J. C. and Manoli Petty

Zpet

J. C. and Manoli Petty

Happily, and luckily, married to a cute, younger spanish-born lady, now an American citizen. Computer Programmer by day and carpenter wannabe by night.




North America » Canada » British Columbia » Richmond May 26th 2024

After a good night's sleep, we woke up fairly late, got dressed and headed out the door, on our way to the nearest WalMart. I figured out how to get there by bus, bus 406 and 407, and sure enough, after quite a ride we got there. The shopping center where the WalMart was located, was quite something, with dozens of restaurants, stores, and other places, beside a very unusual WalMart at one end. We actually had to ask someone how to get inside! You had to go down the entrance to the parking garage and around to the door, then up an escalator. Check out the photo. It was a fairly large WalMart with a lot of oriental foods. Manoli had heard that Vancouver was 65 percent oriental, so I guess that makes sense. Also, ... read more
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Today was our disembarkation day, meaning we leave the ship. We have reservations with VRBO for a nice house on the south side of Vancouver. The schedule they gave us last night said we can leave the ship at 8:45am, so we were up early and ready to go. Manoli decided to take all our luggage with us, so we wouldn't have to wait once we got off the ship. We sailed through Canadian Customs and made our way outside. Manoli had decided we'd take an Uber, but couldn't find one on her phone, so we caught a taxi. It was quite a trip, near the airport and about a 30 minute drive. It cost us $48 or so, Canadian, which is only $34 American. The VRBO was pretty nice, run by a family with 2 ... read more
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Today was our last day of cruising before docking at Vancouver. Unfortunately, there were to be no ports of call today, just cruising. Manoli felt sick, and thought maybe it was food poisoning, so I went down to the medical facility onboard to see what they thought. I told them her symptoms and that she thought it was food poisoning. They told me they could send a doctor up to our room, but that there would be a charge. After seeing the prices for stuff onboard, I told them I'd talk with my wife. I went back up and told my wife what they said, and she was in agreement with me. Not long after I got back to our room, the phone rang. Apparently it was the doctor checking on her. She told them she ... read more
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North America » United States » Alaska » Ketchikan May 22nd 2024

Today is supposed to be a great day, especially for Ketchikan where it rains something like 260 days per year! There was no rain in the forecast and the temperature was upper 50s. We woke up before 8am, got ready and went up for our usual breakfast. I took a couple of photos of the ship pulling into port, but they didn't turn out that well, because the window was dirty. We both got blueberry pancakes with whipped cream and a ham and cheese omelet. Manoli also got some fruit. By 10am we were off the ship and started wandering around. We'd heard that the Creek Street district was definitely worth seeing, so that is the first place we went. This was the original part of Ketchikan, and where the women owned all the houses, mostly ... read more
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North America » United States » Alaska May 21st 2024

We were up before 8am, and went up to the Cafeteria. After breakfast, pretty much the usual, we got off the ship to explore Icy Strait Point. We had paid for the gondola ride to the top of the mountain. You can ride the shorter, less steep gondola for free to the other side of the inlet, and walk or take a bus to the town of Icy Strait Point. After we got off the gondola on the other side of the inlet, we boarded to very high up gondola ride to the top. The views were amazing. They had a coupe small places to eat, but we'd already had breakfast and lunch was quite a ways away. We took some great photos and reboarded the gondola to go back down. At the bottom, we decided ... read more
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North America » United States » Alaska » Skagway May 20th 2024

Another good night's sleep and we were docked in Skagway. Apparently I slept a bit too long, because it was almost 10am when we went up for lunch. We both ate breakfast like yesterday, waffle, poached egg, sausage, etc. When we finished breakfast, we left the ship to check out Skagway. Apparently we had two fellow ships docked with us to day, one from Royal Caribbean and one from Princess Cruises. The ship was docked pretty close to shore, and it was an easy walk to Skagway. There was also a train called the White Pass Railway that went through the edge of town. We walked downtown and started checking things out, mostly the souvenir shops. There were also a couple of interesting old buildings, one was the Railroad Building from 1900 and the other was ... read more
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North America » United States » Alaska » Juneau May 19th 2024

Today is our 50th Wedding Anniversary! Imagine, 50 years with the most wonderful woman in the world! We woke up around 8am, with the ship pulling to Juneau. Today, besides a very special dinner, we had booked the GoldBelt Tram. After another nice breakfast, we went ashore and walked to the tram to take it up to the top of the mountain. It was pretty busy, but the lines moved quite quickly. We reached the top, with some awesome views along the way. At the top, there was a restaurant/coffee shop, a gift shop, and a theater. They also had a couple of viewing areas and a short walk along a path for some even better views. We started to go on the trail, but it still had a good bit of snow and ice, so ... read more
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After a pleasant, long night sleep, we woke up around 7am or so. We'd decided we were going to eat breakfast, since it would be a long day, and it was free. We got dressed, and headed upstairs (we were on Deck 9 and the cafeteria was on Deck 10). We got to the cafeteria area and started browsing the food. Most serving areas have names, and some of them are fairly common, in that they are still there the next day. There were Asian, Thai, The Carvery, Salads, Make Your Own Salad, Desserts. etc. We both got a small dish with an egg and spices, and watermelon pieces. Manoli got scrambled eggs and a half a grapefruit, and I got a very tasty belgian waffle. We took our time eating, and just enjoyed the views. ... read more
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North America » United States » Alaska » Seward May 17th 2024

I pretty much slept from 10:30pm until 7am. Again, Manoli woke up earlier than I did, but that's pretty much the norm. We packed up our stuff, making sure anything we would need onboard before they loaded our luggage, was in my backpack. We made arrangements with the Breeze Inn driver to take us to the ship around 2pm, and left our baggage in the luggage room, so we could tour Seward a bit more. We followed the main highway towards downtown Seward. There are basically two parts to Seward, the portside and train depot at one end and the main part of town at the other. Both parts had some stores, restaurants, and souvenir shops, but there were a lot more in the port end. They have a free shuttle between the two parts, but ... read more
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North America » United States » Alaska » Seward May 16th 2024

Today we were heading to Seward to pick up our cruise ship. The train left at 6:45am. so we needed to be packed up and waiting for our taxi before 6am. The taxi arrived at 5:50am and we headed to the train depot. Unlike the other train trip, this one was crowded! There was a long line, out the door, and then weaving back and forth inside. We finally got our tickets and boarded the train. We were in Car C, seats 2 & 3. They weren't bad seats, but I wish we had the two in front of us, since those seats had a table. The car layout was similar to the trip from Fairbanks, except the cafeteria car in front of us had some balcony type seating, where you could sit and watch the ... read more
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