Seattle...and then Home!

Monday – May 7

The ship hadn’t traveled far overnight. We woke up in Seattle…the end of the cruise for us. I wasn’t ready to get off the ship after over three weeks so I can’t imagine what a one-night cruise must feel like for all of those folks that just boarded yesterday afternoon!

We had set our large luggage out in the hallway the night before so all that was left to do was cram the last-minute stuff into our carry-on bags and backpacks. We were assigned to one of the last groups for debarkation so didn’t need to rush through breakfast. I took some photos from the promenade deck near our cabin and intended to go out by the aft pool after we were done eating and get more photos that included the Space Needle.  But…somehow, I forgot and so have very few photos from the city of Seattle.

The wife of one of the couples we had met playing trivia sat with us and we had a nice visit over breakfast. We exchanged email addresses, but the sad fact is that chances are slim we will ever meet up again.

Getting off the ship was fairly easy when our group was called to disembark. By that point most of the luggage had been claimed and we quickly spotted ours. It would have been easy to get a taxi to the airport, but we had decided to take Uber. Bob had a new customer discount but even with the discount it wasn’t drastically cheaper than a cab.

To get to where Uber could pick us up required walking out of the terminal and quite a distance down a long sidewalk. Shuttle buses were available, but we chose to walk. Folding chairs under a tarp canopy provided a waiting area once we called the car. (Uber isn’t allowed to go all the way to the terminal building.) When the car arrived they had to check in with a security person who then called out our names.

On the way to the airport, we went by the Seattle Great Wheel…a large Ferris wheel on the waterfront. The driver also pointed out the headquarters for Starbucks Coffee.

Our luggage passed the weight test and we breathed a sigh of relief as we checked in. The airport was quite busy, but we found a couple of seats by our gate and settled in for the long wait. Our flight wasn’t scheduled to leave until around 3:30 pm so imagine my surprise when I got a notification on the Delta Airlines app on my phone that our luggage had been sent on a flight leaving at 11:30! I was sorry that I hadn’t at least inquired about us taking the earlier flight.

We ate lunch at Sea-Tac and would have liked to have grabbed something later in the evening when we had a connection in Minneapolis but time was short and our gate was about as far away as possible. We made it on time, but the next flight was already boarding when we got to the gate so there was no time to get anything to eat.

Flying close to some big thunderstorms, our flight was more than just a little bumpy. Our final destination was Sioux Falls, South Dakota, arriving around 11:30 pm. Because our luggage had taken an earlier flight, we had to do some investigating to figure out where it was. The airport is very small and at that late hour was pretty much deserted. A couple other travelers were in the same predicament and we figured out that all of our luggage was locked up…but there was no one around to retrieve it for us. Eventually we were reunited with our bags and just in time…the hotel shuttle was waiting at the front entrance to the airport. We crammed into the van with all of the flight crew and pilots who were also headed to the Holiday Inn. It was going to be a short night for the poor flight attendants. They had to be up by 3 am for their next flight so were barely going to get any sleep.

We walked straight through the hotel lobby and out into the parking ramp where we had left our car over three weeks earlier. I can’t exactly explain the feeling, but it was so weird to know that when we left a blizzard was coming and then a second big snow a few days later but yet now it was May...summer time! Just thinking about it made it seem like we had been gone even longer!

It had been many, many hours since we had eaten the sandwich for lunch at the Seattle airport and we were hungry. Sioux Falls isn’t all that large so most of the places we were passing on our way home were closed. We did find a Taco Bell where the drive through was still open…what a contrast to how we had been eating for the past few weeks!

The storms that we had flown through were now approaching and we had a fabulous lightning show as we made the one hour drive to get home. We were both tired, but coming from the west coast at least our bodies thought it was only 10 pm when in fact our clocks said 1 am.

So…another cruise is in the books. This trip was our longest and I would have to say one of our best. I am always sad to end our travels, but also very thankful to get home safely and not have had any problems along the way.

The next cruise has been booked for about 8 months already so now I am back into planning mode once again. Stay tuned to see where we are headed!