The Cruise - Day Seven - Endless Views

To the left you will see how Katy and I spent much of our final day at sea, just relaxing somewhere on some deck, enjoying the end of a busy, but rarely exhausting, week on the cruise ship.

I think it captures perfectly just how we felt...sipping on lemonade, or a coffee, resting up after several days in a row of off-shore excursions and so, so much time on the water, and finalizing a last mad dash to assure we had everything out of all the drawers and closet and hidden compartments and back into our suitcases, which had to be outside our doors by 11 p.m. Sunday night.

An endless sea view...literally all of our waking hours, at least on our side of the ship, our last day at sea.

For dinner our last night I chose the lamb chop, something I rarely get to enjoy, and it was incredibly tender and delicious. They paired it with some mashed potatoes, spinach and lentils. Obviously this is not an Alaskan meal, but is representative of the quality of food we were served in the main dining room during the entire trip. Breakfast and lunch was always at a more casual venue up on Deck 11 that had a variety of options, while supper was in a more formal setting, even if we weren't always dressed up. Our waiters Viktoriia and Hannah were amazing, adding to the experience. We made sure to leave a nice tip for each of them through Guest Services on the last day so they would see a little extra.

It took me six nights, but I finally figured out I could order as much food as I wanted, so I began ordering double desserts just to try something new. Below were my choices from the last night, an INCREDIBLE Pavlova and a cheesecake which was, well, it was OK. But the Pavlova!  Wow. Never had one before. If I see this on a menu again, I am ordering it for sure. If you don't know what one is, it's a meringue filled in the center with a curd or cream of some sort (this was lemon) and fresh berries in this case.  Katy and I have watched every episode of 'The Great British Baking Show' and they have many times referenced that a meringue should taste like marshmallow. Until this one last night, I had never had one that tasted this way. It was so, so good.

My Pavlova on the left along with cheesecake for dessert.

Our last night finished with the best show of the entire week, and there were some really good ones. This one was created brand new as an homage to stage and screen, primarily Broadway. We LOVE Broadway, so we were really looking forward to it.  What we did not expect were some vocalists, the blonde in the middle of this picture in particular, who were Broadway quality. My GOSH was she good. It was 47 straight minutes of non-stop action, moving between different numbers, different sets, different dances...it was almost dizzying and again, the quality of it was absolutely incredible. I could have watched that for three hours. 

And this concludes my blogs on our cruise. Our last day, on which I am writing now, has been spent back in Seattle. We disembarked a little after 8 a.m. and grabbed a cab back to the Edgewater Hotel we stayed at last weekend, just to stow our bags (Gary & Nell had a room for the night). Did a little more exploring, had a nice lunch and just relaxed until being driven to, almost, the right hotel in the afternoon.  See my FB post for that, but if you can't get there, our limo driver took us first to the airport, then dropped us at the wrong hotel. Luckily he dropped us at another Hilton property, and they had their shuttle driver bring us to the correct Hilton property. Phew!  :)  If you have me on FB, I'll be uploading a lot of images this week sometime and will add links to videos which I intend to post to YouTube. If you don't have me on FB, feel free to find and add me (profile name is jewfrat1).  God bless!

Seattle - The Pre-Cruise, Day Two

 

Our second full day in Seattle began with the realization that, this morning, we could see Mount Rainier from the hotel lobby. Rainer hadn't been visible yesterday, at least not that I recall.  Nor had the Olympia Mountains to our northwest.  Mount Rainer is, to me, fascinating because it always seems so close, but it's a bit of a drive to get there. What a beautiful view to have so much of the time!

I took this picture while Katy and I waited for Zac so we could head off to breakfast. As we have found so far, finding breakfast involves a little bit of a trek and a lot of luck. So many of the places have lines out the door and very long waits, regardless of time of day or meal. One place I wanted Katy and Zac to try, Piroshky Piroshky, was essentially inaccessible without a very long wait. I don't do long lines, so we haven't even tried. Maybe some other time we will get here when it's not the summer, not tourist season. I was previously in Seattle during April, and I have to say that, as a visitor, that is a much better time to come. Things are pretty jam-packed in July. :)

We did eventually find breakfast this morning and continued on to Pike Place Market in our continued quest to find Katy a hat she can wear on the cruise. We were not successful, but we did find a bakery inside and decided to have a treat. This is the first donut I've had in a few months, and it was pretty good. The exciting part of eating our donut was listening to the guy about 30 feet to our left have entire conversations with himself. There was quite a bit of detail, but from what we could tell, he seemed to be discussing that he had the documentation to prove his innocence...about something. Hey, at least he wasn't yelling profanities for no apparent reason and at apparently no one in particular. That happened outside a Target a little before this near the Pike Place Market.  Ah, yes, downtown areas are fun...

After our donut adventure we headed back down to the pier and decided to visit the Seattle Aquarium. I have never been to a dedicated aquarium before, so I have no real point of reference. I have been to the aquarium inside the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha, which is pretty great, and I think perhaps more impressive, but this was interesting. The best parts were seeing the orcas and sea lions and sea otters swimming around. I'd love to insert a video here, but I don't know that I can make that work inside the blog. Instead, you get a picture of a very cute sea otter, who was resting and then decided to wake up and start stretching, which was hilarious.

We then headed to lunch, where Zac decided the only thing he wanted, or needed at that

point was bread. So he ate bread while I ate salmon and Katy had a salad with chicken. The food was decent, though certainly not worth the price, as we have found most things to be so far here in the area. I don't know if they jack up the prices during tourist season or not, though it's definitely possible. It's a different world from Nebraska, to be sure.  :)  Having said that, it doesn't take away from the experience at all. We are really enjoying our time here.  After lunch we headed back to our room to rest for a bit, then Katy and I decided to take a walk north to the Olympic Sculpture Park. I'd share a picture from here, but to be honest, I just don't get sculpture at all. Paintings, I'm interested in, but sculptures, maybe not so much.  So instead, you get a view of the Space Needle from within the park that's not so bad. I didn't get up to check the plaque for the red sculpture you see here, but to me it looks like dolphins. Let's just go with dolphins. As for the Space Needle, we haven't visited it and won't on this trip, but maybe in the future. I think Seattle is a pretty cool place to visit, but maybe not in the summer when it's over-run with tourists. A little too busy for my liking.  :)

So let's move on to dinner. We had dinner at Anthony's Pier 66 (https://www.anthonys.com/restaurant/anthonys-pier-66/), which was REALLY, REALLY good. I had salmon at lunch. I had it again at supper, along with halibut, and a cornbread pudding. This fish was cooked PERFECTLY. You know when you walk in some restaurants just how good it will be, and Anthony's did not disappoint. The food was just right and, from what I saw around the table, everyone was quite pleased with what they had. Zac had Alaskan Crab Legs that were huge. He'd never had them before, but he had watched videos of how to eat them and really enjoyed the process. I was impressed at how easily he figured out how to get the meat and pleased with his willingness to be a little bit adventurous.  I probably should add here that several of the kids decided to have coffee with their dessert. Yes, coffee.  OK, we are in Seattle, right? But the fact they all like this already is either a little bit worrisome or fairly impressive. I guess I'll go with impressive. I mean heck, I've even had a latte of some sort each day we have been here so far, as I work to teach myself to like coffee more. I don't know why I do it, except I can tell you I am now wanting it nightly, and that has never happened before.

Tomorrow, we leave on our cruise. We will board the ship early afternoon for check-in and we are slated to leave about 5 p.m. I have learned that, by the next morning, we will be yet another hour earlier than we are now. I don't know what that time zone is called, but it's three hours earlier than eastern Nebraska, I know that.  :)  I leave you with a pic of the family at Anthony's tonight for dinner. It was a wonderful time, and I would be remiss if I didn't thank Katy's parents, Gary and Nell, for treating us all to this experience. So much fun!

Full Day #1 - Seattle - The Pre-Cruise

Our first full day in Seattle finds the Benedict family discovering just how far it is to well, most everything, from our hotel.  The hotel is wonderful, and the waterfront is wonderful. There are very cool sights, beautiful views...just nothing is right next door.

This is OK! It's OK, because we have been training for this. Yes! Zac and I have been on the treadmill, working on long-distance running. Katy has been doing step aerobics, getting into shape...OK, that's all a lie. Well, it's not a lie. We've been doing all those things, but we did NOT train for this. Not really sure how we could, but to be honest, it's not that bad!

If you wear the right kind of shoes, staying on the waterfront in Seattle is a great way to burn some good calories, get some heavy incline work in and see a lot of neat stuff.  I was not wearing the right kind of shoes for all of that, though technically, the sandals I was wearing are supposed to be great for walking on trails, etc.  Anyway, I digress, aside from some slightly sore ankles, things are going great.  Our initial pic is from Pier 56, I think...next pic shows  where we were, right next to The Seattle Wheel. I wanted to capture a view of the three of us on the pier.  

Look how happy! Look at my three chins! I really need to learn how to take pictures from angles that are only flattering. Admittedly, when you are made for radio, it can be difficult, but I'm confident that with practice, I may figure it out.  These first two pics were taken after we walked, and walked, found the place we thought we'd have breakfast only to find out they weren't open until 8:30...and walked, and walked, and gave up and went back to the place and got some breakfast.  Breakfast was...well, it was a good concept. They lacked in seasoning.  Like, salt. Salt would have been a nice addition to the eggs, or the sausage...or some moisture to go on the rather large biscuit would have been good. Again, good concept, just the execution was a little lacking. Now, right next to this place was a craft chocolate shop. I tried some sipping chocolate. It was good. Super rich, but easy to handle, and I was glad it was only four ounces I was drinking.

After a lot of walking this morning, where Katy and I both hit our step goal before 11 a.m., we went back to the hotel to rest a bit and kind of regroup. I nabbed this pic in the very peaceful lobby of our hotel (lobby? not really sure what to call the area) because this tree art, if you will, is throughout that area. It's interesting. Looks like you can move it however you want. 

This was welcome downtime before connecting with a friend of mine from junior high and early high school.  We had a chance to do lunch five years ago when I was in Seattle for a conference, but this time I had a chance to meet his wife as well.  Nik and Meredith are very genuine, made-for-each other kind of people. You can just see the connection and this was my first time meeting Meredith, which was such a joy! I can see why they are so happy together. 

I am notoriously bad at getting pictures taken of me with other people, but I stole this pic of the two of them from Nik's FB page, which he posted a few weeks ago celebrating their 20th anniversary. 

We had originally thought of doing lunch together, but getting in at the hotel restaurant is apparently nearly impossible, so instead we did a mid-afternoon hike through Discovery Park to see some of the beautiful views and enjoy the ridiculously nice July weather Seattle is used to, which we rarely get in July.  Low 70s, nice breeze...what is THAT about?  

Anyway, I grabbed a pic of the view from a bluff overlooking the water, the islands, the Olympia Mountains in the distance...what a treasure it must be to have such scenic outlooks right in your own city, available at any time.

I thought about taking a picture of the ice cream cone we had a little later, stopping at a local shop in the Queen Anne neighborhood...but it was wanting to drip, and I REALLY wanted to lick it...a lot...so I didn't get one taken. The flavor I chose was 'Yeti'. I can't remember if the base was vanilla or buttermilk, but it had granola, caramel, chocolate chunks and, I'm thinking, something else. I asked for a scoop in a waffle cone. I was then asked if I wanted a topping on it.  Oh really?  OK, then, how about some hot fudge?  THAT was just right. Gosh that was good ice cream.  

Here is where I need to interject something for my dad in particular, who will find this interesting. On our way to the ice cream shop, we drove right by Seattle Pacific University. I've known about this place since my childhood, as it always had a strong connection the Free Methodist Church denomination, which dad pastored in for quite some time.  I was mentioning this to Nik and Meredith, who was confirming she was pretty sure that connection was still there, when we looked to the left and saw a Free Methodist church. I have to say...haven't seen one of those in quite some time. Driven past the one I grew up in down in Lincoln, but that was just kind of interesting.

OK, last bit for today, because we are resting/relaxing the rest of the day and enjoying the feel of nice, warm showers.  As they took us back to our hotel, I was sad to see the afternoon end, but elated at the time we had just had, and so thankful to both of them for taking time out of their Saturday to spend some time with us and showing off their city. The way back to the hotel led us through some beautiful neighborhoods with fascinating homes, on many very, very narrow, very steep, streets heading back down toward the water. Just a great end to a great afternoon, and a part of this trip I will cherish for some time.  See y'all tomorrow on Day 2!