August 6, 2019 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Summer Covers I Like

Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Officially, this week’s topic was Cover Redesigns I Loved/Hated. I generally don’t notice – much less have strong opinions about –  book cover redesigns, so I tweaked the topic to be Summer Covers I Love instead. Since August is a hot, humid month here in southern Ontario,  I thought it might be fun to look at some pretty book covers that evoke this time of the year.

I haven’t read all of these books, so this post is only an endorsement of their eye-catching covers.

Summer Sisters by Judy Blume

What I liked about it:

Including beach chairs without showing people in them allows every reader to imagine themselves sitting at the beach. There’s nothing more refreshing than cooling down at the beach on a hot day!

The Sign for Drowning by Rachel Stolzman

What I liked about it:

Listening to the ocean in a seashell is magical no matter how old you are. I never grow tired of doing this or looking at book covers that depict it.

Jersey Angel by Beth Ann Bowman 

What I liked about it:

I have trouble running, jumping, or diving into water I know is going to be cold even on a hot summer day. Seeing the woman doing that without hesitation on this book cover makes me smile.

Shug by Jenny Han

What I liked about it:

Normally, I try to stick to a sugar-free diet. This summer I have not been following that rule so well. There’s nothing like having a popsicle or some ice cream on a day that is unrelentingly hot and humid.

Ndura: Son of the Forest by Javier Salazar Calle

What I liked about it:

As tired as I can get of the heat waves at this time of the year, I always appreciate being surrounded by greenery.  Ontario is a brown, drab place for half of the year, so it’s always nice to see lush leaves, plants, flowers, and other signs of life in August. The time is coming when we won’t have those splashes of colour on the landscape again for many months.

The Great Lakes: The Natural History of a Changing Region by Wayne Grady

What I liked about it:

Water is something we kind of take for granted here in Ontario because there’s generally plenty of it. There’s actually been a lot of flooding in Toronto this spring and summer! I love the way this cover shows how beautiful our Great Lakes can be during the warm months, though. They’re definitely something I need to learn to appreciate (and visit) more often.

Thank You for Flying Air Zoe by Erik Atwell

What I liked about it:

Sandals, shorts, and t-shirts are what I spend as much time wearing as possible during the summer. I love the relaxed sense of fashion that a lot of people have during this portion of the year. It’s too humid to worry about looking anything other than comfortable if you’re going to be outdoors.

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August 5, 2019 · 1:00 am

Put Down Your Phone and Pay Attention

Today I’d like to talk to you about mindfulness, brainstorming, and what house wrens are really capable of. (If descriptions of the non-Disney side of the natural world are disturbing to you, consider this a content warning).

No, I’m not anti-technology, and this isn’t a rant. Smart phones have brought many positive changes to modern society, from making it easier to navigate an unfamiliar city to finding out what time a specific venue closes before you traipse halfway across town for it.

I simply believe in balance. Right now, I think I’m relying a little too heavily on my phone for entertainment at times when I could be paying attention to other things instead. Sitting quietly on a bench and seeing what happens can be a nice palate cleanser at times.

Now that the caveats are out of the way, let’s talk about what happened at the park this past weekend. It was a little too warm to do anything strenuous outdoors then, so my spouse and I sat on a bench in the shade and relaxed.

Mindfulness

One of the things I’ve been trying to work on lately is spending less time on my cell phone. It’s so easy to browse Reddit or read my newest email when I’m out and about but nothing particularly interesting is happening at that exact second. Since we don’t go to that particular park very often, I tried to drink in every detail around us.

The forest behind us was filled with the sound of cicadas buzzing. There was a picnic table off in the distance filled with people eating lunch together.  A woman and her dog jogged past us at one point, and I marvelled at how well the dog was keeping up with her.

The writing portion of my brain always wants to make up stories about the people, animals, and places around me. I let those thoughts bubble up but didn’t encourage them. They’ve caught my attention before, and they will catch it again.

It was at this point that I noticed the house wren. These birds are incredibly common here in southern Ontario. I often see them hopping around on the sidewalk and nibbling on seeds or other bits of food they can find there. They’re fluffy little creatures that I’ve always felt oddly protective over.

House Wrens and What They’re Capable of

The wren was picking something up with its beak. At first I assumed it was a seed, and then the house wren’s lunch wiggled.

It wasn’t a seed.

It wasn’t a stray crumb from someone’s hot dog.

It was a bug.

Not only was it a bug, it was a bug that continued to wiggle up until the point that the house wren tore it in half and began eating it.

I will admit to not responding particularly mindfully to this scene at first. Up until this point, I’d always assumed that this species of bird was vegetarian.

It is not.

If I were the size of that bug, I might have been next on the menu!

Brainstorming and Mindfulness

Mindfulness and brainstorming can coexist. I tucked that mental image into the back of my mind and continued to sit quietly on that shaded bench.

For the time being, I lived in the moment once I adjusted to what that bird was having for lunch. It isn’t every day that the weather in August is cool enough to sit outdoors for as long as we did that day!

Now that I’m back home again, I can’t stop thinking about how the same creature can be a vicious predator in one scenario and fluffy and harmless in another.

This is common knowledge, of course, but it’s not something I as a city person see being played out very often.

It makes me wonder how our human ancestors over- or underestimated other species in the distant past when we moved to parts of the world no human had visited before.

To give this line of thought a futuristic bent, it also makes me wonder how humans from generations who have yet to be born might misjudge an alien species if we were to ever meet one. Maybe astronauts should be taught mindfulness. Or, if you’re writing something that would work better if humans acted impulsively, maybe NASA should specifically select for people who react as soon as they see something out of the ordinary.

Mostly, though, I’m thinking about house wrens and how ideas truly can pop up anywhere if you put down your phone sometimes and pay attention.

Respond

How has practicing mindfulness influenced your writing? Am I the only person who didn’t realize house wrens were omnivorous? When was the last time you came up with an unexpected idea?

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August 1, 2019 · 1:00 am

Adventures on the Orange Planet: A Review of The Lady of Dawnzantium

As mentioned earlier this summer, I’ve decided to include more book reviews in the publication queue for this blog. Everything I review will somehow be connected to the speculative fiction genre, and I will highlight authors whose books are self-published, indie, or from small presses as often as possible.

As always, my reviews are spoiler free.

Title: The Lady of Dawnzantium – A Trace & Mikhail Story

Author: Berthold Gambrel

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: 2018

Genres: Science Fiction, Mystery, Humour

Page Count: 13 pages

Source: I received a free copy from Berthold.

Rating: 4.5 Stars

Blurb: Two adventurers encounter a strange creature on a remote colony world in this humorous sci-fi short story.

Review:

Nearly every small town has a local legend or two. This is true even for communities that were built on faraway planets only a few years ago!

This was one of the funniest tales I’ve read in ages, but I can’t give you specific examples of why that is so. Let’s just say that not everything in Dawnzantium, the planet Trace and Mikhail are visiting in order to hopefully solve a local mystery, is necessarily what it first appears to be. Pay attention to everything the characters say and enjoy the ride!

The one thing I wish had been made more clear in this short story is whether it was part of a series that needed to be read in a specific order. The subtitle and certain references in the storyline made me think it may be part of a much larger universe, and I’m a stickler for reading books in order. I wasn’t entirely sure at first if this was a sequel, prequel, beginning of a new series, or something that was intended to be read as a standalone work. It would have been nice to know for certain  that I wasn’t accidentally jumping into the middle of a series when I started this tale.

One of the things I like the most about the science fiction genre in general is how it imagines humans will react to living in places that don’t look or feel much like Earth at all. Some of the strongest scenes were the ones that explained what Dawnzantium looked like and how it was different from our home planet. Humans could live there fairly comfortably, but there were a few things about it that were unique.

Figuring how whether to use the mystery tag in this review was a fun challenge. There were mystery elements in the plot, but the storyline remained firmly rooted in the science fiction genre. This is something I’d recommend to readers who are curious about mysteries but not quite sure if that genre is right for them. The little taste of it here may be enough to help you make up your minds either way!

The ending was fabulous. While it was something I’d briefly wondered about while reading earlier scenes, seeing the narrator go off in the direction I’d been speculating about was still a great deal of fun. Readers who paid close attention to the beginning will get a nice payoff by the final scene.

This is a must-read for anyone who enjoys humorous science fiction.

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July 31, 2019 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Favorite Food and How I Use (+ Recipe)

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Fellow participants, I have one word for you: strawberries.

They’re in season in June and July here in southern Ontario. My grandmother serves strawberries, milk, and sugar to relatives as a light supper on hot days when no one is that hungry and she doesn’t want to heat up the kitchen.

Most of the time, I slice them up and eat them plain. They’re so sweet and juicy that they really don’t need the extra sugar in my opinion.

Occasionally, though, I make my family’s shortcake recipe and eat it with almond milk and sliced strawberries.

This is a pretty forgiving recipe. You can use half the sugar if you’re serving it someone who needs to watch their sugar intake. It works well with many different combinations of flour, fats, and types of milk, too, so feel free to play around with it if you need to avoid certain ingredients for whatever reason.

I should warn you that the shortcake this recipe makes is denser than what you might find in the store, though. Think something heavier, not a fluffy baked good like angel food cake. It’s made that way on purpose so that the shortcake will soak up all of the milk you’re about to pour on it and gradually crumble into cold, soup-y deliciousness as you reach the bottom of the bowl.

Strawberry Shortcake

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups of flour (i generally use half whole wheat and half white, but 100% white flour works well, too)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

2 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 cup milk  (soy or rice milk works well, too)
2 tablespoons butter (oil or margarine works well, too)
1 teaspoon vanilla

Toppings:

Sliced strawberries
Whipped cream
Table sugar
Milk

Directions:

Stir the three dry ingredients in a large bowl.

Beat eggs, milk, vanilla, and melted butter together in a separate bowl.

Combine the wet and dry ingredients together. Mix everything until it’s moist, but be careful not to overmix it. The batter might look a little lumpy. That’s okay.

Pour the batter into a greased 8 or 9 inch cake pan. A square 8×8 pan also works fine for this recipe.

Bake at 375 Fahrenheit for 25-30 minutes. You’ll know it’s finished when you can stick a butter knife or toothpick into the shortbread and have it come out again without any batter sticking to it.

Serving Size and Presentation

This will make about nine servings of shortbread depending on the size of your pan.

Serve with sliced strawberries, a sprinkling of table sugar, a little bit of milk, and (optional) whipped cream.

I nearly always choose strawberries for this dessert because I love them so much, but this also works nicely with other types of berries if anyone reading this dislikes or is allergic to strawberries. Like I said before, there is plenty of flexibility in this recipe. That’s one of the reasons why I enjoy it so much!

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question. The image below is the list of upcoming prompts for this blog hop.

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July 30, 2019 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: LGBT+ Books I Want to Read

Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

This week is a Freebie week for Top Ten Tuesday, and it took me ages to decide what to write for it.

There are so many books out there that I’d like to read but haven’t gotten around to yet. Today, I’m narrowing my focus to those titles that are about LGBT+ characters because I haven’t been doing a good job of keeping up with these stories. There are a lot of good ones that have been published recently!

1. Mostly Dead Things by Kristen Arnett

I knew someone whose parent committed suicide when we were in middle school. That experience drew me to this plot even more than the queer content.

2. Like a Love Story by Abdi Nazemian

I can’t imagine how frightening it must have been to realize you were gay during the height of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. Wow!

3. The History of Living Forever by Jake Wolff

The Elixir of Life is something I never grow tired of reading about. It will be interesting to see how these characters react to the thought of possibly living forever.

4. The Summer Demands by Deborah Shapiro.

It’s rare that a romance novel catches my attention, but the summer camp setting and adult protagonists of this one are unique enough that I’m curious to read it.

5. The Girl in Red by Christina Henry

A dystopian retelling of Little Red Riding Hood? Sign me up, please!

 

 

 

 

 

 

6. The Wise and the Wicked by Rebecca Podos.

The strong focus on family history in this blurb was what first grabbed my attention. My family has all sorts of stories about our ancestors that have been passed down through the generations. I love reading about other families that do the same thing. This seems to happen in every corner of the globe. I can only assume families from every culture occasionally disagree on specific details of their stories, too, just like mine does!

7. Wild and Crooked by Leah Thomas

It’s been a long time since I read a small town murder mystery. This sounds like it could be a good read.

8. A Queer History of the United States for Young People by Michael Bronski

Oh, how I wish I’d had a book like this when I was a teenager. I’ve always enjoyed history, but I also couldn’t help but to wonder why none of the history books I read or museums I visited every talked about people like me. They barely discussed women at all. Queer women (or people in general) were basically erased entirely.

9. Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh

There’s something a little magical about wandering around in the woods. As much as I love my city life, I’m also irresistibly drawn to books that explore what might be living in the parts of forests where humans rarely venture.

10. Empress of Forever by Max Gladstone

As soon as I heard this was a feminist Guardians of the Galaxy type of story, I was intrigued. I’m not normally into space operas, but this one might change my mind about that.

Have you read any of these books? If so, what did you think of them? How big are your TBR lists in general?

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July 29, 2019 · 1:00 am

3 Things I Love About Summer Strolls

It’s time for the third instalment in my series about hiking – or, in this case, strolling –  during the various seasons. If you’re a new reader or would like to reread my previous posts, I’ve also written about the things I love about spring and autumn hikes. Eventually, I’ll finish this series off with a post about winter walks.

Why have I switched from talking about hiking to strolling for the summer post?

Well, July and August in Toronto are extremely hot and humid. We’ve had multiple days so far in July where the humidity levels were well above 70% and the high temperature felt like 40 Celcius (104 Fahrenheit) or more.

While some Canadians do go out hiking in that weather, I’m not one of them. Spring and autumn are best for brisk outdoor exercise. Summer is better for swimming during the daytime and walking at a slower pace either before or after the hottest part of the day.

With that being said, there is still plenty to love about walking outside during this time of the year.

The Long, Warm Evenings

Sunset in Toronto generally happens between 5 and 6 pm in the winter. During the summer, sunset is at about 9 pm. When you combine those extra hours of daylight with evening weather that feels like 25 C (77 F) instead of -25 C (-13 F) after the sun goes down, it’s no wonder that summer evenings can be such pleasant times to walk.

I spent much of my childhood in a climate similar to the one that Toronto has that I was about seven years old the first time I realized summer had much more daylight than winter.

It was only after running outside for hours after dinner did I realize that the sun still hadn’t set yet that day. When I asked my mother if the sun was never going to set again, she laughed and explained the summer solstice to me in more detail than I’d known before. Her explanation gave me a sense of wonder about the world that I still feel every summer as an adult.

Winter days are short, cold, and punctuated by many hours of darkness before the sun has any hope of rising again. Summer feels magical in contrast, especially if you’re lucky enough to spend plenty of time outdoors during the evening.

The Friendly Background Noise

Yes, I know I mentioned my love of peace and quiet when I talked about spring hikes earlier this year. The interesting thing about walking during the summer is how noisy it can be!

Our streets come alive after the temperatures drop outdoors. After a long, hot day, many people spill out onto the streets to take their dog for a walk, let their children burn off energy at the park, go shopping, meet up with friends for dinner, or otherwise enjoy the nice weather.

There are countless concerts, festivals, parades, and many other events that can lead to evenings punctuated with the sounds of other people having a wonderful time if you happen to wander into the right neighbourhood at the right time.

As much as I love my quiet time, I’ve also learned to deeply appreciate the distant hum of an excited crowd or the faint vibrations of a band from a street or two away.

Being surrounded by relaxed, happy people is a lovely feeling, and Torontonians tend to be pretty happy in these scenarios.

The Sense of Community

One of the coolest and least intuitive things living in a city as large as Toronto is how often you tend to run into the same people over and over again. You’d think this would be rare given the fact that millions of people live here, but it’s really not!

This is the time of year when I stop to say hello to neighbours or acquaintances on almost every walk I take. Sometimes I’ll need to stop and talk to multiple people on the same stroll.

Since folks are spending more time outdoors being sociable in general, the chances of running into someone you know are higher than they would be in January when people tend to stay home after dark.

My parents did this regularly in the small towns I grew up in. Back then I assumed it was something that only happened in rural areas, but now I’ve learned that it’s part of city life as well. The world is a much smaller place than you’d think!

I’ve come to enjoy seeing how many people I recognize on these strolls. Some neighbours pop up so regularly I can nearly count on saying hello to them several times a week, while others only cross my path occasionally.

What do you like most about summer strolls?

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July 25, 2019 · 1:00 am

Interview with Laurie Boris

Say hello to Laurie Boris! She responded to my call for speculative fiction interview participants last week after someone I follow on Twitter let her know about it. I hope you all enjoy reading her responses and getting to know her as much as I did. 

What was the first speculative story you ever remember reading?

Kafka’s The Metamorphosis. It was fascinating, and so different from the rest of the stories I was reading at the time. 

Who is your favourite author? Why?

That’s always such a difficult question. But in this area, I’d choose Margaret Atwood, not just for The Handmaid’s Tale but for her underrated and underappreciated treasures like Oryx and Crake. I love her imagination and foresight.

What is the most unusual or interesting way you’ve come up with an idea for one of your creative works?

“What if?” is my usual starting point. The Kitchen Brigade began with a flash fiction story I wrote as a writing exercise for JD Mader’s 2-Minutes-Go, about a group of kitchen slaves plotting to poison their captors. Then that blended with a what-if mashup of Russia’s suspected role in cyberattacks against Crimea and how George Washington’s spies were able to transmit their intelligence. What if the US was attacked and had to live without the electronics and connectivity upon which we’d grown so dependent? And I went off from there.

More and more authors seem to be writing cross-genre stories these days. How do you feel about this trend?

I love it! I don’t know if that’s because I personally like blending and changing genres, but I like the creativity coming out of the cross-genre work, especially among indie authors.

Sometimes characters don’t do what their creators want them to do. If this has ever happened to you, how did you deal with it?

I try not to make my characters do things that aren’t organic to them. In my experience, forcing a character into anything almost always backfires and almost always results in the motivations sounding false.

What fictional world would you never want to visit?

I have absolutely no desire to visit the world of The Hunger Games. May the odds ever be in your favor.

What fictional world would you want to visit?

Dune. Just so I could see a sandworm. I read the original books while commuting on Boston’s Green Line, and the creaky subway cars coming out of their tunnels always made me think of sandworms.

Sharing spoilers with people who haven’t read the book or seen the film/show is a hot topic on Twitter and across many fandoms. How do you feel about sharing or overhearing spoilers?

Ack! Warn me first! Seriously, you can’t stop people from talking or sharing, but if a book or movie has been out for a while, it’s on me if I see/hear a spoiler.

What is your favourite trope?

I’m fascinated by human nature and how we learn/don’t learn how to interact with people different from ourselves, and what results from that. I like to see a broken character seeking redemption in nearly any book I read or write, and this crosses over to my preferences in speculative and science fiction. I’m drawn to first contacts, countries occupied during wars, and how humans cope with losing their power or status. Like nearly all schoolchildren in America, I was introduced to Brave New World and 1984, and while the bleak ending of 1984 infuriated me (spoiler alert! ☺ ) I like the trope of the one meek person who figures out what’s going on then tries to destroy the system.

What tropes do you try to avoid in your stories?

Because others have done it so well (and I do like reading them), I’m not interested in writing about pandemics or post-nuclear apocalypses. Let them have at it!

About Laurie: Laurie Boris has been writing fiction for thirty years and is the award-winning author of eight novels. When she’s not hanging out with the imaginary people in her head, she enjoys baseball, reading, and avoiding housework.

You can learn more about her on Twitter, Facebook, her Amazon author page, and her website. 

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July 24, 2019 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: My Favorite Quotes from Books

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Confession: I love quotes. (Those of you who already follow me on Twitter are no doubt 100% unsurprised by this).

I had to restrain myself for this week’s prompt. It would have been so easy to write a 1000+ word post and share dozens of quotes, but I’ll try to keep things short and sweet for the WWBC community.

One of my favourite Harry Potter quotes is in the photo I picked to accompany this post. If you can’t see it, it says “I solemnly swear I am up to no good.” I giggle every time I read it.

Technically, I don’t know that the next quote on this list is from a book. I’d like to think that Mark Twain would be amused by me bending the rules slightly to include him, though!

“Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.”
― Mark Twain

“The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“The story so far:
In the beginning the Universe was created.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“Fate is like a strange, unpopular restaurant filled with odd little waiters who bring you things you never asked for and don’t always like.”
― Lemony Snicket

“Some humans would do anything to see if it was possible to do it. If you put a large switch in some cave somewhere, with a sign on it saying ‘End-of-the-World Switch. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH’, the paint wouldn’t even have time to dry.”
― Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time

“There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor.”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

“Do your thing and don’t care if they like it.”
― Tina Fey, Bossypants

“You fail to recognize that it matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be!”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question. The image below is the list of upcoming prompts for this blog hop.

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July 23, 2019 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Settings I’d Like to See More Of (Or At All)

Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Unlike last week, I had no problem filling up the list this week. Honestly, I could have shared twice as many ideas!

1. Prehistoric Africa. 

I’ve read dozens of prehistoric novels over the years. The vast majority of them were set in Europe or places very close to that continent. It would be really nice to read more books set in other parts of the world.

2. The Moons of Jupiter. 

I’ve read many books about Mars and the Earth’s moon. It would be interesting to see how authors imagine life might be on other planets or moons. 

3. Dirty Jobs.

That is, I’d love to read more books about characters who make a living as custodians, maids, sewage treatment plant workers, professional cleanup crews who are sent to clean up crime scenes, or other jobs that involve dealing with what can be difficult working conditions.

4. Hospital Waiting Rooms. 

Seriously, think about all of the dramatic things that happen in hospitals: births, deaths, elective surgeries, emergency surgeries, and more. I’ve read plenty of books set in the emergency room, but not so many that focus on what it feels like to sit and wait to find out how a loved one is doing when the outcome is uncertain or you’ve been kept waiting much longer than expected.

5. Somewhere Beyond the “Staff Only,” “Closed for Construction,” or “Do Not Enter” Signs

Have I ever ignored one of these signs in real life? No, of course not.

Am I a little curious to see what those places look like? Yes, especially if they’re in a library or bookstore. What new books might be hidden behind that door? If only we could know!

6. Cruise Ship Stops.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I was on an Alaskan cruise with my spouse and extended family earlier this year. All three of our stops were in small, Alaskan towns where tourism had become one of their major sources of income and employment.

I think it would be incredibly interesting to read a book set in one of these stops in the off-season. I wonder what they’re like when all of the tourists stop visiting for the season and only the locals remain?

7. Subway Tunnels. 

Have I ever ignored the “keep out” signs and wandered into one of Toronto’s subway tunnels? No, of course not.

Would I sign up for a guided tour of them in a heartbeat if the TTC ever offered such a thing? Heck yes!

(Have you noticed the pattern here yet?)

8. Vegan Restaurants and Bakeries.

I’m not vegan, but I do go to vegan restaurants and bakeries on occasion because I like their cuisine and because it’s basically impossible to have an allergic reaction to something that is never on the menu! Based on the wonderful personalties of the people who work at the places I visit, I think this would make a fantastic setting.

9. Magic Show Rehearsals.

The cruise I went on with my family included shows from a talented magician. I can’t help but to wonder what the rehearsals for some of his tricks looked like!

10. National Parks. 

As a diehard city person who loves her air conditioning and soft bed, I find the idea of disconnecting from the Internet and all other modern conveniences to go spend time in nature to be as interesting as it is slightly bewildering.

Maybe there are lots of books about spending time in national parks already and I’m not looking in the right places for them? At any rate, I wouldn’t mind having more of them.

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July 22, 2019 · 1:00 am

My Experience with (Mostly Not) Exercising on an Alaskan Cruise

Photo credit: Jim Schoch.

I’m still basking in the afterglow of the amazing Alaskan cruise I went on with my spouse and extended family earlier this month.

This was the first time any of us had been to Alaska before, so our vacation was filled with all sorts of firsts.  We spent one week sailing by glaciers, mountains, virgin forests, totem poles, and other beautiful sights.

Other than wishing I’d taken more photos during it, there isn’t a single thing I would have changed about that trip. It was wonderful to spend time with my parents, siblings, sister-in-law, and nephews again. We hadn’t all been together in the same place for three long years!

When we weren’t soaking in the hot tub, swimming, exploring the various ports of call or looking for whales, seals, and other wildlife bobbing past our ship, we ate meals together, played Dutch Blitz, attended various programs on the ship: nature and history lectures, cooking shows, poker tournaments, and more.

When I ordered food, I tried to strike a balance between eating a well-rounded diet and enjoying treats. There were some amazing sorbets on this cruise, and I tried to taste as many of them as I could. It’s not every day that a non-vegan restaurant has dairy-free desserts!

The one thing I didn’t do on this vacation was stick to my normal exercise routine. This is rare. Normally, the gym and running track are among the first places I explore when boarding a cruise ship. I like sticking to my fitness routine as much as possible when on vacation.

Why did I break that pattern this time?

  1. I’d caught a cold at the end of June and was still coughing when this trip began.
  2. I wanted to keep my daily schedule flexible.

Get-togethers with my side of the family happen rarely enough that I didn’t want to rush off from a leisurely breakfast or skip a last-time invitation so I could exercise. The fact that I was still feeling sick at first only gave me another reason to take it easy. With that being said, I wasn’t completely sedentary that week.

Taking the Stairs

As much as possible, I took the stairs instead of hopping on the elevator when we were on the ship that week. There were no specific goals here. If I was short on time or coughing a lot one day, I took the elevator without a second thought.

With that being said, walking up or down a few flights at a time can add up over the course of a day if you do it when it’s possible.

I take the stairs a few times a day here in Toronto. When I’m on a cruise, I can do dozens per day. It effectively doubles or triples the average number of staircases I walk on for that month, and most cruises only last about a week!

(No, this wasn’t the staircase that they had on board, although they both were wrap-around designs.  I forgot to photograph the real one while we were there, so I picked an eye-catching stock image photo of another staircase).

Walking Everywhere

While my cough limited how much brisk walking or other forms of exercise I felt up to doing, it didn’t stop me from walking at a slower pace.

When I’m home and feeling well, I try to log about 12,000 steps per day.  I accidentally met this goal on about half of the days of our trip.

Once I even made it to 16,000 steps! While most of that movement involved strolling instead of power walking, I was still pretty happy with how much gentle activity I was able to include in everything else that was going on.

It didn’t get my heart rate pumping as high as I’d normally try to get it, but that wasn’t a goal I was concerned about as I healed and spent time with the family.

A week off won’t mean much in the long run. I’m back to my normal weightlifting and cardio routines now and very glad I took the time to fully recover and make memories with my loved ones.

What do your fitness routines look like when you’re travelling? Do you try to stick to the same schedule? Do you take breaks from them?

 

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