Day 20

Last night was pretty miserable on my part as far as sleeping goes. We must have been on the “open ocean” again, unannounced because we were swaying all over the place. I couldn't sleep because I kept imagining the motor home toppling over down on the car deck. Brett started stirring so I was worried he was going to fall out of the lower bunk even over all the pillows and blankets we had piled up to prevent such a thing, so I went down to sleep with him which was a big mistake. I always get stuck in the corner not wanting to move, afraid I'd wake the baby, so one or both of my arms falls asleep. No fun. Everyone else seemed to sleep great until the loud speaker announcement came on to let everyone know we were in Ketchikan.

We had planned on getting up and going on a small tour of Ketchikan, Alaska because we were told we would be in port for a few hours. What we didn't know was that it was from 7:00 to 8:30. Lance was so set on going on the town that when we were awoken with the time schedule, we woke the kids up grabbed some cereal bars and headed off the boat in the rain. Me and the kids were still groggy so Lance grabbed the first cab at the gate and had him take us around for the next 30 minutes. The man was really nice, Lance kept telling him he looked like Santa Claus. He drove us around giving us a little bit of history of the town and we stopped at some totem poles and he took our picture. It was a rather expensive 30 minutes, but it was worth it.

We made it back to the boat right on time but of course it didn't pull out of the harbor for another 45 minutes.

Sophia decided she wasn't going to eat anything for breakfast so that of course led to another great hissy fit. She was so tired, I have to give her that. She wanted to go back to sleep when Daddy wanted to get the tour of Ketchikan. After about an hour of screaming, she took about a 2 hour nap giving me some rest as well. Brett fell asleep for Lance too so he was able to get started on his next book for his grad school program. Between the time he left Brett in the room and talking to some other Coasties, I think he read 1 page! Oops!

We went to the restaurant on board again, this time for lunch buffet.

I was feeling rather gross from not having showered first thing, because we went ashore and weren't allowed to shower when we were in port. I was afraid I was starting to look like some of the other characters on the boat. Eeek! So Lance gave me some time to get cleaned up and write some overdue thank you cards.

Brett and Lance were both due for their naps next so they laid down while Sophia and I went to one of the observation decks to watch a movie on my computer. Brett also slept for a good hour and a half, giving Lance a chance to shower as well!

When they came up to the deck, we stayed and watched out the windows because we were going through some beautiful narrow passages. I was still searching for the bear I've yet to see! No bears, but we saw about 5 or 6 bald eagles, perched and soaring. So majestic. The “Bald Eagle Van” guy was very excited!

We still had a bunch of our food on board so we went to the cafeteria seating area and made up some of what we had left, for dinner. The kids both ate like champions! Lance and I were almost blown away!

We pulled into the last port of the day and decided we'd better get all our bags out of the room while we had the chance so we didn't have to worry about them tomorrow at 3 in the morning, with 2 sleeping kids. So Lance made a couple runs while I got organized with what we needed for the night.

We wanted to run the kids around a little bit so we went up to the solarium deck, outdoor exposure with heat lamps, and had Brett walking back and fourth between Lance and I while Sophia did hop scotch. I counted Brett taking 21 steps to me!

Bathed and dressed the kids went right to sleep, as did Lance and I because we knew tomorrow was going to be a long day, up at 2:40!