The daily blog of a tourist visiting the USA: Denver, Colorado

The daily blog of a tourist visiting the USA: Denver, Colorado

Sailing

After our visit to Alaska, we headed back to Denver where my uncle and aunt stay. We arrived over the weekend and the next week was going to be epic.

That week I was going sailing. Yeah that is right. Sailing. You must be imagining me, Raghav Agrawal Of class 7B, trying to sail a boat. Please. I know you are going to fall off your chair and start rolling on the floor in laughter but please for the sake of your electronic device, please remove that 

and then start laughing.

So yeah. Monday morning and I had to wake up early. I have heard this line before. I wonder where?

So we ate breakfast and headed out of the door towards the car but we never made it. Why, you may ask. Well because it was locked. Obviously.

We first had to drop off the little kids to some Minions survival camp. After dropping them in we started our journey to the Vaughan Way Dam road. Hey, I remember the name.

We were having the class with the people at  Community Sailing of Colorado. We had to get registered and then all the kids in our Beginner batch had to sit down and introduce themselves. Everybody had to say their name, the name of the school they go to and their least favourite vegetable. I didn't know what to say. I crossed my fingers hoping I wouldn't have to go first and then our instructor, Gary, pointed his finger and said the word I dreaded. "You". And in my mind I am like "Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo <funny hand movements>.

He didn't point at me.

While we went through all the other 16 kids names, I was thinking on what I should call myself. But my thinking cut short because it was my turn. I said the first thing that came to my mind.

Bob.

I said it. And then I changed back to Raghav and then India. But I realised that nobody would be able to get my name so I just told them to call me Bob. And they did.

So for the next four days I was sailing in a no swimming lake. We learnt how to capsize and that was the highlight of the class. We turtled a few times and we had to pull the boat from the centre board with all our strength. A turtle was when the sail went down completely, a 180' turn. Then you had to stand on the hull and pull. We learned points of sail and we played 500 and Quidditch. 500 was when they dropped tennis balls and water noodles into the water and you had to sail around and grab those things. The items would worth different points and you had to earn them for your team. Sometimes you would get a mystery box or a would be allowed to capsize!

Qudditch was like the original Harry Potter one. We had to collect the noodles and balls for points and there was even a snitch.

On the last day of our class, we had something called the Sailing Olympics. We were divided into teams where we decided our own team name and chant. There were series of events like silent ninja docking game where you had to silently dock and grab a noodle from the table in the middle of the deck before a blindfolded instructor hears and catches you. There was even a rigging and de rigging race and a sandcastle building contest. Our team came last but that was okay because we actually won the sailing contests and not the other ones. I had a lot of fun and encourage people to try this sport. 

The daily blog of a tourist visiting the USA: Day 9 Victoria, Canada

The daily blog of a tourist visiting the USA: Day 9 Victoria, Canada

Today we were heading back to Seattle but on the way we were going to stop at Victoria in Canada. So exciting. Visiting 2 countries in the course of one month. Never done that before.

We had the day from 7 to 2 because we were going to dock in Victoria in the afternoon. We had an exciting section of BINGO and lucky draw from the raffle tickets accumulated throughout the cruise. The winner takes home two fully paid tickets for a cruise in the Mediterranean. We didn't win but we were close to winning the BINGO. Like this we spent our day doing the things they had to offer. And then finally in the afternoon we disembarked for our last shore excursion in the beautiful Victoria, Canada.

We saw some mountains in the distance and our driver guide told us that those belonged to Washington State. Holy Cow! We were that close to USA, it was a swim away. Actually Seattle was 4 hours away by car but still. So close.

We first were going to the Butchart Gardens. They were pretty far away and took us 2 hours to get there. The Butchart Gardens were absolutely beautiful and had many different gardens with different types of flowers. It was started by Jeannie Butchart  in 1904 and it has been in bloom since then. Her husband was Robert Butchart and was the owner of a cement factory. They had a huge land where they quarried their limestone. But soon Jeannie felt like they needed more and then took an interest in flowers. She wanted to have a garden but Robert didn't approve of that idea. But she said she would do it herself and actually did it. She dug her holes and started making her garden. But soon this garden started to expand. She converted limestone quarries to flower beds and soon she had a huge garden with flowers imported from all around the world. Many people came to visit and the always tea and left, as a sign of hospitality. Once the Queen of England was going to visit this garden but the road that led here wasn't quite good. So Jeannie had Robert pave the road!

When we got to the garden we were given a strict time limit. We visited the many garden with their different atmospheres and themes. They were really beautiful and their effort was  commendable. The flowers were well kept and there were even figures made of moss!

After visiting the gardens we climbed back on the bus and we were taken to Victoria downtown. We passed many buildings like The Empress Hotel and the Parliament Building. In Chinatown there was a small road which was only 3 feet wide!

Narrow  Street

After exploring Victoria and taking a lot of pictures we were taken to our ship. We had dinner and dad took me out for tiramisu. Get it? Out for? No. Okay.

And that was it. Our cruise was over. The next morning we disembarked for the last time and caught the plane home to Denver.    

The daily blog of a tourist visiting the USA: Day 8 Cruise to Alaska

The daily blog of a tourist visiting the USA: Day 8 Cruise to Alaska

Zoom into the picture and look for seals on the ice

Today we were returning to Seattle and our tour of Alaska was complete. However we were going to have one more day of visiting another place before returning to Seattle. We had the day free and we relaxed. In the afternoon our captain took us to see a brilliant glacier called the Endicott Glacier. Since everyone was crowding up in the front, the captain decided he would take this huge cruise ship in the narrow pass in a 360 so everyone could see. So I camped out at the back and when he positioned it correctly, I was ready with my camera, snapping pictures frantically. I even saw some seals on a piece of ice.

In the evening I had some time and I explored the ship more and got some pictures of the different places. That night we watched the comedy magic (aka momedy) of Jean Pierre. He was really funny and his magic tricks were pretty cool. After the show you could stay and he would teach you some magic tricks that were very simple. I really like that guy. I got a chance to take a picture of our awesome bedroom it had two beds and then those two opened up to be four. There was a train compartment type of bed on which I slept. We then had to sleep early because we had another day of sightseeing tomorrow.

The Stardust Theatre aboard the ship

The daily blog of a tourist visiting the USA: Day 7 Skagway, Alaska

The daily blog of a tourist visiting the USA: Day 7 Skagway, Alaska

Our final port of call in Alaska was Skagway and today was a long day from 7 to 5. We were driven by our driver to the train station where we were dropped off, train tickets in hand. We took our seats on the train and after some time you heard the toot-toot and we chugged down the winding road up the mountain. We started at elevation 0ft and we in the course of three hours climbed up to 2,865 ft. The train followed this rail which was called the White Pass and Yukon Route and was called Railway of the world.

This railroad was built because of the Klondike gold rush. This was the gold rush that started when gold was first found in Alaska. Captain William Moore was one of the first to find gold over here and was hired by a Canadian survey party headed by William Ogilvie who was commissioned to map the 141 st prime meridian because the known route, Chilkoot Pass, was rough and rugged so they decided to take a different path. Their path was called the White Pass after the Canadian Minister of Interior, Sir Thomas White.  And when the gold rush started people used this white pass more than the Chilkoot Pass because it was simpler to carry all their belongings on this pass. And we were now on a train on this pass which has been in use since the early 1900's.

On our journey to Fraser, Canada we saw a lot of trees and waterfalls and passed different points. Once the train stopped  to let some passengers of who wished to hike up the mountain. After two and a half hours we crossed the US and Canada border. When we entered Canada and  the landscape changed. The same mountains had now snow peaks. We then finally stopped and disembarked the train. Our bus driver had driven from Skagway here to pick us up. He then took us to the suspension bridge in Yukon.

The suspension bridge was built over a river and you might have guessed- it was suspended and attached only on the two sides. On the other side there were some informative places where we spent some time. We had some time so we visited the gift shop where we saw a toy train on a track on the wall going around. Since we had to get back to our ship, we climbed onto the     bus which would take us back to Skagway.

We were one of the first buses out so on the way we stopped at different places for a photo stop. We stopped at the border of the US and Canada and I literally jumped between the two countries. It was fun.

We got back to our ship by three and we had 2 hours before the ship left. After it left we started back towards Seattle.

The daily blog of a tourist visiting the USA: Day 6 Juneau, Alaska

The daily blog of a tourist visiting the USA: Day 6

Today we docked at Juneau, the capital city of Alaska. It was very chilly from the time we arrived and we went directly on the bus. We were going whale watching with a company called Allen Marine. The Allen Marine Company was operated by the Allen family for a very long time and they even made their own boats. The boats were very cool with three decks. It was freezing cold and very hard to take a picture in that crowded place. We were the first boat out on the water and so we would have a good chance of seeing some whales and score we saw an orca or killer whale. The killer whale was renamed ‘orca’ because people didn’t like using the word killer as a name for an animal. The killer name is on top of the food chain but just under man.

After some time we reached a place where there were many harbour seals and they were making such a horrible noise. But then we saw it. The whale we were looking for. The Humpback Whale. It even wheezed and there was some mist. So awesome. We even saw another pair of whales. A mother and son. The guys called her Flare because of some kind of sign on her tail. After some more watching of glaciers we re-docked at the port where we were picked and taken to the Mendenhall

Glacier.

The glacier looked amazing and there was even a waterfall. We first went to a visitor centre and then we hiked down to the lake and touched the refreshing water. There wasn’t much to see and we were picked up by 12:45 and we went directly to our boat.

The daily blog of a tourist visiting the USA: Day 5 Ketchikan, Alaska

The daily blog of a tourist visiting the USA: Day 5

Today we docked at Ketchikan, the third largest city in Alaska and the salmon capital of the world. We arrived there by 7 am and we were ready, standing at gangplank just as it was going to touch the ground. We were greeted by a plaque which said we had officially entered Ketchikan. We met our driver guide who sowed us the way to the local lumberjack show. It was just across the street and since we were early we got some time in the souvenir shop. Over there I so many plaques with funny stuff written on it like:

·         If idiots could fly, this place would be an airport

·         Forget the dog. Beware of the owner!

·         I say we fish five days and work two

·         Hand over the chocolate and nobody gets hurt!

·         No trespassing! Violators will be shot. Survivors will be shot again.

·         My windows are not dirty. That’s just my dog’s nose art.

And many more!

And then finally we were allowed to go inside the arena. There were large stands for the fans to sit and to kill time they got some spectators to throw axes on a dartboard. The lumberjack show was made to teach people what a lumberjack had to do and what weapons he would have to use. So they were having a competition between some Canadian lumberjacks and American ones with a series of events that determine who were better lumberjacks. The Spruce Mill camp housed the Americans while the Dawson Creek camp housed the Canadians. Every test needed a different skill. Some of the tests were climbing up trees while others were climbing branches and chopping down trees. Some were where they had to jump on logs on water and the final one was where one from each team would be balancing on the same log and couldn’t touch each other. In the end it was Canada who won.

  

After the show we were taken on a coach to the Tlinkit tribe house. They were one of the fist tribes in Alaska. There were many groups like the bears and frogs but ultimately they fell into two groups: The Ravens and The Eagles. We were introduced to this whole tribe with a presentation on it. We learnt to say some words in their language. The tribe still exists. They totem poles and each totem pole had some significance to the tribe or an ancient tribal story. We were then taken to a Tlinkit house where there was a performance by members of the tribe. They wore capes and on the back of the capes there was a picture of the tribe they were a part of. They sang songs and danced for us and in the end we were asked to join them on stage and I went. We had Tlinkit Dancing 101 and the then we actually danced with the others. This all took place in one of their houses.

After that we were shown how a totem pole was made and what materials and tools were used. To put up a totem pole they had to dig a hole in which they would then put the pole while the maker had to dance. Okay.

After this we were taken back to our ship but we chose to stay in the city and look at it. After lunch at Subway we saw the famous Creek Street and some other buildings but then it was time to board the ship. On the ship I think you know what we heard first.

Washy Washy.

The daily blog of a tourist visiting the USA: Day 4 Cruise to Alaska

The daily blog of a tourist visiting the USA: Day 4

Today we were at sea as we were travelling to Alaska which was far away from Seattle by boat and we pretty much had the day to ourselves. We played lots of BINGO and even went swimming. However the pools were filled with salt water so that didn’t go well. We did a lot of stuff on board like trivia about airplanes and a goofy golf challenge in one of the lounges! So the day went well and we spent a lot of time doing everything. It was a lot of fun. The next day we docked at Ketchikan and began our tour of Alaska.