November 27th – A Happy Thanksgiving

I was up and feeling good from the previous nights rest. The morning landing would be an interesting one. We climbed a small peak overlooking a protected bay. It was busy with glacial activity (and naturally a bunch of penguins). We ascended to the top and took a few moments for silent reflection to take in the natural beauty of the spot. It seems like a cheesy thing to do, but I ended up getting a really great feeling from the experience. It allowed me to really be thankful for and be conscious of where I was.

The fun part however was that we would toboggan down the slope we climbed up on our butts. It was really fun, I led the charge, and soon nearly everyone was in on the fun. There were two trails that had obviously been done before, we tried the first and then trekked back up to give the second a try. After a tough walk through some deep snow back to the boats, we crusied around some glaciers before returning to the ship.

The afternoon landing offered yet something different as the weather turned again and dropped on us a near white out blizzard. It was not totally unwelcome, however, because even though it sullied the natural view from the top of the landing, it allowed us the enjoyment of watching the massive full snowflakes fall. I sat on a rock at the top with my friend and stared out at the water and up at flakes falling from the sky for a good 45 minutes. It was a nice experience and similarly to my experience two days before when I saw the view that affirmed what I was doing there, this was her moment.

When we returned to the ship the night got started for real. My roommate had slept through the afternoon landing as he had camped the night before and had a tiring climb in the morning. We awoke him with a call of “Happy Thanksgiving!” and handed him a glass of wine. We drank for the next couple of hours until it was time for dinner. It was certainly not a traditional Thanksgiving feast, but there was Turkey and it was pretty darn good. We also had more wine with dinner and by the time we moved the party upstairs we were all feeling pretty good and from there on out the night is pretty much a blur of double rum drinks and Jaeger shots. I made it back to my bed under my own power which is more than could be said for my roommate.