Wanna-be Alaskan

Getting up early wouldn’t have been any easier with a good night’s sleep, but 6 a.m. came soon enough, just in time for me to finish watching the 500th discussion on Brett Favre retiring for good on ESPN. (Tonight, I’m getting the big bed).

We were in the small town of Ketchikan bright and early. After disembarking, we got a chance to take a small boat out to the inlets and catch crabs! The guy who led us out to get our crabs was probably in his twenties, worked at the George Inlet Lodge in Ketchikan, AK in the summer, and living in California, surfing and working in the winter. What a life! He was very knowledgeable and we got to get up close and dirty with the crabs! We pulled two, overly-full bins with crabs and he told us everything we needed to know about a crab. I got to pull up one of the bins; it was kind of hard actually! After we caught our crabs, we went back to the lodge and ate them! Crabs for breakfast at 9 a.m. was a little unusual, but they were delicious!

We only had about a half hour to visit the city of Ketchikan, and I took that time to find a drug store and spend $10 on throat lozenges-just what I wanted to spend my money on in Alaska.

The visit to Ketchikan was short lived, but the day was gorgeous, so after completing two laps of the 13-lap 5K Susan G. Komen “On the Deck for the Cure,” I got my swimsuit on and relaxed by the pool all afternoon. When the wind started to make us cold, we moved inside to watch the karaoke show. There were a lot of great performers and thanks to one of the guys,Sweet Caroline will officially be stuck in my head for the next week.

Dinner was fabulous.  We had lobster & filet minion tonight. After dinner, we saw the musical show.  For some reason, it was pretty lame tonight. When the show was over, we went to the “Black & White Officers Ball.” I convinced Brendan to hang out with me at the dance instead of his friends, so I would have a dancing partner, but I ended up not needing him too much. All of the officers, from age 20 to probably 65, had a numbered envelope and inside each envelope was a prize. They asked the ladies to dance and a number was picked for the dancer to win the prize. First I danced with the cruise director, but Pam ended up winning the prize! It was a very pretty Swarovski Crystal necklace. The ball was fun and was a great way to end our last formal night on the ship.