Day 6, Saturday, July 20 – my BIRTHDAY! Yay!! –
Saturday: At Sea, Marjorie Glacier
What a relaxing day my birthday turned out to be.
After all our busy port days, Brian and I were both ready for some R&R. We
slept a little later, then looked out from our balcony to see we were floating
up a passage with a beautiful tree-lined island on the side of the ship. It
wasn’t super cold, but it was refreshingly chilly. I stepped out onto the
balcony and peeked around the corner toward the front of the ship. And, guess
what I saw?! The beginnings of a glacier! So exciting!
We hurried and got
dressed and watched as a small glacier passed by our side of the ship.
Apparently it was called the Reid glacier – maybe named after that guy from
Skagway? Well, it wasn’t the main attraction, but it was super cool that we got
to watch it right from our little balcony deck!! After it passed, we went to
the Garden to get some breakfast and wait as we got closer to the big glacier –
Marjorie. We watched it from the top deck of the ship – along with the other
2000 guests onboard, I’m pretty sure!
Sometime in the early morning, a couple or three
forest service rangers had boarded the ship and were giving a presentation
about the glaciers over the loudspeaker as we approached. To be honest, mostly
the forest service lady just rambled on about climate change and how we’ve
killed the glaciers and borrowed beauty from our grandchildren, who may never
know the glories of looking at a glacier from an Alaskan cruise because they’re
all receding. Her spiel was kind of depressing and guilt-trippish. Sigh. Brian
showed me some maps of how the glaciers have grown, and shrunk, and grown
again, and shrunk again, all within the past 300-400 years. They’re not super
predictable, turns out. And some of them are shrinking while others are
actually growing right now – including the Hubbard, which is the largest
glacier we saw. Yep, Hubbard is growing right now. But the park ranger only
felt inclined to tell us about the ones that fit the global warming, climate
change model of thinking, -- poor, dying Marjorie. (“Cool It” is an interesting
“counter” read on that global warming subject.)
We loved looking at Marjorie Glacier (except I kept
mixing up and calling it Margaret, haha!). When the sheets of ice break off and
fall into the ocean, they call it “calving.” I wish they thought of a better
word for it, but well… We saw lots of “calving” at Marjorie! The sound as the
ice cracks and falls is so impressive! A loud, crackling, BANG sound, and then
we would see powder fly up as it dropped into the water with a splash. Pretty
amazing! The ice is soooo spectacular and blue. Our ship got to pull up quite
close to it – the closest we got to any of the glaciers on the trip. The ship
stayed in place and pivoted around for a full hour, so every part of the ship
got a spectacular view! Brian even staked out a spot by a vacated balcony for
us, knowing the glacier would be front and center there in 15 minutes or so. Then he
patiently waited for the ship to turn, until we got our perfect pictures. It
was really fascinating to be there.
Afterward, we sailed up another channel and saw a
different glacier. It was smaller and farther from the ship, and we only sailed
past it, rather than stopping and watching for awhile. So, that was less
eventful, but still exciting to see (even if I have momentarily forgotten the
name of that lesser glacier, ahem).
Once the glaciers were gone, well… it was a pretty
quiet day, actually! Brian and I went back to our room and we both read for awhile,
then turned on the movie channel. Brian took a loooong nap, while I watched
three movies at once – something about a dog, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Big
Miracle. Brian woke up and watched the ending of Big Miracle with me. It was
fitting, being that it’s about Alaska, and whales and snow. Hehe.
Sometime in the afternoon, a crew member knocked on
the door with a birthday card and cupcake especially for me, from everyone at
Norwegian Jewel. Awww! We shared the cupcake, then got ready for our fancy
birthday dinner. We dressed up, Brian in his suit looking so handsome, and I
wore a new dress that I bought two days before our trip. Brian gave me a cute,
glittery hair barrette as a birthday present, and had me open a very sweet card
that all the kids had signed before we left. That was extra special,
considering we had no cell phone service and no way to be in touch with them on
my day. Man, I was really starting to miss them a lot by then!
We went back to the Tsar’s for dinner again. (Just so
you know, there were other restaurants, and we looked at all the different
menus from time to time. But the Tsar’s menu changed daily, and we just really
liked their fancy dining room with floor-to-ceiling windows looking out the
back of the ship, and soft background piano music creating a romantic, mellow
atmosphere.) They seated us near the back, by the big windows, which was
perfect! I was torn between ordering the turkey medallions and apricot sauce,
or the grilled tilapia with lemon sauce on a bed of rice. I will tell you now,
I should have ordered the tilapia. The turkey was lacking, for some reason -- only meal I didn't really enjoy. But honestly, I wasn’t really so hungry, so I ate a
bit of the turkey and moved on to dessert. My happy birthday cake was a deep,
rich chocolate slice with a lovely ganache on top. Yum! I think I also ordered
a second dessert, just because it was my birthday, of course. But I can’t
remember what it was, hmmm…
Back to our room, where we watched “Emma,” one of my
favorites, that I had downloaded from Netflix. It was a quiet birthday, the
actual day. But since I’m counting this whole, entire trip as part of my
birthday celebration, I’d say it was just about perfect! I went to bed feeling
loved and happy and very full of chocolate cake.
Day 7, Sunday, July 21 – At Sea, Hubbard Glacier
We woke up again to see big floating ice chunks out
the balcony windows. I peeked out and once again there was a really big glacier
in front of our ship, a ways away still. I was really surprised to see so much
ice floating past, all of it the beautiful blue color of glacial ice. The
Hubbard glacier is one of the biggest, and is actually growing. It is also
pretty spectacular to see and hard to capture in pictures – believe me,
everyone was trying, incessantly!
The crowds on the deck were even bigger than
with the Marjorie glacier. I joked with Brian that it was like trying to take a
picture of the Mona Lisa painting in the Louvre museum!! But of course, we got
up there and took our selfies with the glacier, waiting in line for the best
spots, following its path as the ship turned – just like everybody else. My mom
said on their ship, they allowed a few people up in the crow’s nest to view the
glaciers, and that my dad got to go up there! That sounded like a spectacular
way to get an amazing view, for sure! They did not do that on our ship. But if
they had, you can bet Brian would have been one of the first in line.
The glacier was probably the highlight of the day for
us. We spent time walking the deck, reading in our room, napping, eating, more
eating, more napping, etc. It was a sea day, and a Sunday, and our last day. I
think we were starting to feel ready to come home, especially since we hadn’t
had any phone or internet service since Friday in Skagway. I was really
starting to miss the kids a lot, for sure! But we made the most of our
leisurely last day at sea, just enjoying the sea and the food, and the day of
rest. Brian had downloaded several sessions of conference, so we put one on in
the evening as we packed our things. We had to have our luggage outside our door
by 11pm, and they would take it off the ship and into the bus terminal for us,
which was nice except for the panicky feeling of being without our stuff for a
few hours. Haha! Again, we slept with the balcony door open, until it got a
little too windy at some point and Brian closed it.
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