maddie: first writing assignment -- vacation
For the first several years we were married, money was tight. Vacations, when we could take them, usually involved visiting family. Most often, we took long weekend trips in the car, sticking to places we could get to in a few hours or doing road trips that would mean a different hotel each night for a few days. Those trips were nice, but we longed to be able to take a real trip, go someplace we didn't have to drive to, and see something new.
During the summer of 2001, we began to talk about what we wanted to do for a trip the following year. Naturally, each of us had ideas different from the other. I pushed for Europe; my husband pushed for Alaska. We kept going back and forth, unable to decide.
And then planes crashed into the World Trade Center.
Like a lot of Americans, we decided to stick closer to home for a little while. We chose to go to Alaska. Maybe it wasn't the right reason to pick our destination, but since we couldn't make a decision on our own, we used any excuse available to help us.
We did some research, talked to a travel agent, and ultimately decided on a three-day cruise followed by an eight-day guided land tour, then three days on our own with a rental car.
Because we had never been on a cruise, we weren't sure how much we'd like it. But when we got onboard, I was pretty sure I'd never want to leave. It's so easy to become accustomed to being taken care of, having everything somebody else can do for you done, often without having to be asked.
We had a balcony stateroom, so we could snuggle up next to each other (me under a blanket, him enjoying the cool air), and watch the scenery. It feels incredibly decadent to do this, by the way, and I highly recommend it.
We visited just one port, Juneau, before disembarking in Skagway. I was sad to leave the ship, but any disappointment I felt was quickly washed away as we boarded a train to head to the interior. The White Pass and Yukon rail takes passengers up and over mountains you wouldn't think somebody could build train tracks on. There were times I feared that too many people looking out the windows would send our car toppling down the steep mountain. My husband laughed at me, but I had a fine view from where I sat on the safe side of the car.
After our train ride ended, we boarded our motor coach to begin our eight-day journey through the Yukon Territory and the interior of Alaska. Words can't express the immensity and beauty of the area. For someone who had always lived in well-populated areas, it was overwhelming. Trees for as far as the eye could see. Mountains that seemed to be straining to touch Heaven. And, once in a while, wildlife. Moose, caribou, sheep, thousands of birds. And, a couple of times, quick sightings of bald eagles. We learned, courtesy of our tour guide, to keep an eye out for what looked like a golf ball in a tree; that would be the bald eagle.
Each day, we followed nearly the same routine. Luggage outside of our hotel room by 6:30 a.m., breakfast, on the bus by 8. Around 9:30 or 10, we'd get a rest stop. On the way to one, our tour guide gushed about the cinnamon rolls we'd be able to buy and about how big they were. We laughed, thinking she was exaggerating, but soon found she wasn't. We shared a cinnamon roll that completely filled our 8-inch plate with some of our new friends from the bus.
Along the way, we were exposed to local cultures and cuisines. I ate more salmon in those two weeks than I think I do in a normal year. And it was all incredible. I was introduced to reindeer sausage, too. We passed strawberry fields that would, in a month or so, be laden with strawberries as big as a person's fist, maybe larger. We passed lakes and rivers too numerous to count. But what I really remember most about the interior was the trees.
There's so few people living in the interior, so few towns, that you can drive for hours and not see much other than trees. At one point, we spent thirty minutes or so passing through an area that had been burned by a forest fire. Two things amazed me. One was the sheer amount of land that had burned. Thousands of acres had gone up in flames. I couldn't bear to think of how many animals might have died. But there were signs of life, signs that the forest was coming back, slowly but surely. New growth or a little bit of green on otherwise gray and black land could be spotted now and then.
Along the way, we got an education about the damage that the hunt for gold caused to the environment. Rivers were dredged by ships that would scoop up dirt, flip it over and sift out any gold, then redeposit the dirt, upside down, in the river. Life in the rivers was devastated as the ecosystem was uprooted. Much of the damage is irreparable.
Of course, one of the most important things about any vacation is spending time with whoever you're traveling with. We made new friends from around the world on our trip. But the best thing was being able to share all of what I saw, in the moment, with my husband. One of the things that brings me the most happiness in life is being able to share something I find special with him. To be able to finally travel to such an interesting place with him was easily the best thing about the whole two weeks.
