North (and West) To Alaska 2025

     On June 8 we boarded the Holland America ship Westerdam in Seattle for a four week Alaska cruise.  This is one of the larger ships we have sailed on, pretty much identical to the Zuiderdam on which we had our last world cruise in 2024.  We were in a standard veranda cabin on the fourth deck but it had a double length veranda, big enough to stretch out on.  You may recognize the title above as a distorted version of the title of an old John Wayne movie set near Nome, Alaska, one of our ports of call on this voyage.

  We had been on an Alaska cruise once before, https://baderjournal.com/2017/08/06/,  but this journey was much longer and took us to many new places.  Only one of the stops on this original itinerary was later changed a bit, because of weather, but we went instead to someplace just as good.  Altogether the weather, which makes all the difference on a voyage like this, was unreasonably excellent for almost all of our stops.

     But before any of that could happen we had to get from our home in Virginia to Seattle, some 3,000 miles away.  Rick’s sister and brother in law (Barbara and Brian) live in Portland, Oregon, and we had not been there in quite a while so we combined the cruise with a visit to Portland before (and after) Alaska.  We decided to drive there because it is a beautiful trip across the country that is completely missed if you fly, so we climbed in our car early on May 28 and headed off. 

    We had driven across the country several times over the years, usually taking about 5 or 6 days to get there, but this time we built in extra time for two reasons.  First, we wanted some wiggle room in case we had to detour to avoid wildfires, which seem to pop up often these days in the West, and second we have reached an age where somewhat shorter driving days are a must.  We stopped for the night in well known cities (Terre Haute, Indiana; Kansas City, Missouri; Boise, Idaho) and smaller towns (St Clairsville, Ohio; Ogallala, Nebraska; Green River, Wyoming).  Our experiences varied from very nice to mediocre motels and from the excellent Majestic Steak House in Kansas City to some much less memorable meals in much less memorable restaurants in more out of the way places.  Of course, while driving across most of the country it is difficult to avoid seeing numerous McDonald’s and Subways where a quick breakfast or lunch can be had without losing much driving time, but in some areas these respites are surprisingly few and far between.  Leaving Green River, Wyoming, for example, we decided to stop at the first McDonald’s on the highway for a morning coffee and a quick breakfast but that turned out to be about 85 miles down the road! 

     Anyway, we have only a few pictures from this driving portion of the trip.  Notable was the countryside around Green River, Wyoming, filled with picturesque mesas and buttes (one just outside our motel room).

     In Oregon we drove along the Columbia River into Portland.  It is quite a beautiful drive and as we got nearer we had a very fine view of Mt Hood, looking particularly imposing because of its isolation from other mountains.  During our visit to Portland we went with Barb & Brian to visit Mt Hood, which has a very nice lodge and restaurant near the peak.  We had lunch there next to a window looking out on the mountain, where people were skiing and snowboarding nearby.

     On June 7 we took Amtrak to Seattle and boarded the Westerdam the next day.  It was a clear and sunny day and we had a view of sea, mountains and a small boat harbor from our veranda at the dock.  Mt. Rainier loomed high over the cargo port and we watched Seattle steadily shrink as we sailed away.

     As we went to bed that night we found that towel animals were back!  Mostly missing in action since the pandemic we had one every night on this cruise.  A good omen to end the day.