Seattle - Steven R. Southard (Poseidon's Scribe)

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Voyage to Alaska—Day 11

Thanks, Steadfast Reader, for hanging with me until the final day. I’ve been providing daily commentary about my recent cruise to Alaska, from the perspective of a fiction writer, a perspective that sometimes strays beyond complete accuracy. For the past ten days, you’ve been following the madcap escapades of me; my wife, Jean; and friends Mike and Brenda Knyght.

I awoke early on Day 11 while Jean still slept in our room at the Crimson Canopy Inn near Seattle-Tacoma Airport. With an hour to kill before the agreed-on time to meet for breakfast, I went out for a walk.

Then a strange thing happened.

A construction site consumed both the back of the hotel and a section of its parking lot. Evidently, the hotel would be adding more rooms. Workers had not shown up yet and their equipment sat idle. At the edge of the site, I saw an odd object almost entirely buried in recently excavated dirt. Without reaching past any marked borders, I pulled it out of the ground and dealt with it the best I could. I discussed it with my companions over breakfast, and realized I could have handled things differently.

“What did you find?” Brenda asked me.

“A briefcase. It had the initials D.B.C. engraved on it.”

“D.B.C?” Mike asked. “Was this briefcase old or new?”

“Pretty old-fashioned and beat-up,” I said.

“Did you open it?” he asked.

“No. It wasn’t mine.”

“What did you do with it?” Jean asked.

“I turned it in to the hotel receptionist. It might belong to a guest.”

“Does the name D.B. Cooper mean anything to you?” Mike asked.

“Hmm. Wasn’t he the guy who hijacked a plane in the 1970s?”

“Yeah. He parachuted out somewhere in this area, with a briefcase full of hundreds of thousands of dollars. They never found him or his briefcase.”

“Oh.”

“You had it in your hands, man,” Mike said. “You could have been the one to crack the biggest unsolved hijacking case in history. But you left that to the hotel receptionist.”

“Oops.”

I guess we’ll hear the announcement in the news soon. Or maybe the receptionist decided to pocket the cash. Or maybe the briefcase was empty, or didn’t belong to Cooper after all. Who knows?

We made our flight, which took off a few minutes late. At the other end, we retrieved our luggage at the carousel. Jean and I said goodbye to our friends and used a shuttle service to get home.

So ended my astounding voyage to Alaska. We saw only a fraction of that vast state with its fantastic vistas, majestic mountains, and prodigious glaciers. We rode a superb and luxurious cruise ship manned by an excellent and professional crew. Thank you, Steadfast Reader, for coming aboard. Check back at this website as this blog returns to its normal weekly format, featuring interesting posts by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

May 27, 2018Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Voyage to Alaska—Day 10

Welcome back, Steadfast Reader, to the continuing saga of my strange and awesome trip to Alaska. Be warned: I’m a fiction writer, and it’s my job to lie. I made this voyage with my wife, Jean, and long-time friends Brenda and Mike Knyght.

The author, helpfully pointing out Vancouver, BC ahead

At 6:36, the venerable MS Hellandam had steamed her way to 49°19’N, 123°15’W, where she churned through the waves on course 088°, speed 17.9 knots. Outside, 20-knot, 55°F winds blew from the southeast, and I could just see the city of Vancouver ahead.

The ship moored at Canada Place wharf by 7:20 am, having journeyed 1,964 nautical miles since she had left that spot.

At 8:30 am, we departed the ship that had sustained and pampered us for a week. Only seven days previously, she had seemed a mystery for us to explore, with her many decks and corridors, plush carpets, colorful bulkheads, and stylish furnishings. Now she was familiar to us; we knew how to find her theater, her Main Stage, her Crow’s Nest, her Exploration Lounge, her shops, and all her wonderful dining places. We’d each had our own brief love affair with the ship, knowing it had to end, but intense nonetheless. Now we walked her pleasant passageways for the final time, said our silent farewells, and made our way across the metal gangway.

It surprised me that our processing through Customs into Canada went very quickly. We’d previously made reservations on a RapidBus shuttle to Seattle, and we walked, rolling and toting our luggage, to the bus pickup area. The RapidBus was a huge coach bus, but only eight passengers boarded, including our quartet, so everyone had plenty of room. Our bus departed on time.

Then a strange thing happened.

The bus stopped in downtown Vancouver to pick up a couple of passengers. The wind kicked up and blew a scrap of paper against the bus window where I sat. It lingered there, plastered flat by the wind, and I idly glanced at it. Creases and torn edges marred this oddly sized, tan scrap. In black ink, it depicted a sort of map that resembled the Vancouver area, its land and waterways, though not the city itself. An arrow pointed to a single spot on the map, and beside the arrow, crude lettering stated, “Slumach’s mine. Mountains of gold here. – Shotwell.”

I whipped out my cell phone to take a picture, but a gust grabbed the page and sent it soaring on the breeze. I watched with dismay as it fluttered away down the block. How I wish I’d gotten a better glimpse of that arrow! I’ve since discovered that Slumach’s mine has remained a mystery for over a century. Easy come, easy go, I guess. Someone else will surely find that map.

At 12:30, our bus stopped at the border so we could pass through U.S. Customs. While we waited in line, empires rose and fell, glaciers advanced and receded, continents drifted and collided, and new species evolved while others went extinct. Finally, the customs agents welcomed us back into our country and we boarded our bus again.

Seattle, through a bus window, including the mirror effect, with the Space Needle in the distance

The ride to Seattle went smoothly and we reached its outskirts by 3:30. This was a bright, clear day with few clouds, endless blue skies, and temperatures just shy of 70°F. By 4:30, we’d reached Seattle-Tacoma Airport. We rode a hotel shuttle to the Crimson Canopy Inn on International Boulevard. After settling in our rooms, we walked to the nearby Ginger Palace, a small restaurant with Pan-Asian cuisine. I delighted in consuming their scrumptious Mongolian Beef.

By now, the four of us suffered from a sudden culture change, a life shift, an abrupt transition across contrasting milieus. We’d left Cruise World and re-entered Real World. Here are the characteristics of each:

Cruise World	Real World
600 people are dedicated to making you happy	Nobody cares
Everything is “free”	No free lunch, or anything else
A cheerful Room Steward makes your bed each day	Make your own bed, and clean your room
Wake up in a different place every day	Same room, same building, same town
Time is suspended; no clocks or calendars	Clocks and calendars run your life
No internet (unless you pay extra)	Constant linkage to email, social media, and the web
The floor gently rocks	The floor seems to gently rock until you regain your ‘land legs’

I can’t spend my whole life there, regrettably, but Cruise World will be fondly missed by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

May 26, 2018Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Voyage to Alaska—Days 1 and 2

Starting today, and for the next ten days, I’ll be charting a new course for this blog. I’ll tell you about a cruise I took to Alaska, along with my wife and another couple.

As all my steadfast readers know, I write fiction. Some parts of these blog posts may tack a bit downwind of the truth. For example, I traveled with my wife, Jean, and the other couple—Mike and Brenda Knyght. None of those is a real name. I’ve changed a few company brand names, too.

Our plane flight to Seattle went without incident. Why we flew to Seattle to board a cruise ship departing from Vancouver, BC will remain one of the universe’s mysteries. There being four of us, we rented a large SUV. Black and rugged, it resembled the Batmobile, and I signed a form promising to use its Bat-missiles only for fighting crime.

We checked into a hotel in downtown Seattle, chosen since it was near the train station. You may only reach this hotel via a series of right turns so labyrinthine I had to leave a trail of Bat homing devices to find my way out. An antique flying saucer loomed overhead, or maybe it was the Space Needle. That night, we enjoyed dinner at the delightfully quirky 5-Point Café.

Love & Loss, in Olympic Sculpture Park, Seattle

Due to clever prior planning, we’d left the next day free for us to explore the wilds of the Seattle area, since Jean and Brenda had never been there.

Steampunk art in Olympic Sculpture Park, Seattle

Mike and I woke early, and walked to the Olympic Sculpture Park and marveled at the artwork.

For Mike, marveling at artwork consumes very little time. After our wives woke up, we drove the Batmobile aboard a ferryboat bound for Bainbridge Island, across Puget Sound.

After a brief drive, we walked through picturesque Poulsbo, a village founded by a band of Vikings whose longboat got terribly lost. For lunch, we had Mexican food at the Hop Jack, a nice restaurant at the edge of Dyes Inlet in Silverdale. The ferry brought us back to Seattle, where Brenda and Mike met some local friends for dinner while Jean and I dined at the Green Lounge, nearer our hotel. The salmon portions there may be small, but given my over-fondness for food, that’s a fortunate thing.

Then a strange thing happened.

With the sun still up, Jean and I walked down toward the shore of the Sound. Jean spied a corner of some object sticking up from the ground. I dug it up and it proved to be a tan leather parcel or satchel, cracked and flaking with age. With care, I opened it and extracted a folded and mildew-damaged flag—a British Union Jack—and a page of parchment. Despite the paper’s torn edges and faded ink, I made out the following: “…do hereby claim the entirety of this continent, from its western extent to its eastern, for England in the royal name of Queen Elizabeth, said continent to be called Nova Albion. Set by my hand on this 4th Day of July, in the Year of Our Lord 1579. Sir Francis Drake.”

I looked at Jean and she looked at me. We discussed the matter, imagining all the consequences of finding this and of showing it to others. We did what any two Americans would do: without taking any pictures, we set fire to satchel, flag, and parchment. Having no regrets, we walked away, Jean and—

Poseidon’s Scribe

May 18, 2018Poseidon's ScribePermalink