Cruisapalooza: Thursday

After such a late night, this is the view that greeted me the next morning, our last full day on the ship. Lily and lemur, dead to the world. In fact the entire family (except the resident early bird) slept in until ten o'clock, which allowed me to go to an 8:30 a.m. yoga class with Jim from BNL--an experience that was both challenging (the pool deck was windy and tilty, making everything a balance move) and gratifying. The latter because I was able to thank Jim in person for his generous donation to the the breast cancer 3-day walk I did nine years ago. (I'd sent him one of my fundraising letters on a lark and was surprised and moved when a donation showed up in his name.)

We visited this arcade frequently during the week, but never put any money into the machines. (What a wondrous miracle it will be when our girls find out what the games really can do!) I should mention, however, that Lily was rather distressed by the hunting shooting game with the animated deer and bison targets and talked about it quite a bit.

 This is how we spent much of our last day at sea, hanging out at the kiddie pool. That's Lily and Amalia with Guster kid Leo and Angela (Ryan's wife). 

 I'm going to set the next video up with a bit of explanation. See the tiny red slide in the previous picture? It took 2 1/2 days for Amalia to go down it. Why the hesitation, I have no earthly idea. However, we owe much gratitude to Sofia, pictured above. She is one of the Guster manager's kids who hung out with the girls quite a bit in the Kids Camp and she did her darnedest to coax Amalia down the slide when my persuasive skills were spent.

Then, on our last day on board, Amalia up and decides to "go down the scary slide" (the same one in the Sunday entry that Lily went down immediately) all on her own. And without a moment's hesitation, she threw herself down--head first, as it turns out.

Here's her second trip down the slide. Each one thereafter--and there were many--looked like this. I've no idea why Amalia was so lacking in hydro-dynamic assets. Lily's bum would zoom down the slide.

 More kiddie pool pics. That's Ross, Cookie, Ryan and Baby Dash in the chairs. 

Lily and Amalia going down the tiny slide. Brian (Guster drummer) and his wife sitting by the pool. And their daughter JoJo in front of them. An excellent, relaxing afternoon, I must say. 

  So this pelican landed on our boat and I wondered, "Good luck or bad luck?"

Although he looks quite at home here, apparently he was injured and weak so they decided to capture him and take him to some wildlife rescue folks in Miami.

Here's the footage that Andy got of them boxing up the bird. No worries, although she looks like an average tourist, this woman was actually an ornithologist or some sort of person with bird training.

Our cruise was bookended by Guster shows. For this one, they dug into the ship's costume closet.

 Acoustic "Jesus on the Radio," an encore standard.

 Farewell until the next show, Guster!

I don't have any pictures of the late-night jam, which is a last night tradition for the Ships and Dips cruise. Any and all of the artists come together on one stage to sing, dance and play into the wee hours of the night. Of everything on the cruise, this is probably the most fun for them, as they get to truly jam, interact and experiment with each other as musicians and artists. And for the fans who get to witness it (those who are hearty enough to stay up), it's true exhilaration.