Alaska Day 6 - Part 5

I told you this epic adventure would take about 4-ish posts. This is the beginning of the "ish" part. Day 6 takes us to the beautiful city of Ketchikan, or it would if the dumb engine didn't have problems but since it did we spent the day on the boat, again. Good thing they have lots of things to do. Like eating, and sitting,and more eating, and more sitting. Kelsie didn't have any trouble finding things to do. If she wasn't with her club HAL buddies on another scavenger hunt, she could be found hanging out with cruise director Michelle attempting to win more DAM dollars. DAM as in all the boats in the fleet have names ending in DAM, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, you get the idea. So there was this on going competition between Jim and anyone else who would compete with him over who had the most DAM dollars. I think my total was 1. Alyssa ended up with about 15 or so. Kelsie won about 30 DAM dollars but in club HAL they preferred to call them HAL bucks because they are all under 13 and shouldn't say words like that.
Later that day was the walk on deck for breast cancer research. On deck 3 of the boat there is a track that will take you all the way around the ship so if you make 11 laps you have walked 5K. We all started off toward the rear of the ship, when you walk around the back and make your way toward the front you get blasted with a cold wind making you wish you went to the Bahamas instead. They were very clear in letting you know that you didn't have to walk all 11 laps, Lonna and I took them up on that promise, Alyssa and Kelsie walked a few more laps and Jim, even though there were no DAM dollars at stake, walked all 11 laps, I think. Every time you made a lap you would pass cruise director Michelle holding up a lap counter and dancing to catchy music inspiring you to walk faster. It's too bad they didn't realize that Queen's "Another one bites the dust", although very catchy, and with a steady beat, is not the best song to have while doing a walk for breast cancer. The song was quickly changed to something else.
After the walk Alyssa did her impersonation of Donald Trump and fired me. Probably because I am the lone guy of the group. Like how in all those reality games the girls are smart enough to gang up together and vote the guys off the island and the guys are too stupid to realize whats happening because they are too busy trying to determine what other guy is the biggest threat so they end up helping the girls until there is one guy left then he realizes this and his only hope is to win immunity every week.
Let's skip to dinner! Like I said, eating and sitting. Tonight was a special treat because the staff had prepared a program to go with dinner. When we got to our tables we were presented with paper chef's hats that we all got to put on. Kelsie looked really good
Alyssa really got in to the spirit of the evening. She looked so official that I was afraid they would put her to work. Then it occurred to me that if they put her to work it might help us to pay for some of the trip.
Others had a little more trouble with the hat thing.
This is my cousin Scott, you met him in the first post. You can kind of see his wife Ann.
Mom had hers on sideways, at least I think it's sideways, everyone else had the points in front, so who knows, maybe all the rest of us were wrong. She used to be a nurse and their hats had the points on the sides, back when they had hats. They don't wear hats anymore, or skirts with white stockings, too bad, I thought I had the legs for it.
Blake and Tonya (once again, for the sake of those who don't know everyone)
Between courses the service staff would come out and dance and sing, throw salad and vegetables around.
Some of them seemed to get in to it more than others.
Alyssa enjoyed all the new and interesting foods that she was able to try. She was always willing to at least try everything she came across, even if you couldn't identify it.
After dinner we went to a show, it was a Beatles reunion group. They were pretty good, sorry no flash photography allowed, so you will just have to take my word for it. After the concert they set up a gigantic desert display for all the passengers as their midnight buffet for the night. All kinds of pastries, cakes, and bread.
There were also a couple of ice sculptures.
Giant salt bread alligator.
By the time I went through the line, these little mice things were all gone. Luckily Kelsie was able to nab one and got a good picture of it. Kelsie was kind enough to offer me a bite. I forgot that when Kelsie offers me food it usually means that she didn't like it and she's just trying to get rid of it. The mouse was made of marzipan, I had never tried marzipan before so I was kind of excited, I don't think I will ever try it again.


The girls were both able to get a solid chocolate dragon, Kelsie's was dark chocolate and Alyssa's was white. And that's all I have to say about it.





Next time: Don't miss the exciting conclusion to our journey. Yes, there's one more post, sorry.