Pencil Pecker!!!

Our luggage arrived at the airport before we did and was waiting in the Holland America holding room.

G- Let's go get our bags, check in with Continental, then find a place to get a burger and a beer. I'm hungry and I can't find the Lido deck.

P- Sounds like a good plan.

G- Hi. These 2 bags are ours.

Pencil Pecker (tall, skinny, pimple faced boy of about 19, named Steve by his parents) - ok, I just need to see your ID.

We show him our IDs and he matches them up with the tags. We walk out of the baggage room, dragging our HEAVY bags, and head for Continental.

G- Ok, I appreciate that they're trying to keep our bags secure by checking our IDs, but last night when everyones' bag was sitting outside their doors in the hallway, I could have put my ID on any bag I wanted. It's not as though we're having to show the bottom half of the luggage tag because there was no bottom half.

P- Whatever. Let's just get rid of them so we can eat. What does that say? The Continental counter is not manned until 3:00 pm?!?

G- Damn it to hell! I'm not dragging this bag around for 4 hours. Let's bring them back to the baggage room. The guy said it was open until 6:00 PM.

P- (to the older, possibly wiser, man) We just claimed our bags 2 minutes ago, only to discovery that the Continental counter doesn't open until 3:00 pm. We'd like to leave our bags here until then so we can go get something to eat without dragging them around.

Older man - Ok, come this way. But I'm not sure that's allowed.

G- What do you mean it's not allowed. Aren't you open until 6:00 PM?

Older man to Pencil Pecker - These ladies just got their bags and would like to return them to the room because Continental is closed until 3:00 PM.

Pencil Pecker - (in his I'm a drone without a brain tone) No! Bags cannot be returned once they leave the room.

P- What are you talking about. We just got them 2 minutes ago.

Pencil Pecker - That's the rule.

G- Why were we not told the rule before we took our bags?

Pencil Pecker - It's not our rule it's the TSA's. It's for your safety.

G- That was not my question. My safety? My bag sat in the hallway for hours unattended. And now you're protecting me by not taking it back after I've had it for 2 minutes? Why were we not informed of the rule?

P - That's not acceptable. Where is your supervisor?

Pencil Pecker - It's a TSA rule.

G-(to Phyllis) Son of a bitch! I already hate the damn TSA. Morons! All of them!!! I'm not fighting with this little bastard. I cannot stand being talked down to by this little pencil dick bastard who just went through puberty 2 weeks ago!!! I'm leaving.

P- I am not dragging this bag around for 5 hours because it has been in my possession for 2 minutes.

G- I'm having flashbacks of that little son of a bitch Harahan cop who almost took me to jail just after Katrina and I may become violent. I'm going to sit down to breath and let it go.

P- I'm not letting it go. It is too stupid to let go!!!!!

G- Ok. I'll be sitting over there.

Gina went into the airport and began telephone bitch fest with Connor. Phyl waited for the supervisor.

G- (to Connor on the phone) OOOOH. Now she's fussing at the supervisor. She's leaning in like she does when she's drunk or pissed off. The supervisor seems to be arguing back. It can't be good. Now pencil pecker has been brought into the conversation. He'd better watch his cockiness or Phyl might rip out his lungs. She's very pissed off and I'm afraid I didn't do much to discourage it because I'm very pissed off too, I just don't feel like fighting.

Connor- Oh God! Don't get taken to jail. I'm too far away to bail you out.

Supervisor - I'm sorry mam, but we cannot take the bag back once you claim it.

P - If that is the rule, why was I not told BEFORE I took my bags?

Supervisor - You should have been told. No one got on your bus and went over the rules with you.

P- No they did not.

Supervisor - Well I'm sorry and I'll address that with the person who was supposed to do it, but we still can't take back the bags.

P- Do you realize that I could have put a bomb the size of Alaska in each of my bags last night before I put them in the hallway to sit, by themselves. Then, without even coming into the airport, I could have detonated the bombs and blown this whole place to hell. But you, and the TSA in their infinite wisdom, are worried about me putting something into my bag in the previous 2 minutes while standing in the middle of the airport!?! it's utterly dumbfounding!!!!!!

Pencil Pecker - You can take your bag downstairs and for only $7.00 a bag they'll hold it for you.

P- Well that makes a lot of sense. I guess a bomb can blow up in the Holland America baggage area but not in the baggage area downstairs? That's brilliant! I just paid Holland America thousands of dollars for a cruise and now I'm going to pay more money to have someone else hold my bag? I don't think so.

(to pencil pecker) You go away. (to Supervisor) This is absolutely infuriating.

Supervisor - Sorry mam.

G - (to Connor on the phone) Well, it looks like she's given up and we'll be dragging our bags around. Let me go. She's seething and I think her head is about to explode.

P- Fuckers!

G- I see pencil pecker gets to live.

P- I'd love to just choke the cocky bastard until his eyes bulged, but I'm not going to jail in Alaska. I hate snow.

G- Let's go get a cocktail!

A few cocktails did take the edge off, but at 3:00 pm when the Continental counter finally opened, the line was about 100 people deep. While in line we removed our cuticle scissors, toothpaste, wine opener, hand lotion, and all other possible plane hijacking weapons out of our carry ons and put them into the bags we would check.

Airports and airlines suck and having to use them will be the worst part of our around the world journey.

Seward - Anchorage

The drive to Anchorage was very beautiful! At first we drove through densely forested mountains hugged by fog. The bus driver was not a freak like the Juneau woman and told us interesting trivia along the way. ......... there was a plant called Fire Weed growing along the road; so called because it was the first thing to grow back after a fire. Also, when the Fire Weed started to die, you had about 6 weeks until winter arrived. Important to know when living in Alaska. And those markers attached to near the tops of the trees along the road? Snow gauge. That was scary!!!

Then, because we were making good time, we were able to stop at a Glacier and at it's base was a stream filled with spawning salmon.

G- They are such a beautiful color red.

Random man in crowd to bus driver - Can these be eaten?

Bus driver - No. Once they turn red they don't taste good. They are about to spawn and die.

P- Well that sucks! Spawn then die.

Random woman in the crowd to bus driver - Are those fish spawning?

Bus driver - No. Those are males fighting to spawn with the females.

P- Well that figures!

Back on the bus we turned and drove along a lake and the sun came out. We saw several bald eagles and Beluga Whales!!!! Anchorage was bigger than we expected with a population of about 300K people.

We were dropped off at the airport at about 11:00 AM. Oh joy! Our flight was at 5:20 PM.

Get off our ship!!!

Today we awoke in Seward, Alaska and they were tossing people off the ship by 6:30 AM. Fortunately we did not disembark until 8:15 AM. Last night we had to have our bags in the hallway by 1:00 AM. We returned from the show at 9:30pm and the hall was filled with bags. These damn old people had probably had their bags out by 8:00 PM and went to sleep at 8:30 PM. On the Carnival Cruises we've taken drunk people were stuffing their crap into their bags at 1:05 AM as they dragged them into the hallway, and were headed back out to party for the last remaining hours.

We packed our bags at 9:30 PM and headed up to the Crow's Nest for a final night of dancing.........disco night!!!

P- Are you kidding me? There's no one here.

G- Well, let's just sit and have a drink. Maybe more people will come after the late dinner seating.

After 30 minutes............

P- Ok, it doesn't appear anyone is coming and I'm falling asleep.

G- Damn old people! I wanted to dance. But I'm falling asleep too. If we ever take another cruise, we have to find some happy medium between Carnival's Animal House and Holland America's Cocoon.

P- Well, they gotta get to bed early so they can get up early to get off the ship.

G- Hell, they get up early every damn day!!! They stop serving breakfast at 9:30 AM!!! I am not even hungry yet at 9:30 AM!!

P- Quit ya bitchin and let's go to bed like the rest of the old people.

G- Speak for yourself!!!

We sat eating breakfast and talking to Jackie & Hal until 8:10AM, then we disembarked and got on our bus for the 2 hour drive to Anchorage Airport.