The alarm rang at 3:30 and we were on the 4:30 shuttle. The ticketing area at CLE was insane at 5:00 a.m. Where are all these people going?!!! After standing in line for about two minutes for PreCheck, a security person got the attention of the person ahead of us and told us all to follow her. She knew another PreCheck TSA line that was not at all busy, and we were placing our bags on the belt in a couple of minutes. But then we saw a TSA official grabbing one of our carry-ons. Yes, the dreaded search.

Most cruise lines have noticed an uptick in Norovirus. I’ve been following the accounts in the various Holland America and Alaska Cruise groups on Facebook. Out of an abundance of caution, I stocked up on Clorox wipes and the travel size of Lysol spray. Unfortunately, the only Clorox wipes I could find was the 75-count container. Y’know, the one that weighs about a pound-and-a-half? Yep, that’s what the three guys peering into the scanner screen were trying to figure out when I realized my bag was taking a long time to clear the TSA screening. The lovely gentleman looking through my belongings laughed and asked, “Going on a cruise, huh?” Busted! But note that we returned home ten days later completely healthy, after much handwashing and cabin wiping-down.

Bar Symon in the Cleveland airport has become our favorite pre-flight breakfast place. It’s never packed at 5:30 a.m. and the wait staff lets us sit quietly with our NYTimes puzzles, refilling our coffee and tea while we wait for boarding times. And then we were onboard.

I booked Alaska Airlines, a oneworld Alliance member, through American Airlines and was thrilled to learn Alaska Air now offers nonstop flights from Cleveland and Pittsburgh to Seattle.That meant we would depart CLE around 7:00 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time and arrive at SEA just after 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time. That’s pretty sweet.

This is where I confess to being one of those regular fliers who takes a bag of chocolates to the flight attendants to say “thanks in advance for the excellent service.” I have never gotten the kind of welcome I received from this crew. They were so appreciative of the treats, and I believe every flight attendant on that plane stopped by our seats to thank us. They also shared some goodies with us that they keep tucked away—cookies and chocolate that are well known in the Pacific Northwest. John and Lauren were our first class cabin attendants, and provided us with such an enjoyable flight. Lauren had a Southern drawl I had to ask her about, as she reminded me of my piano partner in Youngstown who hails from Mississippi. Honestly, every aspect of the flight made me want to fly Alaska Airlines every time it’s available for our chosen routes from now on.

The flight was smooth and easy. For the first couple of hours, the smoke from the wildfires in western Canada obscured our view of the areas we were crossing, but as we neared Seattle, I was treated to beautiful views of the snow-capped mountains.

We had arranged through the hotel for a town car to pick us up from the airport and take us to the Inn at the Market. The bags took close to an hour to arrive on the carousel, and the construction around the airport made the traffic there just nightmarish. But we found our driver, Vitaly, a lovely and well-spoken man from Ukraine who told us interesting stories about emigrating from Ukraine to the U.S. when he was nine years old. We finally arrived at our hotel about 11:00 a.m.

We checked in, but the room wasn’t ready, so we dropped our bags and called a cab. We were heading to the Fremont area for another delightful afternoon with Jas’s cousin, Rita, who has lived in Seattle much of her adult life and loves showing off that beautiful city to friends and family. I had not met Rita’s husband, Andy, on our previous visit in August, 2017, and was happy to spend some time with this lovely new-to-me friend. Rita had salads and sandwiches prepared for us, and the weather couldn’t have been more beautiful for a backyard lunch.

After lunch they drove us to explore the Ballard Locks and the Lake Union area. So much beauty everywhere! I could easily live in the Seattle area. Of course, I think that about almost every part of the world I visit. Noticing our yawns after early rising and the four-hour time change, Andy and Rita drove us back to the Pike Place neighborhood and dropped us at our hotel. Our bags had not been delivered to the room, so there was a little up and down to work that out, then Jas napped while I sat by the 8th floor window, loving the expansive view over Puget Sound.

When Jas woke, the market was already closed, so we just walked the block around the hotel and sat on the sidewalk out the hotel restaurant, Bacco, where we shared an order of fish and chips and gaped at the traffic. Then we walked a little more, snapping pictures and ultimately finding Shug’s for ice cream. Back to the room, some reading, and asleep before 9:00. Scott and Cynthia would arrive from Dallas around midnight, and we’d see them in the morning.

Just a note from an old programmer who has watched computers grow up: Inn at the Market has the worst software in the history of bad software. If you ever decide to stay there on a trip to Seattle, triple-check ever arrangement you make with the front desk. Several transfers I had reserved and paid for were lost, and many phone calls from Ohio were not recorded in our records. I think the biggest problem was that the agents I spoke with at the hotel left all three rooms in my name and never recorded the names of the other guests. It took a number of trips down to the lobby over the course of the two days to ensure that we’d have places to sleep and rides to the pier on Saturday.

But the views from our room were great, so there’s that!

Here’s the wine rack in the 2019-renovated kitchen of our 1927 home, decorated with an early birthday card my lifelong BFF sent. Her granddaughter picked it out, having never met me, and it has musical notes on it!!! I’m seventeen days from turning 75 years of age. I’ve spent the past nineteen months planning this trip, a terrific adventure for my sons, myself, and our people, as they say on “Grey’s Anatomy.” The boys’ father and I divorced when they were around ages 8 and 6. Now they are ages 52 and 50. We three have not take a “family” vacation since they were teenagers. If I spend too long thinking about this upcoming trip, my eyes fill with tears. These two men have become wonderful adults: ethical, loving, hard-working. I am very lucky to be their mom. I’m going to enjoy this trip so very much.

For this trip, rather than be anxious about leaving my old house empty, I’ve asked a recent YSU graduate, a theatre major whom I accompanied for his voice performances throughout his undergrad career, if he and his girlfriend (now fiancée 😘) would house- and plant-sit for us while we’re gone. They live in a small apartment not very convenient to their work locations, and were excited at the prospect of ten days in a lovely old house with lots of space and a much shorter commute.

The entire week leading up to departure was frenetic. I was constantly trying to remember and document all the little idiosyncracies of my 98-year-old house that the housesitters would need to know, while trying to straighten up the house to be presentable for guests. And packing and repacking to get just the right wardrobe for wet and cold Alaska as well as unpredictable Seattle. Not a restful week.

Tuesday, Day -4:

Remember 2022, when the winter weather was so horrible that flights were cancelled for days in a row and travelers didn’t find their baggage for weeks? Ever since that time, when we travel with checked bags, we always hide Apple AirTags deep in the bag lining. Just in case. Jas and I both keep AirTags on our car keys, and swap them out before leaving for a trip. While I was busy packing in the guest room (travel staging area), he came in and asked me again about baggage tags and AirTags. I brought his keys up from the kitchen for him to use his strong fingernails to open the AirTag. He handed me the removed AirTag, then we went on talking about the trip logistics, and he stood up from the chair where he was sitting and went into the den to get some clothes out of his closet. He laid the keys (car, house, JCC gym pass, YMCA gym pass) in his opened top dresser drawer rather than stop what he was doing to walk to the kitchen and put them back in their usual home—a handcrafted ceramic bread pan that was a years-ago gift from darling DIL Leslie. Wait! We’re old. You know what’s coming, don’t you?!

Wednesday, Day -3:

Fast forward to the next day, when Jas would have a pickleball game and we would drive to Cleveland to stay in the Crowne Plaza before catching a 4:30 a.m. flight-day shuttle to the airport. We rose around 7:00 a.m., he dressed for pickleball, and we headed to the breakfast nook for our cereal and Wordle. The clock continued advancing, and he stood up to grab his gym bag and head to the YMCA. Whoops, there were no keys in the ceramic bread pan. “Jan, have you seen my keys?”

Note that keys with attached AirTags are always findable. His keys are now somewhere in that 2500 sq. ft. house with no tracker attached! I said, “Good thing you’ve got a spare fob,” which he quickly grabs, heading to his car to be on time for his game. He hadn’t used that spare fob in months and it was … wait for it … dead. I tell him to take my car. But then he realizes he doesn’t have his YMCA hang tag, which is on his key ring. I have a YMCA membership, also, so he says the desk clerks at the Y never watch the photos that pop up on their computers when someone enters. As long as they hear a beep, they’re happy. So my car, my keys, my Y hang tag, and Jas and his pickleball paddle head to the Y.

After the game he swings by the grocery store to grab a couple of items, then comes home. I have checked numerous places while he was gone, but no keys. When we get home from Alaska in ten days, he’s leaving again the next morning to drive to North Caroline with a friend in the friend’s car, so no keys needed. After that, if the keys haven’t surfaced, he’ll go buy a new fob or get a new battery for the dead fob.

We’re a very short time from leaving to drive to Cleveland. He opens the top drawer of his dresser to get a hanky for his pocket, and I hear him start laughing. The keys, Boss, the keys!!! Within twenty minutes, we’re in the car driving to Cleveland.

We check into the hotel and schlep our six bags (two checked, two carry-ons, two personal items) to the room. We walk into the room and it r*e*e*k*s of cigarette smoke. Some very naughty guest has made it impossible for me to sleep in this room without waking with a migraine. Damn. I go to the desk and explain the situation, and the clerk carefully chooses another—more suitable—room for migraineur me.

I grab the trolley and we move the bags to the new room, which is hot from the afternoon sun with the A/C off. We turn the A/C way up and go down to dinner. Neither of us was very hungry, after the turmoil of the day. We both got the turkey club. And when our plates arrive, they were huge! We should have gotten one to share. I groaned and kind of picked mine apart with a fork. Then we went back upstairs, where I unpacked and repacked again to see how much stuff I could extract without regretting it. I solemnly swear that I will figure out how to architect an appropriate wardrobe before our next cruise (January of 2026, if you’re interested). I’ve been doing this far too long to do it so poorly.

We set out our clothes for the next day and fell asleep.

Another summer, another opportunity to view the exquisite beauty that is everywhere one looks in Alaska. This cruise began with the whim of a twelve-year-old girl who thinks like I do. I refer to her as Miss C, and she’s the beautiful and intelligent daughter of my precious daughter-in-law, Leslie. Miss C has been in my younger son’s life since she was about four years old, and I’m fortunate to be able to visit with her several times each year. I have loved watching this now-almost-15-year-old young woman as she’s developing into the dynamo she’ll be as an adult.

On several visits during the summer of 2023, following our previous Alaska cruise, I talked rather incessantly about the vistas that I saw in Alaska, and how I wanted to go back again. Toward the end of that summer, Leslie and Tyler mentioned they were going to Las Vegas in October to hear the band, U2, perform. (U2 has been a favorite of Tyler’s since he was in high school. He first introduced me to their music during one of our many road trips from Interlochen Arts Academy to and from our home in the Washington DC area.) Leslie said Caroline had asked if I’d come up and stay with her during the time they were away rather than having her stay with family friends in the Interlochen area. I was kind of surprised. Like most young women [that I know] in her age range, Miss C spends much time secluded in her room, listening to favorite music or doing whatever teenagers do on their phones. She knows her maternal grandmother far better than she knows me, her Extra Grandma.

Here’s where the great compliment happened: according to my memory of Leslie’s words, when asked why she was asking for me to come up and “teen-sit” her, Miss C responded something like: “I’d like to go on a cruise with Jan sometime and this would be an opportunity to see how compatible we are before spending a week together on a ship.” Would you have thought that logically when you were twelve? I certainly didn’t. I rarely think that logically at my advanced age! It was brilliant!!!

So I said I’d be happy to come up and try to keep her nourished and get her to school and other activities at the correct time. And I started thinking about another cruise to Alaska.

Apparently, I passed my suitable-travel-partner test with Miss C, because after I got back home from the teen-sitting gig, and Leslie and Tyler got back home from Vegas, we started talking about Jas and Miss C and me taking a cruise together.

I envisioned activities and excursions one would do with a young woman who would be 14, almost 15, in the early summer of 2025, which is the soonest I would want to go again. The more I thought, the louder the voices in my head called out, “You’re a Boy Mom. You’re not a Girl Mom! You don’t have a clue what to do with Girl Teenagers.” And another voice, a snarkier voice, growled, “Remember the various random stepdaughters you’ve had throughout your many marriages?” And I collapsed into a fetal position and sobbed, loudly.

So during one of the talks with Tyler about potential cruises and the timing aspect, he signed off one call with the memorable and plan-changing words: “We could all go.” And he sort of “heh, heh” laughed. Like he’d be interested, but he couldn’t imagine spending that kind of money. The time frame I was considering was late May and early June of 2025, just a couple of weeks after his 50th birthday. And we already knew that Leslie wanted to take a [pricey] big and memorable trip to Germany for the celebration of his 50th. So the very thought of a trip to Germany and a cruise to Alaska seemed to cripple his ability to imagine so much travel.

But when I sat with the Holland America website open on one device, the calendar open on the desk nearby, and my budget spreadsheet open on another device, I said to Jas, “I think I can do this.” It was late October of 2023, and I had sixteen months to scrimp, save, and say “yes” to every gig that came my way.

I called Tyler back, and had him float the idea to Leslie, and then have her look at her regular Interlochen Arts Camp summer calendar, and throw a dart at the calendar. We came up with the first or second week of June. It would be cheaper and easier to fly into Seattle than Vancouver. He and Leslie were liking the idea. And then I asked, “Should we ask your brother to join us?” And then the final question that made both Tyler and Jas think “she’s lost her mind” came: I’ll pay for the cruise and for your airfare.

And here we are.

Countdown – Wednesday, 6/4/2025

Countdown – Thursday, 6/5/2025

Countdown – Friday, 6/6/2025

Embarkation, Day 1 – Saturday, 6/7/2025

Day 2 – Sunday, 6/8/2025
Sea Day

Day 3 – Monday, 6/9/2025
Scenic cruising Stephens Passage,
Juneau, Alaska – arriving 12:30 p.m.

Day 4 – Tuesday, 6/10/2025
Glacier Bay Cruising
Icy Strait Point, Alaska – arriving 5:30 p.m.

Day 5 – Wednesday, 6/11/2025
Sitka, Alaska – 8:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.

Day 6 – Thursday, 6/12/2025
Ketchikan, Alaska – 6:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.

Day 7, Friday, 6/13/2025
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada – 8:00 p.m. – 11:59 p.m.

Day 8, Saturday, 6/14/2025
Disembarkation, Fly Home