You KNOW it's very humid when...

You take a picture on thee way north JUST because there are clouds coming from the ground and going up!  Yep, that is humidity rising from the ground... clouds... growing right before your eyes.

Can't see them... take a closer look: 

I'm always amazed when I see this and think "I should take a picture" so today I did... it's not a GREAT picture, but it's a picture none the less!  The BIG rise right above the white car was impressive.

You would think there is a river down there... there is not... there is a stream that is barely wide enough to be called a stream at points, but it has a lot of marshes in the heavily treed area you can see in the foreground.... maybe that is the cause of all this steam/moisture in the air?  Very weird to see on a yucky rainy day on the way to Macon.  

Why did I go to Macon?  I'm finally a real girl.  I have my ID Now :)  That only took four weeks plus a few days to get :o/  But I'm officially a new employee with a PIV (not a common access card as with the Air Force, but a PIV.  "Perssonal Identity Verification" credential. M'Kay... lost the number I have had FOREVER (OK, maybe 15+ years) in the process.  Made me sad.  107xxxxxx is no longer my identity.  Not a clue what it is now... but I don't care for the next 2 years, 2 months and 23 days.

what I do with all my time.... (brace yourself!)

 For those that know me, know I LOVE to thrift shop.  I always have.  Until now I have shopped for me... now I shop for eBay..  Yep, I have been doing the eBay business this year.  So far, so good.

BUT sometimes I get myself in a pickle - like a few weekends ago.  I did a thing, I got involved (on a whim) in an auction... YAY, I won... oh, yeah... I won (bumbumbum)... here is the result of that win:

This is the haul still boxed.  I was honestly scared to tell Butch what I did... but then I HAD to unload it from the car, so had to fess up... I just said.  Uh, I did a "thing"... and then sort of chuckled about it, then I told him I won an auction... it was less than $40 total... BUT it was 5 (yes FIVE) tables laid out with glassware at the store... yeah... FIVE.  Barbara was a sport and helped me box it all and pack it into my car for the ride home.  The gal I was bidding against only wanted ONE set of dishes from the pile and offered me $15.  Uh, OK, fine, that would be fine.  Do I even know what they were worth?  NOPE.  Did I pay for just under 1/2 of the cost of the winning bid, heck yes!!  I was still in shock when I immediately said "yes" to that sale to tell you the truth.  What isn't pictured here is a set of brass lamp bases ... You'll see those at the end of this post.

This is the bulk of the haul on the table... 

plus these two chickens...

plus these two lamps - that in hind sight were marked on the bottom MADE IN ITALY.  Really?  They may have been worth more than the $10 I charged.  OK, let's be realistic they WERE worth more than that, but I'm pricing to sell as this stuff is something I bought on a whim and didn't really do a bunch of research on.  

The ONLY things I knew had some worth were the FiestaWare and the Dorothy Thorpe.  What is Dorothy Thorpe?

This is Dorothy Thorpe (you would have to live under a rock to NOT know what Fiesta Ware is)

These are 1960 silver rimmed glassware... there was quite a bit of this in the group - these drink glassed some bowls and a salad bowl.  All will be, or are on eBay for a decent price for the name.  I may be sitting on them for a while because apparently I'm the only one that seems to want to buy Dorothy Thorpe glassware.  ha!  

The Fiesta Ware on the contemporary pieces (I had to look up how to identify those) were sold off for the most part (paying for most of the rest of this bill).  I have a few left over of the percimmon dinner dishes.  The rest are all going up on eBay.  

If you wonder what my handle is on eBay to check things out it is: https://www.ebay.com/usr/doash_78

If you see anything let me know ... I can probably work a deal with you :)

why am I so happy to tell you all this?  Today my table looks like THIS!!

1.5 weeks later and it's clear!!  OK, so not all the way clear, but it's 99% of the way cleared off!!!!

Whoot, whoot.

We won't mention the bin of stuff in the kitchen currently awaiting attention!

Day - 10 - Vancouver

Breakfast in Vancouver 

And just like that the vacation is over and we have to go back to reality :(. Boooo


Look at that leg room!!!

And did you note the LONG leg hairs?  No one ever does until I point them out but even * I * noticed them in this shot with the nice dark background!!  Wow! (Won’t make me wax or shave, thanks)

Leaving Vancouver 

Lots of smoke. 





The tidal difference between fresh and salt water 

I believ this is mount Rainer in the background. 

There is so much smoke making it through the atmosphere that the moon was RED coming up. It was pretty but near impossible to get a good picture of. 

We landed at 12:30am. So really Thursday before we got home at 2 am. 

It was a fun relaxing trip really. 

Day - 9 - open water

Sunrise 4:04 am. Why do I have a picture from 4:04?  I had to go potty so snapped a picture really quick and went back to bed!

Played cribbage with Robert. 
Watched the world go by!


Saw lots of whale spouts and even watched a whale breaching BUT my camera was aimed the wrong way. I have the memory regardless. There were SO many whale spouts you could see against the setting sun. There were so many whales out there!!



We had the whole family out watching them it was fun. Robert and Janet were on the balcony behind me. 





Beautiful sunset!


What is this?  This is a pod of killer whales. Yep. Seriously. Robert and I went to the buffet for a last minute crepe before they shut down and. Managed to catch two pods of killer whales right off the ship. So beautiful!!













Sunset 9:30pm. Goodnight world!!

Day - 8 - Ketchikan

Our official shore excursion got cancelled due to lack of participation. BUT we still managed to do the Lumberjack show. 

Until then this is the start of the day..

Outside our balcony. 



We walked the streets of Ketchikan. 

That’s a LOT of rainfall. Apparently all of this region is a temperate rain forest. Who knew before we came? Not me. I was prepared with rain gear however. Just in case. Honestly we had the best weather while we were in Skagway we did have to fight sleet on the walk back to the boat. It was a cold and damp 10 minute walk but with layers it wasn’t horrible in the end!  Otherwise it was great weather with very little disruption due to weather. Denali was wetter than the southern stops for sure!

Anyway the edges of Ketchikan are supported on pickings. We went down to check them out and to see the star fish. 

See it in the middle

Here are some crawling up the posts. How weird. 

Jelly fish and more star fish in the top of the chopped off piling. 



When I saw this at a distance I yelled “grouper” because it truly looked like a grouper swimming up. It was NOT. It was a seal!!

Look at those soft corals!!

Here are the pilings. There are building sitting on top of these pilings!!

Poor little star fish caught out of water. I chucked him back but not sure he lived. :(

Muscles on the piling spitting water periodically!

Look at the diversity in the colors of the star fish moving up the pilings. 

And with that we went to the Lumberjack show. It was loud and entertaining. Butch enjoyed it way more than I did. He was hooping and hollering for our team (Canada) to 











Making a bunny

With a smiley face

Starting to the top

Half way…

Almost there. And for some

Reason I stopped taking pictures. Hahaha. Oh well just know it was a cute show and the chainsaw noise and smell made me think of Dad and my childhood in the woods. :)

More impressive soft coral. 

Fun doughnut shop. No, we didn’t go in. Should have :)
Note the change on water depth. There was about a 8 or 10 foot tide change between when we came in and when we got back to the boat. No clue of it was low tide or not at the time we got there but it was neat to see the difference 

Back in open water. We will be at sea for the next day and pull into Vancouver early