Breath taking Beauty

Noxon, Mt

All I can about this area is it is breath taking, jaw-dropping, heart-stopping beautiful!!! Who'd thunk I would love this area like I do?

Kootnai River near Libby, Mt

We spent last week just hanging out, doing a lot of nothing and getting some much needed rest! We made a quick trip into Sand Point on Thursday to get some groceries, and saw a moose on the way home.

Friday morning we were awaken about 4:30 a.m by a loud clap of thunder. YEA...thunder and lightning storm. I stayed awake and enjoyed it...rain and all. However, I was hoping it wouldn't start any fired and so far I haven't heard of any fires being started around here by it. I love a good thunder and lightning storm. Unfortunatelly, my animals don't. We wound up with us, 2 cats and 2 dogs in a queen size bed! Yup--it was a bit cozy!

Friday night we went to a local restaurant in downtown Noxon (population "very small") and had some excellent ribs. Met some of Gordon and Denise's friends--great bunch of people.

Saturday night we drove to Troy, Mt to a little, restaurant for some great prime rib. Now, I have to tell you about this restaurant. The little lady that runs it is 75 years old, has ran it for 40 years and mostly by herself...I mean, by herself...no help! She does the cooking, cleaning, serving, etc. This place probably seats 35-40 people and usually is standing room only. We got there at the perfect time and got right in. I think we will go back before we go home...it was that good.

Jacks Cafe...not much to look at, but great food and a great lady!

We nosed around a little in Troy and then drove to Libby. Libby is larger than Troy, but still small town. Cute town and I got some great pictures of the eagles they have all over town...eagle scupltures I should say.

Sunday we lazed around in the morning then Gordon and Denise took us to some of their friends house...what an amazing house. It was an old homestead and these people bought it and re-did it. It is absolutely beautiful. A lot of work, but well worth it.

A here is a blast from the past...anyone guess who these two are?

Noxon -- wonderful NOXON

Noxon, Mt
Any way you spell it is right...backward, forwards, upside down! I love this place. So peaceful and beautiful. And boy do we need the peace and quiet for a while and just settle down.

We spent Friday in Odessa; Al had a chance to get his hair and beard trimmed; I, on the other hand, still look like a shaggy dog!!! We stayed with Jerry on Friday night. Got to play with Simon and the dogs really had a good time. We all went to Chiefs (the local cafe) for dinner and then back to rest at Jerry's. About 9:00 p.m. Al went to bed and I was relaxing when I heard "Jo, I need help"--I ran into the bedroom and Al was in horrible pain with cramps all over his body. I got him up and into the recliner. I gave him some extra potassium and had him eat a banana (anything to get extra potassium in him) and gave him some Tylenol, hoping he would relax. The cramps were getting worse and he was having a trouble breathing...so I called 911 for an ambulance. Jerry and I tried to massage the cramps, but they were all over his body. The ambulance took him to Odessa Hospital, where they dosed him with more potassium. Finally after about 4 hours the cramps subsided and we could go home. Poor Al was really in agony. This happened in June as well when we were on the way back to Odessa from Tucson. The doctors still don't know what causes it, however, I have increased his daily potassium.

I have to say that for a small town, Odessa Hospital is wonderful. They have great equipment, doctors and nurses and treat a patient so kindly. It is good to know you will get good care in a small town.

We left Saturday morning for Noxon. Stopped in Liberty Lake to have lunch with Gary and Jeannette. Just when we were getting ready to leave their house we looked to the north and big, black storm clouds were gathering. Gary and I quickly wrapped our luggage in plastic bags (it was in the back of the truck) and we took off. We didn't get a mile from their house and it started to pour. We drove in rain until we reached Hwy 95 in Couer d' Alene; then it was just off and on all the way to Noxon. Sand Point, ID had gotten a heavy rain right before we got there and it rained heavy right after we left, so we were running from the rain. When we pulled into Noxon it was just sprinkling, so Gordon, Denise and I quickly unloaded the truck and just as we finished it poured like crazy. Talk about timing.

Yesterday I unpacked; 5 suitcases, 5 boxes etc. Today I paid bills and caught up on book work, so now maybe I can relax and enjoy this beautiful spot for a while. I don't know how long we will be here, maybe another week or two. It is just too pretty to leave.

Gotta go outside and enjoy the sun and trees, river, etc. Look up Noxon, Mt...we are in the NW corner of the state.

Heading to O

Redmond, WA
We arrived back in Seattle late on Monday night. The Amtrak train was absolutely wonderful and I would recommend it to anyone traveling to Vancouver or back. The train was fairly new and very comfortable. Of course it was raining and getting dark when we left Vancouver, but still a great ride.

Jenn met us at the station with the dogs. Needless to say we had a great reunion with the dogs..however, Schuster won't let me out of his sight...and Beau watches us both like a hawk!

Tuesday was doctor, doctor, doctor appointments. Most of them went okay. Al's alzheimers has progressed, but I knew that. His kidney function is bad, but still at 50% so I guess we can be thankful for that. BP was good, blood glucose count bad, etc.

Tuesday night Al went to his Elk Camp meeting at a local pub and really enjoyed it. I had dinner with my traveling pals, Kathy, Janet and Jenn. Had fun getting caught up.

Wednesday was laundry day and more appointments. Whew...

Thursday was the annual Boeing HR Retiree's lunch and it was good to see old friends. However, we missed a few---Pete and Shirley; Pete and Diane we missed you! After that was yet another doctor appointment. The last of the appointments for this time.

Then we went to see an old friend who is in assisted living in Redmond. Jan is a year older than I am and has been a good friend for many years. In the last few years she has had some real memory problems, leading to her moving into assisted living a couple of years ago. I hadn't seen her in two years and I was really anxious to see her. Boy, was I in for a sad surprise. She has been moved into a locked down area of the facility and didn't know who I was; or for that matter, didn't really remember any of her old friends. So sad to see...the last time we saw her she didn't remember things, but knew who we were and others we talked about. Now she really doesn't remember anyone. The one person she remembered was her son, but as she put it "He is grown up now"; however, knew nothing about if he was married, children, where he was, etc. Dementia/Alzheimers is a cruel, cruel illness. And especially for someone so young (relatively speaking). However, I was very pleased with the facility she is in; everyone was clean, everything was spotless and it didn't smell bad like so many of the nursing homes do. At the attendants were very good. But still very sad to me to see.

Dinner last night was at an excellent Italian restaurant and we met up with good friends Bill and Lorie Lince. It has been a couple of years since we have been able to see them so it was a good visit. Sad tho, their daughter who is Jenn's age has been going through breast cancer...Lorie had gone through it a couple of years ago and now Gina is. We really feel so bad for them. Another terrible disease that should be cured by now. Another reason to contribute to Ric/Janet/Sherrie on the 3 day; 60 mile walk they are doing for breast cancer. If you wish to contribute to a good cause go to Wraspir's Saving Second Base and donate. Remember, some how, some way, breast cancer will enter your life someday.

And now, we are off to Odessa and beyond.

Vancouver still

Vancouver

Okay, I need to make a correction to my last blog. The Firefighter and Police World Games is what has been in Vancouver for the past week. It is sort of a trial run for the city before the 2010 Olympics arrives. This town is stuffed with firefighters and police….I feel very safe. Billie and Dan, where are you????

Speaking of the Olympics, you can see preparations everywhere in the city for the games. A lot of streets are torn up and being repaved; a lot of buildings being built for the games and more transportation being added. I am glad I won't be here for the games. The crowd this weekend was enough.

Today we went to Granville Island….think Pike Place Market. Almost identical, but fun. It was rainy today and everyone had umbrellas but Al and I. We toughed it out!!! From the market we had luncha t the Boat House, which was excellent. Then back to Gastown so Suzi could buy some souveniers. From there we couldn't figure out what to do, so we went to Costco!!!! This Costco was interesting…it was downtown and you parked underneath (and paid for parking) but once inside it was Costco.

Tonight we went to The Keg for dinner. I laughed at the oddity of it….when we left Seattle we had dinner at The Keg the night before we left and here we are ending our trip at The Keg!!! We should have gotten a free drink or something!!!

Tomorrow we head home. We have been gone from the mutts and kitties for over 40 days…time to get home and get back into a normal routine. We are taking Amtrak to Seattle. We will be in Seattle for a few days of doctor appointments and seeing friend and kids, then head back to Odessa to switch cars and pick up the truck and then back to Noxon, MT for a week or so. It will be good to get back. I love to vacation, but I am always ready to come home … such as it is. I don't count traveling in the 5^th wheel vacation, I still have house work, dishes, beds to make, meals to prepare, etc. Just in different locations some times.

So until we hit the good ole USA again…..we are still Wroamin!

Yes, I found the laundry!!!

Vancouver

Aug 8

Yesterday we spent the day exploring. Today I spent the day doing 1 load of laundry. Yup, 1 load! Took most of the day. The dryer here at the hotel took 2+ hours to dry a small load of cloths! Grrr

Jack and Suzi took the car and went to Stanley Park and walked the park. I knew Al couldn't do that and he wanted to stay at the hotel and rest. I was going to go with Jack and Suzi until I realized that Al couldn't be left alone today. Not the best of days. We did walk across the street for lunch, but even that was a struggle for him.

Tonight we went to the Cactus Club Restaurant for dinner. Very good. I had the ribs and they were tender and moist. Then our treat, Dairy Queen.

It has been cold and cloudy all day. Not the most perfect day for exploring. Our room at the hotel is immediately above the Press Box Sports Grill…and faces a main street. Needless to say, last night we didn't get much sleep until early morning. We asked to be moved, however, the hotel is full up, matter of fact, the town is full up. There is a firefighter/police convention from all over Canada here this weekend. I feel pretty safe…the hotel is full of fire fighters and police.

Tomorrow is another day.

Skagway to Vancouver

I just wanted to post a picture of Hubbard Glacier on the blog. I didn't have my pictures downloaded on previous post. The glacier is pretty impressive...300 feet high and moves at a rate of about 12 feet a day. To hear it move is impressive as well...sounds like thunder. We didn't see any major ice breaking off (calving) but some ice did slide into the water.Hubbard Glacier

Hubbard Glacier up close

Aug 3, Skagway
Since we all have been here before we didn’t book any shore excursions. Jack, Sue and I went into town and walked around a bit. Had lunch at a cute little café, “Sweet Nothings”. We found a Starbucks and a quilt shop, so I was a happy camper. We took a carriage ride around town…the town is about 300 people in the winter and swells to 1,000 plus in the summer to cater to the tourist. Tourism is their only industry. Food is barged up from Bellingham, Wa once a week, so even the milk they get is 10 days old by the time they get it. I don’t think I would do well living here.
There are fires burning all over British Columbia and we are in the middle of a very smoky city. It has been hard for me to breathe at times. The smoke is very heavy today; makes it look like fog.
Dinner tonight was in the dining room again. Nothing special.

Aug 4 Icy Straight Point, AK
Still very smoky and we all are having problems from it. We elected to not go ashore today….nothing but a Tinglit Village and tourist trap. However, they do have a zip line and I think I might like to do that someday…it looks fun. Perhaps on our next cruise when I can talk Jenn, Bev, Melanie, Janet and Suzi into going with me!!!!
Tonight was formal night on the ship. The last one. For such a short cruise there have been 2 formal nights…2 too many for me. We really liked not having a formal night on NCL. Jack, Suzi and I went to the show last night, a very good Broadway Shows Review. Al wasn’t up to walking that far last night (to the front of the ship) so he elected to go back to the room. He enjoys cruising, but doesn’t partake in a lot of the activities any more. It is really hard for him to get around anymore.
Formal Night

Wed. Aug. 5 Ketchikan (ketch me if you can)
We arrived this morning at 7:30 a.m. to a beautiful day in Ketchikan. NO SMOKE! What a cute little town this is. The ship docks right downtown so there was no problem for Al to get to town. We did the Duck Tour today, we had never done one and it was fun. Jack, Suzi, Al in front of the "Duck"

Ketchikan is a town of approximately 8,000 people year round. Of course the main industry is fishing, then tourism and logging. In the summer the town grows to about 12,000 people to take care of the tourist that come on the cruise ships. The only way in to Ketchikan is by boat or plane. Speaking of planes, this is a very, very busy float plane town. We are seeing/hearing about one or two landing or taking off every five minutes. Ketchikan proper is built on an island and the airport is across the river and there is no bridge to it, so you have to take a ferry to the airport.
There were 3 other cruise ships in town today. Our tour guide said they usually have between 12-14 ships a week in town. One of the ships, the Holland American Zaandam lost a passenger in Juneau on Sunday. It was docked right next to us there. Apparently a lady from Arlington, Washington jumped overboard to commit suicide. One thing for sure, if you live through your jump to the water, you won’t survive very long in the icy water. If I remember correctly, the water temperature in Juneau was an icy 39 degrees.
Tomorrow is a sea day and then we arrive in Vancouver, BC early on Friday. We are staying in Vancouver for the weekend, leaving late afternoon on Monday. We are both anxious to get home…our puppies and kitties await!
Aug 6 At Sea
Our cruise has really been smooth water. Hardly a ripple in the sea! Amazing compared to some cruises we have been on. We cruised the inside passage today and it was foggy this morning and we couldn’t see a thing. Then this afternoon it cleared up and WOW…what beautiful scenery we were treated to. Before we got to Prince Rupert there were a few logging or fishing villages along the coast. From Prince Rupert on down the houses that are built along the coast are amazing. We also had a beautiful sunset.

We are all tired of the food on board and are looking forward to having choices tomorrow! Not that you don’t have choices on board, but they all come from the same kitchen and it is beginning to all taste the same. I will say our dining room staff have been excellent. Actually the bar staff has Al’s number…the attendant will come to the table each night to ask Al if he wants his “coffee”, which is actually a Bombay Sapphire Gin Martini, with lots of olives. Packing tonight….UGH!
Aug 7, Vancouver
We arrived at 7:00 a.m., and by 9:30 a.m. we were off the ship. It is cloudy and a little cool in Vancouver. We took a scary cab ride from the port to our hotel. Of course we couldn’t check in until after 2:00 p.m., so we stored our luggage and took another scary cab ride to Gastown to catch the Hop On Hop Off bus tour. We toured the entire route today, and tomorrow we will go again (ticket is good for 2 days) and get off where ever we want. After we did the loop we stopped and had a wonderful Italian lunch at Al Polla. We watched the steam clock go off a few times as well. Then it was time to hail yet another cab for a very scary ride back to the hotel. That cab will have my fingernail imprints in its upholstery forever. I had to laugh because there were 4 of us stuffed into this Toyota Corolla, Al being in the front seat and he took up almost the ENTIRE front seat. The driver kept looking at him as if to say “Geez, you are big!”
After we got back to the hotel and discussed that we had already spent over $60 in cab fares just today and we weren’t done yet, we just might want to look into renting a car. I called around and got us a car for four days for $200; so another $20 later and one more wild cab ride, we now have a rental car. Thank goodness I brought my GPS with me! Jack and I will be drivers, and we are now free to explore. We would try and depend on the bus system, however, with Al not being able to walk very far (across the street tonight for dinner was agony for him) we knew that the bus option was out. At least this way he can see some of the sites from the car.
As I said earlier, we decided to just go across the street for Chinese food tonight…Al had a really hard time walking that far. We had to walk about a block uphill to cross this busy street we are on and he had to stop and rest twice; then after crossing the street he had to stop again. Glad we will be seeing the doctor next week.
We are all tired tonight and retired to our rooms after dinner. I took a short walk down the street to Starbucks, but decided not to get anything tonight. By the way, there are over 204 Starbucks just in Vancouver….I wonder how many are in Seattle? There is a Starbucks almost on every corner downtown and in some cases, Starbucks are directly across the street from each other. For people to lazy to cross the street????

Want to bore your self? Go to Alaska Cruise to see all our pictures!

Juneau

Juneau, Alaska

We left Seward at 9:00 p.m. aboard the Celebrity Millennium cruise ship on Friday. Smooth sailing all night, sort of "rocked" me to sleep. Up and at it on Saturday. Jack and Suzi spent most of the morning in the gym doing gym stuff. Al and I lazed around doing lazy stuff....just my speed. Our ship went to the Hubbard Glacier yesterday afternoon.....and the captain backed this huge ship just about up on the glacier...I was humming the theme from the Titanic by the time he was done. It was an amazing site however. The glacier is about 300 feet thick right now....wow. Lpts of big ice chunks floating in the ocean as well.

Today we arrived in Juneau early this morning and was on our tour of the city and Mendenhall glacier by 9:30 this morning. For some reason, I just wasn't all the impressed with the city or the glacier. Right now we are sitting out side our room on board watching the float planes take off and land...a lot more exciting than the tour this morning. The tour guide was about as exciting as an old sock! AND, we had taken the shuttle into town (about a half a mile) and then when it was time to return to the ship, a shuttle couldn't be found. That meant that Al had to walk the half mile....which wasn't pretty! Took us about 45 minutes to get back to the ship.

Tomorrow is Skagway...I doubt if we will even get off the ship. We have all been here and have rode the train, so don't think there is anything more exciting to do in town.

I have to say that so far I am not impressed with Celebrity Cruises. The service is not as good as NCL or Princess; the food definitely lacks something,primarily taste and it is just blah! And I am not the only one who thinks that...there are a lot of people on board commenting on how disappointed they are. Celebrity is suppose to be one of the best cruise lines available (unless you want to spend BIG bucks on some of the real top end cruise lines like Silver Sea's, etc.) and yet we have found so far that it is just average. On this cruise we have barely seen our cabin attendant...and the food service is something we have never experienced. You can't touch a piece of food or serve your self...even in the buffet. You can't get yourself a glass of water, salt and pepper or anything. Now, one might say that is great service, however, I beg to differ since you have to wait in line to get water, food, salt and pepper, etc. Either the line is very cautious about the Norovirus or they are cutting expenses this way. Haven't made up my mind on that one yet.

Tomorrow is another day .... hope all is well with everyone else.