Barbara J. Hamby

Goodbye to the Holland Maasdam

              (Or, as the crew refers to it, “One of the best dam ships.”)

We awoke very early Tuesday morning to prepare for breakfast and our departure from the ship. To my surprise, the powers that exist on the ship had changed our luggage tags on Monday, to indicate that we would be in the first group to leave. Since our plane didn’t leave until 3:00 p.m., that left us with a lot of time to kill at the Ft. Lauderdale airport. After a hurried breakfast, we returned to the cabin to brush teeth and gather our briefcases and coats. While we were there, the announcement came that our group was free to disembark.

We left the ship and boarded a bus arriving at the airport at l0:00 a.m. I bought a bottle of water and a package of chewing gum. That’s the first time in years I’ve seen gum in an airport. Maybe it’s because the Ft. Lauderdale airport is under renovation. We found comfortable seats and began reading. We took turns walking around and sitting.

At lunchtime, the choice was between Italian or Mexican food. We opted for the Mexican restaurant and found hamburgers on the menu, so we had big, juicy burgers for lunch. I figured I was already well off my diet, so I ate half my fries, also.

I think I managed to doze away some of our wait time, I’m not sure if Floyd did. But, fortunately, our plane was available to board on time, though it left a bit late. We also arrived in Houston a few minutes late, so had little time to make our connection. We got the last two seats on a shuttle (in the back row). The driver had passengers for both ends of the airport, so he didn’t waste any time. We hung on going around the corners and managed to get to our gate safely, just in time to catch the plane to Portland.

We were fed pretzels and a dinner of sorts on our flights and arrived on time at PDX. For the first time in my many years of traveling, our luggage was on the baggage carousel by the time we got there, and our ride (my son) was waiting at the door.