Re-Entry But Feeling Molecularly Challenged Thursday Thirteen

We are back.  Yes, it was about three weeks of travel.  First a few days in Santa Barbara, CA visiting a dear cousin who lost her loving husband years ago and is still adjusting.  Next a few days in Vancouver, BC, then boarding a Holland Cruise ship stopping at all the ports in Alaska along the way until we finally reached Seward and disembarked for another week in Anchorage with side trips to Denali National Park. 

With only 4 hours time difference from here at home it was still a loooong way from civilization, especially at the very end where people dressed and ate like hardworking lumbermen.  The 20 hour days of sunshine did not help in the adjusting either.  Weather was sunny, rainy and mostly in the high 60s F.

I took several thousand photos, even though I was trying to be be more circumspect!  I will not bore you with them all ... only a few scattered in coming posts.

Meanwhile, here is a short version of the trip on the Thursday Thirteen.

1. Had to leave Santa Barbara as fires licked at her nearby mountains.  We tried to assure our cousin things would be fine  as she is in her 80's and has had to evacuate once before.
2. Met up with my brother-in-law and finally after so many years met his second wife.  We were in the same house where my sister raised her children before her death and it was surprisingly painful. (Yeah, I know.)
3. Vancouver was different than I expected...I could get my mind around it.
4. They have a pseudo Disney type ride/movie of the Canadian land, which I actually enjoyed.
5. I do not like medium or large cruise ships, but was able to enjoy this Holland one and kept thinking I could write a Hurcule Poirot story as I catalogued some of the passengers on our voyage.
6. Crew were mostly Indonesian and so hubby and I (mostly hubby) got to practice what we remembered of the language.
7.  I saw my first calving of a glacier which was worth the money for the whole trip.
8. I could not see the puffins, even with binoculars!
9. Alaska has only 600,000 plus people.  Everyone knows everyone.
10. Most of the people who waited on us or worked retail were not "Alaskans".  We met Californians, Texans, Russians, Moldovans, Chinese, Taiwanese, and Serbians.
11. Viewing a cow moose from a safe boardwalk, I realized how easy it was for them to disappear into the high grasses as the moose dissolved just beneath my vision.
12. We could not take the hike my husband really wanted to try as the trail was closed due to a grizzly attack.  When it finally opened we drove up to the Park and were told it was closed once again due to a second attack--same bear that they thought had been driven away!
13. Everyone who lives there says they love the winters and the dark days...really.  Methinks they are maybe overly enthusiastic?