At Sea

We made it to Seattle safely, walked to one end of the terminal to leave our bags, walked to the opposite end of the terminal to wait for the bus. Aunt Colene immediately struck up a conversation with the guy sitting next to her. ( She says that he spoke first). I thought we might be in trouble when the wife showed up, but Aunt Colene said not to worry, if she were looking she could do a lot better than that! Apparently she has something against “snuff juice” dribbling from the corners of mouths…
Our bus driver was interesting giving commentary as we were going from the airport to Pier 91. He talked about many points of interest and talked about the housing prices in the area. As an example, he talked about one of the cheapest condos that you could get costing about $125000. Then he told us that the condo would be 400+ square feet which was actually less space than the bus that we were riding in.
We got checked in to the ship without too much waiting and no problems. Our room is small, but not uncomfortable. Roxie says that it is about twice the size of the cabin that she shared several years ago with two others on her first cruise.
There were two “Captain’s Choice” pins in our cabin. Roxie tossed them to Aunt Colene and me. Aunt Colene put hers on before we went to lunch. One of the waiters struck up a conversation with us and asked Aunt Colene about her other cruises. When she told him that this was her first cruise, he wanted to know where she got the pin—that it only went to people who had been on 10 or more cruises. (actually it goes to someone who is a returning cruiser-Roxie with one Princess cruise, we’re not sure why there were two pins in the cabin). Aunt Colene said that was really something. She was an experienced cruiser and the ship hadn’t even left the dock. Well, I’m pretty sure this turned into a “guess you had to have been there” story, but it was funny at the time.
The ride out Puget Sound was beautiful! Sail boats, barges, speed boats, tugs, sea gulls. Snow capped mountains, trees (green ones that haven’t been killed by the pine beetle!). Blue seas. Clear blue sky and blue green sea. People kept telling us that this was the first clear day that they’ve seen in three weeks.
Some of that may change tonight and tomorrow as gale force winds to 45 miles an hour with 15 ft. waves are predicted. Our saving grace may be that our balcony is on the starboard side so we should be protected somewhat from the worst of the winds.
It’s about 9:15 Pacific time now, and I’m going to try to get some sleep. It’s been a long, but fun day. We’re at sea all day tomorrow. We plan to go to church services and then check out some of the activities on the ship.