Here, Eat This! The Adventures of Kiki Maraschino

Day 11 we woke up in Denali State Park, and Ralph and Mary Anne set off on their white water rafting adventure. It was tempting, but I didn’t want to be a 3rd wheel and I think I prefer warmer waters – like the Colorado River. We met for breakfast (mine)/lunch (theirs) at the Salmon Bake since it had proved so successful the day before. If I stayed there for a week, I would probably still hang at the Salmon Bake every day.

I had reindeer or buffalo chili for breakfast – I had gotten to the point where it didn’t really matter what creature I was eating. I mean, as long as it wasn’t human. You never know with these mountain climber types.

I sampled my mom’s fish and chips, which were totally killer.

But the pride of Salmon Bake may be their fruit pies. Sadly, they don’t have ice cream. but pie this good has the confidence to stand alone. Ralph and Mary Anne split mixed berry.

Mom and I went for blueberry. Niced thick crust without being heavy, just slightly sweet, surrounding super-ripe and sweet blueberries.

I had tried to avoid the nightmare “Watney’s Red Barrel” coach trip, but soon we were lined up for the bus to take us on to the next lodge, outside of Talkeetna. The aisles were narrow, and everyone was pushing and shoving. I was trying to fit my bag under the seat, and it wouldn’t fit. The crowd couldn’t tolerate the delay and started pushing my mother. In response, my mother leaned over me, spilling the bottle of water she was holding all over me as she urged me to hurry and stow the bag. But the bag was just too big. I finally snapped and wailed, “Mom, I CAN’T do it.” I didn’t just mean the bag.

Just then Michael, the hippie, was passing by and said, “You CAN do it.” At that moment, the bag slipped under the seat, I fell into my seat, my mom plopped down next to me and the crisis was averted. Way to give a hand up to a fellow traveler. He clearly heeded the word of Glen Campbell:

If you see your brother standing by the road
With a heavy load from the seeds he’s sowed
And if you see your sister falling by the way
Just stop and say you’re going the wrong way

The driver tried giving a safety demonstration, but I was thinking,
“Just accept the fact that if there is an accident we are all going to die in a fiery inferno. Because how can you expect this group to wait and co-operate enough to pull the lever and push to the side when they are climbing over each other and stepping on each other’s necks just boarding the damn bus.”

My personal hell

Again, beautiful scenery. There were also bears in the road.

This is an igloo-shaped hotel that never quite took off.

This lodge was much more rustic, kind of like summer camp. I just wish they had archery lessons.

What can you do to make a pelt look even creepier? How about sewing it onto a felt-cut-out that makes it look like it’s lying in a pool of its own blood?

“Hey Bob, do you think there are any bears in this cave?”
“Well, I don’t know, Bill, let’s take a look…”

Once again we had a coupon for the lodge’s restaurant. A pod member took me aside and pointed out the double-stroller. She asked, “Were you on the Denali Park Tour? Oh my God, those kids just did not stop! When I see that double stroller, it’s like…it’s like…” she searched for the words.

“Like a harbinger of doom?” I offered helpfully.

“Exactly.” I started my meal with goat cheese and crostini.

I had a nice salad to stave off scurvy. Mmmm, candied walnuts. Scurvilicious.

Surprise! We had gigantic crab legs again. They weren’t as good as the ones at the other resort. They were a little drier, and pulling away from the shell.

I kind of never want to see king crab legs ever again. Everyone loved the blueberry ice cream.

My chocolate mousse, made with ale, was actually pretty darn good.

Then we all snuggled up into our little beds for the night. The end.

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Today everyone got up at 6am to take an 8-hour bus tour around Denali national park. The pod seemed put out that I chose not to join them. But in the last week I have seen beautiful sights from an airplane, from two trains, from a ship, and a boat, I have seen beautiful sights from a helicopter and a dogsled. How many beautiful sights can you see before you poke your own eyes out?

I slept late and hung out in the jacuzzi. I had a slice of pizza for breakfast. I saw our waiter from the night before and he was as gentlemanly and friendly as could be. He said we were his favorite table. I realized at that point who he reminded me of – Floyd the Barber from the Andy Griffith Show. A few members of our pod reproached me for missing the bus tour. Here are a few photos my mom took of what I missed…

Later in the lodge area, one woman confided to me, “Oh my God, the children are in the restaurant and we just made reservations! were you on the bus? It was a nightmare!”

We needed to escape the drama. Luckily I had found a bar the night before called the Salmon Bake that looked very promising. I had wandered in the night before looking for a bar. It turned out to be the spot where the hotel and restaurant workers all go to blow off steam. When I walked in, it was like Robert Service meets Spring Break. The place had been converted into a temporary gambling hall, and there was a big gang of girls wearing drawn-on Pancho Villa moustaches. It was not the kind of place you walk into taking pictures.

Now the party was just another tourist restaurant, although I recognized some of my fellow partiers amongst the waiters and cooks. They may party hard at night, but they work just as hard all day. Open since 1984, the “Bake” also offers cabins.

They had dozens of beers on tap, including my favorite, Kilt Lifter. This is the ale that converted me from a fan of ambers to reds.

Ralph and Mary Ann both went for “flights” (or samplers) from Midnight Sun Brewing Co.

The chowder was made with real cream and fresh salmon.

Fantastic fish and chips. this place was a total find.

Buffalo burgers to die for

and a very tempting dessert tray

That night we visited a dog breeding and training camp for award-winning Iditarod racer Jeff King. Jeff King was unavailable at the time. We learned all kinds of interesting facts and listened to all kinds of fascinating stories. But all I could think about was…

Puppies!!!

Sunset in Denali State Park

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Today we disembarked and began the second leg of our trip: the land portion. I LOVE traveling; I will pretty much go on any trip without asking too many questions. I wanted to leave a little mystery to this journey, so I did not research this part at all.

The day began with a very early train ride. A train ride that lasted for over ten hours. Ten hours of an informative but annoying “tour guide” blathering loudly over the speakers, keeping everyone from sleeping, concentrating on their books or chatting with their friends.

Everyone had become so accustomed to the constant beauty they didn’t even bother looking out the window anymore.

There was some kind of accident on the road that delayed the train, and then, I swear to God, there was an earthquake. While we were pulled over for one of the many bridge safety checks, there was much to-do and it turned out the train had left the conductor behind. It was that kind of day.

There were kids on the train that seemed to be irritating some of the other passengers. I noticed familiar faces on the train and realized that we had been put in a permanent group, or pod for the remainder of the trip. These people were to form cliques and turn on other groups. It was a strange study in group dynamics.

But the scenery was GORGEOUS. How many different ways can I say that? Where the hell is my thesaurus?

On the good side, the view from the train was SPECTACULAR. We even saw beluga whales. That’s right, those bitchin white whales like at Sea World. In the wild. Unfortunately, the photos came out as tiny white spots. Like photos of UFOs or Bigfoot.

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Sunday we cruised through the fjords. Everything was gorgeous. It almost got to be too much. How much beauty can you really take? How much stunning but endless (and deadly) ice can you stare at, day, after day? How long does it take for Alaskan fishermen to just start attacking each other with grappling hooks?

On deck, they were serving reindeer chili. There had been rumors of a chili cook-off, and I was a little disappointed I didn’t get to compete. Their chili was OK, but I would have totally kicked ass in a cook-off. You know you’re on vacation when you have beer for breakfast.

I wandered into the buffet for dessert and found this unusual delicacy

I thought it was like a cross between fruitcake and an English pudding, but Mary Anne may have been more accurate when she dubbed it “Meatloaf cake”. Of course there were more creepy fruit carvings.

There was more sugar-free cake, this time with a label calling it marscapone cream, and I felt validated that my first guess had been correct.

Then on to more fjord watching

I had discovered a few days before that the ship offered afternoon tea in the Bordeaux restaurant. It was run with precision, exactly as the dinner service should have been. Staff was plentiful, service was attentive, and division of duties clear. Our tea was hot and quickly refilled.

I apologize for photo quality. I forgot my camera, and the only one available was a disposable underwater camera.

The sandwiches were cucumber, tuna salad, chicken salad, and pate. I wanted to like the pate, it was piped so prettily on the single slice of bread, but alas – too liverwurst-y. The genteel ladies with whom we were seated seemed to enjoy it. Although I have heard that your taste buds erode as you age.

There was a lovely selection of miniature pastries and cookies. I wish the other chefs had half the chops of the ship’s bakers.

I tried to get reservations for dinner at the ($20) Italian restaurant, but it was booked up. I took my travelmates to the ($15) Cajun restaurant to celebrate our last night at sea.

The steak was tender, and the catfish was crispy, without fishiness or grease. Maybe not up to New Orleans, but as good of Cajun food as you can get outside of Louisiana. The gumbo was more like a seafood celebration than a soup/stew. The shrimp were good, but I still would recommend the catfish.

My mom’s lobster tail was ginormous. There was an extra fee, maybe 5 more dollars. A 20-dollar lobster tail still ain’t bad.

The sides were hit-and-miss. The jambalaya was not very good – practically Zatarains. But the succotash was so creamy, rich and delicious I would have liked a bigger serving. Everything else on the mixed side plate was average and unimpressive.

Of the desserts, I remember the bread pudding fondly. But I have no memory of this dessert at all, which is unusual. Not a clue.

I wish they would have made the effort to have themed drinks – at least hurricanes and Abita Beer. I asked the musicians to play something from New Orleans and they declined, explaining, “We’re a jazz band.” Yeah, because New Orleans has nothing to do with Jazz.

As we ate, another table let two small children run wild all over the restaurant. It was beyond “let kids be kids” – it was dangerous. At one point the 2-or3-year old ran right under the feet of a waiter rushing out of the kitchen with a large tray of hot dishes. Only Broadway-quality tap dancing by the waiter kept that kid from being scalded by hot soup – and the waiter out of traction.

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As with the other “days a sea” I had pre-booked a spa treatment – bad move. As we cruised through majestic glaciers, the naturalist’s voice boomed out over the loudspeaker, “…and there’s another whale!” I perked up from the massage table as the masseuse tried to relax me, “Don’t worry. You’ll be seeing LOTS of whales.” Even the day’s “Princess Patter” newsletter recommends that you don’t schedule any activities (people couldn’t resist making Princess Patter jokes all week).

To celebrate the cruise through Glacier Bay, the ship set up a “Taste of Alaska” buffet.

Ice sculptures to celebrate the – ice

There were your usual shrimp and lox. The only real “Alaska” specialties were salmon and a venison pate. After our previous experience with venison, I wasn’t going to even touch that. The deviled eggs were fantastic, made with the same combination of cream and marscapone used in the pastries.

I did become obsessed with the fruit carvings. They were cheerfully creepy.

This one scared me in a visceral JRR Tolkienesque way

Really, did they have to put glass eyes in them?

Too bad that class on fruit carving was so early in the morning. I will admit to flaking on every single class, activity, lecture, show and program offered. So maybe I missed a lot of the cruise experience. I just wanted to read and get spa treatments. The view from the balcony turned out to be so spectacular that on most days we just stared out at the scenery. Oh, and I took a lot of pictures of scenery – and food.

As I was staring out at the fantastic views of Glacier Bay, the booming voice shouted out, “We have orcas! You have no idea how special this is, folks. In 20 trips, we are lucky if we see orcas even once!” And lucky for me, the orcas were on our side of the ship. An orca sighting was one of my main hopes for this trip, so I was very excited and satisfied.

There was even wildlife on shore

Wildlife everywhere!

Mary Ann noticed the similarity between the local native arts and the faces you could see in the abstract forms of the ice and rocks. At first I thought maybe the buffet had out the wrong kind of mushrooms in the pasta, but then I started to see them too.

Really, I would suggest trying to get a room on the starboard side of the ship when heading north, and port south (The opposite of the old European cruises – Port Out, Starboard Home = POSH). In Glacier Bay, the ship does turn around a lot to afford everyone as much of a view as possible, but for the rest of the trip, starboard was definitely the best side.

We saw minor “calving” but no gigantic icebergs. The blue ice was stunning.

That night was another formal night, but I decided to have a slice of white pizza and spent the evening on the internet (These blogs don’t write themselves).

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Day six we disembarked in Skagway, a town founded by prospectors, conmen and prostitutes.

The main attraction these days is the White Point Railway. whose “golden spike” was hammered in 1900. At one point it helped prospectors carry supplies into the Klondike. These days it runs a 3-hour round-trip for tourists through breathtaking scenery.

A giant rock fell on some of the men laying the original train tracks. The rock was too big too move, so they announced there could be no more grand memorial and it is maintained to this day,

Near the top of the mountain, it started to look like a quarry. But even that was beautiful.

The Canadian border. The end of the line for us.

Even on a cruise I somehow manage to happen upon a cemetary.

Did anybody else see Emperor of the North?

It was late in the season for salmon fishing. Once they’re already dying, they get “mushy”. It didn’t prevent a lot of people from taking advantage of the easy picking. My mom warned me not to look at the gory sight of them stabbing this fish in the head, but she forgets I’m not a squeamish 12-year old anymore.

This tourist touring car almost ran me over as I crossed the street. The first thing that ran through my mind was, “Dear Lord, please do not let me get killed by such an embarassing-looking vehicle.”

My mom chose our lunch spot, The Red Onion Saloon.

When I sat down I realized we were in a small local museum – the local prostitute museum. All of the servers wore corsets and the walls were covered with vintage nude photos. Talk about your theme restaurants! I was kind of tired from the previous day’s mushing, so I didn’t really linger over my chili. The whore chili, I mean. In the whore restaurant. With my mom. Who was having whore chowder.

The microbrew was excellent, and the whore chili was OK.

That night my mom and I gave the ship’s “fancy restaurant”, the Bordeaux, one last try. The night before I had a completely unremarkable meal of burnt escargot and bland pasta. The waitress had been unable to open a bottle of champagne and no one appeared to help her. I even begged her to let me open the bottle.

Thursday’s boring pasta

I would not have even returned the second night, but they were keeping that champagne chilled for me. Plus it was “Octoberfest” night at the buffet and that outright scared me. I had doubts the champagne could retain its effervescence overnight, but I had REALLY wanted champagne.

OK, so flash-forward to night two at the Burgundy restaurant, surrounded by men in tuxes who searched for about 20 minutes before they could find my champagne. Damn if it didn’t stay fizzy. I kept the rubber cork and brought it home in my suitcase for my next bottle.

This is a close-up of those twinkly lights. My mom leaned over during her entree and confided, “If I had these lights in my house, I would shoot them all out with a shotgun.” She probably would, too.

The goat cheese croquettes were nice. The filo triangle was mysteriously empty of any filling.

We gave in to the locale and I ordered King Crab legs. They were pretty good. Better than Outback.

But my mom’s venison was unbelievably bad. Like shocking. Wow. There was some unidentifiable timbale of muck alongside. I asked what the muck was, and the non-native English speaker said, “The emm, the nuts.” I asked, “The deer’s nuts?” with an innocent expression, and he said, “Yes, the deer’s nuts”. Simultaneously, my mom shouted my name with that special timbre she only uses when she thinks I am being recreationally cruel. We figured out it was a chestnut puree. And wow. It was dried-out, bland, and with a texture I hope to never experience again in this lifetime. In fact, if I am reincarnated, I hope to not experience it in that lifetime either.

The black forest cake was seriously killer. The buffet and dining room may have been C-plus, but the bakery was getting straight A’s.

Probaby the best thing we ate all day was my mom’s toffee ice cream. mmmmm.

That night I hit the casino. First of all, drinks were not free, a shocker. I was doing alright at Blackjack. But I was asked politely not to curse. I said, “I didn’t realize children were allowed in the casino.” Any place that’s going to rob me of my money and not even let me yell, “Jesus f-ing Christ!” while they do it doesn’t need my money.

So once again I spent the evening in the library listening to Allegro non Troppo and Music of the Night drift up from the piano bar. Ray Coussins announced that the following night they would be playing “Name that Tune.” I took another sip of my mojito and thought, “Well, that ought to be easy.”

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Wednesday was our first day disembarking. We hit Ketchikan, where we hadn’t booked any “adventures,” which was lucky, because it was raining cats and dogs.

Since the Ketchikan brewery we had hoped to visit had shut down years before, we went to check out the microbrews over at Steamers. It looked like they had a flight from the Alaska Steamship Company, but when I asked the waiter about it said no. So I was understandably confused when they brought Ralph a flight along with my Moose Drool (the more horrible something sounds, the harder it is for me to resist).

I went ahead and got a “flight”, called a “sampler” by the less pretentious Alaskans. The hefeweizen really tasted of bananas. The IPA was good, but as usual, the amber was my favorite. The scallops appetizer we got totally kicked ass – fresh scallops wrapped in bacon bathed in hollandaise…sorry arteries, I owe you this one for the tournadoes.

We did a little tourist shopping.

Aren’t half of these items illegal?

I was summoned back into the fold before I could get a fortune from Pappy

We found a cool store called House of Haida run by local artisans.

Unfortunately, this bag I am in love with costs 7,000 dollars, yep, 7k. Why? Because it takes an entire year to make one.

Locals refused to sell their houses to make way for the road, so this tunnel was dug beneath the houses in 1954

THE place to get burgers in Ketchikan is Burger Queen. Burger King has tried to move into town a number of times and the locals wont have it.

Why is it called Burger Queen?

They offer an impressive array of freshly made shakes, but sadly no salmonberry. The boys showed me the bushes up on the side of the hill and it was clear why they were not picking salmonberries that day.

Burger Queen prints up a little newsletter to give you something to read while you wait. In a counterintuitive move, there is a section titled “Insect Facts”

Since there were no salmonberries that day, they made me up a special banana-raspberry shake, and along with the best burger EVER – seriously. Sorry Elbow Room, sorry Steves and Ricks and whomevers, but wow. Killer burger.

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We made it to the ship and boarded relatively easily. They take your photo as you board and you can buy them from a display later. Some people look more enthusiastic than others.

Once onboard everything was havoc. It’s kind of like Disneyland. There is the promise of fun and thrills, but with great inconvenience. It was one big group of people getting irritated en masse.

The décor is kind of tacky and inexplicable – Holiday Inn meets Las Vegas Casino.

Really, can you even tell if this is right-side-up? Maybe that helps in case of Poseidon Adventure.

Although I do like their Balinese pool area

Once our own troubles were sorted out, I was pleased to discover our cabin had a large closet area and heaven – a balcony!!! The view:

I will admit that the twin beds are extremely narrow. On the first night, I rolled right out of bed onto the floor – THUNK!

It is preferable to have an upper balcony

So Sunday night, we went to check out this buffet. Now all of my life I have been hearing mythic tales of fantasy cruise buffets. It was a little more Hometown Buffet and a little less Queen Mary brunch than I had imagined.

But I managed to find a few things I REALLY liked.

These mini quiche were light and fluffy, more like gougere

Vegan Moroccan tagine

This sugar-free cake seemed far too rich to be sugar-free. I suspect marscapone in the filling, but that would be kind of pricy, so it’s probably cream cheese.

After everyone else crashed, I hooked up to the wi-fi, got a drink and grooved to the sounds of the lounge pianist who mentioned a number of times that he had been Frank Sinatra’s pianist. A number of times. I recognized Music of the Night from Phantom of the Opera, All the Way, and something intense from Allegro non Troppo that was played extremely well. I cozied into the library above the piano bar snug as a bug.

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