Requiem for a Meme: Juneau | Ketchikan | Victoria | Seattle | Bellevue

[hauntedheadnc]

Yes! We went traveling again and we chose to travel by a means reviled of many forumers, as it tends to bring one in close proximity of Wal-Mart shoppers: the Carnival cruise. We sailed on the Carnival Spirit to be precise and specifically to spite certain uppity forumers, we had a rather nice time. I came away from the experience inspired to recreate certain recipes from the dining room (chicken in tarragon sauce FTW), and the cachet of being able to say we saw Alaska. Our itinerary included all the cities listed in the title, plus a sail up the Tracy Arm Fjord. I refused to take photos of our excursion to the Mendenhall Glacier in Juneau, and of Tracy Arm Fjord because I wanted to just sit and enjoy the experience without a camera at all. This made me a distinct minority in a jostling scrum of tourists taking selfies.

This is pretty much all we saw of Juneau, because we got off the ship and got on a bus that took us to the glacier, and then we got off the bus and got back on the ship after standing in a godawful line. There wasn't time to go sightseeing in the city.

Now, in a thread I posted back in July, another forumer noted the lack of theme music. I pride myself on theme music for my threads, and I try to choose video game music for my themes. I think video game music is a very underappreciated art. However, considering our method of travel and the fact that these photos were taken from the deck of a cruise, and that there's only four of them, this is honestly the only appropriate theme (and it's not really a song per se...) for Juneau:

• Video Link









Please note that I am content to hold Ketchikan hostage until someone replies.

[OhioGuy]

Looks like you lucked out with the weather in Juneau. Beautiful blue skies!

[Architype]

Originally Posted by hauntedheadnc

Yes! We went traveling again and ... I am content to hold Ketchikan hostage until someone replies.

Looks a lot like British Columbia!
I am all for reunification of our mountainous coastal regions.

[plinko]

The number of cruise ships in that harbor make me cringe, but you got lovely skies. I hear great things about Juneau.

[hauntedheadnc]

Ketchikan, AK

• Video Link

[geomorph]

Thank you for the Ketchikan photos, I was just there on a cruise but we had a very short time in that city and if you know me, I went straight to the Southeast Alaska Discovery Center (a museum/visitor center of course!) and then had to go back to the ship. We docked in a cove about 5 miles away early in the morning, had to bus into town, and then only a few hours to explore before getting back on the bus. The town seemed to hardly be awake yet! However all our other Alaska ports were full day stops.

[hauntedheadnc]

Originally Posted by Architype

Looks a lot like British Columbia!
I am all for reunification of our mountainous coastal regions.

Nonsense! However, the next installment will look a lot like British Columbia.

[hauntedheadnc]

Originally Posted by OhioGuy

Looks like you lucked out with the weather in Juneau. Beautiful blue skies!

Originally Posted by plinko

The number of cruise ships in that harbor make me cringe, but you got lovely skies. I hear great things about Juneau.

We did get beautiful, lovely skies. Unusually lovely, and the weather was unusually warm, to the point that the other tourists were bitching about it. One woman from Texas in particular made it clear that she was not going to tolerate so much as a moment of discomfort on the warm bus. This was ironic because her incessant complaining and indignance caused a great deal of discomfort for everyone who had to listen to her. I can only imagine what sort of reviews she left.

[hauntedheadnc]

Originally Posted by geomorph

Thank you for the Ketchikan photos, I was just there on a cruise but we had a very short time in that city and if you know me, I went straight to the Southeast Alaska Discovery Center (a museum/visitor center of course!) and then had to go back to the ship. We docked in a cove about 5 miles away early in the morning, had to bus into town, and then only a few hours to explore before getting back on the bus. The town seemed to hardly be awake yet! However all our other Alaska ports were full day stops.

I rather enjoyed getting to see Ketchikan, and I liked the history. You've got the downtown area and then you have a secondary area called Creek Street which was the historic redlight district, where you can tour one of the whorehouses that is preserved as a museum. The rest are all shops and restaurants and things. There were plaques on the buildings that would tell you what ladies lived and worked there and their stories. It was interesting to see how for a lot of them, including some Black women from the South, moving to Ketchikan to be a prostitute was the first time in their life they'd had any agency and power to make and spend their own money. You could also read about the preacher who changed his address from Creek Street to Stedman Street so as not to be associated with the whores, and you could see the Married Man's Trail that some men used to slink down to Creek Street so no one would see them coming.

Something else nice about Creek Street was the seal eating salmon in the creek, plus the little tiff we got to see between a bald eagle and a Siamese cat over some fish guts. There were half-eaten salmon everywhere, but we also saw the ones who got away from the seal and cat and eagle further up the creek trying to jump up the little waterfall there. And even after all that, there were signs up all over downtown, especially near the harbor, giving information on all the Japanese families who lived in and owned businesses in Ketchikan, including the New York Cafe, before the internment camps. All in all, it was fascinating.

[MplsTodd]

Loved the photo tour! Ketchikan looks great with the staircases, pedestrian only streets and pedestrian bridges. I’m guessing the mountains limit opportunity to sprawl out. I can’t get over the size of those cruise ships! Did having two of them in port at the same time seem to overwhelm the town?

[hauntedheadnc]

Originally Posted by MplsTodd

Loved the photo tour! Ketchikan looks great with the staircases, pedestrian only streets and pedestrian bridges. I’m guessing the mountains limit opportunity to sprawl out. I can’t get over the size of those cruise ships! Did having two of them in port at the same time seem to overwhelm the town?

Not that I saw. A lot of people went on excursions, so there weren't as many people just wandering around town as you might expect.

[mousquet]

How clean are those huge cruise ships out there? They've been so dirty in the Mediterranean sea that even the Conservative mayor of Nice doesn't want them any longer around his town. Yet he's not exactly an anti-business guy, but he finds that those cruise behemoths treat every place they stop in like trash.

The social democratic mayor of Marseille feels the same to those huge industrial cruise boats.
They treat the sea and coastal cities like trashcans!
That's what they say.

Frankly, I wouldn't even try a cruise boat that size. Crossing the English Channel on a ferry boat is boring enough, while it only takes a few hours.

[hauntedheadnc]

Originally Posted by mousquet

How clean are those huge cruise ships out there? They've been so dirty in the Mediterranean sea that even the Conservative mayor of Nice doesn't want them any longer around his town. Yet he's not exactly an anti-business guy, but he finds that those cruise behemoths treat every place they stop in like trash.

The social democratic mayor of Marseille feels the same to those huge industrial cruise boats.
They treat the sea and coastal cities like trashcans!
That's what they say.

Frankly, I wouldn't even try a cruise boat that size. Crossing the English Channel on a ferry boat is boring enough, while it only takes a few hours.

The cleaning crews are working literally 24/7. You can't go anywhere on the ship at any time without seeing someone cleaning something or working on something. On the ship we were on, over the course of the week we cruised they replaced a patch of the deck. As for the waste and food waste, they dump it out at sea but they're required to be a certain distance from the shore before they can do so. I'm not sure how many miles out they have to be, but I'm pretty sure they have to be in international waters before they can.

However... when it comes to the food waste in particular, certain animals know it's coming and they will follow the ships. That's why you so often see dolphins around cruise ships. They know there are burgers, tacos, pizza, and chicken in tarragon sauce coming their way if they wait long enough.

[mousquet]

^ Yeah, but they're not complaining about food or organic waste. Feeding dolphins with your chicken is not the real issue.

The problem is actually the type of fuel they use and how they refuel while on docks in harbors. A lot of cruise boats would work on poor quality and very polluting fuel.
That's what the mayor of Marseille was complaining about, while air pollution was serious over the city this summer.
Same in Nice.

They're just requiring more regulation in that matter. Generally speaking, the Mediterranean sea has been too easy to those "cruise factories".
They want more serious rules, so their fuel doesn't mess up their harbors, shores or the sea as a whole.

[hauntedheadnc]

Originally Posted by mousquet

^ Yeah, but they're not complaining about food or organic waste. Feeding dolphins with your chicken is not the real issue.

The problem is actually the type of fuel they use and how they refuel while on docks in harbors. A lot of cruise boats would work on poor quality and very polluting fuel.
That's what the mayor of Marseille was complaining about, while air pollution was serious over the city this summer.
Same in Nice.

They're just requiring more regulation in that matter. Generally speaking, the Mediterranean sea has been too easy to those "cruise factories".
They want more serious rules, so their fuel doesn't mess up their harbors, shores or the sea as a whole.

Okay. You weren't clear on that point. When it comes to how they refuel I have no idea what they do.

[hauntedheadnc]

Victoria, BC

• Video Link

[xzmattzx]

Nice! It's good to see some Alaska on here. I was in Alaska for the first time in May, and went to Anchorage, Palmer, Talkeetna, Denali N.P., and Seward.

[hauntedheadnc]

Seattle (01)

• Video Link

[Architype]

Great! Our quaint little Victoria (it has to stand in for mighty Vancouver) has been made to seem elegant compared to the more rough-hewn Alaskan territories.
Seattle appears to be all business as usual.

[hauntedheadnc]

Originally Posted by Architype

Great! Our quaint little Victoria (it has to stand in for mighty Vancouver) has been made to seem elegant compared to the more rough-hewn Alaskan territories.
Seattle appears to be all business as usual.

Apparently, by law the ship had to stop in a "foreign" port due to its registry. Therefore, it stopped in Victoria for the shortest amount of time that it possibly could. Also, that night Victoria was haunted by two different Spirits, the Carnival Spirit and the Norwegian Spirit.