Sparky Gets Seasick

Our day viewing the glaciers was just an amazing experience....Sparky is so glad she got to see some glaciers in her lifetime...The temps were wonderful, it was refreshing, Sparky got to go for a hike, and our last day on ship was to be spent on open ocean waters, which meant no more protection of the land on both sides so MORE movement on the ship!

WELL! Sparky discovered that she is not immune to getting seasick...which totally shocked her. She used to sail on little Sunfish sailboats as a teenager, (we know, that's nothing, laughs E.) has been out on the water on other boats as well with quite a bit of movement, and never had a problem. All of a sudden, Sparky didn't feel so good....quite a bit of nauseousness. The water was a little rough, even the experienced cruisers were hanging onto rails, and lurching around the deck for awhile. Sparky learned that each ship has its own specific movement, and even if you don't usually get seasick, there's always the possibility that the ship you are on will confound your body! You know when the inside pool has whitewater and waves, you KNOW the boat is a-rockin'! And there's nobody in the pool right now!

And of course, we didn't bring any kind of medication because we didn't think either one of us would have trouble. There are a LOT of treatments out there, but we had none of them at our disposal...No pills, no Benedryl, no wrist bands, which some people swear helps by using acupressure on the wrist,  no ginger pills, so Sparky was miserable for a few hours. Finally, somebody said the main office on the ship has something for seasickness. TADA! They were passing out a little packet of two pills, called "Sea Calm". http://dailymed.nlm.nih.gov/dailymed/drugInfo.cfm?id=27003 , 25 mg. of meclizine hydrochloride. That did the trick! But it made Sparky VERY tired! But, sleeping a little more when your stomach is very upset is not a bad idea.....Whew! For people traveling or cruising and worrying about getting seasick, there are MANY medications and over the counter preparations for that problem. Just Google it!

Entry way to one of the fields in the conservation park

Fortunately, we had one more wonderful place to visit before our trip completely ended. On the bus ride from Seward to Anchorage, where we were going to be catching our flight back, we made a stop (part of a final tour excursion for a very reasonable fee and well worth it) to the wonderful Alaskan Wildlife Conservation Center. There were grizzly bears there, a moose, two moose calves, some musk ox, a herd of caribou, elk and wood bison, all within very natural spacious surroundings except for fencing to keep out the human visitors and well taken care of. We thoroughly enjoyed our visit there on our way to heading home. Since we couldn't visit Denali, this was a nice closure to our visit. Sparky got some great photos and could at least say she saw a moose and a grizzly bear in the wild!

Sparky was sad to leave Alaska. It's a wonderful place to visit, but very few people would want to live there unless they were cold loving, hardy people. Sparky USED to be cold loving and hardy, not so much any more....So goodbye to Alaska, we hope we might be able to go back some day, if not, it was on Sparky's bucket list, and Eldy was a sweetheart to arrange all this so Sparky could fulfill one of her dreams.....

We'll be home a couple of days, and then....Off to Virginia to visit and say goodbye to Kelly, for a little while, who is deploying overseas soon.....See you next time in Virginia Beach!

The End (for now)