when everything went pink

A sampling of the variety of vehicles in the parking lot outside the ballpark earlier this week after a crowd showed up to watch the game.

This may very will be my last entry from the great blue sea. We arrive in Panama City tomorrow morning and I hope to be off soaking in every last bit of this experience I can since I'm still nowhere near ready to put it all behind me. Maybe a couple days on shore eating good food and taking in the sites will help it feel more final?

I woke up early this morning to see the sun come up and was happy to find a beautiful lightening storm to the northwest and a beautiful peachy orange start to a sunrise that never quite reached full glory before the stormy skies overtook it. As I was leaning on the railing along the bridge wing looking east enjoying the breeze and the way the water was breaking against the ship when everything went pink, the crane overhead sparked and my hair shot straight up. I don't know how close I got to becoming a breakfast accoutrement {toast} but it sure was a very exciting way to start my day!

A few new things to add to the ever growing list of cool things done on the ship:

I saw glowing plankton in the wake of the ship a couple nights ago. It looks like giant fireflies under water.

I helped crack over 1000 eggs last night into a giant metal bowl for breakfast this morning.

We ran 12 laps on the ramps. A new record for me. {4+ miles, it isn't really about the length but more the fact that it is incredibly hot and downhill usually kills my knees that makes this new record especially promising. Maybe the St. George half marathon can become a goal once again?}

I was visiting my friend Sean on the bridge, but this isn't the new part.
We've been decorating his house {in our imaginations of course, since it is in VA and we are here} We talk colors and art, this and that really, while he steers the ship.

He had to go downstairs to grab something for Second Mate so S.M. told me to watch the helm for Sean. Just like that, and I'm the only one standing there with the guys in the room behind me studying the course using the sexton {cool devise but not very accurate}.

There is a digital reading of the course we are on that hangs down in front of the helm. We were aiming for 120 so I could let it go anywhere between 118 and 122 but ideally it should stay right around 120. Easy enough right? Turn the wheel 5 degrees in either direction to correct the course before returning to 'mid ship' and let the numbers ease up or down accordingly. But there is a certain finesse to this steering of a large ship thing. Work it too hard and you are just wasting your energy trying to fight something fluid that will never be perfectly straight. And if you don't pay attention, soon you are incredibly off course. There is a moral to that story; I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

I drove for about an hour before I'd felt I'd had my share of being the second most important person on the ship. {in Sean's words, not mine}

I'm sad this is my last post from the Comfort. I hoped I'd be more ready to come home, but feel even less ready as the minutes wind down.

{side note: this doesn't mean I'm not excited to see you all soon, because I am!!}