Today is my and John's FIVE YEAR ANNIVERSARY!!!!

Yep, five years ago today I was going over my packing list, like so:

Guns - check.
Clothes - check.
Books - check.
Chapstick - check.
Handcuff key taped to the inside of belt - check.

:)

And now...

Thursday, June 5, 2008 - Juneau

Today we're in Juneau. This is the only day for which I didn't set up any hard-and-fast plans for things to do in port. I figured by this time we'd be ready to either just stay on the ship or else just walk around in a more relaxing fashion. One thing for sure, we were ready to sleep in. :)

We finally got off the ship around 10:30am and immediately started asking around about local gun shops. The area of town just off the port has been nearly completely taken over by chain stores owned by the cruise lines. One of our tour operators the other day made a joke about there being 164 jewelry stores in every port, but frankly I'm not sure it's a joke. I'm not sure why jewelry sales are such a big thing - it's not even as if the gems/minerals come from Alaska. Weird. Anyhow, all the locally owned/operated stores have signs in the window announcing themselves as such, and it didn't take John long to find a woman who pointed him in the right direction.



From the docks area we hopped into a taxi and it turned out the driver was a local who is big into hunting and told us there was really only one good gun shop in town, but it was on the way to Mendenhall Glacier (which I wanted to see) if we wanted to go. On the way he talked about the huge numbers of bears in the area and how they've learned to run toward the sound of gunfire so as to steal deer from hunters. He also said it was pretty cheap to hunt out here - for $50 total, he said he can buy all his hunting licenses and fishing licenses (which includes a $10 King Salmon stamp) and bag four deer per year, five grouse per day, and catch five king salmon per day (among other things). He mentioned you have to go a lot farther north if you wanted caribou, and that moose were a bit harder to come by, but otherwise he said there was game pretty much everywhere.

Another interesting conversational topic involved the bear terminology around here. Back home, "black bears" are the small black "Smokey the Bear"-style bears that are more commonly found on the east coast. Here, black bears pretty much includes everything that isn't a grizzly bear. And then grizzly bears are called Brown Bears, and come in two major types - coastal and inland. The inland bears are smaller (about 8' he said) because they spend so much energy hunting for food, as they don't just go the berry/worm route and actually hunt deer and moose and the like. Whereas the coastal bears apparently get HUGE (10' to 12') because all they have to do is stand there and pull salmon after salmon out of the water, like some big happy bear buffet.

We arrived at the gun store and John happily browsed through the reloading gear for awhile while I checked gun prices. Here's a baseline for you - they were asking $549 for a stock used Glock 22, and $649 for a stock new Glock 17. That's a LOT more than back home. :)

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Wednesday, June 4, 2008 - Skagway

It's hard to remember what day it is out here. The only clock in your room is the tiny one on the telephone, although there are a few scattered around the ship. If you want to read a newspaper you have to go to the coffee shop, and it comes in on a fax. Sure, there's CNN on your television but why would you watch it? Although we have been trying to keep up with the Clinton/Obama shenanigans because that's high entertainment right there. Anyhow, to help you remember what day it is, every elevator has little plaques inset in the floor that get changed every day. Today is WEDNESDAY.

I cannot say we were exactly happy about actually having to get up to a wakeup call. *yawn* But we docked in Skagway at 7am and were walking off onto the docks by about 7:20. I had booked us a bus/rail trip through an independent charter company for the day. One of the big attractions in Skagway is their narrow gauge railway that stretches from Skagway (a port town in Alaska) all the way across British Columbia in Canada and then into the Yukon Territory (where the Klondike is).



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Tuesday, June 3, 2008 - Hubbard Glacier

After the stress of tendering the day before and all the exertion of fishing and sightseeing, we were happy to have another "at sea" day. Today was Hubbard Glacier day, the midpoint and supposed highlight of this trip. There are several other different glacier cruises you can take to alaska - either through the Misty Fjords, or to College Fjord (full of glaciers named after colleges) or Glacier Bay (full of, yes, glaciers) and so on. We have glaciers in Montana (and I encourage you to read about how glaciers work, because it's pretty darn nifty), so we weren't all that concerned with how many we'd see here. Actually, so far Alaska is sort of like Montana on steroids - a lot of the same cool stuff, but bigger and wilder and colder. :) Although not too terribly cold - today's high is 53 for instance. The weather here in June appears to be similar to Montana weather in April.

We weren't supposed to get to Hubbard until 11am or so, so we slept in and lazed about for a bit. I walked out of the shower, looked out the balcony window and whoah, there was an iceberg!!!



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Monday, June 2, 2008 - Icy Strait Point

Today was our first day in a port, at Icy Straight Point. We weren't supposed to get there for offloading from the ship until 10am, so we slept in, got some breakfast, and packed for the day trip. Based on advice I got from the forum members at Cruise Critic, I hadn't booked any excursions (I hate that word, it sounds so fancypants, but I don't know what else to call it) through the cruiseline, but instead researched a couple of independent folks and finally settled on Dream Fish for a half-day charter fishing trip. Now, I haven't really been fishing since I was 12 years old, which is about the same time as my parents figured I was old enough that I could stay home alone while they went fishing. I was just bored and impatient, mostly. My dad is the kind of guy who can fish for the sake of fishing, and he is just as happy if he catches nothing than if he catches a lot. Me, I'm goal oriented. If the fish aren't biting, I feel like I'm wasting my time. So I didn't know how I'd feel about a fishing trip, but I figured if nothing else I could take pictures of the scenery and of John fishing, and that would be enough to keep me occupied. Additionally, when I talked to the operators (a husband/wife team, Margie and Frank) Margie told me they do both fishing charters and whale watching/wildlife tours, and that we could mix-and-match as time permitted.

I forgot to mention this before, but the TV in our room has a navigation channel which rotates continuously through three screens - one showing heading, GPS coordinates, and a zoomed out map, one with a zoomed in map, and one with the view from the camera up on the bridge. As we were arriving in Icy Strait Point, it looked like this:



I will say I did not enjoy the tendering process At All. Basically the little cove at Icy Strait Point is not deep enough for the cruise ship to come in all the way to the dock, so instead they park the ship a ways off from the dock and then start loading people onto these "tenders," which are tiny little paddle boat looking things (with a capacity of about 100 people) that then ferry everyone from the ship to the dock.



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Monday, June 2, 2008 - Icy Strait Point

When we last left our intrepid honeymooners, they had stopped fishing and were instead ready to go look at the wildlife!

First we saw a couple of whales way off in the distance, spouting and then poking their cute little tails up in the air, and then saw a sea lion, then meandered over to a rock outcropping to look at a pictogram (we are still curious about how they got up there to paint that thing on there and what the point of it was).

They then took us over to Eagle Island which, duh, was full to the brim with bald eagles. It was this small island pretty close to the town overgrown with tall conifers. They told us it was off limits to non-natives. We saw a totem pole there and a small graveyard:

Sunday, June 1, 2008

We slept in Sunday morning and awoke to see the coastline speeding by outside our balcony window. We wandered over to the Windjammer for breakfast....

I love how it says "BACONS" and not "bacon." I thought this was a typo and that they'd change it, but they never did. Every morning I had bacons! It was, however, possible to have a healthy breakfast of fruit, cottage cheese, and grilled tomatoes. I usually had that plus bacons and GRITS! Yes, they had grits every day, woo!!! We don't even have grits most places in Montana. Very sad. I noticed there were foods aimed toward Indians as well as Asians, as there was always miso soup (at breakfast and lunch) as well as curries and the like. I tried to take pictures of the typical buffet-style food available from time to time.

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[These are the posts I wrote on board at the end of each day. I've just edited them for photos and such. Later on I'll backdate them.]

Saturday, May 31, 2008

Online at last!!! Well, sort of. I had read mixed things about internet accessibility on cruise ships and knew I wouldn't find out for sure until I got here what our options were. It turns out they used to have in-cabin internet, but apparently it was such a nightmare to administer that they discontinued it. It's frustrating to see ethernet ports RIGHT THERE on our desk and not be able to use them! Instead, we can either use their internet stations (good for browsing, but a waste of money if you're typing up a post, as it is $0.55 a minute straight or $0.37 a minute with a prepaid package deal) or else drag my stone-aged laptop to a wireless hot spot and post from there. There are hot spots everywhere. Unfortunately I brought the bad battery for my laptop by mistake though, which means we have to have a plug-in, and the only available one we've found so far is down on Deck 4 (our cabin is on Deck 9, out of a total of 13 decks). Not bad though, as there's a really nice view of the ocean from that spot on Deck 4. :)

Honestly it's such a relaxing vacation now that we're on the ship that John keeps having to remind me that I need to write about it. Heh. Now, where did I leave off... oh yes, we were in that razzou hotel in downtown Vancouver. We woke up around 8am and John decided to start the day out right by flashing Canada from our hotel balcony. sigh. Then we found some notes had been slipped under our door. They were from Royal Caribbean and instructed us that (a) our checked bags needed to be ready for pickup by 9am, and (b) we needed to go speak with their representative downstairs at 9am. Then just to make sure we didn't forget, the rep called us a few minutes later. Thus we only had an hour to get ready and packed, but it wasn't too bad. We went down and were told to meet in a certain area of the lobby at 11am. Left to our own devices for a couple of hours, we went window shopping in Vancouver and wandered into Chinatown. Some people like to buy shot glasses or spoons in the towns they visit - I like fridge magnets, because I can actually use them. :) I picked up a magnet and a postcard for my scrapbook and we wandered around Vancouver for awhile killing time.


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As the Commander already pointed out (he is a total intarwebs hog!) we have arrived in Canada! Vancouver, to be precise. Here's what the kitchen looked like yesterday as John was playing Musical Guns:



Basically some guns went to a Safe Secondary Location, while the remaining ones were secured elsewhere.

As you might notice, any photos I manage to get uploaded (and there likely won't be any after today - I have ethernet in the hotel, but on board the best I will have is slow satellite) won't be terrific as I am using a stone age laptop (600MHz from the year 1999 I think) with no memory for editing software. I'll re-upload them properly cropped and such when we get home, but this will do for now. :)

We must be getting old because the travel has Worn Us Out. We left Montana a couple hours behind schedule yesterday. Not that it mattered, as the only reason we went to Spokane yesterday was because our flight from there to Vancouver was scheduled to leave at 0730 and neither of us wanted to be driving at 3am. Anyhow, the end result was, we ended up going to sleep around midnight. John zonked out as soon as we arrived.



Our wakeup call was at 0430. Yowza. That was no fun at all. And if I'd known that Spokane's airport is not much bigger than Missoula's, we'd have slept another hour. Since the cruise line arranged our flights, we had this weird route taking us from Spokane to Portland, with a one hour layover, then Portland to Vancouver. We made it through customs and immigration with no trouble at all. Surprisingly, John wasn't even selected for a Special Search.

Kit: You look nice.
John: No I don't. I need a shave. I look like the guy who's gonna get stopped at every security checkpoint.
Kit: No, you're wearing a wedding band. Married men don't become terrorists.
John: Yes they do - they have nothing left to lose.

We flew on these little tiny turboprop planes. Our first one was painted bright orange with lots of multicolor confetti things painted randomly all over it.

John: You know, I would take this airplane a lot more seriously if it didn't look like a bag of fritos.

Then he was going on and on about airline crash statistics and...

Kit: Don't worry. I'll protect you if we crash.
John: Unless your family moved to North Carolina from Krypton, I don't think you'll be much help.

He also interpreted the airplane safety card for me: "Don't let the fire or the water in." Hee!

We arrived in Vancouver at about 11:15am (Pacific I guess, neither one of us has the slightest idea what time zone we are in now or what time it really is) and it took an hour or two to make it through customs and immigration and then on to our hotel. We were SO EXHAUSTED when we got here, but thrilled with our room. I have to say this is the nicest hotel room I have ever stayed in. Except that we have two full-sized beds. This amuses me given that we are on our HONEYMOON FOR PETE'S SAKE. We can work around it.



We're up on the 8th floor of the Hyatt Regency, and we are both kinda glad we're not on the top floor (34th). I stood by the balcony looking down a minute and had the morbid thought of falling off of it, got dizzy, and had to back away. John says he feels the same way out there. Mostly we are staying off the balcony. :)

On four hours of sleep, with neither of us having had anything to eat except small snacks since leaving Missoula, we took off on foot to explore the town in search of food and ended up in Gastown. This was nice, as that was one of the areas I wanted to see anyhow. We stumbled into a tourist bureau and a nice lady there recommended the Water Street Cafe, a few blocks away. I notice my navigation skills have improved such that I can now even navigate in another city! Amazing. Anyhow, we got there fine and had a SUPER NOMMY late lunch around 3pm. The tourist chick had recommended their linguine with baby clams and WOW. It was seriously tasty. AND they had half-portions, so it was perfectly Kit-sized! John ate fish and chips, which he said was great, but they didn't give him enough food. I guess they are unprepared for Manly Montana Man Appetites. I will say John is, I think, the manliest man in this entire town. I don't know how on earth I'd ever find a date here, as all the men I've seen are either old business men or else they have that skinny metro look that Evelynne likes so much. Not. My. Type. Good thing it's academic.

After lunch we made our way back to our hotel and I crashed big time, waking up about an hour ago. Now John is merrily snoozing away. Our plan had been to nap for a few hours and then go do a bicycle tour of Stanley Park, but I still feel like my head is full of cotton and John woke up briefly to tell me not to wake him up. :) So perhaps I'll just join him in bed in about an hour and maybe we'll wake up early enough to go in the morning. Instead, I walked to a nearby sushi shop where I had excellent polite Canadian service. I went in 1 minute after they closed, and instead of saying "sorry!" they took my order, called their sister store (which stays open later) and then sent an employee over there to pick it up and bring it back to me. Wow! Additionally, John is thrilled to remember that Canada has his Real Sugar Cokes and our minibar fridge is now stuffed with them.

We both like Vancouver. It's a really pretty town, very diverse, with tons of shopping and places to eat, while also being pedestrian-friendly with tons of art and parks and beautiful landscaping everywhere. John says it reminds him of nicer areas of New York. To me, it looks a lot like Toronto, only with gorgeous mountain and ocean views. We have both already commented that we could see coming here for a week-long vacation just to see the rest of the city.

So that's the summary for now. We will be boarding the cruise ship (Royal Caribbean's Serenade of the Seas, in case any of you care and can find a webcam or flickr pics or something) around noon tomorrow. We'll be happy to be able to actually unpack all our luggage and settle in to one place for a whole week.

Oleg has uploaded some more of his photos! I am shamelessly crossposting.



I think the cutting of the cake was John's favorite part of the entire wedding. :)



I knelt down to relax for a moment while Oleg was taking posed portraits of our various family members and got caught being lazy.



I LOVE THIS ONE!

Okay, one post with photos and video before we head back to the hotel. It was sooo nice having a couple of hours completely alone in our own house for a change so we sat here and ate leftover lasagna and chicken parmesan from the rehearsal dinner while we lazed about reading blogs and looking at the pictures I took over the past 24 hours. Anyhow, here's a few to tide you guys over until the REAL photographers start posting. :)

First, John insisted I post this video regarding my girly underthings. I made this for John when I was alone at the hotel the night before the wedding:



When my mom saw me wearing them as she was helping me get into my wedding dress, she rolled her eyes and sighed really loudly. :) IT WAS FOR MY HUSBAND!!!!

Second, here we are as we had just left the hall and were headed to the hotel. :)



And lastly, photos of our wedding bands. Say it with me now - awwwwwww!



Alrighty then. Back to the hotel with Mr. & Mrs. Zero!

I AM OFFICIALLY MRS. ZERO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wow. I will have a lot to say later but we are only at the house briefly so I can pick up some pants. Yes, I only packed one pair of pants for the hotel and then I wore them to the hall this morning, not realizing I would change into my wedding gown and then FORGET THE PANTS in the dressing room! So we got to the hotel and I had no pants. Instead, I put on John's pants. I have a 28" waist. John wears a size 36 pants. We wrapped his belt around me twice so they would stay up. Don't worry, there are photos. :)







I know people aren't supposed to have perfect weddings, but I'm here to tell you, ours was perfect.

Anyhow, if you want preliminary photos and info, check out mighty_sam's liveblogging of the event. :)

I am worn out! Today involved lots of running around. First off, my poor mom woke up with a sore throat, fever, and chills this morning. :( I ran over there with water, O.J., vitamin C, and ibuprofin. Mostly I was worried that she wouldn't be able to make it to the bridal portrait selection appointment. I didn't mind going by myself, but ever since I was old enough to even discuss marriage with my mom she always said the one thing she wanted was a bridal portrait of me, so I knew this was a Big Deal to her and I didn't want her to miss out on the experience.

I ran a few errands and then went back to her hotel room to bring her chicken soup, and apparently chicken soup plus ibuprofin worked wonders, because she felt well enough to go after all. :) We had a fun time looking at all the photos - the photographer had narrowed it down to about 100 photos, and then we narrowed it down to 20 and finally about ten, and then mom picked the one she wanted for the wedding. They look GREAT. I was very impressed.

Then we went to the spa for massages - AWESOME. I should do that every day. I did indeed wake up with sore, tight muscles from the car crash and the massage chick pretty much worked all of that out of me. Now I just have some residual mild lower back pain, but hopefully that will work itself out as well. After that mom was worn out again, and since we had pretty much plowed through most of the to do list, I told her she should stay at the hotel and rest while I did the last of the running around.

We're really doing well with the list - I've got to wrap a few gifts, finalize the vows, and copy the music over to both the laptop and a backup drive, and then we're pretty much all set. Tomorrow is the Big Airport Day - my dad, John's mom, Oleg, and a few others will all begin to arrive throughout the day.

. . . . .

Speaking of airport arrivals - I have THE BEST FRIENDS IN THE ENTIRE WORLD!!!

I knew my Maid of Tweed would be getting here around 8pm, and I really wanted to meet her at the airport even though I knew they had arranged for a rental car, so we trucked on out there. It seemed like EVERYBODY got off the plane except them and we waited, and waited, and waited.... and finally they came downstairs, making excuses about taking their pictures with the stuffed bear and such. But we had a wonderful tearful reunion!!!!



With lots of EEEEEEEing!

Of course by then their luggage had been taken off the carousel and we had to wait in the lobby for forever to get through the line to claim it. So I'm standing there talking to them and I mention how nice it is to start collecting all my friends in one place and how I wish partywhipple was here because I still hadn't heard anything out of him as to an RSVP and I was afraid he wasn't going to make it, when I turned around and

OH EM GEE THERE'S MARK!!!!!!!!!!



It sounds like pretty much EVERYBODY was in on this surprise going back who knows how long! I love watching the video now and seeing how John and Mark orchestrated his "entrance" and seeing how long it took me to notice he was there. :) He said he's been having to roll characters on a different warcraft server because he couldn't play on our server because every time he logged in I was asking him where his RSVP was and whether he'd be at the wedding. :) I'm sure his raid guild just LOVES me right now. :)

Then he told the story of how he almost missed his flight:



I CAN HAS WHIPPLE!!!!!!!

After the joyous reunion of Northern Virginia Internet Freaks And Their Philadelphia Pals, we split up to check everyone in to their hotels and then met back up for some late night dinner and catching up. madkiwi and labrat2 joined us and we had a GREAT time!

Total credits to my huglet for keeping this a secret and arranging parts of it. John is really going all out to make this a happy memorable experience for me and I love him to pieces!!!! :)

Man, things are on the upswing for real now! This is starting to get fun!