February 3 – “One last time …”

We finally docked in Galveston around 7 a.m. in anticipation of getting off the ship one last time.  The captain pulled off an amazing 180 degree turn around and parallel park to get us into the slip facing back toward the ocean for the next cruise-goers.  Outrageously impressive.

We had breakfast with Jim and Pat.  Only fitting that we should begin to re-acclimate with Galveston by hanging out with a few Seasiders.  Our new friends Verna and Ed stopped by our cabin to drop off some post cards they wanted mailed from Galveston.  The couple riding home with them was feeling sickly, so they didn’t want to have to stop at a post office.  Good to see them one last time.

We finally cleared out what was left of our luggage and hauled it to the theater to … wait.  Most of our bags were already being removed from the ship.  We put them outside the room around 9:30 the night before for the porters.  However, we were in one of the later debar times.  We figured, “Hey, we live here.  Why not let the folks who have flights to catch in Houston or who just need to get on the road go first?” 

After a long wait in the welcome home line – A.K.A. “Customs” – around 45 minutes, I think, we were finally on hallowed Galveston ground, er, sand.  It didn’t take long to figure out some of the great things about being home:

Cailyn’s hugs (And April’s, too.  They braved all the crazy traffic to picked us up.  And when we were delayed they were forced to hang out on the Strand, shopping.  Ah, the sacrifices they made).

Welcome home posters from Noa and Ezra (Both had baseline pictures of a huge cruise liner.  Noa’s had some extra details with the caption, “A wave knocked her to the side of the room.”  Ezra’s detail came with this caption, “A tornado on the ship.”  You would think they were there those first few days when the weather was so rough).

Our own bed (It didn’t rock us to sleep).

Two ply toilet paper (Need I say more?).

We managed to make an appearance at Kel’s super bowl party.  Well, we made it to halftime, but neither of us could even concentrate on the commercials.  So we headed home and crashed.  It was a great trip.  There were more things we had hoped to do … see Grand Cayman, for one.  But there are other cruises for that.  Shorter cruises …

Deuteronomy 7:9 says, “Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments.”

Father, thank you for the opportunity to have this experience.  It was a real bucket-lister.  Amen.