A-Lindsey in A-laska!

Greetings from Sitka, Alaska (home of the fictional Paxton family and Kevin, the world's cutest lil' white puppy in The Proposal).

We have 30 more minutes at this port stop, so I'm going to attempt to write a blog on part one of my Alaska cruise trip!!  This = last night's whale watching cruise, which was epic and very much a "Be still and know" moment with God for me! ❤

All packed and ready for my flight to Seattle with my new rose gold suitcase + carry-on + backpack!

My new friend, Sarah!  She and her husband, Ron, were staying at the same Seattle hotel and taking the shuttle to the same cruise - this is her first cruise celebrating her 65th birthday - she gave her life to Jesus after hearing Beth Moore speak in the late 1990s, and she's been a big fan ever since!  It was great meeting her and Ron on my way to the ship and knowing I would at least have a couple friends on board! =)

My cruise stateroom - I'm sitting at that desk right now - and may I just say the balcony was an incredibly solid choice - I'm LOVING that view everyday!

Not shockingly, it's also been really great to hear Beth teaching and to worship with Travis and her team!!

I line danced with a couple songs during the set-sail celebration party, then took this video when they played The Wobble thinking of Jeffrey Edward! lol

Just a little light reading on my balcony porch! lol. Mostly, I've been enjoying the view and journaling by hand - making this a bit of a writing retreat to seek God and unplug - it's been fantastic!

Post by Annie F. Downs about God's direction on the day I left... Christine Caine also had a great (timely) email that day about God opening doors no one can shut and closing doors no one can open, and how we need to make sure we walk through the doors God does open for us! ❤

My closet - yay!

Meeting Beth for the first time on day two!!  Love her and so thankful for her influence in my life and walk with God! ❤

Breadmaking fun with Beth and Kendall Vanderslice! =)

I've been low-key obsessed with this song since I saw the new live Moana movie - Lin Manuel Miranda for the win!  This is my own personalized lyrics - that part about "the call isn't out there at all, it's inside me - it's like the tide, always falling and rising" reeeeally hits me! ❤

My room service breakfast (I at the hot stuff first and saved the cereal and banana for later. =)  Also, I ate this whilst watching a family of humpack whales from my balcony on day 3!  AMAZING!!

Worth every penny.

My first shore excursion was the Glacier Gardens and Mendenhall Glacier... the gardens were beautiful! 

So many trees and a very steep drive 600-feet up the mountain!

This was in the visitor's center - love it!

Mendenhall Glacier in the center behind me - another first for me!!

Yay, God!

I made the two-mile roundtrip walk to Nugget Falls with Megan and her mother, Teresa - some new friends from Houston, Texas!

Very worth the trek to see this in person!

Pic from our walk back to the shuttle bus!

I ❤ squirrels, even when they look annoyed with me! lol

My only purchase in Juneau. lol

I joined their table for dinner that night, and Megan and I stayed there talking until around 10:45 - she's a Christian counselor who is also seeking God's direction while on this cruise - yay for making new friends on the ship!!

Ran into Sarah again - yay!

Jubilee, my omelette chef - she's very kind and remembers everyone's names!

I've gone to the hot tub twice and done two workouts in the fitness center.  Taking this fake through-the-mountains bike trail while sailing through actual mountains made me happy!

Some relaxing spa time for a shellac mani/pedi with Billy (who is originally from Ghana and has worked here for five years now)

 

That was yesterday morning as we sailed through Glacier Bay - this = the view from the spa windows.  Pretty phenomenal!

This morning's stop in Sitka included a historic highlights tour.
This = St. Michael the Archangel Orthodox Cathedral

I tried to fein interest, but I couldn't care much less about totem poles. 

The National Historical Park was our last stop for that tour, then I grabbed some pizza and ice cream on the boat and headed back up to my stateroom to write this before our next session with Beth at 4:45!

Although they pretend it's Sitka, Alaska, The Proposal was apparently filmed in Massachusetts (lamesauce).  Sarah and I were both hoping Sitka's history tour would include some highlights from that movie, but no such luck. lol  My favorite part of today was seeing this eagle at the top of a very tall tree - this is the clearest pic I could get with my phone!  We also had one fly over us, which is said to be good luck - I'll take it! =)

I haven't been seasick at all, which is a minor miracle.  I've loved having my own room and some quiet time to journal and hang out with God here.  I've gotten some extra sleep and gradually watched two of the three Bourne movies - one more to go - fun!  Beth's teaching (on God's appointed timing) has been great, and I'm excited to have made a few new like-minded Christian friends on the boat!  The spa and hot tub have been fun, the food has been good, the ocean views and mountains and glaciers have been incredible.  But the best thing about this trip so far has been last night's whale watching cruise - mostly because God used it to confirm some things for me, and I am deeply grateful for that! ❤

Before we left for that whale watching excursion, the man next to me was talking about being excited to see some orcas, and the tour guide very quickly assured him that humpback whales is what we would be seeing in this region.  I've been praying for clarity and going back and forth about whether to press forward with the PhD, so I prayed right then telling God that if we saw any orca whales, I would take it as a confirmation and finish that program - I clarified that I needed to see them myself, not hear from someone else that thought they might've seen one. lol  I genuinely thought it would be a subtle confirmation that I'm free to let this all go...

...I took over 60 videos, and we don't have a strong enough internet connection to back them up or post them here yet, but in addition to seeing soooo many active humpback whales, the very first thing we saw was a family of at least five orcas - our tour guides were tearing up with excitement and telling us this is the first time they've come out like that all year.  They went on and on about what a surprising rare treat this was, how it's usually raining and hard to see much, but we had perfect weather, and I knew it was all straight from God (which is true of any blessings we receive, but this felt especially personal and helpful as I've needed some direction and clarity here).

So I don't have all the answers for what I'll do with it or how God wants to use it in the future - and I know it will be a lot of hard work and personal growth - but I am officially getting the PhD.  Dr. Wood from CCU actually called this morning (fascinating timing) to check in about my plans for the program, and I said I will be moving forward, starting this October!

This was on our boat ride back to the cruise ship... most of it is hidden behind the clouds (#perfectmetaphor), but there is a rainbow peeking out under them to the right above the mountains - God's promises and His faithfulness still stand, and what a gift that is!!  

And the call isn't out there at all - it's inside me.

It's like the tide, always falling and rising.

I will carry you here in my heart

You'll remind me

That come what may, I know The Way!

❤ ❤ ❤

Colorado, Round 7

My 7th trip to Colorado was a long weekend with my oldest nephew.  The goal was to help him with the apartment search and learn some details on his future job, so mission accomplished!

This = T and I on a hike at the Chautauqua Park this morning!  (It's out of order, but I wanted it to be the cover pic for this post.)

Friday was the 10-hour drive from 9am Central to 6ish Mountain Time.  We had a nice chat for the first 4+ hours, then T took a nap while I listened to The Curiosity Shop podcast, a new favorite for me.  We checked in at the DoubleTree in Cherry Creek then headed over to the 16th Street Pedestrian Promenade (such a fun atmosphere there!!) for a fun Mexican dinner on the patio at 3 Margaritas, followed by a 30-minute walk around that area then seeing the Masters of the Universe movie at 9:15! 

Pic from our walk =)

Saturday started off with breakfast and coffee for T at the Steam Espresso Bar, a cool coffee shop at a restored firehouse in the Lower Highlands (LoHi) area of Denver.

Then we toured seven apartments with a brief stop for lunch at In-N-Out somewhere in there.  We did a self-guided tour at the Cirrus (meh).  It was a quick no on the guided tour of the High Line Pointe apartments.  We were able to sneak the Elevon Apartments in between two scheduled tours, and they were the top contender at that point (they were in the Union Station area)!

After lunch, we toured the 4040 Fox Apartments with Giovanni, a newer complex that had some nice amenities!

We rushed through the (undesirable) older Waterford apartment complex in Cherry Creek.  And finally, we saw the Amli Golden Triangle apartments (the "Amli Family"), a brand new complex that was super nice, as was our tour guide!  It was T's number one contender and the closest to the downtown Denver area!

Furnished model unit

Balcony view of downtown Denver (better seen in person, of course)

And after all of that, we met Holly Dei for a tour of her apartment (rooftop pic here)

We took an Uber to dinner at Satchel's on 6th, then took a leisurely walk back to her apartment, stopping for ice cream and to chat with an engineer friend of hers on the way back.

It was a pleasant outdoor walk that included a difficult-but-important conversation.

Based on that, our plans for day two shifted a bit.  We drove to Boulder, CO (a first for both of us), where we took a short hike with a major incline (which felt worse with the altitude adjustment) at Chautauqua Park!  But yay for these pics - made me think of the 2014 convo with JEM - the pics do make *light* hiking worth it!

The lady walking in front of us pointed to several buildings with red rooftops and told her friends that was the CU Boulder campus.  Whaaat?  We hadn't realized we were four minutes away, but we stopped by their bookstore and grabbed some merch for Triston's future college campus!

Then we took a stroll through the Pearl Street Mall and grabbed lunch at the Organic Sandwich Company.  We had a really good talk where T made some wise observations about how a lot of life comes down to being able to pivot and find a new path forward when life doesn't go according to plan.

After lunch, we listened to Michael Jackson whilst Tman bravely drove us through the freaking windy mountains to the Brainard Lake Recreation Area, another spot recommended by ChatGPT on a last-minute search Saturday night... (I also bought myself this new hat at the CU Boulder Bookstore.)  

Scary drive; scenic mountain views!

In the end, the road to Brainard Lake was closed -- they close it for winter but usually reopen it mid-May -- you could take a four-mile walk to go see it, but we had a tour scheduled and didn't have the extra time for that.  So we drove 45 minutes out of our way and then walked over a mile through a field swarming with gnats to see this far smaller and less exciting Red Rock Lake, which honestly felt like a fitting metaphor on this trip.

HOWEVER, we met a fantastic older couple who have lived in Boulder 40 years.  They were out hiking, and we walked back to our car with them.  Triston talked to the man, a retired doctor and Army veteran who had good advice for him about living in the Boulder area... and I walked and talked with his wife, who told me about growing up in Seattle, some good things to see in Alaska, and their coming trip to New Zealand to celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary.  They were a gem, and the genuine connection was a treat!

Phillip and Tman (walking back up to the Road Closed sign that blocked us from getting to see the bigger lake)!

We did one final apartment tour at The Russell, then we stopped for Sam-n-Ella's style pizza at BeauJo's on our way back!

I dropped Tman off at Holly's apartment (four minutes from our hotel).  He is staying there the next four nights while she is on a Vegas vacation, then flying home Thursday night - I hope he has a great time getting to explore a bit more of Colorado.  Then I ended the night with some familiar friends (the Barden Bellas and the Oceans 13 crew) whilst snacking on a DoubleTree cookie and writing these blogs - and now I have an audiobook-filled drive ahead of me tomorrow - fun times!! ❤

Hope you've had a great weekend, friends!  And here's a friendly reminder that a lot of life is about the ability to pivot well and find a new path forward when things do not go according to plan!

❤ ❤ ❤