Aissèra, Nanninè, me ne sagliette Tu saie addò? Tu saie addò?

This blog may be a lot of things, but I like to think it is informative. Educational too.

Today we spent the day in Ketchikan Alaska. A very pretty little township.

If you like wandering the streets looking at souvenir shops then this is the place for you.

The last couple of days have been planned shore excursions, so they have been pretty busy. It was nice today not having to rush off the ship to be on the pier early for something.

After our unsuccessful search for the northern lights last night (or early this morning to be correct), we slept a little later than usual.

I woke and showered at about 7.30 and TOTIL was a little after that.

In fact I had time to go down to the International Cafe on level 5 and order a brewed coffee, consume it, and make a new friend.

Dale is a forestry ranger in California. He has the perfect job – riding quad bikes through the forest in summer, and riding snow mobiles through the forest in winter.

He also calls everyone “pardner” … as in “howdy pardner” and “thanks pardner.”

Sounds pretty cool. If I call you “pardner” when we get home, you’ll know where it came from. And who to blame.

So you’ve possibly been pondering the title to today’s post. In the interests of attracting a higher quality of readership, I’ll leave it for you to figure out yourself. There may be a subtle clue later in the post.

Feel free to comment with your answers if you think you’ve worked it out.

So today we wandered around Ketchikan. We docked at about 11.30am and disembarked after the great unwashed at about 12.30pm.

I gather that back in the day, Ketchikan had a thriving red light district.

Any young ‘uns reading will need to ask your Mum and Dad to explain a red light district to you.

Dolly must have been the head Madame in town because there is still a building there in her honour.

There is also a married man’s walkway that allowed married men to navigate the back way to Dolly’s place.

Ketchikan also has a funicular that is quite famous. We were told to find it and go for a ride to the top of the hill.

Unfortunately – or fortunately according to your perspective – the funicular was not operating today as it was closed for repairs.

TOTIL was keen … me not so much.

This travelling can be hazardous to your health.

New York had Chevy Suburbans.

California had earthquakes.

The Yukon had avalanches.

And now Ketchikan has Tsunamis.

Yikes.

We came back to the ship to find that the liferaft outside our window is missing. That’s a little concerning.

I’m currently confined to quarters. To be precise, I’m sitting here in my underwear.

You may have noticed that every picture I’ve been in for about the last 2 and a half weeks I’ve been wearing the same jeans.

I was quite happy taking them off each night and standing them in the corner, but TOTIL decided they needed a wash.

So I’m sitting here in my underwear as a protest.

I’m hoping that she put the “do not disturb” sign on the door, because if Alex our cabin steward comes in he will get an unpleasant surprise.

Well, did you work out the title of the post?

That’s about it from Ketchikan Alaska … We sail very soon and I will lose internet access again.

Ciao 

#G&KTAKEUSA