Alaska Cruise to Benefit Home Hospice 2005

He came and met us in the lobby of the Hampton Inn and took us to breakfast in a little hole in the wall on Spenard Road. If you know Anchorage, I don't need to say anything else about Spenard Road. If you don't, I couldn't explain anyway, so never mind. I was instantly at ease with Ray as though it had been a week rather than 20 years since we'd seen each other. I had such fun talking at catching up about everything that has transpired through the 20 years.

After breakfast, we went to the very small church where Ray attends. The trip from breakfast to church was also the beginning of my day long head trip. As we drove, the layout of Anchorage just all came back to me. I pretty much drove around all day as though I'd lived here the whole time. I would remember things and take off in a direction and there it was. At church, it was very interesting to be in such a small gathering, not to mention that the music was accapella. There were several folks there who I recognized and who recognized me. As I shook one lady's hand I looked at her and said, "You're someone's mom...whose mom are you?" I knew she looked familiar, but couldn't place it. Sure enough, she was the Mom of another girl from my youth group. Everyone was very welcoming.

After church, Ray took us to the airport to pick up our rent car. It was hard to say goodbye, but it was time to go. We stood in line at the Hertz counter and when we finally got to the front of the line and they processed our rental, they let us know that they were preparing the cars as fast as possible, but there would not be a car for us for 15-20 minutes. They directed us to some seats where we got some tourism propaganda and settled in. A few minutes later, they called my name and we went to the counter to pick up the keys. As the gentleman completed the transaction, he handed me a certificate that he said was good toward $50.00 off a Hertz rental. He said I could use it on this one, or a future one. I'll certainly be using it on this one, which means that I will get this full size rent car for the whole day, including taxes, for about $20.00. Amazing.

We drove immediately from the airport to the Hampton Inn because we were now two hours past check out time. Because of what happened with the smoking room, I pointed to the "100% Guarantee" plaque and asked them how that works. I told them about what we had experienced and politely indicated that I was certainly less than 100% satisfied. Without a word, they zeroed out my bill and that was that. They weren't rude, but they also didn't apologize. I guess I would still stay at a Hampton Inn again. I've been satisfied before and they do have free wireless Internet.

After we left the Hampton Inn, the next few hours were pretty much filled with me exclaiming "OH, I remember this....This is SO strange....WHAT a headtrip..." as I drove around and randomly darted into places with varying levels of significance in my memory. I had Christine take pictures of me everywhere we stopped. Rather than a narrative, I'll post thumbprints of the pictures with small descriptions so that those of you who are interested can see it there. Christine was a very good sport about being drug around all day. She even agreed to eat lunch with me at the McDonalds where I had my first job.

Sometime late in the afternoon we headed toward Mountain View to the Bed and Breakfast where we had reservations. Big Bear Bed and Breakfast is owned and operated by Carol Ross. Mrs. Ross was my Home Economics teacher in high school. I took every class she offered and was even her student aide during one semester. My senior year I was Home Economics Student of the Year. What fun it has been to be here in her unique and beautiful home and share time with her. She lost her husband in a car accident earlier this year so this is the first year she is operating the B and B without him. I asked her if we could help her with anything and she indicated that the raspberries in the backyard needed picking. We told her we'd LOVE to pick raspberries with her. We strapped buckets onto ourselves with belts that she had ready by the back door and headed out.

As we entered the back yard, we were greeting with a beautiful vista. Mrs. Ross (I can't call her anything other than Mrs. Ross...just can't...sorry.) is a Master Gardener. I don't just mean that as a compliment, I mean she has taken the schooling and the tests and actually has earned the designation of "Master Gardener" from the folks that govern such titles. The backyard here has paths meandering through various flowers and vegetable and berry patches. The biggest single area is devoted to raspberries. For the next approximately two hours we picked and visited, visited and picked. I think the raspberries were actually ripening as we were picking. We would make a pass down one row, then another person would go down that same row 5 minutes later and find as many berries as you did the first time. We picked probably three gallons of raspberries. When you consider that the little bitty container of raspberries at home cost $4.50, those were buckets of gold strapped to our waists.

At the conclusion of berry picking we came back indoors and took some pictures that we wanted. We were booting up the laptop to dump the days pictures from the memory sticks to the hard drive and CD when Mrs. Ross knocked on the door and said I had customers here. I was puzzled, but it all became clear when yes indeed one of the couples (Mr. and Mrs. Appel) coming along on the cruise had booked another room right here at the Big Bear B and B! I had no idea they would stay here and was delighted to see them. I guess we'd better be very quiet when we leave here at 730am.

Like I said, it's been an amazing day. I'm so glad to have had the opportunity to be here and to see places and visit with people from my past. I can hardly see what the rest of the week will hold.