Kodiak July 22

This is our final day the island. My wife and the girls went to the coffee shop after chapel. The head of the mission, Trevor, asked all of the worker party to stay after the chapel. He thanked us all for our time and explained that the mission couldn’t keep its doors open if it wasn’t for people like us. I told him that I wanted to thank him for allowing my family and I to be able to join in on the experience. He smiled and said that they had heard a lot about us and were curious to meet us. I thought this was a strange thing to say. Then he explained that my parents have been with the mission for quite a while. For people to come once is good, but to return a second time is a different level of commitment. Then he explained to the rest of the group that my parents have come a total nine times. They truly feel that my parents are part of their family. This was a very touching experience. I was totally surprised by the level of appreciation that the people at the mission have for my parents. Without a doubt this is where my parents belong. Many people my their ages are dead or worse. They are still alive but don’t have a purpose to be. A life without purpose is small talk while waiting to die. The best year of my parent’s life is the next year they are alive.


At 7:00 pm we were dropped off by my parents at the boat harbor to start the second part of our Alaskan vacation. We were taking an overnight cruise from Kodiak to Homer. This was our first family cruise. {pic Kodiak ship} We went to the ticket check in in the parking lot and discovered that we had to redeem our Internet tickets at the main office for the real tickets. The main office was about a 1 miles away. In a panic, we turned towards the road and started walking with all of our luggage. At that exact minute someone started yelling my name. I turned to find a guy by the name of Emo and his wife. We had met Emo and his wife at church earlier in the week and talked about my motorcycle trip. Thinking I had brought my bike over, he was wondering about where it was. They were dropping off a fiend from church at the boat harbor. I explained our situation and he said he would run us to the main terminal to get the tickets straightened out. Within 15 minutes we were on the boat and looking for our cabin.

The cabin was really nice. We each had our own bed and a private bathroom. After dumping our gear we went out exploring the boat. The boat had a theatre playing the animated movie “Planet 51”. We wanted to explore the boat but we figured that it was going to be light until 12:00 so we might as well enjoy the free movie. After the movie we discovered that we were still in port. We finished looking around and went back to the room. We were all tired so I went to the cafeteria and grabbed a couple of bags of popcorn. I fired up one of the laptops to watch one of the girl’s favorite shows, “Dr. Who”. The boat pulled out of the harbor and we stared at the continuous chain of islands that appeared and disappeared on the horizon. {pic Kodiak boat window view} My daughter spent the end of the evening reading. At midnight we decided to call it a night.