Week 367 Update

Back home after a week at sea, I stepped up on Mr. Scale and he said, "You are making me work harder now, you are up to 205.5 pounds!" My Weight Commander Graph shows the solid squares building up like a launch platform for an Evel Knievel motorcycle stunt, while the hollow squares appear to be doing an impression of Mt. Hood, but fortunately have moved over to the downhill side after the ascent.

The future graph looks rather bleak after this week's festivities and shows me back up around 220 by my birthday this year. It just goes to show how quickly I could put it all back on by just cutting loose for awhile and not watching what I am doing.

Of course you could look at it like this: I didn't watch what I was eating at all and made about as many bad choices as I could during the week, eating pastries and other goodies that I normally stay far away from, and I was only up 3.5 pounds from last week's weigh-in. But that is how you talk yourself in to destructive behavior. Saying, "only 3.5 pounds" when I have been struggling to just get back down 2 or 3 pounds doesn't make sense. And if I continued to gain "only 3.5 pounds" each week, it would only take me a couple of months to get back up to where I was before I started this journey.

I didn't originally plan to just throw caution to the wind for the week. I really did intend to hold the line and see if I could show a loss for the week. But things got off on the wrong foot right out of the gate when we couldn't find good eating choices the first day, and each day it seemed like we had to struggle to find the food we would have liked to eat that would fit in my program. After a couple of days I just gave up and grabbed what looked good and didn't even write it down. I was shocked how easy that was to do.

The one saving grace of the ship's eating situation was they had the worst ice cream bar I have ever seen, and it was not temptation at all to avoid that, and ice cream is one of my biggest temptations.

Of course the reason it was "only 3.5 pounds" instead of 5 or 10 pounds, was that we were exercising a great deal during the week. From morning to night, we were going up and down stairs (we used the elevators very little for the entire cruise) and when we went ashore the Alaskan cities were all built upon hilly terrain and that made for good exercise as we walked their streets. I remember running up the stairs, racing the elevator, and by the 6th deck I found my legs to be made of lead, but I made it before Dotti got there and was waiting when the door opened and she stepped out. The week was definitely the most physically active one that we have had in a very long time.

I wish it had been different on the eating, but at this point all I can do is try and turn thing around and hopefully get back into my old groove of eating better. That future graph helps to provide the motivation.



After we got onboard, before we even had all our luggage delivered, we had to don our life vests and head off to the "Celebrity Theater" where our emergency station was located. It was a practice drill with plenty of warning, and so we were on our way early, with plenty of time to take a some pictures on the way, as we passed through the emporium area with wears in the windows that we were passing.

I took Dotti's picture without using a flash and she used a flash, so you can see the reflectors on our life vests shining brightly in this photo. The warning label says that you have to be 32 KG or more to be right for this size life vest. I think I qualified without any trouble.

You can see that we were still tied to the pier when we mustered for our life boat drill at station #8. Off in the distance you can see Seattle's Qwest Field football stadium, and the Safeco Field Baseball stadium. Also, just beyond the Harbor Island cranes the MS Amsterdam was tied up at the same pier from which we left on September 17, 2006 on our last Alaska Cruise with our best friends Jim and Tammy. Already there was more blue sky visible than on that day, and it was a portent of things to come! The weather was going to be better, but we sure missed our friends.

Since we checked onboard right at lunch time, we were getting pretty hungry by the time the drill was over, and after quite a bit of hunting around we finally found a food counter open. We had our dinner while watching Seattle move away behind us. When Dotti snapped this picture the MS Amsterdam was pulling up nearly even with us. We were at a table near the aft end of the ship, so we were a bit ahead of them, but not much. Later they fell in behind us and trailed us all night and most of the next day. (It makes a lot of sense to me to have two ships keeping an eye on each other, just in case an emergency should happen. Those on the Titanic would have been in really good shape if they had another ship watching them as they steamed across the Atlantic.)

The MS Amsterdam was frankly calling our names as it moved along beside us. We had really had a great time with Jim and Tammy on the MS Westerdam, and her sister ship looked so much like her we had to check the name on the side to find out for sure that it was not our old ship. The sun was out and everything really looked nice around us!

The Seattle Space Needle, from the 1962 World's Fair, reminded us of the first Dotti's Weight Loss Zone Conference and the Sunday night dinner we had up in the restaurant at the top of the Needle. Jim and Tammy were there with us for that too, along with the drive afterwards to the SeaTac Airport, following the landing planes as a guide, to get Elisabeth (Message Board SwtPie) to her plane on time.

When the sun is shining brightly, the Needle really jumps out at you, and the theme song from the old TV show Here Come the Brides, which starts out with the words, "The bluest skies you've ever seen are in Seattle," doesn't sound funny at all anymore.

Our wake stretches out behind us looking like a road running towards Seattle, and those tall buildings are looking shorter and shorter as we go. Soon, Seattle disappeared entirely, and we were left alone with the MS Amsterdam following off in the distance, and the sun heading down. We were on our way!

The sun was low, as you can tell from the orange in its color, but it is hitting some of the white water in our wake highlighting it, as well as the ship behind us, for a bit before the dark would set in.

The next morning there was a little party thrown by the ship for those who were celebrating either a honeymoon or an anniversary. We were coming up on our 32nd anniversary and so were invited to attend.



Dotti flashed her smile at me as she was coming out on the weather deck with me and I of course took her picture.

On the 10th deck they had the outdoor swimming pool, and on Saturday, during our full day at sea, we were rocking and rolling a bit. Here you see the steps leading down to the pool, and there are four white steps clearly visible with a fifth just under the water. You can see that water is pouring down the lower steps as well.

A few moments later all of the steps have disappeared under water, and even the top area leading up to the steps is submerged. The water is churning as if it were a wave hitting the shore.

Once again you can see the white steps appear, this time 5 of them are visible with the sixth just below the water. The water is running down the steps like a forest waterfall.

The steps once more disappeared, and the water is in a wave that is surging to the top of the steps, with a trough right at the handrail. White water shoots up to peek over the top of the wooden projection beside the steps. The water is clearly in active motion from the ship's rolling.

The wave's energy was spent as the water slips gently up on the wooden surface next to the steps. The wooden projection is dripping water, frozen in time like icicles hanging down to the metal handrail at the water's surface. I was very happy that I had learned about the medication called Meclizine HCl, which completely eliminated my seasickness during our last cruise, when we were rocking and rolling like this.



Dotti has always liked the casinos and she is smiling as I caught up with her this time just as she hit three 7's on this slot machine.

The money started pouring out into the little trough and Dotti started to scoop it out, but before she could get all her money, the machine suddenly came up with an error message!

They didn't have enough money in the machine to pay off, and they had to come and put some more in before Dotti could finish collecting.

While the slot machine needed work, once the rock and roll settled down, the weather was perfect. There are few things more beautiful than the aqua of a pool lit up in bright sunlight! The blue of the sky and sharp shadows falling across the white painted surfaces all added up to a sight to see, even without bathing beauties to decorate the chairs.

On Sunday we pulled into Sitka, and we were surprised by blue skies once more! The weather forecast before we left home had been very iffy at best and so each day when we were greeted with sunshine we celebrated. Dotti is up on the 12th deck with her camera, and the radar antennas were rotating on the deck above her. The white paint reflects nearly all of the sunlight hitting it, and several white communication antennas are reaching up into the blue sky which is backing the scene.

Dotti pauses from her picture taking long enough to send me a kiss. The spinning antennas are frozen in their rotation, and blue is covering the world.

On a straight line, off in the distance, visible between these two foreground islands, the largest city in North America is just visible. Yes, Sitka is larger than Los Angeles, or even New York, but only in physical size. With just over 8,800 people living here, Sitka is a very small town compared with its physical size of 4811.5 square miles. There is just over one half square mile for each resident.

When Columbus discovered America, the people living on the land that later became the United States had nearly 4 miles apiece, so Sitka is a bit more populated than that, but not much. But it is a city, not a country! The USA today has nearly 100 people for each square mile. It seems odd, when you consider that Sitka has a density level so much below the entire USA, which includes huge tracts of land that are nearly completely free of human habitation. If the whole USA had that density level, you could put the entire population into the same space now filled by the residents of New York City, and the entire rest of the country, including Alaska, would be entirely unpopulated! (By comparison, you could have put the entire 1492 AD American Indian population living on the land currently occupied by the USA into a city about the size of Las Vegas, Nevada, leaving the rest entirely vacant.)

The wooden rails, the white walls, and the blue sky all sing the praises of the weather we were enjoying. We had just walked down those stairs and when I looked back up them, I thought they looked worthy of a picture.





Dotti caught took a few pictures of me as we were walking around the deck enjoying the scenery.

The squirrel ran over to the tree, and I thought he climbed up at first, but when I circled around to get another photo, I found a space between the deck and the tree trunk that he had scooted down.

We found a way to get over to a trailhead, but all at once we were in fight for our lives as you can see. I had to really pull hard to get Dotti out of that mess!

Okay, it was just a novelty photo that we took up on Mount Roberts, but we thought it was a lot of fun to do.

At the same time we had them do another with Dotti and the eagle. It felt like the movies with the green screen behind us and photoshop working over time to include the mountains behind and the animals in the foreground. It looks a lot like Dotti really has an eagle on our her arm.

Now this is what we came up here for! Juneau is spread out below us, the cable to the left looks like it is running right into our ship, and the moutains are gorgeous as they stretch off into the distance! We actually had some rain when we were walking around Juneau, but you would have not known it at this time. What a view!

Looking a bit more downwards we could see the tram car on the way up. As one car left the top the other one left the bottom and they passed along the way. From this angle, the cable looks like it runs right into the trees rather than straight down to the bottom station house. But it is just an optical trick and nothing has changed actually.

We waited for the opportunity to be right at the front of the line for our car, and moved right to the front of the car on the way down, and this was taken through the window of the tram car. If you study the ship closely towards the front you can just make out the stair supporting framework that you saw earlier by where Dotti was standing and you can then see where our cabin was above the lifeboat. I had been standing just tot eh left of the building located beside the terminal for this tram when I took that picture of Dotti, and also when I took the picture of one of these cars heading up the mountain. The pace of the car was leisurely and there was no feel of "falling" or of moving too fast. The entire trip was run along a cable 3172 feet long or so, and we were moving about 6 mph all the way down.

Here is Dotti with the city of Juneau behind her and to the left is Douglas Island, which we also visited briefly during our day here. I actually took this picture before we went ashore, but it fits in well here at the end of our visit to Juneau.

As we pulled away, the other cruise ships and the entire city of Juneau shrunk in size, but we knew that more fun awaited us the next day in Ketchikan!

Fortunately we kept our curtains open and were enjoying the scenery running beside our ship, because we spotted this whale spout through our window!



Zooming in didn't help much, but you could clearly see the spout. We were hoping that the whale would break the surface for use but he only showed us a little bit of his back and some of his tale.

Got got this shot of the end of his tail breaking the surface of the water.

Zooming in you can see the typical whale tail shape as it slipped down beneath the surface. We saw the spout several more times but we never got a good view of the rest of the whale unfortunately. Still, we enjoyed the thrill of watching for the whale and the little teasing signs he gave to us.

While Dotti visited the Casino again, I sat down on the third deck in a little cubbyhole I found with a nice window down near the water, and I read my electronic book. (I was reading E.E. Doc Smith's Triplanetary novella once again.) The view was great, and once again we had snow covered mountains beside us, as the sun scooted across the water at me.

The tremendous contrasts that presented themselves to us at any given moment were amazing. We have calm blue waters, heavily forested ground, towering peaks, snowcaps, and bright sky behind them with clouds hovering over the top. Alaska is a awesome state, and for someone from the beautiful state of Washington to say that really says a lot for what is here.

I coaxed Dotti out of the casino, along with her fancy little drink, to get a picture on the deck before the sun went down. I am glad that I did!

The next day we pulled into Ketchikan and the first thing we did was to walk over to the Great American Lumberjack Show. It turned out to be a lot better even than we had hoped for. There was a really great hostess who kept the show moving along at all times. She first of all split the audience up into two groups and then brought out the lumberjacks from two "cabins," each with a different name. One of them, Swamp Creek, was American, and the other, Dawson Creek, was Canadian. We were on the side rooting for Dawson Creek. She got the crowd cheering and very much involved before the lumberjacks even appeared. The hostess and the lumberjacks used the microphone well to keep the audience involved and there were a lot pauses between events where humor was used, as well as some of that pro-wrestling style pretend bluster between the lumberjacks to make things interesting. It was very well done!

"Our" lumberjacks wore red flannel shirts and this guy was incredible with the ax. The chips were flying here as he made short work of this log.

The hostess kept talking to us throughout the show and the lumberjacks had a lot of fun with her and the crowd as the kept the jokes and activities coming. The guy in the background made a cute rabbit carving, that he turned into a chair and then gave it to a little girl in the audience as a souvenir. (It was funny because he had called her down from the audience, asked her father in the crowd if she could have the chair, and when Dad said sure, the lumberjack promptly said, "That will be $30. Welcome to Alaska!" The audience got a big laugh out of that one.)

Once again "our" lumberjack was hard at work making the chips fly. This time he was up on a board that was stuck into a cutout in the side of the standing log. You can imagine what it would be like doing this up high on a tree and if that board came loose and his feet dropped out from under him. Soon he was through the log again.

If you look on the left, you can see the spot where the last ax toss ended up sticking. It wasn't a bull's eye, but it wasn't bad!

Here "our" other lumberjack was running across the logs floating in the water. He tried twice but fell in both times. He was only a step away from falling in here, but he looked like he was going great at the moment I clicked the shutter. The other side's lumberjack ran across both ways without falling in. So "we" lost this part of the contest. (It is funny how people can get sucked into rooting for one side or another with people competing they have never met before isn't it? )

The hostess had a great seat from which to watch the buzz saws work. She seemed to be having fun the whole time, and it carried over to the audience. She did a great job!

With water flying from them kicking it into the air (and each other's eyes, which is why they do it) and the log spinning rapidly, these lumberjacks where have a ball trying to keep their feet while helping the other one to loose his. The "American" in the tin hat, had a strong Canadian accent, and he was very good at everything he did. He climbed the pole, threw the ax, carved the wood with a chainsaw, ran the logs and did this, winning each event he was in. Our guy was young and looked like he was well coordinated, so my guess is that he was in the learning phase of this game, and one day will be excellent at it, because he was only a shade off from the winner each time. The only reason "our" side was in the game was because the Dawson Creek axman won all of his events. As it turned up the Swamp Creek boys won the overall competition but who cared? It was a great show and these guys worked very hard to give us a good show!

When the show was over and all the people cleared out, I spoke a couple of minutes with the guy you see standing on the shore with the pole and the tin hat. I asked him how many shows they did a day and he said they were doing 4 that day. I told him that it must keep him in great shape and that he must sleep well at night. He said that he really did. The two guys on the log were the ones who got all of the microphone time, and did all the non-ax events but the axmen put in a good effort, cutting two vertical logs—one while standing on a board as mentioned before&mash;and one horizontal log, done while standing on it. So, they all got a good workout during the show.

The highlight of Dotti's cruise. I started taking pictures and just kept clicking away. She was having entirely too much fun. (I was looking to get some pictures with the hostess but she disappeared right away after the show. C'est la vie. )

After visiting Creek Street and "Dolly's House," and taking another car ride up an hill, we finished up our short stay in Ketchikan and our ship pulled out heading for Vancouver Island and Victoria, British Columbia. Thursday was spent mostly at sea, and as you can see the weather was once again super!

When we got to Victoria, the seagulls were there to greet us, and some went flying right by us as we were out on our deck looking at the scenery. I felt like I could reach out and touch this one as he flew by.

Here I was clowning around a bit, happy to be once again on shore, with blue skies.



Dotti, pretty as a picture posing beside the Celebrity Infinity, and ready to go have some fun in Victoria.

Walked into town from the pier, taking the same route that we had taken with Jim and Tammy in 2006. When we got down to the waterfront, where Dotti and Tammy posed by the carved bear, we spotted a statue of Annie Oakley or something, mounted on a box with a hat on the ground in front with some money in it. I was nearly past the statue, and as I was studying it a bit, it winked at me. I said, "Oh that was great! We have to give some money for this performance." She was all dressed up in copper colored buckskins, with copper colored braids sticking up that reminded me of our dear Becca at Dotti's Conference number 5 doing her Hippopotamus song.

Dotti went over to her and posed and our friendly blue-eyed statue pointed her gun at Dotti and this is the result. It was a fun surprise!

We walked around town a bit and stumbled in this this mall, which looked pretty cool inside. I found a Cole's Book store, which I hadn't seen in many a year. The clock was really striking hanging high in the air.

When were done shopping, we were a bit tired and we found this young lady beside the road in a tricycle and she quoted us a price to pedal us back to the ship. She was really nice and talked with us all the way to the ship. We found out that she was only a month in Canada, and had come over from Ireland. She was just a thin wisp of a girl, and at one point the road went up a hill, and she really had to work hard to keep the vehicle going. Dotti and I offered to get out and walk that bit so she wouldn't have to work so hard, but she said no she would make it. We were saying, "I think I can, I think I can" as she pedaled. Sure enough she made it and we all had a good laugh as we came down saying, "I knew I could, I knew I could..."

We were sad when we reached the ship that we had to say goodbye so soon to our new found friend. I took a couple of pictures of her with Dotti and we said our goodbyes.

No matter how clear the sky, the sunlight is just a temporary thing, and while Dotti stopped at the last possible gift shop before boarding, I went over and took a picture of the Celebrity Infinity. Soon, we would be boarding her for the last time.

The ship was scheduled to depart at midnight, and so it was dark long before then. I went out on our veranda and took a picture of the harbor lights. Victoria was beautiful, even in the dark.

I included two pictures here of the what passed as art on the Infinity. We were very unimpressed with nearly all of the art on the ship. Look at these pieces here and then check out the Ship's Art page from our last cruise to see how well the MS Westerdam art was done. Even the stairs were works of art on the Westerdam but not on the Infinity. Thank goodness for the weather this time around, or we would have been very disappointed in the cruise.

Finally back in Seattle and we were greeted by rain. It rained and rained, and when we got home in Vancouver it rained some more, but that was okay; we had great weather on our cruise!



7 years, 7 days on my journey; a lifetime to follow.

-Al-
6 '3" 239.5/202.0/197.5±2.5/BMI:25.25/WK- 366

Starting weight: 239.5       Target Weight Range: 195 lbs to 200 lbs

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