Cruising & Mount St. Helens Tour
We woke up this morning and we were already on the move, heading for the port of Kalama and a tour of Mt. St. Helens. Two things I want to mention before we get on with the day's events......first, our stateroom is literally less than twenty feet from the Paddlewheel Lounge (third door on the left in photo below) which makes it seem like the lounge - where the morning coffee is located - is our personal living room and our bedroom is just down the hall. And secondly, the size of the boat - the slogan for American Cruise Lines is "Small ship cruising done expertly." And to those of you who know we've sailed on Viking River Cruises, the size of these ships is SO much smaller. For example, the dining room is at the one end on the first level and a lounge on the opposite end. I counted today - the number of steps from the dining room to the lounge is FIFTEEN! REALLY small, but they certainly have this down to a science......HIGHLY recommend these guys.
You want to do a river cruise and don't want to fly to Europe? Try this company - visit their home page (http://www.americancruiselines.com/) or better yet contact the best travel agent in the world, Nancy Nelson at DreamVacations (http://nnelson.dreamvacations.com/mobile/termsconditions.do) So, after getting coffee we had all agreed that today we would get a muffin or something light for breakfast. But we went down to the dining room to fill out our menu choices for the day and on the breakfast side of the menu, right at the top - "Pacific Northwest Steak and Eggs with Bearnaise Sauce." Now WHO can pass that up? Like ALL the meals, it was superb - had to be prime rib that they used for the beef. So much for a light breakfast (so I only had a cup of soup for lunch!)
And speaking of food - note on the main page there is now a link to the dining experience on the ship - I've posted the first two days worth of food so far and it will grow with each day's menu choices! The food has been phenomenal! We weren't due to dock until after lunch so Kim worked on the exercise bike on the top deck and I enjoyed the scenery.
Hey Karrie, wouldn't it be cool for you and Randy to have one of these and we had the other? :) After lunch we were off on the bus for what was promised to be a long bus ride, but it would be worth it. The trip was going to be a ninety minute ride up the mountain and we had been told it would be in the mid-40s, rainy and currently a lot of fog. Well, through the first hour the fog was REALLY dense and we were certain that barring a miracle we wouldn't be seeing a lot at the top of the mountain, but hey, you never know. When we were about a half hour out while winding up through the hairpin turns over "drops to the abyss" bridges we all heard the warning beeps from the front of the bus.....we pulled over and our driver announce, "I don't know what the problem is but I'm going to check it out." This can't be good. Busted hose! We were dead in the water on the road - and without cell service! So the second bus took the other half of the party the rest of the way to begin their excursion and to call the bus depot. That meant we would have at least an hour wait. But everyone was really good about and our cruise director Zoe - who's a college student GOING to turn 21 this summer - did a great job to keep spirits high. When the other bus dropped off their passengers they came back for us (that's me with Zoe as we switched busses).
When we got up there, sure enough the fog was so thick you could cut it with a knife: I'm standing at the point of the observation deck where you SHOULD see Mount St. Helens - compare the view we had with a photo I grabbed off the website of what everyone typically sees from where I am standing!
WOW. What was going to happen and when would our second bus arrive left everyone up in the air. So we walked outside where I did the video for the day. We went half way up to another observation area and suddenly the fog lifted enough to be able to see the valley floor.
We'd seen a movie on the way to here about the eruption and the amount of destruction was amazing - I never knew. Two statistics caught my attention.....the blast when the volcano blew was equal to the same power if an atomic bomb like the one dropped on Japan in WW II had gone off....ONCE EVER SECOND for seven and a half hours....that's 27,000 atomic bombs! And the amount of mud and debris that flew down the mountain side would have covered the entire city of Seattle to the depth of the Space Needle!
We went back inside and I snapped a photo of Kim "in front of the mountain" and then she overheard Zoe explaining that the first bus was heading back and there was room for eleven people from OUR bus who wanted to go. So we took up the offer and rode back about 90 minutes earlier than when a substitute bus came for the rest of our people. We returned in time for cocktail hour and then had a great dinner with some new friends we made. After dinner we went to the evening's entertainment - featuring a piano player. And here's two other things about American Cruise Lines different other cruises ..... first, different from Viking River Cruises - the entertainment has been wonderful! Granted it's not the reason you go on a Viking River Cruise and frankly on the ones we've been on when there HAS been entertainment I was often too tired from the day's full schedule to go, but here you really get an added bonus with the post-dinner entertainment. And unlike ANY cruise we've ever been on.....during cocktail hour, A-L-L drinks are on the house! And the liquors they use are top shelf. Unlimited. Quite a savings as we have always just figured it "was part of the deal" to pay for a drink or two, each, before dinner. Truly, these guys are worth considering! There are at least six other itineraries they feature that I'm interested in! Who wants to join me!
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