"I'm On A Boat" - Lonely Island

Today is the day.  We get on a boat. 

68 hours later we would exit the boat.

68 hours.

For those of you who have never put your car on a ferry...stay tuned, it was kind of cool.

This is the first view of the ferry.  I wasn't really sure what to expect.

Once we parked, we got out and wandered the dock a little bit.  They corralled us all into lanes specific to our destinations and then we waited.  And waited.  For about 2 hours.  At least we could get out of the car.

Here is a better view of our floating hotel:

Upon some more wandering we ran into a set of confusing signs...

Did someone not pay attention??

We lined up in the parking lot at 2:30 in the afternoon, we were told to be by the car by 3pm.  We didn't start moving until somewhere around 5pm...we watched Disney's Robin Hood a few times...

And then it was our turn!

We drove right into a car elevator.  There were two, this is the one on the other side of the ship, to give you an idea of what a car elevator looks like.

This was ours:

The elevator took us up and we were the second to last car to get on the 2nd floor deck.  So we backed right out of the elevator into our spot.  And then we got to explore our new digs...

(There are a couple of typos in the above picture-the reason they aren't being fixed is due to the HORRIBLE internet bandwidth in our hotel, I'm not re-uploading this picture...If you can ignore the mistakes, we can continue to be friends)


We "set sail" and wandered outside to wave good-bye to the contiguous United States. 

Not entirely sure why she was hiding...

Yes, these are tents on a boat deck. 

This is off the back of the boat.  There was an upper and a lower deck, the upper deck had a solarium that was heated with a large amount of those cheap deck lounge chairs you find next to pools.  I'm not sure if I have a picture of the solarium, but it was ultimately a covered porch (with windowed walls on the port and starboard sides and heat lamps on the ceiling) where on a first come first serve basis, you could grab a chair and it's surrounding space, claim it with your belongings, and then go duct tape your tent to the deck floor outside of the solarium.  If I had been on this ferry 7-10 years ago, I would have been here.

And if you had a spot claimed off the back of the ferry, this was your view.  They had a pretty awesome view the whole time.  Despite the wind and possible frigid temperatures at night, it's a pretty cool idea.

Making it onto the ferry was a major goal in my mind.  Once in Haines, AK we are over 60% done on our overall trip to Fairbanks.  The Columbia was our substitute home for 68 hours.  It just goes to show our "little" journey across the country to get to the ferry ended at "home".  It was a very good journey, we had a couple close calls (almost losing the cat, leaving my favorite re-freezable cooler in the hotel fridge-sorry Mom), but those are nothing compared to what could have happened and never did.  The deployment (that is almost a year ago now) is still fresh in my mind, and it keeps me enjoying every moment with a complete family.  Every time things get tense, or nerves start to run a little raw, it's easy to remember how empty and sometimes hopeless those nights could feel, but now, don't.  It keeps my perspective in check and I'm very thankful for that.  It's good to know I can still learn from something even though the situation is long over and done with :)