We headed up to Seattle on Friday, 9/2/05. It is usually a five hour drive, but took us close to eight as we stopped several times on our way. We stopped and had breakfast on our way out of town at I-Hop. Then when we got into Washington, we stopped at the outlet malls and shopped around. I didn't find anything that I could not live without. We also had Mexican food for lunch. We cut over at Olympia in order to get to Port Orchard. This is what really added a lot of time to our trip. We finally made it to Alma''s and David's house at 5:00 p.m. Alma had left us the house key. For the most part I had dozed while mom drove. I wasn't feeling all that great, don know why. Alma brought pizza and hot-wings home for dinner. I fell asleep on the sofa about 9:00 p.m.

On Saturday, we went out to breakfast before we caught the Bremerton Ferry over to Seattle. Once we were on the ferry, I was getting way, way, too excited. It took us about 45 minutes to get to Seattle. I drove off the ferry and headed to the parking for the NCL Cruise Line. As I was driving down the street, a yellow taxi cab made an illegal turn in front of me and I missed him by mere inches. He had to back up to get out of my way as he could not make the turn. The gal behind me was honking at me. Yep, to my mother's dismay, I flipped her the bird. My heart was going 90 mph! My breathing had accelerated. If mom had been driving, I think we would have nailed him.

Boarding the ship wasn't a problem. They met us in the parking garage, unloaded our luggage and then whisked is off to the loading area. Mom had her walker with her. We signed in, mom gave them her credit card, we presented ID, Oregon Driver's License and certified birth certificate. They took our pictures and issued us each a room card. We went through metal detectors and walked onto the ship. It was beautiful. The grand area went from the 7th floor to the 13th floor. There were three glass elevators to the left of us. Also to the left of us were another set of stairs that went on either side of a grand piano. The piano was sitting on a huge slab of moss green glass that was probably 16 feet around, it has been etched with tulips. Under that were fountains completely encircling the glass. It was a spectacular view as you rode the elevators up and down to the 7th floor. The ceiling has wonderful stained glass. I felt like I was in a palace with all the Oriental artwork and motif. We headed up to our stateroom, which had a queen size bed, small chair and sofa. We also had a balcony with two chairs on it. Small writing desk. It was not spectacular, but didn't matter, we didn't stay in it for very long. Read more