Chapter 2

When we arrived to the terminal, we walked in and must have looked like we were looking for a bathroom. The ladies all said, "The bathrooms are outside, there are none in here." Now, if you know anything about me, you know, when I gotta go, it's usually already too late. But, we made it. When we returned to the inside, I said to Kathy,
     "Oh, man, do my feet hurt." and a gentleman from the cruise line who must have been walking by at just that second said, "Do you need a chair?" I assured him I did not. But, I did have some pretty nice blisters on my feet from our short little walk to the ship. (Now, to be clear about this, Kathy did not support any of my misdirections. She objected the whole time. I take full responsibility!)

We stopped to take a picture at the KLOVE sign and some nice people from Prescott, AZ were there ready to take ours in exchange for us taking theirs. Dene and Lori soon became our first set of cruise friends. (Dene told us to smile for the picture...only Donahue descendents can master that smile of ours, one that doesn't look like we are smiling!) Dene and Lori told us that they had been on a waiting list for the cruise and had only found out in December that they were going. They will be married one year in March, so this was their anniversary celebration. Dene was a cancer survivor. Lori loved my hair.

We were season crusiers by this trip so we expected to be put in a cattle chute and pushed toward the check in. However, Miami has updated their procedure and we were immediately at the check-in. We then proceed to security and then we were in. This is getting so exciting!!

I had decided not to take my big camera with me this year. It gets bulky and heavy. I may change that plan for next year. I kind of missed some good photo ops. But, Kathy will have some great shots I can share later.

This is looking down from deck 11

Since we were old pros at this, first stop, the Windjammer. Some may call this a buffet or maybe even a feeding trough. But we knew that needed to be our first stop. We grabbed lunch and while in line we ran into Ken and Christine. Christine was not a familiar face, but Ken was, he was the person I cut in front of on a dare last year while we were in the cattle chutes. When I saw him in line, I squatted down in order to jump right up in front of him. Christine was a bit taken back, but Ken knew right away who I was and why I was there cutting in front of him again.  ( I have no pictures of them, despite my plan to photograph all new friends, I failed)

We ate lunch and looking around the area for "famous" people. Kathy was determined that a table of young men across the way from us were famous. As they started to make their move to leave, she went over and asked them if they were famous. They all denied being famous, never gave up their identity and later we discovered they were Tauren Wells' band. We had several other opportunities to give them grief about who they really were. They were very good natured about it and we had a good time teasing back and forth once we knew their true identity.

On to the Muster drill. We had ours in the dining room. As we were walking in, we said, "Let's be sure to sit by someone who is fun!" Little did we know, we were about to make another set of lifelong friends. Despite the Bears gear, we sat with Leon and LaTonya. We chatted, got to know each other, and decided we would try to save seats for each other at the concerts. (That actually never worked out, but we spent a lot of time talking with them and getting to know them over the course of the trip.)

It hurt to see this symbol on his shirt

While heading back to our cabin after the muster drill, we got onto a crowded elevator (pretty much you get on or you wait another ten minutes) and Kathy didn't want to miss any opportunity. She says, "Is there anyone on this elevator who is famous?" Of course everyone chuckled and then a very beautiful woman points to another woman (both African American) and says, "She is Nicole C, Mullen." That woman was right next to me, we were touching shoulders. I looked at her and my thoughts were, "I thought Nicole was tall and thin, but hey, I haven't ever seen her in person and it has been awhile since she has been on the scene..." I reach over and hug her and tell her how much I love her music. All the while she was acting all embarrassed for being discovered, etc. The elevator opens to their deck and as they get off, Kathy says, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to embarrass you, but even if you hadn't been incognito, I wouldn't have known it was you." And the other woman says, "Actually, I am Nicole." As they walked away, Nicole's friend looks back and sings "I know, my redeemer lives," off tune and loud. I replied, "That's just how it sounds when I sing it!"

Well, later on that day, we ran into Nicole and pseudo-Nicole (later named Mandisa) and we informed them that they really owed us a picture for tricking us like they had. So, we had a special photo op.

On the elevator was a young man, the one we really thought could possibly be famous. He was not then, but he has won over a special place in our hearts. More on his story in Chapter 3. (Stay tuned)