We came we saw we ate ... (and left our regular waiter to the wolves...)

Today was a "sea day" ... so we got up a bit later than usual, had
breakfast and went for a 30 minute jog (or in Carolyn's case brisk walk)
around the outside track ... that got us all the way to about 9am after
showers. What shall we do for the rest of the day (this is about the
time I realized that a trans-Atlantic cruise is not in my future).

Carolyn had decided to take a fitness class and to check out a needle
point class ... from her comments neither offered any real value.

I had signed up for a photoshop class that was supposed to teach a
technique I am interested in ... the cost of that class was $25 ... I
went to the class at 1pm and had completed the exercises by about 1:10pm
having learned only that the 'tool' I need to easily do what I want
doesn't exist on the version of photoshop I have at home.

So basically by 2pm we had exercised, eaten twice and learned nothing
... this however is NOT a bad thing altogether ,,, we took the
opportunity to enjoy the balcony (or window) and on a couple of
different occasions saw whales ... not something that happens every day
at home!!

We chose today to have dinner early in the "Steak House" on deck 10 ...
there is a small cover charge for this but the food was excellent and
the views majestic. Having done this we abandoned our regular dinner
table (and thus the other 6 people we have dinner with) and our normal
waiter. I mention this because our tablemates are an interesting group
and our waiter is perceived differently by them than Carolyn and I.

There are two brothers and their wives at our table ... all about 10
years older than us, very devout Christians that bless their meal every
evening, drink no alcohol and have been 'on the road ' for about 3 weeks
prior to boarding the ship. They all now hail from Florida. Two of
then (Dotty and Tommy) are recently retired school district support
personnel and the other pair (Sarah and Jack) are also retired (Jack was
with the TVA after military). All of these folks are "nice" but it
seems to me just a bit out of their element ... Tommy never ever flies
and thus they drove from Florida to Vancouver in an RV making several
stops along the way. As far as I can tell Sarah lived life fairly "shut
in" until "the Lord delivered Jack to her front door one day" after
years of prayer ... she is very quiet and rarely speaks. Jack is
simply a good 'ole boy from Tennessee that retired to Florida and
doesn't get out much (but loves to fish). For some reason ... Dotty has
taken a particular dislike for our waiter "Corona". Carolyn and I both
think he is fine but she complains throughout dinner about the service,
the food, the junior waiter ... you name it she ain't all that happy.
The other couple (Robin and Ken) joined our table the 2nd night after
asking to be moved from early seating. Ken is a retired teacher ... he
is ... a BIG BIG man ... and I'm not sure if he suffers from a vision
problem or some other health issue but he moves very deliberately and
very very slowly. Robin is besides myself the only gainfully employed
person. She is a school counselor. They are from Southern California
and from the tales of their previous cruises they are either
independently wealthy or hopelessly in debt. So our not being at the
table this evening left poor Corona with no "buffer" from these
interesting people.

The weather today has really been spectacular as we crossed a good bit
of the Gulf of Alaska ,,, fairly calm water, mostly clear skies and huge
and majestic totally white mountains in the far far distance ...

Tomorrow is Valdez and whitewater rafting ... it's gonna be COLD!!