2 hour and 50 minute train trip was just the right length and although I missed having Bev along to enjoy the ride as well, I hoped that she enjoyed her time in Seward and the 87-mile drive from Seward to Girdwood.
Then came the absolute worst moment of the entire trip. I got off the train in Girdwood and watched my fellow passengers leave the train station until I was the only one standing around with no Beverly in sight. I became increasingly concerned as I stood there waiting with no way to contact her- my Verizon cell telephone service did not work at all in Alaska and my e-mail/text messaging system was extremely spotty at best. I waited for a half an hour wondering what on earth I was going to do to find my wife and what had happended to her. An older woman named Pat was walking her dog near by and asked if I needed help. I told her of my situation and she volunteered to drive me the 1/2 mile to the Tesoro Gas Station so I could make contact with the Alaska State Police at their office in the adjacent shopping center. In the convenience mart of the gas station I tried to send an e mail Bev while I still had 18% of battery power left, telling her that "I am waiting for you at the Tesoro Gas Station in Girdwood- are you coming?" I had no earthly idea what I should or could do next, thinking that I would spend the entire night in the mart of the gas station trying somehow to discover what had happened to my wife, and then........
There she was, finally driving into the gas station fueling area, arriving at 9:40 P.M., a full 50 minutes after she was supposed to pick me up. She had gotten confused and drove past the gas station for 10 minutes before realizing her mistake, u-turning and going back to Girdwood to the train station. When she saw that no one was at the station, she drove to the Tesoro Station and got us back on track together. Double whew.
We drove back to the Portage RV Park and familiar cabin #4, glad that things had worked out, thank God.
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