Sunday, August 7, 2011

Sunday, August 7, 2011

Tonight's picture was taken in August of 2006. Naturally I could be talking about how Mattie loved his orange tunnel and thought it would be an interesting experiment to see if he could walk up and down the stairs in the tunnel, but that is not what I am focusing upon in this picture. What caught my eye were his shoes. Mattie's shoes, or the ones he would wear everyday, used to line our staircase. They always pointed in the same direction and were neatly arranged on the staircase, but they were to me the telltale sign that a little person lived in our home. At the time I never gave this much thought. The staircase was the most natural and quick place for him to store his shoes, but now that my stairs are NO longer lined with Mattie shoes, it reminds me in a very symbolic way that we are a home of two and NO longer three.

Quote of the day: There's no use in weeping, Though we are condemned to part: There's such a thing as keeping A remembrance in one's heart. ~ Charlotte Bronte

Today was a day of transitions. The major transition of course was checking out of the hotel and getting onto the cruise ship. This sounds easy in theory, but the logistics of moving thousands of people and their luggage in a coordinated fashion is no small task. So needless to say, as I am writing tonight’s blog I am simply exhausted.

Our day began early, and our luggage had to be tagged and ready by 8am. At around 12:30pm, we were standing in line to board the Sapphire Princess. A ship that holds over 2600 people! I tried to take a picture from the dock, but because the ship is SO huge, I literally could only get a portion of it.

In the midst of waiting to board the ship, I was emailing back and forth my lifetime friend, Karen. Karen was tracking our progress this morning, and at one point she told me she googled the ship and found information that other passengers shared. These former passengers reported that the beds were too hard on the ship and that they requested egg crates from their cabin steward. I thought that was absolutely fascinating, and of course made a mental note of this. Ironically I requested egg crates today, and would NEVER have thought to do this without Karen’s suggestion and information. The power of the internet and email! As soon as we checked into our ship cabin, I noticed Peter took out a picture. As I got closer, I could see it was a picture of Mattie. Peter travels with this picture everywhere, and now I can say that Mattie is also abroad the Sapphire Princess.

This afternoon, we went to a lecture entitled, ‘Trail to the Treasure’ The Story of the Klondike Gold Rush. This lecture was hosted by a Seattle Park ranger. The ranger discussed Klondike, an area in Alaska along a river known for its abundance of gold. She explained to us how Seattle capitalized on the gold sensation and catered to stampeders who needed provisions and proper shoe attire to manage their incredibly grueling journey. Mind you the shoe company who catered to the stampeders was owned by John Nordstrom. Or in other words the founder of the famous department store, Nordstrom’s. Unfortunately out of the 70,000 stampeders who left from Seattle to find gold, only about 300 actually found it and accumulated wealth.

As we set sail along the inside passage tonight, the same journey that the gold stampeders took in the 1890s, I can’t help but reflect on the history within this area. We went on top of one of the ship’s decks and watched the sail away at 4pm. The weather in Seattle has been absolutely incredible, sunny and in the 70s. It made for a very smooth and beautiful sail away.

We are at sea for the entire day tomorrow and as such, I will be without cell phone coverage. That may not sound like a BIG deal to many of you. But my blackberry is like my security blanket. This habit developed during Mattie’s battle with cancer and it is one thing I still cannot function or live without each minute of the day. So Monday will be a very interesting day at sea.