We got off our ship pretty early and had the entire day to travel around Seattle. We once again found a Bounce to drop off our luggage, and then went on the Hop On, Hop Off bus around the city. We had been in Seattle only about 3 years ago, and so we knew what we wanted to see again and what we could politely pass by. It was a beautiful sunny day and we had a great last full day of vacation in the Pacific Northwest.

Note…the gum wall. It is like a trainwreck…it is awful and you want to look away, but you can’t help but stare in fascination. I have MANY gumwall photos of all three of our kids over the years. And…we always stop at Pike’s Market Place and eat hot sugared donuts in brown paper bags, watch the fishermen try and sell the fish, admire the amazing flowers, and take photos by the brass pig. It is what the Messinas do when in Seattle.

I don’t know if the cruise lines were unhappy with Canada for closing its ports to cruise ships for 2+ years or what, but Canada got the short end of the stick during this cruise…and by most of the cruiselines coming through this port. We were required to make a stop in Canada…so we did – for 3 hours from 8:30 to 11:30 p.m. Everything was already closed and we saw most of the city in the dark. We walked A LOT on this stop…going through some gardens along the coast and then heading inland towards the Chinatown…which was, of course, all closed. We were paired up on the ship with another family for all our dinner meals. They were also retired military and had a teen daughter adopted from China. Lily and Sophia pal’d around on the ship in the evening after dinner a few nights. We ran into them at the entrance to Chinatown and took pictures of the girls together. Sophia is younger, but is much bigger than our Lily. Sorry Canada, we tried to be friendly, but nothing was open!

This stop was fascinating! I loved this town and really wished that I would be able to have more time there. This is the salmon capital of Alaska. We saw a lot of bald eagles and got to spend some time walking around Creek Street, where the infamous Dolly and her brothel, were frequented by the men during the Gold Rush. There are a lot of totem poles here as well. I just really had a nice time there and wanted more time to explore.

On this day we had an excursion but we did not ever put our feet on land. We met a bunch our group of fellow adventurers at 6:30 a.m. to wait for our smaller boats to arrive and board them. When I woke up I looked at the temperature….knowing I would have to dress warmer being closer to the water and close to glaciers. The ambient temperature was 32 degrees. Layers! It was also windy and raining. Even better! I didn’t have to jockey for positions along the railing to take photos outside the main cabin.

For a few hours we tootled around, traveling to different glaciers in the area and marveling at the bright blue frozen ice everywhere in the mist. We saw a lot of seals and a few bald eagles. Lily couldn’t manage to find a sweatshirt she would like to have because she wanted a plain one…one that didn’t say ALASKA all over it. She did, however, find a hat that she loved to wear. The pictures of Rich sleeping was on our cabin balcony. We were cruising through this beautiful fjord and it was so peaceful. Rich was being my “spotter” in case we saw some wild animals or birds. However, between our early start that morning and the glaciertini (yep a martini made with glacial ice) that was pretty strong on the excursion, he didn’t last long. Considering we didn’t have winter coats, just rain coats layered over our other layers, we stayed relatively warm except for our fingers.

Skagway is a little Alaskan town that looks like it stepped out of the wild west. We had one of our longest stops in this little town, and some of the worst weather. It got pretty rainy and windy throughout the day. However, all this worked in our benefit, because our nephew, Dante, was working there as a seasonal worker in the town. His mom, Tammie, Rich’s sister, was there visiting him as well. So we had a little Messina reunion in Skagway. We went on a hike with Dante leading us along, and then on a long train ride up through the mountains. This town was booming during the Klondike Gold Rush and we followed the train through the White Pass and the Yukon Rout Railroad track along the steep Chilkoot trail. It goes all the way up to the Canadian border. Lily can sleep anywhere…and fell asleep on the train. The second photo of her is the look we get every morning. She is not a morning person. We then walked around the town and had a nice dinner before heading back to the ship.

On our stop in Juneau, we went on a tour to see the Mildenhall Glacier and to go on a whale watching tour. I am married to a New Englander but have never seen whales in the wild. We were not disappointed. We had a lot of changes to see whales in the area. We also saw lots of eagles watching us along the way. There was a medical emergency on our ship about an hour after leaving Juneau, so we turned around and went back. That allowed us to see the port at night, which was pretty.

We hopped on our Carnival cruise ship in Seattle and were at sea the first day. It was pretty rocky. You know it is rocky if the crew keeps commenting on it. Rich and Lily didn’t feel so great, but decided to sleep it off during a daytime nap. Our first stop was called the Icy Straits, which is actually near the small native Alaskan town called Hoonah. There we went on an excursion to try and see bears in the wild. There were eight of us in a van being driven by a substitute driver…who happened to be the Eagle clan leader in Hoonah. Jack was very knowledgeable and chatted about how things worked within the Native Americans in Alaska. The tour was supposed to last 3 hours but he felt really bad we hadn’t seen anything during our long drive on trucking roads in a national forest that he kept driving. It paid off when we saw a momma bear and her cub walking along the water’s edge. We were very excited to see them. We had a very tight squeeze getting back to the ship. There may have been some running involved. We mentioned to Jack several times that if the ship left without us, we were going to be staying with him. I am not sure how serious he took us. Anyhow, enjoy the photos…

Tim dropped us off in San Francisco in the evening after a long day of hiking in Yosemite and then driving back to the coast. Since we would no longer have a car, the hotel was picked for convenience of the hop on-hop off bus. Unfortunately, one turn of the corner and we were in the slums. Our hotel was on that turn of the corner. Once we got in, it was good. The hotel wouldn’t even let you in the lobby. The elevator was in an alley way going into a car park and so was the window we literally had to shout through to talk to the guy checking us in. There may have been some gun shots after we got to our room…but we never heard any screaming or sirens, so I am guessing they were a bad shot. We didn’t fly out until the next evening. There are these places called Bounces which will hold your luggage for you while you are traipsing around town for the day. Ours was close to our hotel…in a bad part of town, covered in iron bars and you had to talk to a voice box before they would come and open the door. They were a very nice mom and pop hotel and very nice. So we dumped just about everything and left to find the bus to start seeing the sights. We were shocked at how cold it was. That fog is chilly! Lily and I were on the top of the bus, which is open. There were others who were in winter coats. We were in short sleeved shirts. My honest opinion about San Francisco….I have always heard how wonderful it is. The homeless and lawless folks have taken over a good chunk of the city and that is a shame on so many levels. I wanted to see a street car…got to ride on one. I wanted to see the Golden Gate Bridge in the fog. Got to see it several times and it was mesmerizing. We ate dinner at a tiny place in China Town. We had a really good time exploring the city together before heading to the airport for Seattle.

After a full day of rugby, we met back up with Rich and Lily and took off for a 3.5 hour drive east towards Yosemite National Park. I love going to National Parks and thanks to Rich’s life of service, we have lifetime memberships to go to these fabulous places. None of us had been to Yosemite and we were really looking forward to spending a couple of days there. However, there was a wildfire that broke out several days before we arrived and it was still not contained with we went there. It closed a portion of the park, but most of the park was still open. A lot of people cancelled there travel plans there because of all the smoke, but we didn’t really have a big choice. We rolled the dice and still went. We stayed in Mariposa, CA…about a 45 minute drive to Yosemite. Yosemite is pretty remote. There isn’t a whole lot of places to stay nearby. The town we stayed in was later devastated by separate wild fire that tore through the town about 2 weeks after we were there. I am not even sure the motel we stayed in is still standing. Anyhow, it was a tight squeeze with four adults in one room, but we were bone tired each night so it wasn’t a big deal.

The first day in Yosemite was Sunday, July 10th. We went to the valley in Yosemite National Park and it was pretty smokey. I was almost rethinking our plan when we arrived as the smoke was pretty thick. You will see it in the photos. It isn’t that I developed them to look moody and dramatic. That was the smoke hanging in the air. In several photos I took, I couldn’t even see anything in the sky, but when I pulled the levers in Light Room to process the photos, a mountain would pop out of the soupiness of the gray sky. We did two hikes each day. The first day we went to the valley and hiked the loop. We also hiked to the lower falls. The main road in Yosemite is closed all year for much need reconstruction. That will make it nice for future travelers, but made it a little inconvenient for us. Many sites we could have driven to were relegated to 13-15 MILE hikes in steep terrain. It was triple digits already and the air quality wasn’t great. That was a hard pass for us. We went to the eastern part of Yosemite the second day. The smoke was better because we were further from the wild fire. We were also a much higher elevation. Our second hike of the day was to Elizabeth Lake, a beautiful alpine lake that we saw a total of 3 people on the trail. That hike started at 8000 feet and went to 9200…in the first mile. The second mile or so was flat…just in thinner air. I have to admit, I thought I might die on that hike. It was labelled a moderate hike but I think that is all 4.5 miles averaged together. That first mile just about did me in. I participate in a cardio class at the YMCA maybe 5-6 times a week. Zumba did not prepare me for this elevation. I was breathing but it was like there was no oxygen in the air for my lungs to latch onto. I felt like a fish flopping on a dock, stunned and trying to breathe. I had to gently remind myself that I am not a spring chicken. I am on lots of meds. I have stage IV cancer, to include spots in my lungs. I was going to make it to that lake if it killed me (and it almost did). I also envisioned that if I had a heart attack or a stroke and was unable to walk down, that none of my family could carry me. I could just see Rich with one of my legs, Tim with the other, pulling my body down the mountain trail with my head bouncing on the rocks as they try to get me to safety. That would be awful for all involved. So I took a breathing break every 100-200 yards. It made it slow going up, but I was still upright and conscious. That was my goal at the end of that first mile. Going done? Piece of cake! I could feel the oxygen flooding my lungs with every step down. It took about 1/3 of the time to go down compared to going up. I ended the day with 27,000 and change steps. Long day, great views, even better company. I love watching my kids interact now that they are adults. Lily was only in the 3rd grade when her youngest brother left the nest and made her an only child at home. So it is fun to watch them banter back and forth because she was pretty little when Tim left home and he is shocked at her being a senior now. Joe’s name was mentioned a lot because of course we felt a piece of our family was missing. It was good to talk about him…to tell stories of random ridiculous things he did as a kid (or better yet, as an adult).

Well, my friends. It has been a hot minute since I have been on here. I have been traveling quite a bit and sometimes life just gets to be a bit much, to be quite honest. But I want to catch you up a bit on the last month of what has been happening with me and our family.

As a big rugby fan, and one that travelled to Las Vegas for 6 years with a son or two in tow for a weekend of almost 50 international matches per weekend….I kept hearing scuttlebutt about the premier rugby 7’s league this summer. They have four men’s teams and four women’s teams and some are long time players who are in their glory days….and some are amazing athletes from other sports who are trying out rugby and are newbies. I noticed their season is only a month long….July. They had three weekends across the country where they would play a men’s and women’s tournament: San Jose, CA; Austin, TX; and Washington, DC. It is only one long day….and I was thinking about the summer heat. San Jose sounded like the best place to be…especially since it is a 25-minute drive south of my youngest son, Tim. Bonus! I told Rich I wanted to fly out there and go to the tournament with Tim. Rich went with that and planned a whole vacation around it. I am going to go place by place, so this is only San Jose, which is a pretty town, at least what I saw of it. Tim met us on Saturday morning and gave Rich and Lily the car to tootle around in while he and I walked across the street to PayPal Park for the all-day tournament. Turns out Tim actually knew one of the gals playing. She came up and talked to us after the tournament was over. She was a who’s who in the women’s field hockey world on the national level and moved on to try a new sport of women’s rugby. She did really well! She even scored a game winning try! I was really happy to chat with her. She sung Tim’s praises in the gym at Stanford as a strength and conditioning coach. I was beaming with pride and Tim’s ears may have gotten a little pink. Anyhow, it was a gorgeous day and some good matches. Not a lot of fans…it hasn’t really caught on yet, but it was a good 7 hours of rugby with Tim, and that was priceless.