the trouble with taking vacation is...

So my last blog entry left me complaining that Seattle did not have the ability to deal with snow. Roads were closed, but most importantly (to me) the airport was shut down for the night leaving me and several other hundred seasonal travelers literally out in the cold. Fortunately, we were not part of these people, whom our favorite airlines hosed with deicer. Out in the cold, with no where to go (by plane) we hopped a cab to the Holiday Inn in Kent to bunker down for three days until the next flight became available. Now realize that we were supposedly flying on the 20th of December. A full 24-hour day before our cruise was scheduled to leave the port in San Diego. Unfortunately, the next plane that had seven tickets to San Diego wasnt until the evening of the 24th. This meant we would have to catch up with the cruise at a different port. At our own expense. Can you image how expensive seven last minute plane tickets are from San Diego to the next port, Acapulco? "So whatcha doin'? Nothin' chillin' at the Holiday Inn" - Christmas SnoopDogg style Mark called the Alaska Airlines MVP desk and had the replacement tickets scheduled to San Diego mere minutes after our original flight was cancelled. We heard rumors of travelers who where unable to fly for almost a week and some that we spoke to in person who cancelled their plans all together. The reason we had to pay for the additional tickets: #1 we chose not to purchase travel insurance (never again will we NOT have travel insurance during time-sensitive travel) and #2 the airlines do not cover for the cruelties Mother Nature gives them. Alaska Airlines (AkAir) was not able to cover our next plane tickets and but more importantly to us they were not able to relinquish our luggage. Mark, Austin, and Orren headed back to SeaTac the next day to try to collect our luggage. It was only after a three hour wait in line they learned AkAir was sending all the luggage onto the final destination to allow those airports to sort through the chaos because SeaTac was wholly-unable to handle the mess they created. Their baggage handlers had thrown all the luggage off of every flight and had stacked and piled them on the baggage room floor five and six bags deep, with no flight sorting, whatsoever. We were able to find only one bag. Mine. My bag. My evening gowns bag. Wow. What a relief. Those come in handy doing laundry at the hotel! In a ball gown. To my amazement, the boys kept an excellent spirit during the Holiday Inn Hiatus. With all that snow, they made a gargantuan snowball. Seattle snow is much better than Alaskan snow, I guess. Alaska snow is to too cold to stick to itself. It is powder fine and does not pack. Seattle snow on the other had has moisture, so it makes things like snowballs. Great big snowballs. No gloves, no jackets, no worries. Just hours and hours and hours of fun in the back lawn of the hotel. After three wonderful snowy days camping at the hotel, eating hotel waffles, ordering pizzas, and eating dinners at Denny's, we were finally able to leave Seattle and head to San Diego. There were no direct flights from San Diego so we had to book San Diego- Houston- Acapulco. Flight got in late evening San Diego so it was off to Jack-in-the-Box for dinner and a cozy night at the Ramada. Ah, I feel like a traveling salesmen staying at super cheap hotels. Comforting. Livable, cause we were flying out early the next afternoon for Houston (or so we thought). We get to the San Diego airport only to find out that our flight to Houston was delayed due to the plane being held in Newark. Five hours later, they secure another airplane and assure us with food vouchers that another plane has been found and will be landing in a few hours. By 10pm, I was starting to loose hope. Merry Christmas Eve. Thank God there was a bar at the end of the concourse that was willing to spike my Starbucks Eggnog Latte with Baileys. One of those down and I was actually grateful they got us on a flight to Houston after midnight. We landed in Houston around 3am and decided to skip the hotel we had reservations for in hopes of gaining an extra hour of sleep on the airport floor before our 9am flight to our ship in Mexico. My only question is: "why does Houston need to announce over their intercoms at CONCERT level reminders that I shouldnt carry someone elses property in my luggage?" The aiport is locked from 2am-5am. No one new is getting in until 5. Yet, they feel the need to remind us of very important airport safety. Thank you. Houston, it was a pleasure waking up on your airport floor on Christmas morning to be informed of these concerns. Thank you, very, very much! It didnt take long for everyone to fall back into routine once we were on the ship. The kids scattered in all directions with newfound excitement from realizing that this cruise has other kids their ages. We were the only family on a ship that holds over a thousand people last January. This being a Holiday cruise, there were what seemed to be hundreds of children. Hundreds of children that were overly excited to get up early to go on shore excursions. Puerto Chiapas offered up a small site of Mexican ruins. Nothing overly spectacular, but a nice area to walk and enjoy the fresh air and time off the ship.

Mark and I

A view of the room. The space was reasonable. We didnt feel crowded. A queen/king sized bed a small sitting area with couch and writing desk. Insuite bathroom with 3/4 sized tub; surprisingly a lot of people take baths on a cruise. I guess the fact of not wanting to fall in the shower since standing up while the ship is moving is actually quite dangerous (but I did it anyway since I dont take baths in hotel bathrooms {unless they are luxury rooms with overly large tubs}). The flatscreen tv has a dvd player and the library has thousands of movies to rent. There are two movie channels that play nothing but new releases all day. I admit: there were several days when I just stayed in bed, knit, and watched movies.

Most ports had entertainmet in the shopping areas to draw the excusion crowd to stay in the pavilion and bring the "I never go off the ship" crowd off the ship to see what is going on. Both crowds end up dropping at least a few dollars. I would say they ended up dropping a few pesos, but every time we tried to pay with pesos, we got eye rolls and elevated prices. Even their ATMs offer to payout with American dollars.

These dancers were athelets! They would dance for 15 minutes, swinging and swishing and running about, then would walk the crowd taking pictures, only to return to the active dancing without sweating themselves to death in the 90F+ heat. We were only 10miles north of the Guatemalan border and we were feeling the heat.

Yes, the hallways are this long. Even longer if you spend time up at the Crow's Nest

Ixtapa: Brett dug a hole that deep. Parker developed a bad sunburn but they both had fun playing in the water and on the beach. The rest of us sat in the shade, relaxed and enjoyed the sounds of the ocean.

Puerto Vallarta: funny, but I think my friend Kat's hotel was just around the corner from where we took this picture.

Oh, the joys of family pictures. Okay, everyone smile!

Mazatlan:

These cruise ship are like floating cities. There are several (like 9) bars, a casino, a live theater, a movie theatre, three restaurants, two more buffets serving pizza, tacos, hamburgers, laundrymats, a library, internet cafe, espresso stand, giftshops. It was amazing. There are two kids' hangout areas. Club HAL for kids 12 and under and The Loft for kids 13+. Two of our boys turn 13, one this spring and the other this summer, so they were mad-bummin' about their denied entry into the teen joint which has it's own pool, sunning area, karaoke, games, and so much more than they ever needed to keep entertained. Last cruise they had free rein over both areas (again with the only family on board schtick).

PV: Nature's waterslide

Loreto:

Leaving Cabo, our last port-of-call

We had a lot of fun on the cruise. I highly recommend cruise for those with families. There is always food available with the hardest part being keeping the kids from eating before dinner. Someone else cleans, someone else cooks, and if you chose to, someone else does all the laundry. You go to bed at night after going to the theatre to see singers, comedians, dance shows, jugglers or go see a new release movie on the big screen or just get snockered at one of the many, many drinking establishments and wake up in the morning in a new town. And dont get me started about the spa, and the pools, and the fitness center.

Just a calm, relaxing vacation. Or so I thought... Then the phone rang in the room... Work has been trying to get ahold of me... Call home... Oh CRAP!

The phone conversation goes something like this:

Me: "Hello, what's wrong"

them: "It was 60F below last night"

me: "and?"

them: "It was 60F below last night, in your house"

me: "what?"

them: "Pipes are froze. All the pipes are froze. Every one of the contractors you left a phone number for are too busy with everyone else's frozen pipes to come out."

me: "call someone else!"

them: "We did. They are too busy to call us back."

By this point, it has been over 48 hours without heat. Every pipe is busted. Every water pump is split. Every drain has cracked. The dishwasher exploded! The boiler and hot water heater were saved because electric heaters were brought up in time. Thank you!

I have had contractors here for over a week now. Yesterday we were full self-sufficient for heat. Today they start on the water. Over a week now without running water. Now I have incentive to go to the gym every day. They have showers.

I cant even begin to tell you the joys of the Sani-can at 40F below. We get back into Fairbanks to enjoy driving in Ice Fog. I love this natural phenomenon. It is the joy that only frigid cold air and humidity can bring. My only fear is driving on the highway when it is heavier than seen in the picture. There tends to be massive pileups on the highway caused by some idiot who doesn't stop to realize that if you can't see more than 20ft in front of you, then maybe you shouldn't be driving at 65mph. Drive only as fast as your stopping distance. If you can't see more than 100yards, don't drive over 40mph. But like the rest of the world, we have those that are overly cautious who decide to drive 15mph on the highway with someone else behind them driving 80 and pileups occur.

The sweet joy of -42F. I missed the 60below. Okay, to tell the truth, I didnt miss it, persay. I just was not in the state to experience this. Coldest I have ever had the joy to experience was 68F below. Being a very penny-poor college student and single mother, my car didnt have heat. That was a cold winter.

Here is the external heater that Slayden Plumbing brought out to heat the Dredge to a working temperature. It took three days to bring the house from freezing to livable. I can only guess how much diesel that baby burns with its $4000/wk price tag, I dont really care. Just turn my heat on so I dont have to pay for this anymore.

They styrofoamed my door with the hose coming through. So beautifully functional. That is why I love Alaska.

The cold blew up the Hobart dishwasher downstairs. I will now have to handwash all my dishes until this spring when budget allows me to have this repaired.

This is the part that hurt the most. This one of two frozen and fractured pumps means that I do not have running water. Slayden predicts starting on the water in/out system next week. This past week they have concentrated on fixing the boiler lines so that the Dredge heats itself.

I cannot tell you how much I love these guys. I have never in my working career here seen more diligent, dedicated, mild-mannered, clean mouthed, respectable contractors. Everyone from the service manager, to the journeyman plumber, right down to the runners has been just simply amazing, hard working, and reliable gentlemen.

Just a few of the many, many, many blown pipes.

Fortunately the glycol (thankfully I paid more for the environmentally-friendly, non-toxic antifreeze kind last time we had the system cleaned, checked and refilled) didnt enter the house. It looks like it all drained into the septic system.

We still have not found the explanation of why the entire system failed. The initial finding was a failed fan motor on the auxilary heater in the crawlspace that at 60F below allowed the pipes underneath the house to freeze, driving the boiler to increase internal pressure and causing all the glycol to dump into the septic system. After inspecting the boiler, that is the only conclusion they could come up with.

And then they drop me...

... and everyone else. Flight into Seattle was a bit uneventful. Flight attendance tell us on board as we are landing that there have been some cancellations. Oh, that wasnt even the half of it. "Some" was a drastic understatement. Straight off the plane, we ran to the readerboard to find the location of our flight to San Diego. Of the three flights of the morning, two where cancelled. Fortunately, ours was the only flight remaining. We sat at the gate and stared the Alaska Airlines attendants down. We were no intimidation to them. It was not like there were feet of snow on the ground. It was not like the winds were howling at 80 miles an hour. It was not like there were sheets of falling ice rain. It was snow, lightly falling. Hard to believe a few flakes could cause this much disaster. I soon found out that the minds-that-be at Seattle Tacoma International Airport have an unhealthy avoidance of snow removal equipment purchases. I guess they are the thought-theory that if they dont buy anything to remove the snow, then the snow merely shouldn't fall. Are those in the Pacific Northwest that naive? I live in Fairbanks, Alaska. If for one year, I decide not to buy the boys winter jackets. Will the temperature not drop below zero? I do not believe I would have happy-campers waiting for the bus in the middle of December. Yet I digress. We arrive in Seattle at 6am this morning. We wait another eight hours for information pertaining to the de-icing of our plane and listen to countless flights being labeled "cancelled" and we sit in the airport like lemmings before the final run. The sitting becomes the standing; the standing become the pacing, and the pacing becomes frantic lunges for the counter. "Flight 840 to SanDiego has been cancelled. Please exit the terminal to the ticketing counters to reschedule your flight". Fortunately we have a phone number to the agents and start calling the moment that announcement was broadcasting. We are confirmed on a flight out of Seattle on Tuesday, December 23. Too bad the cruise took off earlier this evening from San Diego. Without us. Without several other people in Seattle waiting for the flight. Without other people in Vancouver. Without even more people in Portland. Is no one in the Pacific Northwest purchasing snow removal equipment? Another six hours of phone calls to various airlines and air resellers to come up with a solution. Alaska Airlines rescheduled us for San Diego, yes. But the cruise is no longer in San Diego. It is entertaining hundreds of fortunate OTHER passengers in the Pacific Ocean. We had to purchase (yes, added expense: plane tickets for 7) flights from San Diego, to Houston, to Acapulco to catch up to the cruise ship on Christmas afternoon. Oh, baby. Santa is going to visit somewhere 30K feet above Northcentral Mexico. I hope those reindeer aren't affected by altidude sickness.

Alaska Airlines comes through

So our flight out of Seattle was cancelled and we were rebooked on the next flight out to San Diego three hours later. We would have had a six hour layover instead of the intended three hour layover, but... When we arrived in Anchorage, we found that there were not flights in or out of Seattle, indefinately. Fortunately, "indefinately" was only an hour and half, but our flight hadn't even left SeaTac yet. That flight left. We know have three hours to wait for our flight. Only four hours late. The good side? We get out of Anchorage and we now only have four hours to wait in the Seattle airport. Now just wish me luck getting out of Seattle on time. Really, I never would have thought it would be this hard, but glad it has been this easy. At least they are not like Northwest Airlines that left DH and I in Narita, Japan for over three days without compensation. I try to remember that it can always be worse. Wish me luck!

CRAP!

At 2:40pm my flight out of Seattle to San Diego was cancelled. On the phone with Alaska Airlines right now.

Christmas Knitting

So this is my fast frenzy of Christmas knitting. These are Gentleman's Fancy Socks for Isaac. They will not be done by Christmas, so he will get them early January. These are Warmest Mittens for my sister in Michigan The Baby Surprise Jacket for niece Sarah in Juneau The Wonderful Wallaby for nephew Joseph

Aran Slippers from IK Holiday Gifts for sister-in-law in Juneau

Kate for Layla from knitty.com and "Kate"-inspired hat and scarf for her older sister Gwennie in Washington

Drop Stitch Scarf for Carter

And how am I spending my Christmas? That would be on a Holland America 14 day Mexican Riviera holiday cruise. We fly out tomorrow afternoon to Seattle (and great, they are having a HUGE storm and we were told to expect delays {of which we can't have a single one because there is ONE SEAT out of Fairbanks to the lower 48 from now to Christmas / if we miss any flight at all, then we miss the cruise} there was no alternative on the plane tickets at time of purchase because we used airline miles for all seven of us). Seattle is expecting a massively historic storm. When? Tomorrow! Lovely, just lovely.

If everything goes as planned, we will be spending Christmas in Acapulco and New Year Eve on board in Mazatlan. And with the price for the cruise, it is a very humbling Christmas.

But why would someone want to leave their home for the Holidays?

Because this was the photo I took while in town yesterday. It was just after sunrise at 11:28 as I was driving south on the Steese Hwy coming up to the 10th ave intersection. Thankfully tomorrow is Solstice (the longest night of the year) and I will miss it. Hopefully not to be spending my vacation in the Seattle airport.

But also on my drive to town, I am rewarded with this view at the top of Halgerbarger hill. A view of Fairbanks:

Happy Holidays and a Merry Christmas

Australia: Costal (part 2 of 2)

Australia continued... The first post covered the Outback as we made our way to the coast. We drove all day and just as night was falling, we started our ascent of the Great Dividing Range. Not taking more than two hours, which ironically included a dinner stop at The Hilltop Cafe (of which we have a restaurant of the same name in Fairbanks, also at the top of a hill), we descended at what felt like 90 degrees on switchbacks for 40kms. We made it into Cairns to spend the night at the Holiday Inn, which surpisingly is much much nicer than the Holiday Inns in the States. Woke up the next morning to head to Port Douglas. Just north of Cairns on the Bruce Highway, we first see the Great Barrier Reef: We find a place to stay in Port Douglas and decided upon taking a short drive through the Daintree National Forest. Well, the short drive turns into a daylong adventure and we figured it was quicker to continue the scenic path north to Cookstown to spend the night. A fabulous dinner on the wharf, a pleasant nights rest, and back to a faster highway south to Port Douglas. Side note: Port Douglas isn't pronounded: Doug (dug), like the American name. It is pronounced do-g, like go "do" this for me +g. I couldn't hold back the giggles whenever anyone would ask me where we were staying. The first night in Port "do"glas we boarded a sailboat and had a pleasant sunset sail around the inside of the reef. We saved the adventure for the next day when we boarded the Poseindon for an afternoon of feeding the fishes... through the mouthpiece... thirty feet below water level. Oh, sorry, that was just me. I get seasick very easily and was hoping diving would treat me with more respect than snorkling does. Obvious to all the other divers: I was wrong. If you ever wanted to know: yes, you can get seasick while diving. It isn't fun. It also isn't life threatening. We did rent an underwater camera and were able to take pictures; which unfortunately all turned out very blue. Are you curious about those sexy light blue suits we are wearing? I was curious until I had to wear one. Stinger suits. So whatever nasties (jellyfish) that live in the coastal northern waters don't sting us to death. Most flattering suits imaginable. Here is Mark equalizing his ears. Since we survived the Introductory dive, twice. We decided to continue our journey south to Arlie Beach and occupy our time drinking with all the foreign workers, avoiding teenagers on their summer vacations (how dare they take summer vacation during our winter?), and touring the Whitsunday Islands on the rainiest day of the entire trip. While we cannot plan the weather, we should have skipped the three island tour. Hanging out on a desert beach sounds super-sexy until you realize you are being lightly misted on while expected to don yet another sexy stinger suit just to go swimming. No one's fault. Just a matter of circumstance. These ladies didn't seem to be bothered by the weather. So what where we living in this whole time? Funny you should ask. I did take a couple pictures of the inside of our humble abode. This is walking in the from the only doorway near the back. To the close left you see the refridgerator, behind that were the cupboards. Above center is the fold out bed all tucked away and to the right is the seating and the air conditioner.

and looking down from the bed, you can see everything in reverse:

From Arlie Beach we continued southward to Fraser Island, which was a stellar trip. I would highly recommend this trip to everyone. The whole island is a forested sand with a Seventy Mile Beach.

First stop on our island tour was McKinsey Lake. Nice lake, we didnt swim, too many other places to see. I couldn't bare stopping and staying at the first nice place we stopped off.

and then I couldn't bare halting at the second place we stopped at. Although, of any of the activities that I wished I would have taken the time to enjoy, this lake was it. It looked to gorgeous and refreshing, but we were beach camping with no running water anywhere and the thought of swimming in stagnant hot water without being able to rinse off scared me. We have swimmers itch in the gravel pits. I have no idea what I would have gotten "down under", if you know what I mean!

After three or four hours of driving, we finally protruded upon the east side of Fraser Island to Seventy Mile Beach. The island is run by their EPA, which is much more lax than ours would ever think to be. If an island in the States were run by the EPA, do you think they would allow up to drive 4X4 diesel campers up and down the beach?

It was hard to put the camera down for just one minute for thought I might miss the perfect shot. Every curve of that beach was gorgeous!

A stop at the shipwrecked cruise liner left to decay gave me time to stretch my legs and enjoy the sun, the surf, and the sand. We were able to walk around the SS Maheno for quite a while. I think I probably have 20 or more pictures on my flickr account.

Our little 4x4 campervan went everywhere on the island, except to the Champagne Pools at Indians Head. Here the little campervan that could: couldn't. We tried and tried, but eventually gratiously accepted a push-out by two safari truckloads of foreign student workers that in the bests broken English they knew explained to us that there was much deeper sand ahead. Turn around and stop trying. I will never know what we missed. I can only assume it was as great at the Garden of Eden. Or maybe it was just more sand.

We set up camp on the beach and watched the sunset, only to be reminded by the bored dingo that our nightlife had much to be desire.

I enjoyed the relative peace. It would have been nice to run into someone our own age. Most travelers were local Australians with small childern, foreign workers primarily from Germany with a few Frenchies thrown in, or summer-breaking teenagers. Which judging from the local waterholes, these summer-breakers are allowed to drink at 16 without, what Americans consider, an adult. Wow, way to make me feel really old.

Our final destination while still in the campervan was the Australia Zoo. We tried to time it so that we would NOT be visiting the zoo on their busiest day. We failed. As time came around, we realized that we would be visiting the zoo on November 15th, which coincidentally was Steve Irwin Day. The zoo was packed with people in cars, campervans, shuttle buses, motorcoaches, city buses. I was looking for an airstrip with planes landing every 15 minutes, but couldn't find that. Once we were in the zoo, it surpisingly did not feel crowded at all. There were dozens of special activites and superb shows being held. Volunteers were everywhere to assist guests looking for special exhibits. I was surprised at how many special activities there were going on at once.

as I looked over pictures of Australia on Flickr before heading over, I kept seeing photos of wombats. Whoa, those are cool! The zoo offer pictures with the wombats, but not until 2:15 and we needed to return the van by 2, so I missed getting my picture with one of these freaky little mammals. Too bad, cause I was going to comb it and mix the fibers in with some merino for an exotic pair of socks!

Man, and I thought my job was easy.

an obligatory photo with the koala bear

after the zoo, we returned the campervan in Brisbane, rented a car and drove another hour to Surfer's Paradise. The beach was gorgeous, but I came for a little bit of city life/ shopping/ relaxation.

Finally after living in a campervan for more than two weeks, HOTEL-land. We stayed at the Marriott Surfers Paradise. This was an awesome hotel. Outdoor swimming lagoon, bar, two restaurants. It was so nice to end the vacation with a little bit of luxury.

Well, that is all for Australia. I thought I should get these posted before I start posting about all of my Christmas knitting that I have been frantically working on. I will throw in a couple of obligatory pics and then wont be posting again until my return from Mexico. We are taking the kids on the Ryndam for the Holiday Mexican Riviera 14 day cruise. I hope to blog more about it soon.