Pickshures!

 DH on deck during one of the last sunny spells.

 Roxie all ready for the formal dinner.  I wore the one black dress to all four dinners with different accessories and felt quite smart!

 A happy towel animal awaiting or arrival back in the room.

 A quadraplegic octopus.

 Roxie blogging in private nook.

 We went up to the prow on the top deck and found that they had put up windshields.  I'm Queen of the world!  (And really, this is one of the foxiest figures among the passengers.)

Aren't these fancy plates?  It's the china for the elite dining room.  I think you can buy the china on line, and I may just do so.  Just a cup and saucer.  and maybe a desert plate.  Maybe. 

And so to Victoria:  I wish I could have gotten pictures of our approach to the city.  We sailed down the strait of Juan de Fuca with Washington state to the south of us and Vancouver Island to the north of us, both playing peekaboo through the fog.  It was like a scene out of Lord of the Rings with mysterious adventures just out of sight.

Now many years ago, we met Jim and Margie on a cruise, and began to e-mail one another. We have a great deal in common. Worst of all, we find the same things funny and have inexhaustible supplies of jokes. So when DH and I learned that our ship would dock in Victoria, we let Jim and Margie know. And being the gracious, generous, warm-hearted people that they are, they took time off from work to meet us at the dock and take us to their favorite pub , then back to their home for an afternoon that was the highlight of our trip. We’ve done tea at the Empress and the horse and carriage tour of downtown Victoria and Butchart Gardens and all the other touristy stuff. We wanted the native’s view of the city. Words can not express how much we enjoyed ourselves. We saw where Jim works and the gorgeous drive he takes to and from through the farms and woods. We saw 6 deer in the woods. Jim saw a blackbear on his drive home one day. What kind of city tour would take you where you would see deer standing among the trees beside the road? We had lunch at Margie and Jim’s favorite pub, then went to their home where we met their darling dogs, and their quite awesome cat. We drank beers and talked and felt like we had known them forever.

And then DH’s back went out on him. So we bundled him back to the ship. I fed him a couple
Tylenol PM, he got a sandwich from room service, took a really hot shower, and went to bed. Today we dock in Vancouver and disembark. He feels better, but dopey from the drugs. We disembark at 9 and can not check into our hotel until 3. We had planned to check our bags at the hotel and just walk around for 6 hours, with occasional pauses for tea and lunch and maybe a half-pint of the fiercely drunken Canadian beer. Now - well. Ideally he would lie down and sleep most of the next 24 hours, then at 4AM we would rise, dress, and catch a cab for the train station. I would hope to get him adequately mended befor that 9 hour train trip. We’ll just have to hope for the best.

Later:  Squeeee!  Hoping for the best can turn out better than you can imagine!  We got off the ship and walked over to the hotel to see if we could leave our luggage till checkin time.  The clerk at the Pan Pacific said, "Well, since you are here so early there are some very nice options I can offer you.  For $$ I can upgrade your room to the 23rd floor with free wifi, free breakfast, free evening hors d'oeurves, free access to the fitness center, and we can let you have the room immediately."  Well - yeah!!  The view is awesome. the room is spacious, and there's a bathtub!!

We can watch seaplanes landing and taking off.

The view is sublime, clouds or not.  There's a chevron station just below the center of the photo.  One of the women sitting next to us in the customs line was asking, "How can the cars get out there?"