It is now Wednesday. Lyman called to see where the coroner was at, they were still not ready to release Ryan's body to the mortuary. He didn't want to yell at them, possibly it would slow down the process. He did call the mortuary again to see if they could help. Well it looked like we would not be going home today. We decided to go out and visit the Everglades. They are within driving distance. We drove across Alligator Alley and then came back to the Everglades. Before entering the Everglades we ate a an Indian Restaurant across from the entrance to the Park. We had Navajo (or Seminole) Tacos. They were good. Then we went to the park and decided to take the shuttle tram out around the loop. Just as it is our time to board the shuttle we get a call from the mortuary that they have Ryan's body and that he has been scheduled to fly home tomorrow. Lyman calls the travel agent and gives them all of the informatiion about his flight and tells them we need to be on the flgiht with Ryan. Thanks to them we were on exactly the same flight and all of us could fly home together. We finished the tram tour and headed back to Ft. Lauderdale. We took the scenic route back and came throught Miami (Little Havana Section). It was interesting to see, but we keep the doors locked. We are going to head home in the morning. What a relief. Now call and let everyone know when we will be there and see if someone will pick us up at the airport. We had Linda and Dan take the van home, to eliminate extra parking charges. Mindy will come and pick us up. Thank you! Things seem to be going well and we decided to schedule the funeral for Tuesday as Lyman's aunt's funeral was going to be Saturday. There were some coming from out of town so we needed to set a date.

Here we are Port Everglades, we are supposed to take our one bag and leave everything else on the ship for about a month (our stuff will be cruising the Caribbean). Report to the medical center by 8:00 a.m.. Linda and Dan will be disembarking at their regular time. We will not see them again until we return to Salt Lake. Their flight leaves the p.m.. The Broward county Sheriff's were very nice and understanding, they just had to follow the protocol for these kind of things. By this time is about 11:00 a.m. After they came then the coroner was to pick up Ryan's body. The Cruise lady from Princess came and escorted us off of the ship. We got to avoid any crowds or the hustle and bustle. We were told a room had been reserved for us by Princess near the airport so that as soon as we could leave there was a shuttle that would take us to the airport. We had hoped that everything would move quickly and we would be going home tomorrow. Lyman had not brought the charger for the cell phone, as he thought we would not be needing it, because we were originally only going to be in Ft. Lauderdale for a few hours. We made a few calls from the hotel and used the cell phone as little as possible to keep the charge. Lyman called Linda and Dan to see if they had seen a Verizon phone store anywhere in the area, they were out looking for the Hard Rock Cafe. We had looked in the phone book, but wasn't sure of the address. Linda was trying to call back on the hotel phone, but Lyman didn't tell me she would be calling back. I was talking to Mindy, recapping all of the details that we had gone through. Linda kept trying to call and couldn't get through. She had found a store and had bought a charger. Soon there is a knock at the door, I thought it was someone from the hotel bringing up the luggage. Surprise it was Linda and Dan (who I didn't think we would see until returning to Salt Lake). They had been driving by and Linda noticed the hotel from the freeway, and said to Dan is that an H on that building? They found our hotel and brought the charger. We try to plug it in and it doesn't start charging. What to do? They have a short time before they have to leave. The Verizon store is not to far from the hotel. We quickly run back over and take the phone to be sure that the charger works. Luck has it we had a bad charger. Got a new one, they let me run into Quizno's and grab Lyman and I lunch. We returned to the hotel and they needed to be off. (Wow sometimes miracles do happen). It looked like we would not be leaving until last Wednesday and now more into Thursday. The coroner's office said to pray that there were no homicides that night, so that Ryan would be their priority. At this point Lyman decided we should rent a car and not stay in and stare at the 4 walls. The travel agency was able to help us with this task. We took the airport shuttle to the airport to pick up the rental car. Then we decided that we should at least look around Ft. Lauderdale (we had never been here before), so we drove past the port to see the Coral Princess just getting ready to leave. We took some pictures as it was leaving. Decided to eat at Bubba Gumps for dinner. Things were progessing slowly, we called the funeral home in Ft. Lauderdale to see if they could help us speed things up. We just wanted to bring Ryan...HOME!

5 months ago today Ryan passed away. Sometimes it seems like it has been forever and other times only a few days. Just living life one day at a time.

Here we are it is the last full day of our wonderful Panama Canal Cruise. I wonder what tomorrow will bring? We are supposed to pack our bags that are staying on the ship with the wheelchair and leave them in the room. Bring the bag that we are taking with us down to the Medical Center in the morning. We will be in Port Everglades tomorrow A.M. the doctor said that we would need to talk to the Broward County Sheriff's department and the coroner would pick up Ryan's body. Today reminiscing about Ryan, trying to decide on a date for the funeral, who to call when we get off, who to have speak at the funeral, not really the end to the trip that I had expected. Linda and Dan will disembark on their regular schedule. We will now be here alone waiting for the coroner to release Ryan. This last day seems like a blur, I don't recall everything we did this last day. Probably played Bingo, got packed, and ate some great food.

Super Bowl Sunday - Pittsburgh Steelers vs. Phoenix Cardinals. We are at sea heading toward Fort Lauderdale. Today on the ship they had an Italian Pasty Buffet that was extremely wonderful. There was also an ice sculpture exhibition. It was so cool to see the artist just carve away at the ice, never stopping and stepping back to view the sculpture. What a great job he did, it was a seagull on a wave. We played bingo twice this day. Lyman went to the Art Auction to bid on the Navigational chart from our Panama Canal Cruise. He got the bid! It was going to be formal night and we decided to get our picture done as a group. There was Linda, Dan, Lyman and I. It was Molly that took our picture in black in white. It turned out really good. Probably one of the best pictures that I have taken. I usually don't photograph very well. We went to the Newlywed, not so Newlywed gameshow in the Explorers Lounge. What fun it was even just to play along and see where you would have scored. Then we attended the Champagne Waterfall Party. A tower of champagne glasses that they poured champagne over starting at the top.

Aruba, Jamaica o-o-o I want to take you. Bermuda, Bahama come on pretty Mama! Aruba would be our next stop. Dr. Lindsay said it would be OK to get off the ship in Aruba. Dan, Linda, Lyman and I went out in the rain. This was the only port day that we had rain. It was still warm though, but very muggy. It finally stopped raining when we were walking through town. We did not have an excursion planned, just walking through town to pick up on some of the deals in the shopping book. Linda did find some jewelery to purchase, I was going to buy some pearl earrings, since I thought I had lost one of mine. But, the earrings were sold out! Linda and Dan wanted to go to the Hard Rock in Aruba, so Lyman and I went along. They just hailed a cab in town, told him where they wanted to go, and we were off. On the return trip there was a cab loading zone, so we just caught the cab back to the pier. How adventuresome to just catch a cab, usually we had to be sure that there was transportation for wheelchairs. This time there was no wheelchair with us. This was our last port on the trip, we would now we at sea for a couple of days and then back for Fort Lauerdale and Port Everglades.

Our next port is Cartegena, Colombia. Dr. Lindsay advised us again that we should probably stay on ship, just in case there is an inquiry about Ryan's death. He said "if there is a problem he would be able to take care of it". Linda & Dan had an off shore excursion already planned and they also wanted to go to the Hard Rock Cafe. Lyman had gone on his walk about earlier and had already eaten breakfast. He was going to attend a presentation about navigation so I went to breakfast by myself. Several times both Lyman and Dan had gone up and ate by their selves. I was sitting by myself eating breakfast and one of the restaurant workers came up to me and said you look awfully lonely! Did I? I had not realized that, I also wondered (as Dr. Lindsay had said to us) the ship is like a small city he may have known that I was the mother who had lost her son. When Lyman was finished, I went with him on walk about. He had discovered all the cool places on the ship and showed me around. Linda and Dan came back from their off shore excursion later that afternoon and we had dinner at the Horizon Court Buffet. We attended one of the Big Production shows that night. Had I looked lonely? I thought that I was hiding it well. I had not been consistenly crying (except in the shower and then no one knows that you are). I think we were aware that someday soon Ryan was going to pass away, just not that it was going to be yesterday. To be continued. . .