Tucker -- Part Chow Chow and all Spunk!

Jasmine's roll in the hay!

...and what a smell after....

So cute little Jassy decided to enjoy the sunny afternoon a few days by rolling with reckless abandon in the newly sprouted lawn.  Well at first I thought it was cute and I was glad to see her enjoying herself in the Spring air.  Than I noticed it might be something more than a Spring roll in the hay...  Yes, it certainly was.  Sachem, our cat, had been out days earlier and his hunter instinct got the better of him.  He caught and killed something...ate it and then threw it up in the yard.  Well, Jassy found it and dragged it around before rolling "with reckless abandon" all over it.  It was awful!!  She had stuff matted all over her before I could scream "NOOOO!!!!"  So I scooped her up...by the non-stinky areas of her little furry self and washed her in the sink!  She was not at all happy with that!

After that we proceeded to the couch with the furdryer and for over an hour I blew her dry and fluffed her back up.  Then another hour of brushing, combing and cajolling!  She is high maintenance!!  As you can see she came out lovely!  I trimmed her up really well, which took another hour or so.  An entire afternoon it took me to clean her up.  But, I wanted her to be ready for Tuesday so that her Godmother Cynthia could love her up...without a horrible odor!!  She loves it that Cynthia and Wayne come over and spoil her and we love it even more!

Lost!

And too busy to even figure out what is missing...

The past few months have been increasing busy and even with the longer hours of daylight, the days are just too short to get everything done.  Work is crazy and I have a never ending list of volunteer stuff to do.  The good news is I am finally getting some compensation for my extra efforts, which helped me to replace my sorry excuse for a laptop...never buy an IBM!!!  That old laptop will find itself in the next burn pile for sure!

As I mentioned, life is busy with all the extra activities.  I created (and maintain) a number of different websites for various New England airport management associations - www.maineairports.org and www.gsama.org.  I also created a website for the York County Farmer's Network www.ycfn.org and finished completing the edits to the Spiller's new website and blog www.spillerfarm.com.  Val's brother Donald and I are actually working together on some other websites that we will hopefully roll out soon.  It's great working with Donald and learning new techniques for site development, SOE, and databases.  All that extra computer work though has added to the number of hours my butt is in a chair and my exercise is limited to keystrokes!!  Not good for weight loss...which is becoming a huge issue for me.

Have you ever had a driveway moment where you listen to something on the radio and you relate to it so much that you sit in the car in your driveway until the program is over?  I have had a few of those recently.  One of them really had to do with my issue with weight.  Before cancer, seven years ago now, I was comfortable size 7 - 8 and able to feel comfortable in my clothes.  Now, almost 30 pounds heavier I am not at all comfortable and have had limited success shedding the pounds.  I actually lost 4 pounds on the cruise...so perhaps I take eight more cruises and hope for the best!  Anyway, this summer I will hopefully conquer this battle and make time for better healthier choices of exercise and nutrition.

Mom will be heading north again soon!  Again she will spend a good part of the summer with us and some in Colorado with my sisters Kathy and Linda.  It will be good for her to get out more and enjoy her time withthe kids and grand kids and not just be stuck in the house with our dogs.  I will try to get her into some dog training classes this summer.  I think she will enjoy it and Honeybear will love it!  It will be nice to have her around again and have someone to play scrabble with...not on the internet!!   This year we are shipping her car up north.  It is much cheaper than driving it up and it will be easier on us.  With everyone working so much, it is hard to take the time to go down there to drive her up.  The end of the summer or fall is not as bad, but this time of the year is just crazy!  And if airline tickets don't start going down, we will have to find another way to get her back and forth...perhaps on horse back!

A red-Neck Suntan!

Ellie Mae gets some rays in East Bum, Maine...

I complain a lot about our 100" of snow that we have had so far this winter.  It has been a pain to shovel and each storm typically ended with some sort of rain or sleet--so we have not even been able to enjoy it much.  Our very good friend Ellie Mae was bragging this morning that they have had over 180" of snow so far (with more on the way), which makes our snow piles seem insignificant.  So she sends me a few pictures to illustrate the current piles in her yard.  Now when you first look at the picture, it seems like there is tons of snow...but Ellie Mae is barely 5 feet tall...so these snow banks aren't really that big!  It does appear fluffier then the glacier in our yard!

Ellie Mae also sent me this wonderful picture of the deer that bedded down in their back yard.  There were eight deer that took shelter near their house.  She thinks they took shelter so close to avoid the coyotes.  I think it is her good cooking and sunny disposition!  I was impressed with the picture.  We get deer passing through our yard, but I have never seen deer bedded down.  I know they are bedding somewhere nearby our house as they often graze in the Spiller's fields.  We too have a coyote issue down here.  We hear them at night, especially when there is moonlight.

So what to do with all the snow?  Ellie Mae is nothing short (no pun intended) of creative and able to make everything fun!  She is also desperate to get a jump start on her tan and catch up on her reading!  They only have about 4 hours of daylight up in East Bum...so she has to get her chores done fast and shovel out her lawn chair!  If you look closely, you will notice she is reading a Red Neck Gardening Journal.  She grows a wonderful assortment of flowers and special watermelons that have hybrid seeds for her seed spitting competitions!  Yes, she is well known in the region for her ability to spit seeds, chuck mops and hurl iron skillets further than any other red neck woman!!  I could not be more proud of my good buddy!

Washington!

And more plane rides...

Ok, so I never did finish talking about the cruise, Denver or some of the other recent trips!  I get it!  I will back track and fill in some of the recent trips with lots of photos.  Time seems to be the limiting factor.  I have been crazy busy and my flights have either been way before the sun rises or the red eye home.  I also try to get back home rather than staying overnight some where--in part to save the company money and also to home with Val and the pups. 

It is tough to be away so much.  I try to make up for by working from home when I can.  Lately it just seems like I am working all the time.  The crazy weather perpetuates that.  it is impossible to do anything outside with the sleet, snow, rain, wind and overall yuckiness!  There is hope; I see a small patch of grass growing around the house...actually between the house and the 3 foot snow banks! Still, I am hopeful Spring is on the way!

As the title suggests I was recently in Washington, D.C.  That was extremely cool!  I went there just for the day...a very long day that started at 4 am.  The flight on Southwest was great, except that I had to drive to Manchester to catch the flight.  From BWI I caught Amtrak to Union Station.  In my typical planning style, I allowed less than 30 minutes to make the connection.  It worked out extremely well...except for the stress!  Anyway, a few of my colleagues from the Airport Consultants Council scheduled meetings with senior staff members of the House and Senate to discuss FAA Reauthorization.  The meetings went very well and I was so impressed with folks that we met.  They genuinely listened to our concerns and offered to continue to assist us during this lengthy process.

Fortunately, there was some extra time to walk through parts of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. More pictures will be posted of the trip!   So much to post...so little time!!

Colorado - Part 1

And still having fun...

Still in Colorado!  But I wanted to at least post the pictures of our ski trip to Keystone.  http://picasaweb.google.com/dwilde1221/Keystone  I will post about the trip soon!  Enjoy the pictures.  I have a very late flight back...so it may be a while before I did myself out of my workload that awaits me.

Working in Denver!

And having fun too...

So the flights to Denver were great.  I flew out before the storms and actually had an on-time flight out of JFK!  That has not happened in a long time for me!!  It was perhaps that I flew Delta and not jetBlue.  My flight from JFK to Denver had only 35 people on it, so there was a lot of room on the plane!  Of course the after the stewardess informed us it open seating, I moved up to a seat closer to the front, in an exit seat with more leg room.  There were four exits each three seats wide, all empty.  So I put my stuff in the overhead, got out my CM study materials and settled in. 

Sure enough 10 minutes later two guys board and pitch a fit that I am in their seat.  I explain that it is open seating, and they can sit anywhere.  Well, I thought one guy was going to start crying!  He looked at his ticket and looked back at me and then looked over at the stewardess and exclaimed that he had reserved HIS seat on-line weeks ago.  The folks around me notice the commotion and explained to the wing nuts that there are three other empty exit seats, but the one guy just keep on like rainman..."but I RESERVED that seat!"  Whatever dude!  So I pick up my stuff and moved over to the other empty exit row of seats...and the other two exit rows of seats remained empty.  They definitely had issues and I was not going to get into them.  I spent the rest of the flight reading.

Denver is awesome!  I met my sister Kathy at the conference hotel and we headed off to eat and then see the downtown.  We did not have a good map, but we managed to see a lot of stuff driving around.  We tried to tour the mint, but it closed at 3 pm.  Next we went to the Denver Fire Station Museum.  It was built in 1909 and had a wonderful collection of Fire Department memorabilia.  It was a working fire station until 1974 and a few years after it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.  We actually found it quite by accident, but it was well worth the visit!

What I most enjoyed at the fire house was that we could touch stuff and get right up close to the old equipment.  They also had some really cool old video of the fire station in action.  They had a wonderful collection of old fire trucks and equipment.  You can see in the photo that there are foot prints on the floor.  The self guided tour took you through two floors of interesting history.  Regretfully I did not bring my camera, so I snapped these with my cell phone.

You can see more pictures at the Museum website.  There are even pictures of the horse drawn fire wagon!  Very cool!!  I am sure my friends Sue and Ed would have loved this place!!

Next we drove to the Capitol building.  Like most state capitol buildings there was no parking nearby, so we circled until we found a spot that we were 75% sure we would not get towed from.  We had about 45 minutes to wander around and look in various doors.  This photo was looking up into the Rotunda. 

The cornerstone for the building was laid in 1890 and the building was completed in 1908...for a small sum of $2.8 million.  Most all of the stone was quarried in Colorado.  The  granite came from Gunnison and wainscoting and pillar faces is Colorado Onyx.  In fact the supply of that Onyx was exhausted in the construction of the building!  This photo of the Rotunda barely captures the beauty, but what can you expect from a cell phone!

I will work for a few mores day here and then go spend the weekend with Kathy, Scott and the kids...though the kids are much bigger now!!!

Columbia!

This is going to be a very long cruise at this rate...

Yah, yah, yah, I know you want more installments of the cruise!  I need more hours in a day to get everything done!  Anyway, this will be all about Cartagena.

This is a fort just before the city of Cartagena.

January 20, 2008 – Cartagena, Columbia
Same routine…up early…coffee and fruit.  Though, I had to stop eating the pineapple.  I have a mild allergy to it.  Typically it just makes my throat a bit scratchy and makes my lips swell a little.  Well, after three days of hearty portions of pineapple in the morning and additional servings at night…the ramifications were starting to manifest.  My lips turned into something that should have been featured on a plastic surgery gone very wrong show!  At first I thought it was a touch of sun poisoning, but I had been wearing a lot of SPF 30 and Chapstick with SFP 40.  Since it was now getting difficult to kept liquids in my mouth, I opted to not eat anymore pineapple for the rest of the cruise.  Tom and Bob both benefitted from that and it became a fun routine to pass the pineapple around the table!

Bob and Linda opted not to leave the ship that day.  Instead they decided to get there money's worth of Coke products and Linda continued to try to win the giant Bingo Jackpot...that was won, but not that day and not by anyone we knew!

Anyway, by 7 am I walked around the ship for a bit and then went back to the room to check on Mum.  Mum awoke with a terrible rash that was all over her arms, legs and back.  I got some Benadryl in her and it seemed to calm things down.  The Ship clinic was not open, so she braved it and we took the Benadryl with us.

Back to the Princess Theatre to wait in a long, long line for the shore excursion.  We sent off to a fleet of buses and assigned to a guide- Edgar.  He set us up with headphones and HIS name tag.  If we got off track the store owners knew to send us back to Edgar!  Too funny!  Edgar is in the blue shirt and he is chatting with one of the vendors.  Most likely telling him to follow us for the next few miles!

We drove all over town.  There are few street signs and fewer rules.  First Edgar took us to the Castillo de San Felipe de Barajas.  The fortress construction began in 1639 and was complete in 1789and was designed to guard Cartagena against pirates—I think I saw a few there.  Mum was able to climb to the top, but I could tell it was not easy on her.  Every time we got out of the bus hoards of vendors would try to sell us stuff.  It was all the same stuff, but all different deals.  One man even had a Sloth that he would charge you to take pictures of.  That was a bit creepy and questionably legal.  Apparently they are illegal, but the government makes them get vet checked once a month.  There was no way I was letting that guy drape he Sloth on me.  I did give him a dollar and took a picture of him with his Sloth.  I regretted it.  It is not right to encourage then to use such an animal to get money.  Later the tour guide warned us that the sloths are not well cared for and when they die, the locals just go take another one from the forest.

Convento de la Popa, on a hill nearly 500 feet above the city. Sometimes known as Goat's Leap, it was once the site of worship by the indigenous people.  Next stop was high up on the mountain top to a monastery.  Again, throngs of people and tons of vendors rushing at us to sell us stuff.  There was a beautiful alter in the church and a mysterious legend around it.  It was very pretty, but mostly I enjoyed the view from the top of the hill. 

Las Bóvedas are dungeons initially built for military purposes and now house boutiques and tourist shops Again, Cartagena was not the prettiest stop.  Certainly there were nicer towns in Columbia.  I felt again that the guide showed us the poorest sections and then dropped us off at his vendor friends.  We were instructed where to shop and how long we had.  I got a few post cards.  Emeralds were way out of price range! 
At one of the shops I bought a coffee. Everyone kept saying how the good the coffee was in the country…Frankly, it tasted like Starbucks!  I took a few sips, Mum tried it, and I fed the rest to a nearby bush!  There was really not much to buy in the shops we stopped at.  So much of it was basic tourist crap.  I would have bought something hand made, but it was difficult know which items were made in China!!

Mum and I of course ventured off to the other shops to see at much as we could in the short time we had there.  It was a bit unsettling once we were too far away from the guide and group.  I got us a bit turned around, since I have no sense of direction, which I get from my Mum!!  Eventually the tour guide found us and brought us back to the bus.  Others were not too impressed with us…making them wait…who were we anyway…special!!  Well I thought we were special!

Off we went to the next stop where we walked around town a bit and saw some interesting architecture.  I was fascinated by the door knockers.  The architecture was very interesting, but I think it was a bit much to take in.  During the entire walking tour we were constantly approached by street vendors and others just looking for a handout.

At one point we were taken to a Catholic church and allowed to go up to the alter just before Mass to take pictures.  There were bones of a bishop or someone behind the alter.  That was a bit creepy and I was just not comfortable being a tourist in the church.  I found it very disrespectful.  I picked up some of the trash in front of the alter and prayed for a safe exit.  We got some strong looks of disgust from the parishioners.  Last but not least, another shopping stop….

You gotta love this statue!  It seems that skinny people were not highly regarded.  Legend has it that if you were too thin you must have been possessed by the devil and you were killed!

Once back on the ship, I went right the room, changed into my suit and went to the pool!  Finally some down time in the sun!  There is so much rushing around, I never seem to have time to relax!  The sun was still fairly high in the sky and it felt like I was sitting on the face of the sun!  It was so nice to be hot!  I know all too soon the snow will be knee high again!! I bought Mum another bloody Mary and set her in the shade nearby to spot by the pool.  I took a nice long nap.  I have not been sleeping well at all on ship.  I seem to wake up every few hours.  I seem to sleep better in the sun by the pool.

At 4:30 pm I finally had to take Mum to the Ship Clinic.  She began to itch again and the rash looked to be getting worse.  The Dr. was very nice and gave her some Benadryl like stuff, prednisone and cream.  My guess is she got something from the pool…

After the 2 hour dinner, it was off to play scrabble with Mum and her friend Linda.  We played a few games in the ships’ library.  Linda was very competitive and it is fun to watch her come up with words and always try to get the double and triple word scores.  I have to keep an eye on both of them!  It is not so much that they cheat, but they convince themselves of some mysterious spellings of words!!  Score keeping can be a bit of a challenge as well after a few drinks!  Mostly we laugh!!  That is the best part.  Linda is a lot of fun to be around and she is a great friend to Mum.  Linda’s husband Bob adopted me as his cruise daughter!

Ok, I am off to Denver for a conference, so the cruise again is put on hold!  But, our next stop is the Panama Canal…so stay tuned!!!

Letting the cat out of the bag!

And into the vet's office...

Once again we had to make an emergency trip to the Vet's office.  We noticed Thursday night that Sachem was limping quite a bit on his back left foot.  You know like when you break a heel off a shoe...not that I would understand that analogy personally since I would not wear anything with a heel.  But, poor little Sachem seemed in need of an x-ray ASAP.  I was lucky that the Vet got us in early the next morning and got it checked out. 

The trip to the Vet office was a hoot!  I could not find the door to the cat carrier, so I had to improvise.  Sachem actually likes to sleep in bags--so I figured I would just take him in one of my carry-on bags.  However, he was less than thrilled with the car ride in the bag!  He would stick his nose out and howl--a sad and mournful howl!  At least he did not empty his bowls and bladder like he did the last time he went to the vet!  Fortunately the x-rays showed that there were no broken bones.  Most likely he over stretched some tendons jumping from one of the shelves in our closet--where he loves to sleep on our clean clothes!  He has done this for his entire 15 years, so it is doubtful we can train him to not do that anymore.  Instead, we just do a lot of laundry.

Even in the Vet's office when I was waiting for the X-ray results, Sachem went back into the bag and laid down.  The Vet staff thought that was a riot.  The Doc gave him a shot to help with the swelling in his foot and sent us on our way.  He is still limping, but he is also still jumping from high places!  It is really hard to make a cat do anything...let alone not be cat!

Cruise Day Three...

Something tells me it will be a longer trip blogging...

Aruba, Netherlands (January 19, 2008)

This morning started off early.  I got up and out a 5 am to have some time to myself.  Coffee and fruit and then off to explore the ship a bit.  It was still quite dark so there was not much to see.  I had to get Mum up in time to get some food and coffee in her before we had to get to our first cattle call.  At 7am we had to report to the Princess Chapel…with about 1,500 other folks!  I am not enjoying standing in line so much.  Some of the old folks are a bit cantankerous and have lost any sense of manners or line etiquette.  I also find that the bigger they are the ruder they are.

So at 7 am we were off for our See and Sea tour.  Our Tour guide had a lovely accent, but she must have been very new at it.  Her information was a bit lacking, but interesting on a personal level.   She talked about her ancestry and how her folks are typical of island families.  Her parents were from mixed nationalities and generations back could be traced by the countries struggle to find work, housing and stability.  Her history seem a bit muddled, but what I read she hit the high points correctly.

We got on a bus and were driven around the 19 miles of Island.  First off to see the light house and a gift shop, then to rock formation that gave some view of the Island and a gift shop, and then to a glass bottom boat…and oddly enough no gift shop!  The wealth here is only about block in, after that the quality of life seems to be a bit more challenging.

Aruba is part of what is typically referred to as the ABC Islands—Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao.  Early settlements can be dated back to about 1,000 AD to the Caquetios Indians from South America.  Spanish explorer Alonso de Ojeda was the first European to discover the tiny Island in 1499.  Of course Spain lost it to the Dutch in the mid 1630s; the English took for a short period of time but then returned it back to the Dutch. Today, Aruba is a part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, but functions independently.  The language is primarily Dutch, Spanish and Papiamento.  Schools are taught in Dutch, but most Islanders are fluent and several languages.  There is a push now to make Papiamento their official language.  It is a mixture of Spanish and Portuguese with some Dutch, French, English and African dialects.

The California Lighthouse

Built in 1910, the old stone California lighthouse is located in the area known as "Hudishibana," on the island's northwestern tip.  The lighthouse is named for the U.S ship California, which sunk several years before.  The lighthouse was erected to prevent any other ships from succumbing to a similar fate.  The lighthouse is now automated and no longer has a light house keeper, but I can only imagine what a dream job that was!  Still, since I live in Maine, a lighthouse was not that exciting.  It was an interesting trip to the lighthouse.  The roads were very undeveloped and provided interesting views of the undeveloped coast.

We were conveniently dropped off at the gift shop and most of us walked up the small hill to get a better view of the lighthouse.  I was more interested in the surrounding landscape.  The terrain was very rough, mostly old coral and volcanic rock with of course broken glass and trash.  It was surprising at first to see so much garbage, but as you will read about our experiences at other ports—trash is just a persistent issue and not one that anyone is very concerned about.

At the lighthouse we warned not to go too far off the path.  If you fall it could result in some serious injuries.  No doubt!!  Not only is the coral and volcanic rock sharp, the cacti around there is treacherous!!  Aruba is located close to the equator, and with only about 14 to 22 inches of rain annually and year round warm temps, it is ideal for cactus, Iguana, and other not so nice bugs.  I would never let Val walk off the path…she is not as sure footed as I am!

Glass Bottom Boat

Back on the bus and off to the glass bottom boat.  It was interesting, but again it was very much geared to a tourist.  The ship we cruised around was one of the 18 reefs that they had.  Most of the other reefs were ships that were bought and sunk so that tourism could flourish.  We each had a window seat and could view the colorful fish.  It was interesting, though I was a bit envious of the divers we saw in and around the sunken ship.  I never imagined that I would be in the Caribbean yet never get in the water!!!  The water looked beautiful, clear, and very welcoming.  Maybe next time!  Mom has always said Bonaire was the best place for snorkeling; so I will add that to my list of places I must visit!

The Natural Bridge

Again it was time to get back on the bus and head off to the Natural Bridge.  This was a formation of rock that the continual surf had chiseled into a bridge formation.  This part of the tour got very hooky since the bridge fell not too long ago.  Of course the gift shop still had postcards of the bridge…but mostly we got to see a pile of rock that was once the natural bridge.  It reminded me of the Old Man of the Mountain!  I walked around a bit and took some shots of the coast, beach and surf.  The water was very rough, which was typical of that side of the coast.  I did buy a small history book at the gift shop there, which made a great supplement to our lackluster tour guide.

Big Pile of Rocks

Our last stop was at a big rock pile.  Not sure why we stopped other than it offered a view of the Island and of course there was a gift shop.  I made my way up to the top of the rock pile.  No way Mum could have made it up there.  On the way down I wondered around the backside of the pile and came across this little beauty.  Such a colorful Iguana!

Oranjestad

At the end of our Sea and See Tour we were drooped near the ship and were instructed that we had about 1 hour to explore the town.  We were warned not to be late as the ship waits for no one!!  I left Mum with Linda and Bob and headed off to explore a bit and find an Internet connection that would not cost me a kidney to send an email.  I am sure that the Coral Princess make a huge profit off their Internet service.  The Internet connection on the ship is horrible and costly.  I was glad that I found an Internet café in town and for $1 I had 15 minutes!

After sending a quick email to Val I ran around and snapped a few pictures, bought a T-shirt for Val and ran back to the ship.  I really did not get to see much of the town.  It seemed like the typical port, touristy focused, lots of shops, out door vendors and open air places to eat that gave views of the city streets.  The T-shirt was very expensive and not locally made.  I am sure most of the stuff, like in the tourist places in Maine, was made in China or some other “manufacturing focused” country.  Admittedly getting back to the ship I was a bit nervous.  I have a poor since of direction and the tour guides had adequately scared me into thinking that it was no the safest place for tourist to wonder off on their own.  Fortunately the cruise ship was biggest enough that I could see a part of it…so I knew the basic direction in which to run.  I would have loved to have ridden on one of those colorful buses!!

I was back to the boat by 12:30 and we were off to the next port.  I did a quick change into the pool attire and headed back to the pool!  Of course it was time for silly pool games.  This time they were looking for husband and wife couples to participate.  At first I was a bit put off by the request for couples, but then when I saw what they had to do I completely understood!  I wanted no part of that pool game, but I did get some fun pictures of people form Mum’s park participating in the event!  From the picture you can see there is touching involved…yucky touching of big old hairy men.  Fortunately this woman was able to identify her man!  Fortunately I was able to hold down lunch!!

Dinner
Dinner was a little different that night.  We decided to have pizza by the pool and play scrabble.  Cold beer, warm pizza and good friends...what more could we ask for!!  After a few games we jumped in the pool and the hot tub. Nice...very nice day!  Linda swept us in scrabble that night (most nights I should add).  I am just not that competitive and preferred to help open up the board for additional play locations.  By day 9 of the cruise I got more into it...mostly I just enjoyed playing and having the time to enjoy it.

There was one woman in particular in our group that I enjoyed getting to know—her name was Barb.  Barb and Tom made a special effort to be on the cruise.  Barb was battling a very aggressive esophageal cancer.  Dinner was really the only time I had with Barb and Tom.  They stayed in their cabin most of the day.  She was only able to enjoy some morning time by the pool and hot tub and them used all her energy to attend the dinners.  Mum was good friends with Barb’s brother Bob and his with Linda.  Bob became my Cruise Dad and Linda and I were beer drinking buddies—cheap ones since it was so expensive on the ship.

Dinner was the time to catch up with Tom and get updates as to how Barb was managing.  Sadly, I have to announce that Barb passed away this past Wednesday.  Her funeral is this week in Fairfax, Virginia.  I will talk more about her during my b Blog posts, but I felt it important to acknowledge her passing.  She touched my heart and I feel lucky to have had those ten days on the Cruise with her.

Day two of the Cruise!

Cruising through the Windward Passage...

January 17, 2008

Day two of the Cruise. We were somewhere past Cuba enroute to Aruba. My internal clock went off at 5 am. Plus, I was desperately missing Val, the pets, and our routine. I got up and dressed as quickly as possible and headed out to the 14th deck to find coffee. The dining hall up there is open 24 hours a day—that could be a very dangerous thing for those with little will power to avoid the bulge. I stuck with my plan of coffee and lots of fresh fruit. I had a wonderful seat right in front of the bow. Of course there was not much of a view since it was still pitch black.

I was hoping to catch a beautiful sunrise, but instead the sun ceremoniously popped up from the ocean’s horizon. I walked around a bit, drank some more coffee and then brought Mum back a cup of coffee to wake up to. Granted the ship has 24-hour room service, but I did not want to bother them for just coffee. By the time I got back, she was already up and getting dressed. We hung out for a while and then we went to get her some breakfast up on the 14th floor.

The food there is not that great and it is self serve cafeteria style. All the food is laid out in large plastic dishes and looked like it had been cooked hours before. The bacon was thin and very fatty, the sausage was basic link stuff and the rest of the meat was odd stuff I have never tried…not cared to. I loaded up my plastic plate with more fresh fruit. The fresh pineapple was awesome! I was a bit nervous to eat it, since I am allergic to it, but the earlier helping did not seem to affect me…so why not eat more!!! (remember this comment!)

By 9:30 we had finished breakfast and made our way to the deck to catch some rays! Finally…some sun!! It was on and off cloudy at first and we cruised through two rain showers. We would jump up from our chairs, grab our stuff and head for cover! The shower would only last for a minute or two and then we quickly reclaimed our spots. I read for awhile, but since I was still getting over jet lag, my eyes slammed shut for a nice long nap!! I wore thick layers of SPF 30 and avoided burning. Though freckles were starting to appear.

Pool Games

Part way through my wonderful nap the pool activities began. Complete with microphone and peppy crew, they began the recruitment of drunk, uninhibited vacationers. I was lucky enough to not make eye contact with any of the staff and stayed securely in my chaise lounge. Finally with 10 volunteers the crew directed their attention on their newly prized victims. Now since they called the event pool games, I was quite certain that knowing how to swim was major requirement. Obviously some of them did not understand that and during the first event they had to be replaced by folks that could actually swim and hold their breath underwater!

I was most amazed by the size of the people. The some of the folks on board were good candidates for the Biggest Loser show. The larger ones must be quite uncomfortable in the small rooms, tiny bathrooms, and a shower that barely is big enough for me. But, I will get into that later.

The games continued for about 45 minutes. I fell back asleep so I have no idea what they did for that time. I was surprised that so many women volunteered. The water was still cold. The weather at night has been cool and the seas have been a bit rough. Perhaps once we get closer to Aruba the seas will be calmer and the sun will have warmed the water. Even the hot tubs were more like tepid tubs!

Mum and I walked around the upper decks for a short time. We went to the 17th deck and stuck our feet in the splash pool. It was quite breezy up there, but it permitted us a great view of both sides of the ship. Mum commented on many other ships were out there. I was not surprised to see all the cargo ships. This area must be a fairly b usy shipping lane from the Dominican Republic and South America. The cargo container ships were not the mega line fleet, but must of them had three cranes and were completely filled with containers. At least there were no pirates!! More pictures of the ship can be found at http://picasaweb.google.com/dwilde1221/CruiseJanuary1618.

Around 3:30 we gathered up our stuff and headed off for a wowing game of bingo!! Mum enjoys it, so why not! Of course we did not win… I am not sure who ever wins at that. There is really no skill to it. Prizes ranged from $100 - $175 dollars. The last game claimed a prize of $1050 to anyone who could fill their card in 48 calls. Of course no one won that so the pot was cut down to $250 until someone won, which of course was not us! Oh well, Mum liked it and we enjoyed our beer.

Not the Booze Cruise

Nothing on this ship is free. I was quite amazed by how much selling goes on once you board the ship. First thing they do is sell you a beverage card. For $40 you get unlimited Coke products—Coke, Diet Coke and Sprite. Water and Ice Tea is free, but they taste funny to me. I am not crazy about drinking so much high fructose corn syrup, but the beer is even more expensive. They pretty much force you to buy a bucket of beers at a time to save money. Five beers for the price of four—who on earth buys a 5-pack. Leave to the cruise industry to think of something like that. So for $18.75 plus the automatic 15% gratuity we bought a bucket of beers. We drank two beers and stored the rest in our rooms. I am sure the cruise would rather we drank the five in one sitting, but that just doesn’t appeal to either of us.

Dinner again started at 5:45 pm. We had a reserved table with four other couples. I was slowly starting to get to know the couples. They were all retired and all had cruised before. Everything on the ship runs on a pretty tight time line, so I had to adjust my watch to the ships time and not my normal “ish” time. Rarely am I on time for anything—so this was going to be a challenge. Half the ship ate at the first sitting and half at the second sitting. We had 5 courses to eat through and Mum and I washed it down with a very expensive (to us) bottle of white Zinfandel. The street value of the wine was about $7, but we were charged $26…OUCH! We will drink small glasses of wine the rest of the trip!

The stateroom

As I mentioned before, our stateroom was on the 8th deck. It had two twin beds and a tiny bathroom. I packed pictures of the puppies and Val and put them up on the mirror. It was comforting to have a little bit of home there with me. Mum appreciated that I brought along lots of pictures of Honeybear. She misses him so much when they are separated. She left him in the very capable hands of her friend Andy. Still, it was not easy to be without the little guy!!

The bathrooms in the cabin were so small! I hit my head several times on the bathroom sink just bending over to pick up stuff off the bathroom floor. The showers were about 2 feet square and had barely enough room for me to lift my hands over my head to shampoo. I heard that some of the larger passengers had to get out of the shower to soap up and shampoo. The toilets worked on some type of high pressure vacuum. If you flushed while on the john, you would give yourself the ass hickey of a lifetime and most likely lose your molars out your back side. Honestly the first time I flushed, I thought the lid was going to be vacuum sealed to the toilet bowl!

There was a small TV in the room. It had four channels of Coral Princess shopping and some pre-recorded shows that ran over and over. I watched some CNN news, but mostly everything was focused on the primaries. Frankly, it is nothing but a bunch of mudslinging and no one is willing to say anything bad about Obama. They all have there issues, but Obama is getting off pretty easy. None of the candidates really appeal to me, but this topic is for another day.  I was enjoying the time off from the news, the politcs and the winter.