Sunday best

The Land of the Midnight Sun slept in today... to about 3 a.m. I'm told that the further north you get the  fewer hours of darkness you witness. My "night" was again one of a thousand naps. I tried a couple of new venues to see how accommodating they appeared. The Aft Lounge was a small room with a dozen or so people in it. All appearances were that the group gathered therein had done this before. One lady had not only an air mattress, but a queen size double mattress, the upper deck sitting about 2 feet above floor level. There would have been room there but I felt that, regardless of the square footage occupied, I would have been crashing their party.

I had decided that my landing pad for Saturday night would be Bridge Deck. The seats there would (somewhat) recline and late Friday (actually very early Saturday morning) I had tried out the accommodations and found them to be slightly more comfortable than the Forward Lounge. I found an open set of chairs in a row near the rear of the room and settled in for an abbreviated long night. It was already pushing midnight and I very nearly tried a position on the floor, thinking that having my spine lay in one plane might be a novel idea. Before the first knee bent however I had given up on the idea, partially because the 1/16th inch carpeting had no discernible padding between it and the metal floor and partially because I had a vision of the contortions I would need to go through in a few hours to once again place myself to a vertical position.

I found a chair isolated within a large enough radius of emptiness that, should I unknowingly begin to snore, the decibel level would attenuate to socially acceptable levels prior to the din reaching foreign ears. I sat, reclining as much as allowable by design, took off my shoes, then tried four or five possible body configurations that would allow my head to rest upon something, anything. Finding no such position attainable within my range of motion I slunkered down far enough that the back of my head somewhat contacted the top of the seat cushion. By letting my imagination run wild I told myself this would do.

Within about 30 seconds I realized that climate change had reared its ugly head within the previous 24 hours. Something was different than it had been just one day prior. There was a loud cacophony of wind sweeping through the room, accompanied by a temperature drop of perhaps double digit proportions! It was cold; not just cool or cooler, but cold. Fresh air was entering the room at an alarming rate. I am still unsure if it was open doors or open vents, but something had facilitated an uncomfortable drop in ambient temperature. 

I zipped every zipper that Harley Davidson had made available to me in their jacket design, but to little avail. With a short sleeve shirt underneath, the thick leather was no thermal match for the room temperature. As my tired body began to decompress my metabolism slowed and it became obvious that this wasn't going to work well. 

My range of thermal choices were all sitting on the back of my bike, safe from light fingers, but also unavailable to chilled fingers. The car-deck was off limits for another eight hours and with it, so were any hopes of sustainable core temperature. I put my shoes back on, tucked hands into private places, but still realized that this was not likely to be sufficient.

It wasn't. After about a half hour I had to admit that the relative comfort of reclining was trumped (on the Bridge Deck, get it?) by the need for warmth. Gathering my phone and glasses (I had stored the IPad during the previous car-deck period) I walked up to the Forward Lounge. But the damage had been done. My own words echoed back in my mind from cautionary statements I use to make to my Boy Scouts when setting up camp for a winter camp out.

"It's easier to stay warm than to get warm" was my credo back then. Now it was playing out in front of my eyes.

I positioned myself in a front row seat and turned an arm chair around to serve as a foot rest. After repeated fidgeting I eventually was able to settle in for the first of a multitude of naps. By this time it was going on 1 a.m.

About 3 a.m. The sun and my eyelids began to rise. There were another couple of sleep-deprived shadows hunkered down in the darkness. I knew instinctively that the rising sun would usher in rising passengers so I needed to tidy up, satisfying myself with the knowledge that two hours of semi-sleep was better than something else. The exact "else" would remain undefined at this time.

I stood up, bent forward and grabbed my make-shift footrest with every intention of placing it back from whence it came. As I pulled up, my back pulled out, refusing to allow me to complete this simplest of tasks. "Oh great" I thought. My back pain pills are safely tucked away for another 5 hours!

Eventually others arose. By 7:30 most of the passengers were ready to explore our first Port of Call, Ketchikan, Alaska's first city and the salmon capital of the world!

The previous evening Bob and Nancy had expressed an interest in attempting to get a picture of a sign that sat just off of Main St but they were concerned about available time. Chuck and Bobbi had talked to another of the passengers who had told them of a great sculpture that sat downtown, their kinfolk having been commissioned to make it a centerpiece for the city. I had been told by John, a resident of Prince of Wales Island who was returning home, that The Landing was a great little place to enjoy breakfast during the 1.5 hour lay-over.

So with three agendas the five of us flagged down a cab and went in to town. We got this picture:

and, right across the street, got this picture:

then wandered around the corner to what we described as a Harley boutique. It was affiliated with a dealership in another town but, as Bob so aptly put it, "This place has never seen a screw driver"! They did however offer a plethora of all things H-D, which satisfied all.

We then called the cab to come back and pick us up. We were dropped off at The Landing where we managed to eat a very good meal, get a brief Wi-Fi signal and phone service, then make it back to the ship with but a couple of minutes to spare!

Ketchikan is a small city by Lower 48 standards, but when compared to our next Port of Call it was a mega-city. 

The same group of five went briefly ashore at Wrangell where we checked out two local merchant's wares. The first was a mother sitting at a fold-up card table just off the pier, handmade cardboard sign proclaiming their desire to sell local garnets they had collected.

Across the street was a somewhat larger store that featured local furs, trinkets and post cards. The furs had been trapped locally and hand sewn on one of two tiny antique sewing machines:

 

Life, in many ways, is similar in all places. While standing in the fur shop the proprietor got a phone call. His side of the conversation went something like this, "Honey, I'll call you right back. The ferry is in". Click

About fifteen seconds later, his phone rang again. This time he listened for what probably seemed like ten minutes, no words being uttered on his end, until finally he said, "So there is nothing that can be done right this minute, I'll call you back shortly". I believe many a married business person has had a phone call, or two or three, exactly like that.

We returned to the ship, then stayed on the ship for our third P of C of the day, Petersburg.

Our fourth P of C will be the State Capitol of Juneau, which will be tomorrow (Monday) morning from 4-5:45 a.m.! I believe I will go ashore for the sake of saying I've been there, although most businesses will be closed that early.

The big news item of the day for me however is that, in Ketchiken, one more person got off the ship than got on. This allowed my name to rise to the top of the waiting list, then pour over onto the list of previously homeless people who now have a bed to sleep in and a room to call their own!

It is small:

but it has a view!

Even if the window goes from the bathroom to the shower stall, it's still okay. Did I mention I have a bed to sleep in? One that I am headed to at this very minute. Juneau is only a few scant hours away!