Alaska part 4: Ketch me if you can

On the morning of August 15th, G was feeling considerably worse from his cold, and Dayquil was barely putting a dent in his symptoms.  Still, when the ship docked in Ketchikan, he gamely disembarked and we went on the Herring Cove bear excursion, which guaranteed that we'd see bears or we'd get an $80 credit per ticket.

...yeah, we got $160 back.

At one point, the guide said, "Over there!  Behind you!" and we all turned around, only to see a bunch of bushes rustling as the bear scurried away.  Don't get me wrong; it was still a pleasant walk through the forest, but I really would have loved to see bears in their natural environment.  Our guide felt terrible about it and said he didn't know why they weren't coming out when the salmon in the streams below were spawning.

After our fruitless bear watching hike, we visited the raptor center, where we saw this snowy owl (not named Hedwig, which was a wasted opportunity if you ask me) and his bald eagle friend:

Then we visited a pen of reindeer, where we were encouraged to feed them lettuce with our mouths!  I couldn't resist the opportunity, because hey, anything for a blog anecdote.

Back in Ketchikan, we walked around Creek Street, where we saw these funny signs:

And this sign as well, though it's not funny (and a bit blurry):

Once we got back on the ship, G and I took a nap.  He still wasn't feeling good when we got up, so I went to dinner at La Fontaine with my dad, A, and R.  I had apple vichyssoise with apple brandy which was INSANELY good (yes, I liked a fruit based dish, alert the media), steak, rice, and a lemon tart with blueberry compote for dessert.  We had a great table next to the window and saw a humpback whale breaching, which was pretty awesome.

After dinner, we went back to my dad and A's stateroom for champagne.  They had a nicer room with a verandah, and much more room to sprawl out, so I happily kicked off my high heels and curled up on the couch with my glass of champagne.  My dad plucked a foil-wrapped chocolate off his pillow and said, "Do you want this?"

"Sure," I said, unwrapping it and popping it in my mouth.  "Man, this is good!"

"Oh yeah, those are great," R said.  "I always get excited when I come back to the room and see those on my pillow."

I narrowed my eyes.  "Wait, what do you mean?  We haven't been getting chocolates!"

And that's how it came out that not only did G and I not get nightly chocolates on our bed, but we ALSO hadn't been getting towel animals!  I said, "Minke [our steward] has been screwing us over!  I shall have to talk to someone about Minke, the negligent steward!"  (Later on, when recounting this conversation to G, he said "That sounds like a children's book.")

(Disclaimer, just in case there's any doubt: no, I did not report Minke.  Yeah, I would have liked towel animals and chocolates on my bed, but it wasn't worth getting anyone in trouble for.  I was much more peeved that they kept giving us really cruddy linens.  One of our pillowcases had a bloodstain on it, fer chrissakes!  But it was a free cruise and overall we were really happy with the service, so I don't want this to come across as me being a diva.  I was mildly annoyed at worst.)

After champagne and scrolling through dozens of pictures on A's iPad, I went back to the room, where G was feeling a little better after spending a few hours in bed alternating between sleep and reading.  We saw Divergent and then headed back to our room for the night.

(to be continued)