Midnight chocolate buffets and silver whale tail charms

Well, the trip was a success, all told. It's been in the works since last October, when my mom first had the idea to surprise my dad with an Alaskan cruise for his birthday. The only possible hitch was the prospective baby, as many cruises won't allow any children on board younger than six months. The cruise left Seattle on July 29th, so when Ella turned up this year on January 29th, my mom knew it was a go.

It's been a long and complicated campaign of subterfuge. My dad thought they were going to Oregon to visit relatives, which they were, at first. The day after they left, we flew out and arrived that night at my aunt's house. The whole family was there when he walked in the next morning, and my, was he surprised! Then came the next surprise when we told him that the next day, we were going on a cruise. That's the background. Now for the cruise.

Well, the food was wonderful, of course. There were lots of restaurants on board, and we took turns eating at the general buffet restaurant and the nicer, sit-down places. The staff were overwhelmingly friendly, and made us feel so pleased by admiring the lovely little girls, who were absolutely adorable. Jane and Ella had a fabulous time with family, of course. We brought the backpack and the snugli, and carted them around with us on all of our hikes.

The ship docked at three places in Alaska, not counting the day we spent cruising around in Glacier Bay and not actually making landfall: Juneau, Skagway, and Ketchikan. Skagway is now officially the farthest north I've been. On each stop we wandered away from the pre-arranged (and overpriced) tours and all the tourist traps, and found our own adventures on mountain trails.

Most of the pictures on our camera were taken by Michael, which means that they will consist mainly of scenery. That's nice, but I tend to like scenery a bit better if there's someone I recognise standing out in front. (My idea of taking vacation pictures is along the lines of, 'Oooh, what a pretty pile of rocks! Here, take a picture of me standing in front of it!' Very few pictures from our England trip have any clear shot at the countryside. Castle? There's me in front of it. Stonehenge? There we are in the foreground. White Cliffs of Dover? That's me, there in the front. English rental car? Me, leaning against the hood.) So most of the best human interest pictures will have to wait until I can get my family's copies.

The highlight on the food front came on the next-t0-last night, when there was a chocolate buffet at midnight. (Whatever.) The spread was amazing. There were chocolate miniatures of everything, not to mention the actual food, which included an incredible array of black forest cake, chocolate pecan cake, chocolate decadence, chocolate-covered strawberries, pastries, cheesecakes, mocha tortes, and the like. I felt like the Cabbie: 'If I'd'a known this was coming, I'd'a lived a better life!'

At every stop, there were various trinkets advertised aboard ship, proffered by the local shops in an effort to get the tourists ashore and in the store. We planned our routes, carefully allocated our one-per-stateroom coupons, handed out the general coupons down to the littlest brother, and raced around the town to collect our freebies. It felt like scavenger hunting, thrift shopping, and Christmas all at once. The highlights were the cultured pearl earrings and stud. The lowest score was the colour-changing-in-the-sun ring. But it was all great fun.

The return journey was eventful and long, and it's taken us pretty much all week to recover from it. In fact I'm going off to take another nap now.