We have returned from our long-planned trip to the frozen tundra of Alaska. Yep, “frozen tundra” is really a thing. That and “permafrost.” Anyway, this trip was my first time on a cruise ship. We took a little mini-cruise from Florida to the Bahamas many years ago, but I’ve always heard it did not really count in the cruise world. This turned out to indeed be the case, this trip was in a whole different class than that overnight boat trip.

We spent the first few days and nights on a “land tour,” starting in Anchorage and then up to Denali. This was a good way to get to see the famous Denali National Park, although I must I say I could have done without all the bus time to get there and back. Couldn’t really be avoided though, that was just how you get there. After that we took another bus ride to Seward, Alaska where we got on the Norwegian Jewel ship for the cruise part of the trip. I will admit to rather low expectations of the whole “cruise” thing, but it was really great. The port cities were fun and interesting (if quite tourist oriented,) and the ship was just right up my alley. I have admittedly low entertainment requirements, but it certainly had plenty to keep me occupied. The food was great, the crew was great, and I just generally really enjoyed it.

On the downsides? Well, we were with a large group (my family,) and Norwegian just botched up our air travel to an unimaginable degree. I honestly cannot even fathom what they were thinking, if they were at all. At the end of the day(s,) I guess we all got there and back to our respective origin cities, if not without considerable hassle and delays. Smaller quibble: The internet service on the ship was absolutely abysmal. We all signed up for it so that we would have an easy way to communicate within our group. Where we were, daily plans, dinner reservations, etc. It was so bad that the texts rarely went through though. For a little insult to injury, it was $80 per person. I would imagine we could have gotten our money back on that without too much trouble, but I was so happy with everything else I kinda just chalked it up to “lesson learned.” (They did say the ship is supposed to be getting Starlink in the near future. Didn’t help us on this trip but I imagine if we go again that will fix the issues.) Only other downside was I got sick. Not like sea-sick, but germy-boat sick. Donette did too, and some other members of the group. Sounds like that is just kind of a cruise thing. Blech, no fun. Next time I’ll pack my flu stuff along with everything else.

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I guess we’re in summertime now, and that means HOT. We’ve been stuck in triple digits for two weeks now. Supposed to stick around all this week too. I guess that’s what A/C is for. Given the heat, we didn’t do TOO much this weekend. Friday we just snuck out to our favorite local haunt, Bones. Haven’t been there in a while for various reasons, so it was good to see everybody again and catch up on the local news.

Saturday, we had a kiddy birthday party to attend. Well, at least that’s what I enjoyed telling anyone and everyone who happened to ask what we were doing for the weekend. The birthday boy was actually turning 31, so it’s not like I had to go to Chucky Cheese or anything. That’s a kid in my book though. I’m not really sure what area they live in; Fairplay maybe? It was way up a winding rural road. They’ve got a nice property up there, and the altitude made the heat a little more bearable than down at our house. It was a fun outdoor party, I had a great time. I did have something of a revelation while enjoying myself though; All of a sudden, I looked around and noticed that most people were playing games and acting crazy, and I was sitting in a chair with the Old Folk Group. This was a real eye-opener for me. Know what I did? I just kept right on sitting there. I was quite comfortable and enjoyed several conversations.

Sunday, we had a few places planned to visit, but none of them came together. TOO HOT!! Yeah, recurring theme there. I did run up to the grocery store and grab a pack of chicken. Despite the heat I kind of felt like grilling some bird. It was some of the best chicken I’ve ever grilled, if I do say so myself. I’ve got long-running issues with the dreaded leathery-chicken-skin, and for once it came out perfectly crispy. Grilled some passable artichokes for the first time also, so all-in-all it was just a successful cook!

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This weekend we set out in the RV for our second music festival of the season. This was a small event up in the Ice House area, about an hour from our house. It was far enough up in the mountains to be quite a bit cooler than home, but it was still plenty hot. The good news was it cooled way down in the evenings, around 7:00. By 9:00, we were putting light jackets on. This event made up our entire weekend, so I guess I’ll toss out a good/bad list from my perspective.

Good: Location. Great campground, and the entire area is very scenic. We visited a nearby lake to float around and cool off one day, hit a historical place called Uncle Tom’s Cabin another, and did some driving around just to enjoy it in general.

Good: Menu. We ate great all weekend, that was pretty well planned out this trip. Three meals a day, which is more than we eat at home but there wasn’t really anything else to do.

Good: Nap time. We met up with some friends at the campground who are roughly our age, and the daily itinerary always included a few hours of nap time. Just like at home. This should be a staple in all trips.

Bad: The RV had a few issues. Before we even left, we clicked the fridge on to cool down and it threw an error code. Bummer. Very nearly ended the whole trip before it started, but Donette came up with the rather genius idea of putting dry ice in the fridge to cool it off. This plan worked pretty well, it got us through the weekend. Only bad part was all our food froze… Oops. Better than spoiling I suppose. We also ran out of water our last day there, which was a bit of an inconvenience. It was our first time dry camping in the RV and I guess we didn’t fill the tank quite enough. Lesson learned.

Bad: No hookups at the campground. No power, no water, no nuthin. I guess this doesn’t really belong in the “bad” category, they just don’t have hookups. That also meant no a/c and no coffee maker. OK, full disclosure, we turned on the generator for coffee and a few hours of a/c in the afternoon.

Bad: The music. The bands were, in a word, bad. Now it’s up for debate if this is really a “bad” also. The bands were bad for me. Two nights were southern rock cover bands, and one night was an AC/DC & Judas Priest cover band. Not my kind of music, to put it mildly. I knew the lineup when we bought the tickets though, so I pretty much knew I wasn’t going to like it before they ever started playing. We went because some friends did, and the tickets were cheap anyway.

Indifferent: No cell service or wi-fi. Not sure how I feel on this one. The area was quite remote and there wasn’t any service at all, even within convenient driving distance. It was kind of nice to be disconnected for a few days, but it got a little unsettling now and then also. Just not something I’m used to. They actually had wi-fi at the campground, but it didn’t work very well, if at all. Maybe it’s better when the crowd isn’t quite so big.

Overall, I had a great weekend. I’d go back, although the rest of the group came in as undecided. We’ll see when the date rolls around next year and go from there!

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Still hot out. The triple digits almost waited until July but didn’t quite make it. Had a few scorchers last week, and this week is forecast to be even worse. There are a few days down by the office where it is supposed to hit 110! That ain’t right. Even worse, we are scheduled to take the RV out for the holiday. No big deal, it has A/C? Well, yes, but there is no electricity at the campground. On the bright side we are headed uphill about 3,000 feet, so hopefully it’s significantly cooler up there.

That was a moderately entertaining weekend, at least for me. I am fairly sure nobody else will think it remotely interesting, save perhaps my friend Mike, but it’s all I have to work with, so it’ll have to do. The excitement began building on Friday when my spiffy new Synology DS224+ unit arrived. I’ve always had two similar ones running; One higher end one, and one smaller one that is just for backing up the nicer one. Every five years or so I get a new higher end one, set up the old one as my “second,” and get rid of the oldest. Well, plans changed this time. I’ve kind of fallen out of that rotation at some point, and they really both needed replaced. That is a little cost-prohibitive though. After the usual few months of thinking and over-thinking, I decided their new upper-tier one didn’t really interest me anyway, so I ended up getting a replacement for the smaller one. It was, after all, a rather shocking 11 years old and wasn’t even supported by Synology any longer. So, yeah, that’s the background. My plan was to wait until this week to set it up, so as not to burn valuable weekend hours, but of course that didn’t work out. Got too excited and started early in the morning Saturday. The process went remarkably smoothly to my surprise. I’d say about 1.5 hours and it was up and running just like the old one. That wasn’t the case last time I did the same thing, not sure what I did wrong that time. Now the plan is, since it is so much faster than the old one, I will sort of split the load between my bigger DS718+ and this one, because there is really way too much running on it.

After essentially wasting my entire morning on that project, Donette wanted to get out of the house and go to the lake. Sounded fun, although I wasn’t quite done tinkering. We loaded up and headed out though, and it was a good time. Little bit busy to put it mildly, but we found a shady spot right by the water and hung out several hours. Actually, when we got there, they had a big sign that said “Day-Use Full,” and were turning cars around, but they waved us in. Didn’t ask why but I assume our annual pass tag lets us get in anyway. We even got out her paddle board, which has set idle in the garage for a whopping eight years! Not as in we haven’t used it in eight years, but as in we bought it eight years ago and it was still in the packaging. Rather remarkable that we found all the parts actually. It worked great though; it was pretty fun. I’d like to get it and the kayak both up there, but I’m not sure we can get them in the car together. Have to give that a try I guess.

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Whoa, it got hot. Like wicked, oppressively hot. It was bound to happen though, not like it’s a surprise. Hopefully it dips back down into double digits soon though, I’m not quite ready for all a/c, all day just yet.

I have no idea what we did last weekend. I really need to start taking notes. Could be related to my advanced age, or there is also a reasonable chance we just didn’t do anything. I do actually remember Sunday a little bit… We went up to Pollock Pines and attended a fund-raising spaghetti dinner. There was a bad accident up there a little over a year ago, and a few of the children involved still haven’t fully recovered. I like the whole small-town thing… It’s great that they are still putting on these events to help out. As a matter of fact, so many people showed up that they didn’t really have room for them all, so we kind of ate and took off. Pretty good spaghetti too, hope they had enough!

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