Vacation

As you can see I am back from my vacation and ready to pick up my “blogging” experiment.
But first let me thank you for allowing me this departure and for keeping the “flame” burning while I was away.

I love vacations.
Not only for allowing me to recharge my batteries after months and months of continuous work, but also because a vacation in a far away place is truly a spiritual experience.

When you go on a vacation you get removed from the “known”, the mundane and predictable, and in a matter of hours you are completely immerse in the “unknown”.
Your mind opens and expands instantly.
The further and more exotic the destination the more shocking and profound the transformation.

That is of course if you are the “adventurous” type.
If you like to explore the place and meet and talk to the people.
If you just want to stay into a nice resort far away from the “natives” you will get only the relaxing and recharging part of the vacation :)

Four years ago I took a ship cruise to Alaska.
The departure was from Seattle Washington so we had to fly to Seattle to catch the boat.
It was my first ship cruise so I did not know what to expect.

The whole trip was an extremely frustrating experience for me.
As one of the “mates” on the ship put it:
“Ship cruises are for the newly wed and the nearly dead”
My adventurous spirit was crushed by the tight schedule imposed by the ship.
We spend too much time on the ship and very little off shore.

I vouch I would come back one day, and explore the North West coast on my own terms.
So this year I took my family back to Seattle WA for one week and further north to Vancouver BC Canada for another week.
Next summer – hopefully – I will go up to Alaska for a week or two.

That is the only way to do it.
I mean ship cruises are nice if you want a convenient all you can eat buffet open 24/7 but at the same time they too big to get close to the glaciers and to slow to get close to the wild life.
They are more interested of you spending your money on the ship’s casinos and restaurants than to explore the shores.
So if you really want an adventure with no strings attached you have to do it yourself.