Join Me in Snarkville

…it was a good week. Surely I could detail for you the stories of

• When Duke offered to “rescue” me from Seattle because I was sad on the phone as I explained my travel delay.
• The woman who was delayed with me who insisted I eat some of her steak while we ate dinner.
• The card for the stateroom delivery that never showed up, and then turned out to be paperwork for the seminar I was at.
• The couple at our seminar who thought “business casual” meant short shorts and tee shirts. This woman in this couple also didn’t seem to be able to sit through the seminar without getting up every 5 minutes.
• How the guide on the zip line tour had to remind me to breathe every time I sailed in for a landing and how I perfectly described the 750 line between trees as “Holy Poo.”  (Aren’t you glad I’m a college graduate?)
• Feeling like a professional photographer when I was asked for copies of my photos after entertaining the troops on the bus in the customs line.

But I really learned a lot during my time away from home alone. So, before I return to my normal life of posting, I thought we should review my list of stuff I learned while traveling by myself.

1. The mess of covers I find every morning at home are NOT my fault. I found that when sleeping alone without the joys of cats and dogs and a husband, that I barely moved the covers a bit. (I also find that the presents from the chocolate fairy are delightful and it is rather sad that she and the towel fairy go away when I get home.)
2. Much to my personal shock, I believe myself to be a morning person. I was the only one of our group up, awake, feed, and happy by 8am on a night that we went drinking and no one went home before 4am.
3. I can meet people. This one really shocked me. I have such overwhelming shyness that speaking to strangers, even when I’m eating with them, is hard. However, when you travel alone, you really have no choice. I sat down on the first morning and met this amazing family from Wales. After running into them all over the ship, I ended up meeting them for drinks the last few nights.
4. I like Apple Martinis, ’nuff said.
5. High selling point to Celebrity cruises? Eggs Benedict every day. In case you were in the dark, that is far and away my favorite breakfast. They had weird looking by rather tasty french toast too.
6. It is NOT possible for me to pack light. I have no idea how I did it, but I even did laundry halfway through my week and still managed to fill THREE suitcases. No I didn’t buy much stuff either.
7. The small part of Alaska I saw this trip makes me wonder how it is possible to see this and still believe there is no God.
8. On a similar note, you will get strange looks from people if you describe someone as “having sailed first with Noah.” Who knew?
9. I learned something about eagles. Bald eagles don’t get their white heads until they are about 5. Prior to this they are learning about how to survive, fly, and hunt from the older eagles. When a white headed eagle lands among the immature eagles, all the younger ones defer to the older one. If this worked in humans as well, I’d stop dyeing my hair.
10. One of the assistant waiters found out that I knit. She was from Turkey and put in hands the following night the most perfect pair of knitted slippers from her mother. They were amazing completely with embroidery work. I returned them wrapped up in one of the lace shawls I’d brought for the trip. Alison may do it for entirely different reasons, but I freely admit the act of giving her that shawl made me so very happy. So, in a way, I maintain my “I’m a selfish knitter” status — because I so selfishly enjoyed giving her the shawl.
11. I have absolutely NO desire to move to Alaska. Nope, none.
12. I did wonder if the reason I got stuck in Seattle for so long was because I was meant to live there and this was just the airlines way of helping me along.
13. It takes about a week for out of shape tummy muscles to stop hurting after doing the zip line tour. Triceps took about 4 days.
14. The best part of traveling alone is that I pretty much did what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it. I took a nap when I felt like it and felt no need to do anything that wasn’t 100% my idea.
15. The worst part of traveling alone is doing something and turning around to share it with your mate and realizing there is no way he will ever know what you just experienced. I can take Prince with me and do the zip line tour again, but he will never experience the fear when I first stepped on the platform 80 feet up a tree and the tree moved. I know it moves now and the fear is mostly gone. I can take Prince with me to see Hubbard Glacier, but he will never hear my squeal with delight to SEE and not just HEAR the glacier calve.

Once I needed to know that I could be happy being alone, that I really could be happy with just myself for a companion. I’d thought I’d do it before I was married, but it took 8 years afterwards for me to check off “travel alone” from the list. I’m proud of myself for doing it. I’m proud I met new people and made new friends. I can be happy alone. I do like being my own companion. And while the greatest thing I learned was to be a little happier in my own skin, I missed having Prince and Duke to share it with. I can’t wait for the next adventure that they join me on, and hopefully my lessons from this journey will make the next joint venture even more wonderful.