We spent the entire day on the ferry. We meandered through straights with lands on
both sides, an occasional whale sighting close to shore where you knew it was a
whale due to the spout but you really couldn’t see any more. There were now the occasional sea
otters!! We hadn’t seen any this whole
ferry ride until today although we’d see them daily when anywhere near the
water. We saw glimpses of the porpoises that make their home in these cold but
never frozen waters. And eagles and
gulls flying overhead. We had the
extreme good luck of seeing a flock of birds soaring over the distant
waters. As the ferry got closer we saw
they were eagles! And an immature eagle
had caught his prize of fish and was literally flying over/near the ferry! And chasing it were two other eagles! I guess they wanted the catch. Someone near on deck commented that actually
female mature eagles are the “top dog” so to speak, followed by immature female
eagles, then mature males, and lastly, immature males.
Andrew did some laps early on, garnering
more attention while I updated yesterday’s blog (even though it can’t be
updated until we have reliable Internet!). I also downloaded and started
organizing pictures of our journey. There
are tons!
While searching for the smaller lounge I also happened upon a loaning
library of sorts, a shelf hanging from a wall that held various books and
magazines free for the taking. There was
a “big head” book featuring Laura Ingalls Wilder. The “big head” books are very popular with kids
now and they feature a bobble-head type of caricature on the front of who the
book is about. There are the “Who was…”
and the “Who is…”. They have also
expanded into historical events and places.
Anyway, it was a nice quick read about Laura’s life. I have loved and
read her books and have purchased the annotated bibliography that I haven’t
actually had a chance to read yet. Now
that I’ve read this short snippit, I feel I may get to that bibliography!
They then announced we’d be heading to
“open sea” and if anyone suffered from “ocean motion” then it would be a good
time to take something. Also to secure
things like children (!) and anything that may be stored on the top berth and
shelves, especially electronics. It
really wasn’t completely out to sea, as there was land to the left but we
weren’t in that protected straight any longer surrounded by mountains on both
sides. You could really tell a
difference in the rolling motion! It
made our laps later much more interesting as we sort of rolled left to right as
we walked! I am positive we got more
steps in that way!
It was time for another Scrabble
event. Andrew won this one as well, but
the score was very close: 267-262! So he won 2 out of our 3 games. We also spend some time reading on the
deck. It was surprisingly warm! No need for jackets even with the moving
air. I am reading a Jim Butcher book (a
Dresden files) and Andrew is reading a book about the runners of Mexico that
can run amazing distances barefoot!
We had dinner with some new friends from
California. They had such interesting
stories of their past, including hearing Janis Joplin play in concert (and
seeing her beforehand pacing and incredibly nervous before going on stage), Bob
Dylan in concert BEFORE he made it BIG as well, including, wait for it, seeing
the Beatles FINAL concert which was held in San Francisco at Candlestick
Park. Holy Cow! Tuck also met and worked on Peter Fonda’s
boat and they met and actor Larry Hagman before his Dallas days and said it was
hard to imagine him playing that character as he was such a really nice person
in real life! What an enjoyable
dinner! We invited them to Woodstock and
they seemed genuinely interested!
But we had to end and get back to our
rooms to pack as we would be exciting early.
Jeryll and Tucker needed to leave the ferry and get to the train so they
could get back home to Venice, California.
They said that if we get to the Golden Gate Park we should look up “Smokey”
and that could very well be their granddaughter as she is there for a summer
internship. We had planned on going so
we may actually see her!
Another phase of our journey ending our
first approximately four weeks on the road.
Now we will start our journey home via the California coastline, taking
a left at San Francisco, with a few stops along the way.
No comments:
Post a Comment