Vancouver: on ya bike

 The view from my window this morning.

The disembarkation process is easy and quick. Highly regimented because the turn around time is so short. As we were leaving the next load of happily expectant passengers were queuing to board. I so don’t want to think of anyone else in my sweet sweet home away from home. Maaaan I wish I could take that bed, the pillows and Dhon the housekeeper home too.

It did take longer to get out of the terminal than expected though, because MGM took pity on two little old ladies who really could not manage their luggage or navigate the boisterous at times exit zone. We took the luggage for them and guided them along. Then at the sight of their ‘please don’t leave us’ eyes he worked out where they needed to go to join their next tour and took them all the way to the meeting point. He’s a good egg.

So now we have a day in Vancouver before we fly home tonight. Fortunately our niece has a big enough house to store all of our luggage which seems to have multiplied alarmingly - we’ve never travelled so heavy. Having to pack for all the seasons means a stupid amount of clothes 🤦‍♀️

I missed out on Stanley Park last time we were here so today we fixed that and I got back on a bike for the first time in a bazillionty years and we rode the full length of this gorgeous public park land.

We rode past our previous digs & we’re a little sad.

We’ve been so lucky weather-wise this trip, as we always are. Even in areas where ‘it always rains’ according to the locals, we’ve had glorious sunshine and the locals saying ‘I can’t believe this weather.’ Today was overcast for the ride which was actually good but the clouds were quite ominous.

We got all the way around before we just had a little sprinkle of rain as we were returning the bikes. A quick run up the street and we found a fantastic sandwich shop where I got my best friend - the tuna melt. Oh how I will miss you tuna melt.

When confronted with the prospect of what to do next, googling my go to’s are library and yarn. Today Library won. Funnily enough there was a branch immediately across the street from the sandwich shop. I gravitate to them like a duck on a dune buggy.

We asked inside this branch for directions to VPL Central, simple said the Librarian, 30 minute walk down this road. Which was pretty accurate. It was an interesting walk and then look!

Now you know I’m passionate about libraries. Public Libraries are places for the people. I just love them and their ethos of caring and community. They provide a safe place for all, shared resources. This one loans out musical instruments. How wonderful!

Tax payers$ make them free for all. And they earn their keep by fostering a love of reading, encouraging life long-learning. They often have amazing displays of artworks & can be stunningly, surprisingly, inspiring architecturally. Such largesse warms my heart.

If you’re curious like me, yes you can get into those curved walls, they have study carrels in them.

I roamed around over all 9 floors right to the rooftop garden, I reckon the Chief Librarian’s office would be up there, right?

Time to head back to Erin’s after all this activity. We’ll spend the rest of the day there before our flight tonight, so this is my last post my darlings. 

Papa bear and I will see you soon. 

Victoria: deja vous

 The view from my window this morning.

Big end of the cruise feelings going on today. The crew have moved on emotionally and physically they’re doing as much preparation for the next cruise as they can without being too obvious about it, but the passengers are unwilling to admit anything untoward is going on at all. We are NOT on our last day - we’re just not!

We breakfasted in fine style as always, have I shown you the breakfast room? I don’t think so, look at this for morning swishness! 

They have vegemite, which they bring to our table every morning, after I showed up with mine the first couple on days. That’s a really nice touch isn’t it. We eat a huge brekki most days and then don’t need lunch, which is especially handy on excursion days.

Just in case we missed anything last time we were here, (3 weeks ago) today’s treat was a guided tour around the city’s highlights via pedal power - not ours,  Christian’s … a 20something uni student who races bikes competitively and reads Marcus Aurelius & Dostoevsky for pleasure. What an interesting hour we spent with this young man. He was either good at faking it or actually really enjoying riding around his city showing it off to two old tourists.

He dropped us at the oldest chocolatier in town, very pretty and yummy.

When looking for our next activity at the tourist info centre I found a card for a yarn shop - we had a new mission and I spent a lovely hour chatting with the very knowledgeable owner and buying my new favourite souvenir, not a hook this time but the knitting needles I needed for the project I purchased.

I can’t show you them bc they’re packed. Yes. Packed. Our bags are packed and stowed and we are last nighting it in our lovely suite, and being entertained by this cute little tug. The audacity of this little thing thinking it can move our giant boat but move it, it did!

And then just like that we were off. Bye little tug.

Goodbye Victoria, you’re very pretty at night too.

Sea day

 The view from my window today - all sea all day

This view is from an exclusive lounge, only available to suites guests. This is the only quiet place we could think of. All the people are out and about today and there’s lots of bouncy activities going on to entertain them. We retreated here to find some quiet while that holiday magic, the holiday housekeeping fairies … make our bed & tidy our room. Oh the luxury of having your bed made for you. I do so love the housekeeping people. If there was a way to take them home with me I would be on that for sure.

Rather than being out with all the people we spent the sea day quietly hiding in our delightfully made up room, until dinner forced us out (also they make our room up twice a day).

There was crochet with a sea view 

Reading with a sea view 

And napping (no photo - no one wants to see that) 

And then the restaurant at dinner excelled 

Escargot 

Fish trio (to go with my three drinks lol)

&

a Chantilly swan

After this feast MGM went off in search of music & I returned to the room to watch mother nature’s show. She’s such a show off, isn’t she.

Ketchikan: where people drive screaming through the scenery

 The view from my window this morning.

The picturesque town of Ketchikan was the first town  settled in Alaska, has now 8,000 perm residents & is only accessed by boat. Even the airstrip is on a different island so quite literally, the only way to get to Ketchikan is by water. 

The village is perched on the little available land at the edge of the water and in fact also ON the water. That ‘highway’ you can see running along between the water & those long buildings, which we took on our way to the ATV excursion, is built on stilts over the water.

The weather was again with us, lucky travellers that we are, and so after much debate we launched off into the bright sunshine with two fewer layers than we took yesterday. And even then we had too many clothes, for we were outfitted at the ATV place with some of the least flattering attire known to man. PLUS a bandanna for the dust. Clearly modelled on the clean up duty at Chernobyl stylings.

After the obligatory & rather more ‘slap your wrists’ than usual, safety talk we were safely harnessed in and off tearing through the beautiful scenery - not looking at it one little bit 

to this pretty lookout. I’ll show you the lookout enhanced by how attractive we look in our Chernobyl gear. 

Our ATV gave up the ghost at this point, so after our next ‘don’t do this anymore’ talk from our guide MGM had to drive the tail car with the guide in the back. Talk about being on your best behaviour Mike 😳 as he drove the next leg to the waterfall.

Here he is showing of his dashing gear, he’s striped off a layer because the plasticky wet weather gear is sweaty yucky in the heat. I thought when they said we were going to a waterfall we would be driving through it, hence wet weather gear but it was just a viewing point to see a not too spectacular waterfall, they haven’t had much rain lately.

And we were just wearing the wet weather gear for the dust. If I’d known that I think I would have gone with dust covered clothes. At least we recovered our own ATV at this stop, just as well bc, as we were leaving the waterfall, MGM said ‘you’re driving’. To which I responded with a firm ‘no’ and yet I did. 

It is a constant surprise to me that I trust him more than I trust me. If he says I can do a thing, I believe him and then I do it. And oh my goodness it was such white-knuckley squealy fun. Holding on to that wheel when we hit the pot holes though, that was harder than MGM made it look. Our guide told us we MUST drive through the potholes, not around them, & by now I was a tiny bit terrified of that guide so I hit every pothole in my path. I suspect she told us to hit them not for ‘safety reasons’ but bc screaming bumpy fun!

We got back to town past some more pretty scenery.

To find some of this Alaskan crab that everyone raves about. Turns out there’s a good reason for that … it is a-maz-ing. Just look how happy MGM is …

And then, after we washed the dust off, THAT was some serious showering, and a nap, THAT was some serious napping, we got the good table for dinner! 

What a perfect end to our last adventure day.