Dear friends,
Yesterday I wrote an email to our friends in Vancouver with whom we shall travel
.
Margaret replied "you must have been reading my mind as I was thinking of you today and wondering how we will find you once we board the ship. I will give your our cabin number. Our neighbour is driving us down to the pier and then he will pick us up on our return."
She continues: "Like you, I am wondering what to take in the clothing line. Apart from the evening wear (which I hope I can still get into!!) I will take mostly warm clothing as I remember when we last went up there in the month of July,
it was very chilly. Certainly take a warm jacket and possibly slacks, maybe even some gloves."
You may remember that when these friends were here earlier this summer it turned
out that they knew of our immediate next door neighbours through mutual friends
in New Zealand. I wrote to you all about it and two or three other astonishing
coincidences involving some of our near neighbours, too. What Margaret just wrote added a bit more to the development of the coincidence between them and our
next door neighbours through their mutual New Zealand friends when she wrote:
"Strangely I had an email from our friends in New Zealand today wishing us a good trip and remarking that their friends Jean & Russell (your neighbours)
were also going on an Alaskan Cruise at about the same time as us. Is this possible? I am sure you would have known of it if they are going on the same trip as
us."
I think that Jean and Russell are going a day or so difference in time and with
another ship. Ben just phoned during lunch hour on his cell-phone and I read him
Margaret's email, so he's going to check with Russell about it.
There are two formal dinners during our week, so Ben will wear his tuxedo in which he looks very handsome, and I'll wear something long. A different thing for
each evening for me. There will also be three semi-formals and two casual nights. Usually the first night and the last night are casual to make things easier
on passengers.
I have some very heavy wool pants I wore to Point Barrow Alaska about twenty years ago. That's at the very tip of the North American continent and about 600 miles from the pole. (I visited some Inuit Baha'is there and travelled with an Inuit woman, so it was especially interesting.) I left Fairbanks in the middle of
a heat-wave that was even hotter than my home in the dry Okanagan in August, and
arrived in Point Barrow just as an arctic gale began! Later I discovered that
such an abrupt climate change could have killed me, so I'm glad to still be alive to go up the Alaskan coast this month. Somewhere I have a certificate that certifies where I crossed the Arctic Circle. I only wish I could find it! Going
to the high Arctic is very romantic, and that's one of the big reasons why I did
it. It was a difficult trip in many unexpected ways. This time has to be much
easier. Even though it was hard though, when I read about the far north I understand a lot more than I would have if I hadn't gone.
I also have good heavy leather hiking boots and hiking socks, and a pair of excellent "long-johns", which is the slang name for long underwear. My long-johns are lined with cotton and have wool on the outside, and they have a delicate pattern of flowers all over, even though they are designed for serious winter hikers
;->
Oh! There is a big, beautiful Stellar's Jay in the Aspen tree outside my window
. It has a black crested head and a blue back. It is the Provincial bird of my
province of British Columbia. The other day there were four or five little golden-green birds flitting about in the same tree. They looked very happy. I mean to look them up in my bird book.
Well friends, I'm off for a good walk to build up more strength for the trip. I
already have been riding my bicicyle for a half hour each day for awhile now.
Thank you dear Sally for your long and interesting post about jet lag and other
time related travel difficulties. I have never had as long a trip as the one you made from China to Las Vegas. I'm sure you're right that the older one is the
more difficult it becomes. I have seen lots of spectacular pictures of brillian neon lights and extremely modern architecture in Chinese cities recently, so I
wonder how dazzled your eyes could be by the lights of Las Vegas? I hope you will post a couple of your photographs of the Golden Gate Bridge on the forum. Ben and I sailed underneath that bridge while going south.
We won't have any time changes to contend with on this trip since it is simply a
north/south trip. I think the ship doesn't even go very fast, because it seems
to take a long time to cover the distances involved. Well, I don't care, since
I love ships best of all. :-)
I wish you could have come north to visit us during your recent trip, and I look
forward to that possibly happening some time in the future. :-))
Affection to you all, Mary
