And so it begins ....

I know, I know, you've been dreading it, and probably hoping I would just forget about it, but here comes the Great Uncle Earl episode, where I bombard you with photos of our recent vacation ... where you nod politely, and murmur “oh, how nice” in a low voice, all the while wondering just how many hundreds of pictures I’m going to parade in front of you and how endless it's going to seem and questioning if it will EVER end.

Hey, “parade”! We saw a parade in Skagway! Want to see some pictures!?!?

So, first, to give you a sense of where we were and who we were with, this is the boat we were on:




It’s lovely, isn’t it? Mainly, I was happy that they never ran out of food, and it didn’t sink. The vacation was a success, right there.


This is a photo of Blaine and I, the first night out on the deck. For all you people who said it would be warm in Alaska in July, well, two words for you: Gloves and coats. Or maybe two better words would be "big weenie" because that's apparently what we are.




Here we were on the first formal night … much much happier inside, with climate control.





And here’s my dear friend Renee who, along with her husband Keith, and two of her friends from back home, came with us. Judging by the looks on our faces, by this point in the evening, there might have been alcohol involved. Maybe. I’m just saying.





It was neat to see the decorations and work that went into commemorating our travel on the 4th of July …



…but what I didn’t get a picture of were the almost-exact same decorations that were up a day or two before, to celebrate Canada Day. I suppose they would have decorated New Zealand Day, or Guam Day, or anything specific, so as to make all the passengers feel special. I would have felt MORE special if I had figured out where they were serving that cake later, though.


While it was definitely cool on the deck in the evening, I was surprised to see that the pools, even the outside pools, almost always had people swimming in them during the day. Sure, the water was heated, but it still had to be a pretty brisk walk back to the cabins when these crazy fools adventuresome people got out of the water, don’t you think?





Oh, thank goodness, if I fall overboard, someone can toss this to me so I can float. Never mind that according to science, the average human can only survive twenty minutes in water that is only 45 degrees. I’ll be a frozen blue Popsicle, but I’ll be a floating Popsicle.




And yep, here we go, the requisite “King of the World” from Titanic …… but I think she’s much cuter than Leonardo DiCaprio, don’t you?