Adieu, adieu, kind friends, adieu....

Fare thee well for I must leave thee,
Do not let the parting grieve thee,
And remember that the best of friends must part, must part.

Adieu, adieu, kind friends, adieu,
I can no longer stay with you,
I'll hang my butt on a 'Laska Airlines jet
And may the world go well with thee.

Okay, only for a couple weeks. Do I have to be so dramatic about it? Well, yes, I must. That refrain's been running through my head for a couple days, so I thought I'd dump it here and get rid of it.

Monday--tomorrow--I'm leaving Alaska for the state of Washington. I'll be going first to Walla Walla to visit my brother and his family and see their new winery. Then, I'll be on a Royal Caribbean cruise ship from Vancouver BC through the Inside Passage in Alaska as far north as Skagway, then return to Seattle.

The whole cruise thing isn't really my "thing" and why would I cruise to Alaska when I've lived here for more than sixty years? Well, for one thing there's a onboard writer's workshop I want to attend. Then, there's a photo safari in Juneau, a Chilkoot Trail hike and raft tour in Skagway, along with a tour of the cribs of famous goodtime girls from the gold rush days. In Ketchikan, after a horse drawn buggy ride around town, there's a zipline adventure with my name on it.

Back in Seattle, I'll be attending a friend's 80th birthday party, touring underground Seattle, and--best of all--staying with a friend from long ago who somehow was compelled to save a shoebox stuffed with old letters that I had written to her when she was away at college in 1965-66. Forty years later, that box of letters saved my life.

Big trip. I'll try to check in once in a while, but for sure I'll be back after May 20th. If you don't hear from me, call out the search and rescue guys....