Las Vegas and a little time at home

Well, I flew to Las Vegas a few days ago to spend some time with my family in this time of need. For those of you who don't know, my wonderful, beautiful grandmother passed away. Of all times, I feel like I need to count my blessings because I work every week on the cruise and have no more than two days off a week, so going home is near impossible. This week, and next week I happened to have time off becuase the christian charter brought on their own entertainment. It's so hard to lose a loved one, but my grandma must have known I needed to be here. I feel very blessed to be able to come home. After I see my whole family this weekend, I am driving back to California to see some familiar faces. Then back to Alaska with Shannon, one of my dearest friends. And then, before you know it, I will be off to my grand voyage to Asia and Australia.....Life is a gift. Savour every moment.

Homer- DOH

Homer July 16th

Today, Jessica and I rented crew bikes from the ship. Luckily it was a really warm day, so bike riding was the perfect thing to do. We biked around for about an hour and then we stopped to get some coffee at this adorable coffee shop that sold things from Peru. I thought it was sort of funny that I was just in Peru, and now, in alaska, I see the same knitted hats from lima. Life circles, doesn’t it? We sat in the coffee shop, wrote a song, and continued on our journey.

After that, we biked further into town, and we stopped in the yarn yurt. It literally was a yurt. The women who owned the store were just precious and it was aptly named “Commu-knitty stash”. We got to knit a giant thing of duct tape too. With huge plastic pipes. Sounds weird I know, it was awesome though. My good friend Anya, (our awesome librarian) got me addicted to knitting. It’s quite relaxing for me :) However, knitting is no longer allowed for crew members! We actually got in trouble for knitting! Oh well, now we must form an underground knitting club :) haha of all things!

After our stop at the yarn store, we stopped to take a look at the yurt next to it. There was this really friendly man there. Such an Alaskan (grey long beard and a hat and dirty jeans) He was carving ivory and enjoying the day. He began to talk to Jess and I about our spirit animals. He asked if he was getting too deep, and we both said “are you kidding?” we are studying so much about spirits and natural healing right now. It was amazing to hear these words randomly brought up in conversation. He was talking about bears and the nature of them and if you feel a connection with a certain animal, you should really research their patterns and relate them to your life. I have always been in love with sparrows. I think the sparrow is my spirit animal. Whenever I see them, I connect to them. And jess connects to bears. Also, we are thinking of our band name, and jess dreamt the band name “sparrowbear” I think it works :) So watch out world, sparrowbear is on it’s way! He was so cool, I am thankful we met him. 

We then biked to the street faire, and saw some belly dancers perform and a guitarist. 

It was such a pleasant day, and this entire cruise has been gorgeous. How lucky are we???

juneau....not the movie, but the city in Alaska :)

Juneau july 12th 

Today was a fantastic day here in Juneau. Since I got the computer, I was able to skype with the baby girls and Jessica. It was so nice to see some faces. But Evy was stubborn and didn’t stay by the camera and Kaela was looking at her own face the whole time making weird faces....(not gonna lie, I was too ) And for those of you who don’t know yet, I have a nephew on the way as well! I won’t be there for the birth, but some time in september or october he should be arriving. I cannot wait to meet little Jameson :) or Jamison.....not sure how they are spelling it. 

Well, anyway, back to Juneau. After coffee in the morning and internet, I went back to the ship to grab a bite to eat and get ready for my dog sledding tour. I was calling it sled dogging all day...haha whoops. Right as I sat outside the ship and as I was getting ready to go on the bus, I met an adorable couple, that commented on my boots from Chile. (well the wife did:) turns out, they were one of 5 couples traveling together. I met the other couple on the bus as well, and since I was traveling alone and we were supposed to go in a group of 6, they invited me with them and they claimed I was their adopted daughter for the cruise. They had kids and grand kids so I am sure, they were missing them. They were the sweetest, and California natives, so it was nice to hng out with them. The dog sledding tour was great too. The dogs were adorable and so trim. I guess like any athlete, pulling all that weight they had to be thin. They had about 160 dogs in that camp. Seems kind of intense to me, but they were all really cute. After we took the ride, we all got to hold the sweet puppies that were only a month old. I was dying. They were just adorable! So, I didn’t say goodbye to the sweet couples, instead, they invited me to the dining room for dinner tomorrow, so I am looking forward to that. 

After the dog sledding tour, myself, and a few others decided to take a late hike up the mountain. Since I am not much of a hiker (with every step most people take, I take 4) , I was kind of hoping for a fairly moderate night hike. Nope. This was literally climbing a mountain folks. I kid you not, it was incredibly steep. I was praying the whole time we would be done. The view was gorgeous, but I spent most of my time looking down, making sure I didn’t trip :) When we got to the top, I was so happy. I have never finished hiking all the way to the top of the mountain. I felt like I conquered it....with the help and encouragement of my fellow hikers :) It was a good crowd to go with....and I will post pictures soon of the incredible, breathtaking view from the top!

ketch-( me )- i-(f)(you)-kan alaska

so ladies and gents, this will be the last blog entry on my phone as i have decided to buckle down and get a dern computer. but good newss now i will have skype that works, so skype  me please :) awildish is my username.

so, life has been great lately, alaska is gorgeous and i have really enjoyed the inspiring nature. music has been really something that has kept me going. jess and i are really trying to make something good. sometimes inspiration hits soooo big, and sometimes not so much. so i am hoping for some more great ideas for songs to come our way.

i have to admit, not having a comp has been somewhat freeing. so with this new computer, i am still not going to keep my nose in the computer all the time, but i will be able to keep in contact when im in asia :) and blog more haha.
this blog has no  real purpose except to say that i miss everyone terribly and that life is really wonderful also, today in the coffee shop i saw a girl who was in the coffee shop i was in in sitka alaska. she said alaska is like a big little town haha pretty funny.

computer crash

so, my computer died. time to have a funeral for it....or hire a witch doctor to bring it back to life.....perhaps? so, keep in mind that i am typing this on a phone.....its not the easiest thing to do and i am bound  to have some typosbndjkd :) so, tonight i am in canada, and we shall just see where thr day takes me . our great cruise director jimmy is leaving, so we may go out with him, or i may go on a ghost tour....we shall see. if i would have had access to the blog earlier, i would have told you all about the moment on stage durind the show last week where i ran off the stage bald because my wig fell off  when i did the back bend....i about peed myself.....and people in the audience laughed too. it was perfectly funny....at least i was in the  back and i had to exit anyway, but i felt bad for the dancers who had to move around the set with a red wig bob on the floor. suzy eventually threw it off and the audience clapped. haha....anyway, life is great right now, i extended three more months into asia and australia i will have seen the whole world this year basically. kind of awesome eh??? im in canada eh feels right here. so, after this, so far the plan is to move to portland oregon with jess and get this music thing going. anyone know anything more about portland???? i hear its awesomes chao friends

Ma Vie

Juneau May 17

Here’s to one of the coolest things I have done (and that’s saying a lot since I have been to some amazing places these past few months) today my parents and I went trekking on a glacier….but we had to take a helicopter to get there. We first hopped in a van with a driver who looked like he wasn’t old enough to drive, and then we went to get geared up. I was not expecting to need anything but a jacket and some boots, but I was wrong! They gave us boots, pants, a backpack, a jacket and a snack. We were so lucky too because we didn’t have anyone else with us on the tour, it was just us! I couldn’t believe no one else signed up for this! We then got onto the helicopter and our pilot told us we needed to put on our headsets and microphones so we could hear each other…man it was loud in there! But take off was by far the coolest part. Those helicopter propellers going incredibly fast gave me such a thrill. Then, it felt like we were just lightly floating. The ride was so smooth. We looked around at the incredible beauty of the snow capped mountains and the glistening water and I just took it all in. I felt like we were on another planet. I could not believe this beauty was so close. We were floating above the mountains, getting this insane view that only took 5 minutes to get to. We looked down at what looked like ants at a dog sledding park. I could not believe the scale of things.  We then landed and our guide strapped some spiky shoes on us so we wouldn’t slip and slide around the glacier. The ice was so blue. We got an amazing hike and had an opportunity to drink the freshest water I have ever tasted, and walk on the water as well (I know crazy right) haha the ice was just so clear, you looked like you walked on water. The day was fabulous and I am so thankful I got to experience this.

Anchorage May 20^th

Today we got up early to see the town of Anchorage by taking a train in the wilderness. It wasn’t the best tour I’ve taken, to be honest. But it was a day for reflection. It was really rainy and the land is incredibly marshy and wet. I guess it was better to be inside and looking out, than trying to get on out there and hike. I just took my book and my journal, and enjoyed a peaceful day of relaxation with the parents. The funny thing about this train ride is that it was 7 hours and it didn’t take us anywhere except around anchorage. Twas a good day though.

Homer May 21^st

Today my parents and I took a tour Kayaking in the bay area of Homer. The day started out really nice and I was looking forward to working out my arms for the day. Our tour guide for the beginning part of the day, that took us to the island, was originally from Homer and he was a very experienced Kayaker. Is that a word? I guess so since the little red squiggly line didn’t show up on my computer. J Well, he didn’t end up taking us out on the water because he had to go sing at a wedding. Haha how fitting…we had a long talk about how as soon as someone finds out you’re a singer, they ask you to sing something. It’s not like with any other job you have people ask you to perform right on the spot. Haha it’s only cause our job is portable J well, we got to the island, and our cool guide had to set sail back to main land. But we got two other really nice guides. It was rare to have two guides, but today was the first one and there were only 4 of us, so they wanted to have more people. It was really gorgeous, but I was really slow at kayaking and I kept getting flustered cause I kept thinking about being that one person holding the group up. Or being the slow person in front of people (which I am well aware of the GLACIAL speed of some of these passengersJ) I was getting angry haa. So, I worked extra hard to get my speed up to the group. We then took a break on land for a brief period on a separate private owned island. Boy! That owner of the land mad! He did not like people stopping on his beach front. I get it, I do, but the guides should have known not to take us there. He was pretty creepy and he might have had a shot gun….who knows. Haha My Dad was being so polite and immediately said “I hope we’re not trespassing”, but the guy was NOT happy and he said in a stern voice “OH YOU ARE”. Haha my dad just laughed it off. This man looked a little crazed, with his long gray beard and coffee cup…..we didn’t want to mess with him, so we paddled away to the next destination to eat our sacked lunches. We also saw some adorable sea otters playing in the kelp! The rest of the day got extremely cold and difficult to paddle. But after three hours, it feels like it’s enough. But this tour did not kid around. This was for serious Kayakers. 6 hours of kayaking is a little too much. I thought for sure I would be sore the next day, but I wasn’t! A little let down I must say! Haha I was hoping to get some arm definition from all that work J

Sitka May 24^th

Wow, what a gorgeous day! I could not believe how warm it was in Alaska today! The town of Sitka is just the quintessential charming Alaska. It was amazing. The sun was shining and the weather was phenomenal. My mom and I took a scenic boat ride for the morning. We saw sea otters, beautiful views, seals and whales! Several gorgeous, magnificent whales. I know I have stated that I am kind of afraid of whales, for those of you who know me. But my fear is a very irrational one. I think they are awesome creatures. But just imagine this. Say you are swimming in the ocean, and all of a sudden, a whale comes up under you or beside you….I would probably pass out in the water….I know. It’s a really dumb fear cause I am never swimming that far out in the ocean. But overall this tour was awesome. We then got back to land and explored Sitka for a while longer. We got an amazing seafood lunch and stared at the gorgeous day. Then after the day was over, I probably had the best meal of my life on the ship. I died and went to heaven. It was an amazing day!

Victoria, Canada May 26

What a pretty day! I had no idea how gorgeous Canada was. Right off the boat, there were amazing flowers and parks. I cannot wait to spend the whole summer exploring these awesome places. My parents and I went on a tour of Buschart Gardens. Oh my gosh. I am not sure if I can even describe the beauty of this place. It is magical. I felt like I was in a Monet painting. It’s so full of beauty, it can make you cry. I did, I think (I’m a sap) I loved spending this day with my parents because I got to be inspired again. I am not sure what my plans are for right after this contract, but I know that I am going to be doing something I love. And singing is something I will never give up doing. I want to write and play and meet people and continue to do something that I love. It can be stressful going in to a new stage of life. I mean, I was so fortunate to have had this experience. I have traveled the world, I have met amazing people, and I have saved (some) J. Really, I could not have asked for a better job right out of college. But I have to start thinking about what I want to do with my life after this job. Put on the big girl panties and think about the future. But the greatest thing about life is that it is so unpredictable. And if you just sit back and take it one day at a time, the magic happens. Just let it! Something good is coming. I know that, for you and for me J Life is truly a gift.

Seriously......Into the Wild hahaha

May 15

My Big ALASKAN adventure

Ketchikan

Ok, I had imagined ever since watching Into the Wild (I know I am obsessed…I’m ok with that) that I would be heading to Alaska one day. I didn’t know it would first be on a cruise ship, but I would have to say, it’s a pretty awesome way to see it. From the moment I woke up this morning and stepped outside….my heart leaped with excitement. Even the air was so different. It was more crisp. More Fresh. I felt like a new journey is on its way. I was ready for it.

My parents are on board this week, so I am really lucky to get to spend some time with them. My brave Dad, who gets sooooo seasick, decided to chance it and hop on the shop with me. I am so thankful. We all booked a tour for today to go zip lining in the rain forest.  I’ve gone zip lining before in Costa Rica, but the last time I went, I had to go with someone…..so this time it was even more thrilling. Our guides were so much fun and really made the whole experience worth it. The zips were so fast… I could have done it all day. Hanging from trees like that for a job, would be such a thrill! I am happy too, because I think I would like to hang out with these people next time I am in town. Every two weeks we will be coming back to Ketchikan. It’s an amazing place. There were trees, creeks, bald eagles and all sorts of wild life everywhere. This is my kind of place. Give me the nature….and I am a happy gal. And the day could NOT have been more beautiful. It was sunny, in a place that rains 90% of the time. I think my parents brought the sunshine with them from California. I cannot wait to see the rest of Alaska. Juneau is next. I think we are doing a helicopter tour of the glaciers. Oh my gosh! We have a show tonight, and then the day off tomorrow. Here’s to the next chapter of my journey and experiencing it with great friends and family!