Alaska Cruise – Day 5

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Today was our first port day, sailing in to Ketchikan, AK early in the morning. We sailed past quite a bit of coastline and got to see some bald eagles from our balconies. After grabbing a quick breakfast at the buffet, Reese and I got off the ship and found our group for the zipline excursion.

We took a 20 or so minute bus ride out to Alaska Canopy Adventures, getting some info on the local area from the driver along the way. Once there, we went through the safety briefing and got our harnesses on. I kicked myself for not bringing the GoPro with me as they had helmets with mounts for them, but what’s done is done. We had a short test line to go down to make sure we understood all of the instructions and techniques before we got in to the main course. Reese went first, and did really well, so I had to follow. The rest of the course was amazing. We had two really long lines, both over 600 feet long, a number of shorter ones, as well as some suspension bridges to walk over. The views were amazing, being 75 or more feet above the ground gives you a much different perspective. After we finished the course, we nosed around the gift shop, picked up some swag, and then headed back in to town. On the way back in we lucked out and saw a decent sized pod of orcas. After we were all back on the ship we found out that all of us were in about the same area at that time and all got to see the same pod.

We met up with Heather and went over to Sweet Mermaids for lunch. It’s a small, locally owned cafe that has some seriously good food at reasonable prices. I had a meatball sub, Reese had a quesadilla, and Heather had a sandwich. All of it was delicious, appropriately sized, and reasonably priced. We shared a table with a local and got to talk to him for a while, getting more of the local flavor in the process.

After lunch we walked around town, doing a little shopping and a little sightseeing, making sure to track down locally owned businesses. I picked up some gold nugget earrings for Heather, Reese got some toys and hats, and I snagged some locally roasted coffee. We just about used up all of our time in port, so we made our way back to the ship, getting back with plenty of time to spare.

Alaska Cruise – Day 4

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Today was our first sea day, which we used to relax and get ready for the port days. While going through the excursion reservations we realized that Reese and I had nothing for Ketchikan. He and I looked through what was available and chose a ziplining canopy tour, which was thankfully still open.

Since it was a sea day, Princess’s pub lunch was available, which I took advantage of while everyone else hit the buffet. It was crowded, but as a single I got seated pretty quickly and enjoyed the fish and chips with an Alaskan Amber.

After that, we went up to the One5 for the Cruise Critic meet and greet that I had arranged. Attendance was low, but the traffic on the roll call thread was light so I wasn’t surprised. We had a good time talking to everyone and got some good tips for the various ports.

Tonight’s dinner was the first formal night, which we used to get some good photos of us with Reese, as well as enjoying the great food in the main dining room.

Alaska Cruise – Day 3

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We took a shuttle over to the cruise terminal and worked our way through the check-in process. It was pretty painless, better than last year’s experience in Galveston, and we were on the Grand Princess in time for lunch in one of the main dining rooms. We’ve got adjoining balconies on the port side of the Caribe deck and have the dividers opened up so that we can move back and forth without going out into the hallway.

Sailaway was the usual party, which we mostly avoided, instead staying up on deck taking pictures of the city as we pulled out. We also got to see a Navy submarine under tow as we headed out into Puget Sound. Reese and I did a little exploring of the ship, finding some of the kids activities, while everyone else rested up. When we got back, our luggage had arrived and we started unpacking and getting ready for dinner.

We were pretty beat, so after dinner we just went back to the cabins and crashed out. Tomorrow is a sea day so we’ll be able to rest up before we start getting to the ports.

Alaska Cruise – Day 2

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We got out pretty early, went to a small bagel place for breakfast, and then back to Pike Place Market for more shopping. We were tired yesterday and didn’t get to explore everything, so we took care of that today. It’s a really neat place, and if we lived in Seattle, we’d be shopping there pretty regularly. We grabbed a quick lunch at a little Ecuadoran place and then headed back to the hotel to drop off our loot.

After that we took the monorail over to Seattle Center to walk around the grounds and go up the Space Needle. We’d initially planned to go to the EMP Museum as well, but there just wasn’t time. The Space Needle was really cool. The view from the top was amazing, we could even see where the cruise ship was going to be docked tomorrow. Once we finished there, we went back to the hotel to get ready for the cruise.

Alaska Cruise – Day 1

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We got up pretty early, finished the last of our packing, and then took the shuttle to the airport to catch our flight to Seattle. The flight was pretty uneventful, and we arrived on-time to a refreshingly cool PNW afternoon. After meeting up with Sandy and David, we hiked across what felt like the entire airport property in order to get on the light rail train in to town. We got checked in to the hotel, dropped our bags, and then headed out to get some food and do some shopping.

After a quick stop at Target to get David some sunglasses, we headed out to grab some dinner. We were initially planning on heading to an Irish pub we found on-line, but decided that it was too far, so we popped in to Pike Brewing Company instead. It really wasn’t a bad choice as the beer was excellent and the food even better. Reese even tried the steamed clams and liked them. After that, walked around some of the Pike Place Market, doing some nosing around and shopping.

After that, we went back to the hotel and settled in for the evening. We’re going to do more touristy stuff tomorrow.

Router Basics – Day 2

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We made our way back up to Woodcraft, Heather fighting way more traffic that I did, to finish our kleenex boxes and the rest of the class. We finished the last cuts on the router and then glued and clamped our boxes. Since the glue took about an hour to dry, we did a bunch of technical discussion about different types of routers, the baseplates, bushings, motors, tables, etc. There was a lot of information that we didn’t know, and if we hadn’t taken the class we probably would have made a bad purchase.

Our boxes are now glued and sanded, but not yet finished. We’ll do that later on, probably some Danish Oil, that should look nice on the oak. And then we’re going to go shopping…

Router Basics – Day 1

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Heather and I headed up to Woodcraft in Plano for the first day of a two day router basics class. No, not the networking ones, the woodworking ones. We’ve got some projects around the house that really do need one and we decided that it’d be better to know what we’re doing before we buy an expensive and dangerous power tool.

The shop is well designed, with separate workbenches for everyone and lots of room to maneuver. Our instructor is great, he’s patient, funny, and doesn’t pander to the females in the class, instead treating them just like the guys. We’re building a kleenex box, with rabbet joints, dados, chamfers, and some rounding over to make things pretty. It’s all hands-on, with each of us doing every part of the build. So far we’ve got the rabbets and dadoes done, as well as the hole in the lid. In between hands-on work, we’re learning about the different types of routers and bits, as well as safety and what to look for when shopping.

Chicago – Day 4

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Today was our excursion out of state. We hopped in the car, pulled out of our insanely expensive parking spot, and wandered around Chicago until we got enough GPS signal to get out to the highway. From there, we drove up to Milwaukee to spend the day at the Harley-Davidson Museum and take a tour of the Pilgrim Road plant. Once we got out of Chicago, the drive was pretty easy, and getting to the museum was no big deal.

We had booked the earlier of the two Steel Toe Tours, so we had a little time to go through some of the museum, checking out the really old bikes in the middle and some of the side exhibits before grabbing some lunch. The cafe on site has some pretty good food, and apparently we picked a good day to be there because it was pretty empty. After filling our bellies, we went back to the museum to meet up with our group and start the tour.

We took a shuttle over to the Pilgrim Road plant, put on our steel toe caps, safety glasses, and hearing protection before starting the tour. This is an active plant, not a museum, so we were dodging workers and machinery as we walked around. I did the Capital Drive plant tour years ago and was amazed at how much things have changed since then. This facility is a significant improvement over that one. One of Reese’s favorite TV shows is How It’s Made, so this tour was like a live version of one of the shows for him. At the end of the tour we bought some souvenirs before getting back on the shuttle and heading back to the museum.

Once we got back to the museum, we took our time going through the rest of the museum, checking out the exhibits and taking in the really cool bikes. On the bottom floor they had some bikes that you could hop on to try out how they fit. I tried on an Ultra and hated it. The ergonomics are terrible, especially the heel-toe shifter. But the Dyna, on the other hand, was really nice. Both Reese and I liked how we felt on that one. Too bad it doesn’t have a full fairing…

Finally, we hit the gift shop to pick up some more loot then hit the road to get back to Chicago. We rolled in and actually got a spot in the same parking lot, still overpriced, but conveniently located.

Chicago – Day 3

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We had a few different things planned today. First, we went out and snagged some breakfast and then walked down to the Willis Tower and went up to the Skydeck. It’s 99 stories up, has a 360 degree view of Chicago, and has these glass ledges that hang out off the side of the tower. Reese had absolutely no trouble walking out on them, but for me that first step was really difficult. After that I was good, but it was still challenging…

From there we walked over to lunch and then on to the Chicago Federal Reserve‘s Money Museum. While it was small, there was a lot of information packed in to the exhibits, as well as quite a few historic bank notes to drool over. We checked everything out and then picked up our freebies, including some shredded money, before heading back to the hotel for some chill time before dinner.

After a short nap, we walked down to Frontera Grill to get some dinner. This was the big splurge of the trip, but I just couldn’t pass up eating at one of Rick Bayless’s restaurants. And getting to take Reese was a real bonus. We ordered some tuna ceviche to start things off, and not only did Reese try it, but he actually liked it. From there we went on to entrees and dessert. Reese tried a sampler, liked some, didn’t like others, and i had a great plate of goat. Overall, the food was fantastic and the service was great, so if you’re in town you need to go eat there!

Chicago – Day 2

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Our first full day in the city, and our plans were to head to the Museum of Science and Industry. I figured that it was going to take a full day to really go through it, so we didn’t plan to do anything else. The museum was amazing, and not nearly as crowded as I thought it would be considering that it was spring break for lots of the schools. The first thing we did was slowly browse our way over to the U-505 exhibit. We did the guided tour and really liked it. The sub’s in great condition, with only minor modifications to accommodate tours. After that we grabbed some lunch and browsed more of the exhibits before doing the coal mine tour. That was an interesting immersive tour through coal mining technology. From there we did a little more browsing, checked out the Tesla coil, and a few more things, then caught the bus back to the hotel. Dinner was a return to the Elephant and Castle, then we sacked out.