So much for plans to walk daily

Day 4, Grand Asia 2017

Wednesday, Oct. 4, 2017 – At Sea

The seas have settled down a bit from the rocking and rolling of early morning yesterday. You still know you are at sea, and at times a wave hits just right and you lurch to the side. Mornings have been foggy and damp.

One of my favorite places on Holland America ships is the lower promenade and its outdoor walkway encircling the ship. Few other cruise lines have a full promenade deck. At times you can find dozens of HAL passengers walking the deck and dozens of others passing the time (dare I say napping?) in classic teak lounge chairs.

My plan for maintaining some resemblance of fitness on this cruise had been to avoid the elevators and walk three miles on the promenade every day possible. I brought an early generation iPod that contains all my music as well as many downloaded audio books. At home, there is nothing like wondering what’s going to happen next in that John Sandford novel to get me to walk.

These walking plans got tossed out the window when I slipped on wet pavement in Plano the day before I left and hit my knee. That knee already has endured arthroscopic surgery and a fractured top of the tibia years ago. Fortunately, an x-ray showed no break – just lots of swelling and irritation. I left on the cruise in a leg brace.

My knee has healed about 80 percent, helped by frequent icing, use of the elevators instead of the stairs and no unnecessary walking. (I wish I could say I had modified my diet to accommodate the drop in exercise, but that is another story.) I’ve been off the brace for two days, and by the time we get Dutch Harbor I should be able to explore freely. My goal is to be back to normal by Japan and start attacking that walking goal. The knee will decide.

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A little about Day 4: We got an extra hour of sleep as we set clocks back to Alaska time. It just meant I woke up an hour earlier. I’ve fallen into a routine of heading early to the Lido buffet for coffee, breakfast and the online New York Times. As I wrote earlier, access to the Times is complimentary due to its partnership with HAL. At 9 it was back to watercolor class and at 11 the America’s Test Kitchen cooking demonstration of some Italian dishes. After lunch from the Lido salad bar, I worked on the blog for the previous day, which usually takes longer than I expect. I’m not sure where the rest of the afternoon went — some socializing with people I met at dinner, then rest and icing my knee in the cabin.

We had our first gala (dress-up) dinner, and Capt. Fred. Eversen introduced the senior ship officers at a reception. I’ll write more in the future about the gala dinners. I managed to stay up for the 10 p.m. performance by Craig Richard, who played the saxophone and told us about his trip to the finals of American Ninja Warrior. I’ll also go into more detail about the entertainment in another blog.