Well, I’m back in the lower 48 states — or “outside”, as I’ve heard the Alaskans refer to it.

Things I’ve learned:

• On an Alaskan cruise, the scenery is really the star. Our ship sailed down narrow inlets most of the time, and mountains rose up on either side of us. On our last day, the captain sailed into College Fjord, which has glaciers named after different colleges. I’m still sorting out the pictures, but the thing to know is that I could have been taking pictures non-stop in 360-degrees — it was just unbelievably beautiful. Other cruises I’ve taken have been about having fun on the boat or getting to great cities — this one was definitely about the scenery. Here’s the type of thing I mean. (By the way, though that is ice in the water, it wasn’t that cold on-deck.)
  
• Fellow cruisers can be very tiresome. There’s just something about all that Old World service, abundant food and non-stop entertainment that brings out the worst in some people. Our shuttle from the ship to Anchorage Airport was very well done by a 20-year-old who was interesting, informative and friendly. And he was taking us from the fascinating little town of Seward where the entire resident population of 300 lives in one apartment building. We went through a one-lane tunnel two miles long through solid rock — the traffic goes in on the half hour and out on the hour — and by enormous sea inlets where bald eagles sat on the shore looking for food. The ongoing topic of conversation for the group sitting behind us on the bus? Their luggage, and how it wouldn’t be waiting at the airport like it was supposed to be, and how the people in charge knew that but just didn’t care. A person could just cry.
• Traveling with a group is fun, fun, fun. We usually cruise with our designated cruise buddies, so it was something different to do this with an Orthodox group (some were old friends and some new faces). But really, things like that make for good times. You can mix and match, you see each other here and there and compare notes. (And by the way, major kudos to C. Sue who put it all together and who — inexplicably — really wanted to be blogged about at some point.)
• You can still forget about getting a decent cell phone signal or internet connection. That can be a blessing, of course, but it also made blogging at sea and staying in touch with Greg on the boat kind of a chore. No doubt cruise lines will eventually fix these issues and then I’ll probably be sorry they did.
• Coming back home is an adjustment.

1. For one thing, you’ve got this “sea legs” thing going on. Because you spend the whole time on the ship making subtle corrections in order to stay upright and move around, you get in the habit of not staying entirely still when you’re still. And so when you get off the boat, it’s hard to stop sort of rocking to and fro. And if you walk up a long hallway (as I did last night at the hotel) you have the feeling that you’re walking up and down a little series of hills. It’s weird.
2. You can’t help but notice that when you leave clothes strewn around or dishes in the sink … they stay there. It’s really just terribly harsh.
3. On the other hand, I’m finally in charge of my own tea and coffee again, and that’s a bit of a relief. Getting good tea when traveling only seems to happen if you’re going to Great Britain (though maybe other tea-drinking countries would work just as well).
4. On the plus side, no waiting for elevators around my house. You want to be upstairs — get your lazy butt up the stairs!

And also on the plus side, the scenery back here in Kansas City isn’t too shabby right now either. It seems like we’ve been away longer than just a week, which I guess is one of the signs of a good trip. We must have gotten some rain, because the corn which had just sprouted when we left looks like it’s shot up a foot. Okay, so that’s not exactly looking for moose (which we didn’t see, by the way), but we still find it oddly satisfying.