Gold in Them Thar Hills!

I heard there was a gold rush in Alaska so I figured while I’m there I might as well join the frenzy.  So we took an excursion to the Eldorado Gold mine where everyone is guaranteed to find some gold.



Our tour was conducted by a Fiddle playing conductor who entertained us with songs and a wonderful narration of the history of  the Alaskan gold rush.

The Eldorado Gold Mine employs a colorful cast of characters who showed us how to pan for gold. Once you see a few of the shiny nuggets in your pan, it doesn't take long to catch "Gold Fever".

I'm giving serious thought to becoming a gold miner...


... gold miners get to wear some serious bling!

When you finish panning for gold, you can take it into the gift shop where the staff will weigh it and tell you how much is is worth.  I wanted to cash in the $38 worth of gold we had panned, but my wife opted to spend another $50 or so in the gift shop to have our gold nuggets encased in a locket (souvenir bling). No wonder the Alaskan gold miners left the women folk back home.

On the way back to the lodge, we saw some of the state’s modern day gold - the 800 mile long Alaska Pipeline! Nearly 500,000 barrels of oil pass through the pipeline each day. We saw the pipeline near it’s halfway point at the 450 mile marker. All in all, this was a very fun and potentially profitable excursion!

Follow Me At Sea

When I learned that I was one of only nine people in the entire Twitterverse invited by Princess Cruises to participate in a Twitter Press trip to Alaska, I felt like the kid in the Willie Wonka movie when he unwrapped his candy bar and discovered the “golden ticket.”

Over my next few blog entries, I’ll chronicle my adventure, mainly with pictures, because a picture is worth 1000 words and I’m having so much fun, I’ll let the pictures do the talking so I can get back to having more fun.

I saw my first Polar bear at the Fairbanks airport!

Princess Cruises had a bag of swag and a goodie tray waiting for us in our room. (Thank you very much!!)

Our first adventure was a riverboat tour of the Chena and Tanana Rivers, where the captain let me pilot the riverboat for about a mile!! Sooo Much fun!

 
We we saw an Athabascan fish camp and a pretty cool fur fashion show. We even got to take eat some smoked salmon!


A kennel that trains future Iditarod champions gave us a demonstration as we watched from the boat.

 One out of 58 Alaskans own a plane. It was so cool watching bush planes take off and land on the river.

I saw my first reindeer. Fortunately, this one wasn't flying so I could snap his picture... or her picture. Interesting fact: both male and female caribou have antlers.

Some interesting homes can be seen along the river. Some decorate with antlers...











...others decorate their roofs with tires.

 

...others are prepared for floods! Yep, that's a paddle-wheel on the back of that house:

Finally, my favorite!  I hope to one day own a house boat like this...I can dream can't I?

 

Making the Bed

This morning I tweeted that I was waiting on my wife to finish cleaning the hotel room so we could head back to Atlanta. I really didn’t intend to say any more about my wife’s OCD cleanliness, but based on some of the twitter responses, there was no way a 140 character explanation would suffice, thus this unintended blog entry.

My wife is a wonderful housekeeper. She likes things to be kept clean and neat - always. I love her anyway.
It’s not that I’m a slob. I’m not. I just believe in functionality over vanity. For example, she likes to make the bed before we leave the house. I, on the other hand, figure, why make the bed when we’re going to sleep in it again tonight anyway?

She has taught me that if I don’t help make the bed, I don’t get to sleep in it. So now I make the bed.

She even makes the bed when we stay in a hotel room.
“...but the hotel staff get paid to do that!” I argue.
“The hotel staff will flush the toilet too. Are you going to wait for them to do that as well?” She replies.
“That’s different.” I pout, dutifully making my side of the bed.

After all these years, I’m still not sure why she finds it necessary to make the bed in a hotel room. She says, it’s because she likes to come back to a clean room. But dang it, she cleans the room the day we’re checking out!

I think making the beds in a hotel room is a bad idea. Suppose the cleaning staff comes in after we leave, decides that the room looks good enough and doesn’t change the sheets? We owe it to those staying in the room after us to leave our beds messed up! Surely I’m not alone in this.

OCD Pre-Travel Cleaning Ritual

I love to travel.
I love my wife.
I love to travel with my wife.

But I absolutely HATE the pre-travel cleaning ritual that makes us late and adds stress anytime we leave the house for more than two days. We’ve been late to family reunions, weddings, and vacations. We once nearly missed our flight to Miami for a Bahama cruise. I even contemplated divorce the time we missed the first quarter of a Southeastern Conference college football game.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not opposed to the standard, dust, mop, vacuum and make the beds, kind of cleaning, but my wife’s OCD dictates cleaning beyond what normal people would call...well, normal. We have to clean the baseboards, the crown molding, behind the washer, behind the dryer, behind the refrigerator, inside the refrigerator, inside the kitchen cabinets, under the bathroom sinks, the basement - you name it. I didn’t even know that most of those were cleanable spaces.

I’m sure we would have had to have the septic tank pumped if she were to think of it. You would think Southern Living magazine were coming over to do a photo shoot of our house.

“Why is all of this necessary?” I ask.

“What if something happens to us on the trip. What if the plane crashes or what if the boat sinks and people have to come inside the house?” She replies.

“What do we care? we’ll be dead.” I say.

“But don’t you care what people will think?”

“I hope we’ll be remembered for more than how we kept house.” I say. “Do you honestly think people will be standing around the funeral home saying stuff like...

‘They seemed like such a nice family’
‘It’s so sad... so sad.’
‘Did you know that they found dust on top of their ceiling fan blades.’
‘You don’t say!?’
‘Not only that, they found dirty dishes in the dishwasher, cobwebs on the laundry room ceiling and two Cheerios under the refrigerator.’
‘No way, not the Griffins! They seemed so normal.’
‘It just goes to show - you never know.’"

We’re traveling to my brother’s home in Highlands, NC this Christmas. I would write more but I gotta go clean the garage.