Latest Update: June 21, 2002 by Ben Marcus

13:11 PM FRIDAY, JUNE 21, 2002 ROOM 517 OF THE ALYESKA PRINCE HOTEL

It's 1:11 in the morning and 111 used to be my lucky number, but now I don't know.

Colin just closed the curtain and is sacking out. Amy just came by to borrow a razor and I hope she isn't cutting her wrists, but she has no reason to really because she is smart and funny and Helen Hunt/Jodie Fosterish, except that she just spent $250 on dinner for me and Colin up at the top of the mountain with a ridiculous view of everything, but that's no reason to do anything drastic.

I feel like cutting my wrists because of this e-mail from Peter I read after dinner:

Ben, Sorry but our crew is bailing on the expedition. My Dad has been trying to get rid of a sickness. Adam, I told him the mud bars were shitty and he was over it. I didn't want to go if the bore is no good. Poor Anthony is shattered over the whole thing. He wanted to go more than all of us. He has a big baseball tournament and all-stars. He didn't care he wanted to go to Alaska. Sorry things didn't work out.

Thanks for trying,

Peter

PS- I talked to Patrick and he knows the story.

Shit man, I'm jinxed in Alaska. Does Alaska love me or hate me? I love Alaska and hate it. I guess it's that love/hate thing I've heard about.

Things just don't go right for me here. For all I know, the tidal bore will come raging through here on Monday and Tuesday and I will have been an alarmist schmuck and ruined the whole thing by being cautious. We shall see. But it isn't right to drag a bunch of guys up here for something that is that dubious. John is sick. Adam is over it and I think we are all going fishing.

Amy wants to learn how to fly-fish. We owe her $250 worth of that, so maybe we'll all drive down to Homer and we can flog the Ninilchik and Deep Creek and the Anchor River and I can show her now not to catch steelhead.

We owe here that. Amy just spent a fortune on dinner in a restaurant that is ridiculously spectacular.

After Amy and I got in from the airport and she freshened up we went looking for Colin and Martin Leonard Martin Leonard Martin. We combed the lavish Alyeska Prince Hotel and looked in the lavish pool and the lavish exercise room but didn't see them anywhere, so we took the lavish tram up the hill. The operator said he was going half-speed because he had been seeing lots of black bear in the area and I don't know what a tram several hundred feet in the air has to do with black bear, but it was nice he was being so enviro, dude.

We took the tram up and Amy had made a reservation at the Seven Glaciers Restaurant so we didn't have to pay for the tram ride. On the way up we got a very nice view of the Turnagain Arm Which Isn't Going to Cooperate Apparently.

Up on top Amy ordered a Stinger whatever that is and I called Colin and he was in the room doing Who Knows What with Martin Leonard Martin. I told them to come up and Colin said bugger because he and MLM had just walked up to the top of the mountain and back down, but Colin was game. MLM had to go back to Anchorage and pack boxes because he was moving back to Bethel with his Eskimo wife and twin sons, who were born premature are now up to 30 pounds and doing well.

So Amy and I sat down for dinner at the Restaurant at the Top of the World. Holy Smokes it was scenic up there. The ski hill at Alyeska looks like a good one although I don't know much about such things. Seems like there was a fair bit of vertical and chutes and all that stuff in a small area.

Amy ordered a bottle of Sonoma County Zinfandel and we waited for Colin. It was nice, similar to a restaurant I ate in with Joanne Joanne Ottone on our honeymoon in the British Virgin Islands, which had a view over most of the BVI. I remember they were playing Enya when we walked in to the place. The view was unbelievable.

The Seven Glaciers restaurant looks out over the Turnagain Arm and lots of mountains and valleys and spectacular things. It's only 3900 feet but seems higher. There were lots of people leaping off the mountains with parapentes, and then floating easily down to the bottom.

I expected to see James Bond fighting with Jaws on the Tram going back down, but was disappointed in that.

Just spectacular is all it was, but so were the prices in the restaurant.

Colin showed up all a-bubble with his camera and we ordered. Buffalo for me, salmon for Colin and buffalo for Amy, with an appetizer of venison carpaccio and two bottles of Zinfandel.

Well it was just one of those memorable dinners, but I didn't think it would cost so much. We talked about this and that. What did we talk about? We talked about mystery man Martin Leonard Martin and how he so easily could have been one of those Lost Jamocas from Trenton, New Jersey who was full of shit, but he wasn't. Martin Leonard Martin has done what he said he has done, and what he has done is pretty damned gnarly. This guy kayaked the Northwest Passage, for foiks sake. We like him and wish him well and hope to see him again soon.

After a spectacular dinner with the sun blazing through the windows on us at 11:30 PM, Amy paid a $250 tab and I felt apologetic and we caught the last tram to the bottom of the hill and I had bad news waiting for me. Peter and them have cancelled and although I told them it was probably a good idea, it might not be. I have no idea what this dumb tidal bore is going to do in the next couple of days, but that is the essence of drama, isn't it?

Like last year, the trip was supposed to be a surf trip to Russia but it turned out to be an adventure with my cat. This trip might turn out to be a fly-fishing adventure with Amy Van Sant and Colin. Amy wants to try fly-fishing and Colin is game for whatever.

We might call Scott Liska for a trip on the Viking or we might cast our fate to Martin Leonard Martin Leonard and see if one of his fishermen friends in Cordova might take us to Russia or something.

But that's Alaska, you know. Never a dull moment. Always something to do.

Now it's 00:31. Colin is sacked out and Amy is probably likewise. Guess I'll hit the sack then wake up and see what happens because tomorrow is another day!!!!!!!

10:38 AM FRIDAY JUNE 21, 2002 ROOM 517 ALYESKA PRINCE HOTEL, GIRDWOOD, ALASKA

Let's play, "Guess what time of day it is!!!!" We had breakfast an hour ago so it must be morning, but it is impossible to tell here because of light and cloud. The clock on the wall says 10:40 AM.

I'm watching Castaway. Colin is sacked out. Amy is next door. She does look like Helen Hunt and she even has the same accent, sort of.

Everyone is resting up before the big Three Star bore attempt this afternoon. And then after that I'm hoping to convince Team Us to head south as far as the Russian River, where there is a big run of sockeye (red salmon) happening. Them is god eatin'. Neither Colin nor Helen/Amy are too excited about sockeye salmon, but I think they might get a little excited if they saw a river full of fish.

I wouldn't mind catching one or two of the buggers on my reconstituted Fenwick, just to see if it holds.

Castaway is a good except it always bugged me that he didn't open all of his Fed Ex packages right away. I mean, what is he waiting for? He needs everything he can get his hands on and who knows what is in those packages?

Oh well. Tom Hanks is screaming for the ship right now and it woke up Colin but now he is going back to sleep.

The days are along here, but at least we are in the lap o' luxury and it's scenic and all that.

Hopefully we'll head south this afternoon and see what is up.

Ben