What a 24-hours - we had a great time onboard the Birthday cruise. We've attached some pictures. Hopefully you enjoy these as much as we did taking them.

Everything is set. The bags are packed, the Dom Perignon (1990) and Margarita mix is at the ready for the 60th Birthday Bash on the Golden Princess out of Seattle tomorrow. The four of us will get on the Amtrak bus tomorrow and head to Seattle for the 4:00 pm departure. The pictures of this birthday blowout will be posted by Monday. Stay tuned...........

We're all set for the big Birthday party. The plan is to board the ship into our suites - Tom convinced me that we had to go large here so we booked suites - bring on the party. From there it'll be lunch and then hopefully a great dinner at one of the specialty restaurants. Likely a stop in the casino and then dance till the wee hours.

When Deb and I set out on this trip it was meant to serve two specific purposes. First and foremost, it was a trip east to see my new granddaughter Hannah and second it was to re- live some of the days, some forty-five years ago, that I traveled CN to be with my cousins in Sioux, Winnipeg and Vancouver. Nearing the end of the trip, some 180 hours in total, it has become much more. The actual trip was the adventure -- seeing this glorious country of ours, steppi...

I waited up to see Sioux Lookout for likely one last time. We arrived a little late, 12:00 midnight to be precise. I know this because from the window I could see one of those new fangled video billboards that said, 11:59 and minus 5 degrees. While there was very little traffic on the roads at that time of night, every vehicle in sight or moving along the road was a truck or van of some sort. Who would ever buy a car in this neighborhood? As we pulled out, I gav...