No air ... No bear ..... (it's a foggy mountain breakdown ...)

Always ... ALWAYS ... have a plan "B" ... sadly for this day there was
no plan "B".

I awoke about 4am expecting to see the typical early morning dawn light
filter through the drawn shades of our balcony window ... oddly ...
there was barely any light at all ... remember dawn comes very very
early here and sunset is around 11pm. This did not bode well for our
Kodiak bear watching adventure. Back to sleep ...

At 6am ... I walked out on the balcony after being awakened by several
loud and insistent blasts of a ship's horn .. OUR ship in fact ... I was
greeted with a scene out of the "Hounds of the Baskervilles" ... a
dreary morn on the Scottish moor ... fog so thick I could barely see the
ship's bow. Once we were docked ... I could just barely make out the
green mountains alongside but only a few hundred feet up; their upper
halves (or more) shrouded in thick billowing fog.

Knowing things did not look promising we ate a quick breakfast, again
looking at the foggy scene from the dining room and then disembarked for
our 8am-8:15am pickup by Kingfisher air service. 8:15am rolled around
with no "silver van with a red stripe and the name Kingfisher air" in
sight. So I called them ... said I was at the dock waiting for pickup
... they responded with .."we could pick you up but we likely won't be
flying today ..." --- RATS!!! ... we agreed to wait another 30 minutes
to see if the fog would lift (it wasn't likely) and make contact again
... back on the ship ... after 30 minutes I called again ... nope ...
can't fly in this soup ... they offered to take us "flightseeing" if the
fog lifted by noon ... "no thanks ... just came to see the bears".

And thus ends the sad story of our Kodiak bear watching adventure ...

So ... with no real plan B ... we decided to see what the town of Kodiak
City had to offer. The ship was running a continuous shuttle from the
dock to mid-town for the princely sum of $6 per round trip. As we
waited for the next shuttle the little lady in the dockside information
booth came out and told us the walk was only about fifteen minutes
"right down that road" ... I think she saw two reasonably healthy adults
NOT in wheelchairs and not using walkers or canes and decided we should
save the $12. So ... off we went "down the road" ... it's appropriate
to mention at this point that the main driving force behind the Kodiak
economy is fishing ... big time commercial fishing ... and as a result
... Kodiak is host to several very large and very odious fish processing
plants ... as it turns out ... that 15 minute stroll from the cruise
ship pier to "downtown Kodiak" takes you right beside virtually ALL of
those fish processing plants ... the trek to town was neither scenic nor
"pleasant" olfactory wise ... turns out FISH STINK!!

Once we made it into downtown Kodiak city we discovered it to be similar
to Valdez ... not really a "tourist" kind of place ... it isn't on many
(if any other) cruise ship's itineraries and thus doesn't really cater
to the "pod people" we have become.

We walked around a bit, went into 2 or 3 shops, visited a local "arts
and crafts fair" (which I suspect was organized solely because there was
a cruise ship in town today) and then walked back to the ship ... past
those same lovely fish processing plants ...

It turns out ... if you can't fly to see bears in Kodiak ... the next
best plan is to do your dirty laundry ... an activity I am engaged in as
I write this sorry tale.

Tomorrow is a sea day as we make the long passage back to Juneau so it
is unlikely there will be much if anything of merit to post tomorrow ...
I've been dealing with a severe back spasm problem since after the white
water rafting trip and hopefully it will abate before the zipline tour
day after tomorrow in Juneau ... I went to see the ship's doctor
thinking I could get some muscle relaxants but it was going to turn into
a bigger ordeal than I wanted to mess with so I'm hoping time, rest and
aleve will come to the rescue.

Time to go check the dryer ....

Bade