Day 857

A venture into Juneau found Scooter gathering more stickers to adorn herself with and another bear visit. Lunch was at The Rookery Cafe, a local's hangout. A dungeness crab BLT and a turkey bacon sandwich with balsamic onions.

A stop for a couple pictures of flowers in bloom and all three of us (that includes Scooter) had a good day in Alaska's capital city.

Day 856

I wanted to start today’s blog with, The boy did good! But hubby insisted I say, Hubby did good!

Yep, he did. He made it to his salmon fishing trip. A man with cerebral palsy who can only use one hand, a man who, this time last year, was in kidney failure. A man who had been looking forward to this once in a lifetime adventure, an adventure that took confidence and bravery on his part.

Four salmon.

One was lost before being reeled in all the way.

One was a baby king salmon and had to be thrown back.

One was a silver salmon. A keeper.

One was a pink salmon. A keeper.

A hubby who had the biggest grin on his face all day. A keeper.

Today was his day and he took plenty of pictures to prove it. Lures, reels, rods, captain’s chair. A rock fish that was caught, tossed back into the water only to be snatched up quickly by a bald eagle. And of course, his salmon.

Day 855

The reason this trip happened, this trip to Alaska, is hubby.

On this exact date a year ago -  on this exact same cruise line, leaving and returning to the exact same ports in Alaska - hubby got sick. Last month when we traveled this same cruise line to Alaska, hubby realized he did have some of his strength back. But last month he didn't think he had enough strength to attempt that long-awaited salmon fishing trip he missed last year.

So we’re back. And he’s going salmon fishing tomorrow. Finally, after one year of doctors and hospitals and tests and physical therapy he thinks he’s ready. And even ready to use a camera to document his adventure.

He spent the day taking pictures around the ship, a first for him. Even took a picture of the Wheelhouse Bar, the place he spent his time last year when he was too sick to sleep.

Take a look at all his pictures. Not so bad.  (Now I’m afraid he’ll think he deserves his own blog.)

Day 854

When I told kiddo where we were going today she had some big reactions. No. Stop it. You can't go there anymore. Go somewhere else!

While I'm sucking the marrow, hubby is redeeming himself again. If you take a look at exactly a year plus one day, on July 4, you saw these pictures. That trip was the beginning of a big illness for hubby. An illness that shut his kidneys down, put him in the hospital for a month, kept him in a wheelchair for a while, and prevented him from working for several months.

But that was a year ago. Things are different for him now. We're calling it Ed's Redemption Tour 2.0. Yep, we're back, and I'm not talking about home. Can you tell where we are? Or better yet, where we're going?

Day 853

When we woke up this morning we had two choices.

Downtown Seattle and Pike Place Market or drive to Mount Rainier. You can tell by the pictures what we chose.

Check out the rainbow in the falls.

 If you look really carefully you can see climbers coming out from behind the tree on the left.

Yep, Scooter made it too.

How lucky are we to have this beautiful mountain in the background for our picnic lunch? (Except his apple had a little bump along the way. I accidentally knocked it off the table and it rolled. And kept rolling down the little gully of spring runoff. He had to chase it around the bend to finally catch up to it. Oops.)

Everywhere we've gone I've been adding things to my scooter. Charms, stickers, bracelets, jewels. I was about to choose a cute little sticker while up at Mt. Rainier but hubby found one that worked even better for my particular situation.