Our "Last Hurrah" (as my wife has named it)

For my parents' 35th wedding anniversary, our entire family (three of us "kids" and our spouses) went on a cruise to Alaska. This has been spoken about and planned for close to two years, and booked for over a year. Nicole and I spent a few days in Seattle on our own before the cruise, and then we had a full week of fun and relaxation with my family. It was amazing, and I could have journaled a full entry every day if I'd had access to Blogger. I did bring a hard journal, but ended up using it more for written prayers in the form of letters to God. Totally unplanned but was a perfect and natural way to express my appreciation of all that was around me, and considering it is my most comfortable form of expression, I'm surprised I haven't done this sooner.

But I digress. Since I did not journal while I was away, I need to keep this to a normal length, and will try to do so by just bullet-pointing the highlights for me to cherish further down the road.

• The Inn at the Market - We splurged on two nights at this sweet inn right in the thick of Pike Place Market. We used the beautiful rooftop patio overlooking Puget Sound so many times in those couple of days, and almost always had it to ourselves.
• Seattle Aquarium - It hung over the sound, used fresh water directly from the sound for its exhibits, and had wave pools for fish to mimic what they're used to in shallow waters.
• Shabbat service in Seattle, and Shabbat non-service on the ship - I will have to do a separate post for this! I love, love, love making field trips to other synagogues, and travel is the perfect opportunity since we are torn from our beloved home temple anyway.
• Spending laidback, quality bonding time with my sister-in-law and brother-in-law, and likewise having us kids watch our spouses bond and interact. Irreplaceable.
• Being served hot toddies in our room to enjoy under blankets on our balcony while we watched the calving of glaciers right before our very eyes and heard the thunder of their crash into the ocean.
• Taking a train through the mountains to a snow-capped peak, winding our way on a track that would be far too dangerous for roads and cars, feeling totally enveloped by the pristine Alaskan wilderness.
• Seeing humpback whales breaching while we were at breakfast.
• The abundance of bald eagles in their natural habitat, perched on pilings and icebergs.
• Mendenhall Glacier - WOW.
• Nicole taking me on an excursion to a salmon bake as an early birthday present, and being accompanied by my parents, sister, and brother-in-law as well. Eating fresh-caught wild Alaskan salmon cooked over an alderwood fire and then toasting marshmallows in the rain.
• 11:08 PM sunset and 3:53 AM sunrise
• Floating in Lake Union on a duck tour in Seattle, with a view of the Space Needle, houseboats, kayakers, and a seaplane taking off.
• Dinner at the top of the Space Needle with my wife and parents as an early birthday celebration while we could all be together. Rotating around in the restaurant and finding a note my mom had planted on the stationary sill which now held birthday greetings from tourists from Copenhagen and Australia.
• Sunshiney days in Seattle while it thunderstormed back in NYC.

Thankful that I didn't keep a regular journal while I was there...there would be a heck of a lot of transcription going on right now. These highlights will have to do. And since a picture is worth 1000 words...