Hamburg and first day at Sea - July 27 & 28, 2018 To make a long, stressful story a bit brief, we sat there on that veranda trying to relax and calculating our next steps. By 11 am Stan's luggage still had not been delivered. We sat patiently waiting and tried not to think about the fact that we were wasting a perfectly good vacation day. Plus, remember, the hotel had no air conditioning so as the morning turned into afternoon, that beautiful pleasant...

Hamburg, Germany - July 26, 27, 2018 "The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry." Sometimes things fall magically in place like a line of well-placed dominoes or a well-oiled machine. Sometimes they just don't. On this first, let's see roughly 28-hour leg of our travels, we encountered a perfect experience that is until we made the connection from Istanbul to Hamburg. First, the flight was almost two hours late in leaving and second, it carried ...

Final Day - Inside Passage to Vancouver - June 30, 2018 June thirtieth . . . Bobby's birthday, my baby brother. He's been gone for about seven years now. I still miss him and think of him often, but especially so on June 30. Rest in peace, my dear brother. After four days full to the brim of activity during the day and fun at night, a day at sea was welcomed. We said good-bye to passengers and cruise staff members we particularly liked. The four of...

Ketchican, Alaska - June 29, 2018 Let's talk about Alaska for a moment. First, Alaska is big, really big; I never truly grasped that. Everyone knows it is the USA's largest state. But actually being in Alaska causes one to get a more realistic understanding of its size. Its footprint is twice the size of Texas but most of the area is uninhabitable. Much of the mass is ice and rugged, and its unsurmountable mountains magnifies the feeling of big lands. I...

Juneau, Alaska - June 28, 2018 Our big adventure for this port was an all-day trip into the Tracy Arm Fjord aboard a jet-powered catamaran. The boat was nice and the young crew members were great. Although we did not fully explore Juneau we found it interesting that even though it is located on the Alaskan mainland, Juneau it totally isolated. It sits beautifully between rugged mountains and the ocean. There are no roads connecting the city to the re...