Cruisin'

The week of September 26, 2007, to October 1, 2007, John and I went on a short cruise from Vancouver to San Diego.

We almost thought we were not going to make the ship the first day, as the flights from Sacramento to Seattle were fogged in and delayed. We were told that our connecting flight from Seattle to Vancouver would wait for us, because all flights were delayed. (WRONG). We arrived in Seattle and our connecting flight had taken off 5 minutes before.


We were told that the next connecting flight was at 6 p.m. (Our ship took off at 5). This is about 1:30 p.m.. It was suggested that we rent a car and drive to Vancouver. When we asked how long that would take we were informed about 4 hours. Finally they arranged for us a flight on a different airline, Air Canada and we arrived about 3:30. We were pleasantly surprised to find that the ship's crew were still waiting for us, and 2 other Sacramento couples at the airport. They whisked us into taxi's and away to the port where the ship was getting ready to leave. We arrived at the ship about 4:30, right as they had finished the lifeboat drill.

Thursday we arrived in Victoria, and while John took a city tour, and a tour of Craigdarroch Castle, I took a whale watching tour, which was my birthday present.

This is the blog of the Five Star Whale Watching boat I went on, and if you check out the September 27th, that was the day I went. http://5starwhales.blogspot.com

We were having a good time, seeing whales in the distance. I was standing on the back of the boat, when a killer whale started coming straight towards our boat. It came right up to where I was standing, and got the picture above, and then it just swam off. This was the highlight of my trip!

On Friday, September 28th, John and I took a shore excursion in Astoria, Oregon, to 2 seaside towns, Cannon Beach and Seaside. In Cannon Beach I found a great yarn store called Costal Yarns, and got some beautiful hand-dyed yarn, a knitted purse book, and crochet caps, and whale tale cap instructions.

The rest of the cruise was just getting to San Diego. Every morning, I would get up early (4 to 5 a.m. and late for me) , and head down to the Lido where they have the buffet meals. It was not open yet, the crew was busy getting breakfast ready, but it was well-lit and they had generally good music going. I had my backpack full of stitchery, and would just sit and embroider until John came down for breakfast.

I was working on this Woolly Flower Sampler, the basket block, which I started and finished on the cruise. All of a sudden, I realized that this was probably the last block, and I had all the others done. I could hardly wait to get home to check. (And I was right, I put it together the weekend I got home).

Monday, October 1, 2007, we arrived in San Diego, and reluctantly left the ship. It's hard to go from being so pampered, and having to get back to reality.

We had a nice visit in San Diego with John's mother for 2 days, and were able to take her to our favorite Mexican restaurant as an added bonus.

She gave me an album of old pictures of John, and I got to the airport and one of my suitcases was 5 pounds overweight which I had to pay extra for.

But this little mini cruise was exactly what we needed, and we came back home to celebrate Keaton's 1st birthday, and my birthday this week.