Practically a Deck Hand
I awoke to a chilly rainy day in Spokane realizing how I conveniently forgot to bring a jacket on this trip. Texas has managed to make me think that summer involves nothing but sun and heat, yet to the Pacific Northwest that is not the case. Thankfully by the afternoon the rains had cleared and the sun had come out promising a beautiful afternoon on the river. Before I get to that there is one other thing I should mention about the morning. While boarding the shuttle bus that would take us from Spokane to Clarkston I noticed one difference between myself and the other patrons; an age difference and a large one at that. At this point I knew that I would be the youngest person on this cruise, and that it would certainly be an “experience”
We traveled the two hours from Spokane to Clarkston uneventfully and eventually our ship, the Queen of the Westcame into view. As I mentioned yesterday it is a relattively small ship and our total passenger compliment on this cruise is 113 people, enough names to just fill two sheets of paper. I discovered how good this atmosphere is for my mother, the social butterfly of the family, she is able to meet and talk to basically everyon on the ship throughout the week, whereas I prefer to keep my distance, although that may have something to do with the age differences and lack of common interests between me and the other guests.
The ship is a total of 4 decks that are accessible to passengers, including 2 lounges, a dining room, an open air lunge on the upper deck, and even a small putting green. It appears to be driven by the paddle in the back although at the speed we are travelling I have a feeling we might also have another means of propulsion. I’ll have more on that tomorrowafter I tour the pilothouse and I’ll be sure to have some pictures of the ship as well. Although as far as some of the other passengers are concerned I should know more already as a member of the crew… Let me explain, I wore a red shirt today and the deckhands all wear red shirts (being a Star Trek fan makes this even better) plus all of the deck hands are around my age and none of the passengers are, so several times throughout the day I was questioned about ship operations as if I were a member of the crew.
The great thing about this cruise is the refreshments. Both during lunch and dinner guests are welcome to free beer and wine, and every evening there is a cocktail happy hour with free bar drinks for everyone. Hence why despite the age differentital I’m not complaining and having a great time so far. We even get free wi-fi (which is why you are reading this update now) and television which let me enjoy game 4 of the NBA Western Conference Finals tonight. So while this cruise is far from targeted at me or my age group, I am quite enjoying
myself and feel like this will be a great and hopefully memorable week (depending on how many happy hours I attend).
We were cruising all day today and will be arriving in the port of Richland, WA in the morning where I will be touring and sampling some of the local vineyards, but more on that in the next update. The highlight of today was traversing 3 locks as we work our way down river. The river flows essentially downhill towards the sea with dams in several places this requires the use of locks that allow ships to move from the higher waters to the lower waters and vice versa. We bring the ship into an area with water tight gates in front of and behind the ship. The gate behind us seals and then the water is emptied out of the area until it equalizes with the water level in front of us at which point the front gate is opened. It’s a really neat process to watch, and kind of crazy to think about what might happen if that gate behind you busts open releasing in some cases a hundred feet of water down upon you. Today we traversed a 104 ft. lock which seemed gigantic and we will be traversing a total of 8 throughout the week.
I think I’ve babeled on enough about the first day already, I’ll continue updating each night so I hope you come back for the next posting. Thanks for reading!