Chapter 1: "All-In on Alaska"
Chapter 1: "All-In on Alaska"
Complete Audiobook Production Script
0:00 Picture this: You're standing on the deck of a cruise ship at 3 AM, somewhere in the inside passage of Alaska. The midnight sun is casting this ethereal glow across waters so still they look like black glass. And you're holding a fishing rod, wondering if patience really is a virtue... or if it's just another word for "waiting to lose."
Welcome to Chapter One of our audio adventure: "All-In on Alaska." I'm Ed Reif, and if you've ever wondered what happens when a former military guy trades bullets for bluffs and decides to fish in some of the most unforgiving waters on the planet, well... you're about to find out.
Alaska taught me something poker never could: Sometimes the most valuable hands aren't the ones you win—they're the ones that teach you when to be patient, when to take risks, and when to just... breathe.
1:45
1:45 Let me paint you a picture with words since you can't see what I saw. Alaska isn't just a destination—it's a humbling experience wrapped in breathtaking beauty and served with a side of "you're not in control here, buddy."
This was part of my 110-day world cruise adventure. Yes, 110 days. That's not a typo. When people ask me how I managed that, I tell them the same thing I tell people about poker: It's not about having unlimited bankroll—it's about making every decision count.
Alaska was our northern jewel, the crown piece of this maritime odyssey. We sailed through the Misty Fjords—and let me tell you, they don't call them "misty" because of false advertising. These are waters where Mother Nature keeps her home office, where glaciers calve into the sea with sounds like thunder, where the silence between those moments is so profound it makes you understand why some people find God in wilderness.
Sarah Kennedy was my travel companion for this leg of the journey. Now, Sarah's one of those people who can find wonder in a parking lot, so imagine her reaction to Alaska. She approached every day like it was Christmas morning. Me? I approached it like a poker tournament where the stakes were memories instead of money.
And then there was Skyelark—my four-legged travel advisor who somehow understood that Alaska was different from our usual haunts. Even she seemed more alert, more present, as if she could sense the raw power of this place.
4:30
4:30 Now, here's where the story gets interesting. I caught exactly one king salmon during our entire Alaska adventure. One. After hours of fishing, after watching other people reel in beautiful fish, after questioning whether I actually knew what I was doing... I caught one magnificent king salmon.
[Emphasis] And that's when it hit me: This was exactly like poker. You can play perfect strategy for hours, make all the right decisions, read your opponents correctly, and still walk away with nothing. But when that one perfect hand comes along—when the river card completes your straight, when you finally hook that king salmon—all the waiting, all the patience, all the apparent "losses" suddenly make sense.
I remember the moment I felt that fish hit my line. It was like... you know that feeling in poker when you look down at pocket aces? That split second where everything changes and you think, "This is it. This is the hand that makes everything worthwhile."
The fight lasted maybe ten minutes, but it felt like an hour. This king salmon—and I'm not exaggerating here—was easily twenty pounds of pure Alaskan determination. It ran, it jumped, it did everything it could to get away. And I'm standing there, fighting this fish, thinking about all the poker hands where I'd folded too early, where I didn't trust my read, where I gave up when I should have stayed in the fight.
Sarah's taking pictures, the crew is cheering, and I'm having this weird philosophical moment with a fish. Because here's what I realized: The salmon wasn't just fighting for its life—it was teaching me about commitment. When you're all-in, whether it's in poker or fishing or life, you don't get to half-heartedly play the hand. You fight for every inch.
When I finally landed that salmon, I felt something I hadn't felt in a poker room in years: pure, uncomplicated victory. Not victory over the fish, but victory over my own impatience, my own tendency to want immediate results.
But here's the thing that really got me—as I held that beautiful fish, knowing I was about to release it back to those pristine waters, I understood something profound about winning and letting go. In poker, you win the pot and it's yours. In Alaska, you can win completely and still choose to give back to the waters that taught you.
9:15
9:15 Here's where my two worlds collided in the most beautiful way. Alaska waters, I discovered, are exactly like poker tables. You can't control the cards—or the fish. But you can control your patience, your position, your decision about when to go all-in.
Think about it: In poker, you might fold ninety hands and then get dealt pocket kings on the ninety-first. Was the waiting worthless? Was folding all those marginal hands a mistake? Of course not. Every fold was building toward that moment when you had a hand worth playing aggressively.
In Alaska, I cast my line probably three hundred times. I got maybe a dozen bites. I landed one magnificent fish. But here's the thing—every cast was practice. Every empty hook was data. Every hour of apparent "nothing happening" was actually everything happening, because I was learning patience, learning to read the water, learning to trust the process.
You know what the difference was between that trip and my usual poker mindset? In poker, I sometimes got frustrated with bad beats, with variance, with the seemingly random nature of short-term results. But in Alaska, surrounded by glaciers that had been forming for thousands of years, I understood something profound about time and patience.
[Emphasis, slower delivery] Success isn't about forcing the action. It's about being prepared when the action finds you.
There's a moment in every fishing session, just like in every poker session, where you have to decide: Am I going to trust the process, or am I going to chase results? Am I going to respect the natural rhythm of this game, or am I going to force my timeline onto something much bigger than me?
Alaska taught me to respect the rhythm.
12:30
12:30 The Misty Fjords deserve their own meditation. Imagine being surrounded by walls of rock that rise straight up from the water for thousands of feet. Imagine waterfalls that look like silver ribbons cascading down granite faces. Imagine silence so complete that you can hear your own heartbeat.
Sarah and I spent hours just sitting on deck, not talking, not taking photos every five seconds, just... absorbing. And I realized this was something I'd never learned to do at poker tables. I was always analyzing, always thinking three moves ahead, always in my head. But Alaska demanded presence.
Mother Nature, I discovered, runs the ultimate poker game. She doesn't care about your timeline, your expectations, or your need for immediate gratification. She operates on geological time, and if you want to play at her table, you better learn her rules.
One evening, we were anchored in this fjord—I can't even pronounce the name, but it sounded like music when the crew said it—and the sun was setting at what felt like midnight. The light was golden, the water was mirror-still, and I had this moment of absolute clarity.
I thought about all the poker sessions where I'd played rush poker, where I'd demanded instant action, where I'd gotten impatient with the natural flow of the game. And here I was, in a place where the trees grow at a pace that makes glaciers look speedy, and I was finally understanding the value of... waiting.
But this wasn't passive waiting. This was active patience—the kind where you're fully present, fully prepared, but not forcing outcomes. Like sitting in a poker game with premium cards, knowing when to let the hand develop naturally rather than trying to build a pot too early.
Sarah noticed the change in me. "You're different here," she said. And she was right. Alaska was stripping away all my unnecessary urgency, all my manufactured deadlines, all my need to constantly produce results.
15:45
15:45 Now, Alaska was just one chapter in a much larger story. One hundred and ten days at sea changes you in ways I'm still discovering. But Alaska was where I learned the difference between motion and progress, between activity and achievement.
In poker, there's a concept called "time bank"—you get a certain amount of time to make your decisions. Most players rush through easy decisions and then panic when they face tough ones. Alaska taught me to value my time bank, to use every moment of every decision thoughtfully.
Sarah and I would wake up each morning not knowing what we'd see. One day it was humpback whales feeding. Another day it was eagles fishing. Another day it was just endless water and endless sky and the kind of silence that makes you understand why monks seek solitude.
And I realized: This is what travel really offers. Not Instagram moments or bragging rights, but perspective. The chance to see yourself and your problems from a completely different vantage point.
My poker bankroll seemed less important when I was watching glaciers calve into the sea—processes that had been happening long before humans invented money and would continue long after we're gone. My bad beats seemed smaller when I was surrounded by beauty that had no agenda, no timeline, no need to impress anyone.
For the first time in years, I wasn't measuring success by hourly rate or return on investment. I was measuring it by moments of pure presence, by the quality of wonder I could sustain.
17:30
17:30 So what did Alaska teach me that I couldn't learn anywhere else? It taught me that the most valuable catches—whether they're fish, poker pots, or life experiences—aren't about the outcome. They're about who you become while you're waiting for them.
That king salmon didn't make me a better fisherman because I caught it. It made me a better person because of everything I learned while I was trying to catch it. The patience, the presence, the acceptance of outcomes beyond my control.
When I got back to poker tables after that trip, something had changed. I wasn't rushing decisions anymore. I wasn't getting tilted by variance. I had learned to find the meditative moments between hands, the spaces where clarity lives.
I started approaching poker like I approached that Alaskan fishing—with respect for the process, patience with the timeline, and trust that if I showed up consistently with the right mindset, the results would take care of themselves.
[Emphasis] Sometimes the most profound lessons come disguised as fishing trips in the land where Mother Nature keeps her headquarters.
Alaska taught me that life, like poker, like fishing, isn't about forcing outcomes. It's about being so present, so prepared, so aligned with the natural flow of things that when opportunity comes—and it always comes—you're ready to play the hand magnificently.
In our next chapter, we'll explore how that patient Alaska mindset served me when I found myself in the completely different world of Disney Magic cruises with Sarah. Because if Alaska taught me to embrace the unknown, Disney taught me something equally valuable: how to find magic in the structured, the planned, the seemingly predictable.
But that's a story for next time. For now, remember: Every cast is practice. Every empty hook is data. Every hour of waiting is everything happening.
Travel well, and prosper.
20:00