Day Nine and Ten

Really, once you leave the ship you should just end the vacation. Unfortunately, our flight out wasn't until the next day so we had to keep on keepin' on. I'm just going to jam the two days together if you don't mind.
After we got off of the ship, we went to Heidi's place. It looked like a filming of 'Day of the Living Dead' as everyone needed a nap. We also needed to get online. Seriously, it had been more than a week and the jones was pretty potent.
Eventually, the FP Gal and I went downtown with her folks. We picked up a bag that we'd forgotten at the port. Then we headed further downtown and ran into Pioneer Square, home of the famous Underground Tour. I took this back in...2000? Really enjoyed it and talked everyone into taking it with me. It was interesting and humorous. I think the Twin Cities needs one of these somewhere.
Back down south and (after a heartbreaking episode when we thought Relia was going to sleep) back to our hotel. We zombily unpacked for the night and fell into bed. On an odd note the hotel lobby sign said 'Seattle Sentencing Guidlines', so we had that covered.
The next morning we were up bright and early and Chad picked us up to take us to Vancouver. Holy cats, that was nice of him! We stopped on the way out to see the famous Fremont Troll. Then it was wheels up and heading north. On the way we stopped at a Jack in the Box to have lunch.
The border was much faster this time and we made it to the airport with time to spare. Lots of time because we found out that our flight had been delayed by about forty minutes. This gave us more time to chase Relia around the airport, the highlight was when she discovered the moving walkways. Think of combining a treadmill with plexiglass walls and you'll see the beauty of this.
Onto the flight and we made our way home. No special problems here but we were lucky in that the lady seated next to us took to Relia right away and was a great help. No problem until we were about ready to land, that is. The pilot informed us that the only thunderstorm in the upper midwest was parked over MSP and they wanted us to circle for an hour or reroute. He mentioned that the hour would never happen because we didn't have enough fuel. He must have talked nicely to control because we were only up about twenty minutes longer than planned. For those scoring at home that meant an extra hour added to the flight home. Add in the time for luggage and the drive to our place and we spent just over nine hours of travel on that last day.
Home! The kitties were happy to see us and we got over that fear that all homeowners have that they'll come home and find that a tree has knocked over your house. That night we slept in our own beds. We couldn't see any more whales but if you closed your eyes and layed down you could still feel the waves. It was heaven.