In addition to being 2 1/2 hours late when we woke up this morning, and the fact that we have no observation car, we now also have no lounge/club car....and then soon we lost refrigeration in the dining car, apparently...which they fixed at some point in St. Paul.
Meanwhile....had breakfast with a lady from Seattle who was on her way to Pittsburgh for an. international motorcycle ralley. Good thing we ate breakfast when we did, because they started running out of food! 
We were stuck in St. Paul for quite a while, which added to the delay in our schedule, but what can a body do?Lunch was with a lady from Evansville, Indiana...and now we're in LaCrosse...slowly moving our way to Milwaukee....we're NOT holding our breath! I guess they don't call this particular Amtrak train "Late Eight" for no reason...
Continued our ride back to Milwaukee via Amtrak…we ended up about 3 hours late, but we made it! When we passed Fox Brook Park in Brookfield, we were mooned by two young men in the swimming area….heheh…I thought that kind of thing only happened on the Colorado River!
Anyway, we got back in to the station, all of our luggage was present and accounted for, we caught a cab to mom’s house, where I picked up my car and Gary and I headed home.We’re unpacked…laundry is going…and we’re exhausted….but we had the best time of our lives! Can’t wait to get back to Alaska again!
A few surprises on the train this morning, none of which really affected us, but....seems that the observation car had a problem with the wheels, so we didn't pick that car up in Spokane as planned...so there is no place for coach ticket holders to go and get snacks, or to hang out and watch the scenery.
For the second time on this trip, we had nobody sharing our table in the diner...for breakfast, anyway. Ah, tradition again...
During lunch, we were joined by a woman from North Carolina, who is a tax professional for H&R Block.
At dinner, we were joined by a lady from Sturgis, SD. She had also been on a cruise, but she was with Holland America. We talked a lot about our different experiences on our respective tours. Also talked a lot about the upcoming Sturgis Stampede.
We're in Minot, ND right now. Pretty soon, it'll be time to hit the sheets. Tomorrow morning, we should be somewhere around the Twin Cities, if the timetable holds. So far, they're doing a fairly good job keeping us on schedule. 
Well, today we got off the ship. Hated to do it, but all good things must come to an end, I guess. Pretty slick operation getting off the ship, very efficient, as was everything else concerning the ship. Didn't take us long to get on shore at all. Had to show our passports, but we weren't held up by customs at all, which was a good thing.
Took a cab to King Street station, where we found out that there is some track repair being done between here and Everett, so we are ending up being bussed to Everett, where we will board the train. No biggie....meanwhile, we have about 5 hours now before the bus gets here (the same time as the train would have left, so we're not getting off schedule at all.)
Mom and I found a sandwich shop a couple of blocks away from King Street Station so that we wouldn't starve while waitng for the train (as if we hadn't had enough food in the last two weeks to last a lifetime...) (Things are NOT cheap in Seattle! A couple of sandwiches, two bags of rye chips, a couple of cookies and two sodas...$27!!!)
Usually every seat is taken, but apparently they didn't have any singles looking for a seat at the same time we were dining..and now we're ready for a quiet evening in our compartment.
Also talked to Mary this evening, and she and Missy appear to be getting on very well.....this is a good thing....
Sometime after breakfast, we returned to our balcony and shortly thereafter we saw quite a few whales. I was able to get a couple of photos, but I don't, at this point, know how they will look once downloaded onto my computer. If one of them turns out favorably, I'll post it to this blog. Okay, here's one....at least you can see PART of him! Or her...
We were due to sail in to Victoria this evening, around 7:00. Unfortunately, although the sea didn't look all that rough, apparently the inlet where we were to dock was experiencing high winds, and the captain of our ship made the decision to NOT dock at Victoria this evening. I'm sure it was a tough decision for him to make, but he had to put safety first.
So, we are anchored out near shore, but not at shore, and here we will stay until midnight, when we will again set sail to Seattle. All shore excursions were, of course, canceled and the money will be refunded to everyone.
I consoled myself by making one more shopping run and buying myself an adorable stuffed polar bear....which I will have to keep away from Missy once I get home. 
We pulled in to port at Ketchikan around 6 this morning. Our first shore excursion started at 7:45, so we had a quick breakfast and then got going. We had about 45 minutes of shopping time before the tour bus would leave, so we made the best of it. Got our free charms for our bracelets, of course, at Diamonds International. I think about the only other thing I picked up in Ketchikan was a magnet and some postcards.
Here's Gary with one of the totems..
Our next stop was for the lumberjack show. No time for shopping in between, so we scooted off the bus and headed in. On our way into the lumberjack show, we saw an accident between a city bus and one of those "duck" vehicles....
Kinda wished that we had had more time in Ketchikan. I liked that place the best so far. Neat little town, and I would have liked to explore it more. 
We set sail around 12:30, and the seas got a little rough later in the afternoon. Apparently another gale that we were coming into. Did a little roaming around on the ship, but then went back to our stateroom and watched a movie.
Sure do miss our Missy girl....
Today is cruising all day and all night - no shore excursions today, which is kinda nice. A day to relax. The last couple of days were a little hectic with having two shore excursions on each day. But then again, there was a chance to walk off some of this food we've been eating.
The ship made deck blankets available to all of us so that we could bundle up on our balconies to do some whale spotting and glacier watching. Nice, warm wool blankets! Good thing, as it's rather chilly out there today....I don't think we'll even see 50 degrees today!
After breakfast, I found out about coffee cards - similar to the Coke cards we bought. I think there are 18 punches on that card, so I can have up to 18 specialty coffees in the next few days! Woo-HOO! A little late, but I intend to get my money's worth out of my purchase....I have three more days...heh...
Did a lot of sitting out on the balcony today...we did see some whale activity, but not enough to get any photos. Saw a tail or two coming out of the water, but just barely. We'll keep watching and see if we can get lucky. 
The ice in this water is just gorgeous....the closer we got to the glaciers, the more ice was floating in the water. Very neat!
And since we kept watching for whales, we did manage to see a few more, and I did get a couple of photos of their hinders! Will enlarge them and see what they look like once we get home.
The street car tour was excellent! Nikki, our guide, was a lot of fun. Fabulous sense of humor and very informative. We got quite a history of Skagway. Saw many of the orignal buildings, including the Red Onion Saloon
and the Arctic Brotherhood bulding, which was covered entirely in old driftwood. 
Also visited the graveyard where a lot of the old gold rushers were buried, along with their wives and children. Many graves were marked "unknown". How sad is that?? Saw the grave of Jefferson Smith, aka Soapy Smith, who apparently was quite a scoundrel! He was gunned down in the streets of Skagway and nobody attended the funeral except for a lady dressed in black.
Also found what I had most been looking to find in this trip, a real nice pair of gold earrings. Mission accomplished!
I asked the above lady if I could take a picture of her with my husband, and she consented, and as I took the picture, she whispered into Gary's ear "Say alimony!!"
