Category Archives: Photography

Posts that have something to do with our interest in photography, including technology, techniques, locations, and images.

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Note:  This is the 15th of 16 posts about our 21-day trip that included a 17-day (16-night) cruise on the Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) ship SPIRIT from Vancouver, British Columbia to Honolulu, Oahu.  This post has 20 photographs with captions and some narrative.  Photos taken by me (Bruce) with a SONY alpha 6400 or Google Pixel 6 Pro unless otherwise indicated.  (Photos by Linda taken with a Google Pixel 6.)

 

THURSDAY 14 September 2023 — (T19,C16) Hilo, Hawai’i, Hawaii and Mona Kea

This was the 19th day of our trip, and the 16th day of our cruise and saw us arrive in the cruise port at Hilo, Hawai’i (the Big Island), Hawaii (the State of).  Our main activity was a shore excursion that stopped at Rainbow Falls Lookout before taking us to the observatories atop Mona Kea (also spelled “Muanakea”).

At 13,803 feet (4,207.3 m) AMSL, which is also its “wet prominence,” the summit of Mona Kea (Muanakea) is the highest point of land in the Hawaiian Islands, and the second highest island mountain summit on earth.  From Wikipedia:  “Because the Hawaiian Islands slope deep into the ocean, Mauna Kea has a dry prominence of 9,330 m (30,610 ft) (it’s height if the ocean was “drained” of water. This dry prominence is taller than Mount Everest’s height above sea level of 8,848.86 m (29,032 ft), so Everest would have to include whole continents in its foothills to exceed Mauna Kea’s dry prominence. …”  The highest summit on an island is Puncak Jaya in New Guinea, Indonesia, which stands at an impressive elevation of 4,884 meters (16,024 feet) above mean sea level.

 

Our first view of Hawai’i (the Big Island) and Mona Kea.  This panoramic photo is a composite of five (5) images.  Mona Loa is just visible at the left edge of the frame.

 

Sunrise lights up Mona Kea as the NCL SPIRIT slowly motors towards the cruise port in Hilo, Hawai’i, Hawaii.  The photo is 900×678 pixels and can be viewed at full-resolution on compatible devices.  (Photo by Linda)

 

A selfie at Rainbow Falls Overlook in Hilo, Hawai’i, HI.

 

A flower along the trail at Rainbow Falls Overlook.  (Photo by Linda)

 

We always try to take a photo of signs to identify where we are.  If we can get a photo with a clock in it, so much the better as it helps me time sync photos to local time.  (Photo by Linda)

 

Rainbow Fall in Hilo, Hawai’i, HI.

 

I’m holding grand-daughter Sadie’s “Apa and Ama” artwork to mark our location at the Mona Kea ranger station / store (the building behind me).  We are already at/above the level of the clouds.

 

The Mona Kea ranger station/store/museum with our tour van in the front parking lot.  From a web search:  “The Onizuka Center for International Astronomy Visitor Information Station (VIS) on Maunakea is open every day of the year from 9am to 9pm.  Located at the 9,200 foot (2,804 meter) level, they provide health, safety, and other information about Maunakea along with access control.  The road up the mountain is open to any/all visitors up this building.  Beyond this point, permission is needed and a 4-wheel drive vehicle is required.  Our tour van met both of those criteria.

 

The VIS has a store with various Mona Kea and astronomy related merchandise.  It is also a small museum focused on telescopes and other things astronomical.

 

One of the radio telescopes on top of Mona Kea.  (Photo by Linda)

 

The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a joint operation of several universities under the auspices of the National Science Foundation.

 

Our tour guide presents information on the various rocks that make up Mona Kea.  (Photo by Linda)

 

Our tour guide had a Mauna Kea (Mona Kea) sign for photo ops for his customers.  Linda is holding grand-daughter Sadie’s “Apa and Ama” artwork.  (Photo taken with Linda’s phone, but obviously taken by someone else, probably our tour guide.)

 

A panoramic view of several telescopes made using the panorama feature of the Pixel 6 Pro.   This photo file is 1080×271 pixels and can be viewed at full-resolution on compatible devices.

 

This is a composite of two (2) images, showing several different types of telescopes on Mona Kea, how they are situated, and the road(s) that are used to access them.  Not all of the telescopes have a 360-degree clear view of the horizon.  They are situated based on available real estate and what part of the sky they need to be able to see.

 

By now it should be obvious that we were there, but here’s another selfie, just to prove the point.

 

The same two observatories as the previous photo without us in the frame.

 

This panorama is a composite of eight (8) images.  The photo file is 1920×363 pixels, so there is a lot of detail that can be seen on a device with appropriate screen resolution.  There are at least 15 telescopes of various kinds visible in the image, along with a portion of the amazing road system that winds up to and around the observatories and support buildings.

 

Last, but not least, a photo of the actual summit of Mona Kea, several hundred feet above where we are standing, and higher than the highest observatory on the mountain.  Why?  Because the summit is a sacred site to indigenous Hawaiians that is used for special ceremonies throughout the year.  As such, it is not open to the public at any time.

 

We are back on the ship in the theater at the conclusion of the evening’s entertainment at ~10:15 PM.  If was the final ensemble performance of the cruise and featured most of the performers who had entertained us throughout the last couple of weeks.  The performances were of a high enough caliber that we were always entertained.  This final performance was over, so cameras where very evident as passengers tried to capture the celebratory moment.  I took this photo to provide some context for the look of the theater.

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20230913_T18-C15_Kahului-Maui-HI

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Note:  This is the 14th of 16 posts about our 21-day trip that included a 17-day (16-night) cruise on the Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) ship SPIRIT from Vancouver, British Columbia to Honolulu, Oahu.  This post has 20 photographs with captions and some narrative.  Photos by me (Bruce) using a SONY alpha 6400 or Google Pixel 6 Pro unless otherwise indicated.  (Photos by Linda taken with a Google Pixel 6.)

 

WEDNESDAY 13 September 2023 — (T18,C15) Kahului, Maui, Hawaii

Our ship arrived in the harbor at Kahului, Maui early this morning.  As was well-reported in the news, Maui had recently suffered a devastating fire in and around Lahaina.  This obviously impacted some of the planned shore excursions, but we did not detect anyone being upset about changes in planned offerings.  Indeed, tourists were being encouraged to visit Maui and support the local economy, but the Lahaina area was obviously off limits.  Any disappointment for cruise passengers was inconsequential compared to the loss and suffering of the impacted islanders.

Our main activity today was a shore excursion with “Hike Maui” east along the first portion of “the road to Hana.”  We were transported in vans and had an excellent tour guide.  There was a lot of walking, but it was mostly easy and it was nice to get off the ship and use our legs to walk around town and in the woods.

 

The NCL SPIRIT approaches Kahului, Maui, Hawaii at sunrise.  (Photo by Linda)

 

Linda soaks up the sunrise as it floods the port side of the ship inbound to Kahului, Maui.

 

The mountains loom behind Kahului, Maui and make their own weather, as mountains are want to do.

 

This sign says it all:  “Aloha, Welcome to Kahului, Maui, Hawaii” with the NCL SPIRIT in the background.  We enjoyed our time on this ship.  It’s the smallest ship in the NCL fleet, but it’s still pretty big.

 

I hold Sadie’s “Apa and Ama” artwork by a large map of Maui, Hawaii.  Notice how the island resembles a person in lying on their side with the head at the upper left and facing down and slightly left.  The cruise port at Kahului is in the curve of the neck on the back (north/upper) side.  Most of the head is high mountains.  The town of Lahaina, which suffered the worst of the recent fire, is more or less directly opposite Kahului on the other side of the central mountains.  Travel to that area was not allowed, of course, as the area is still recovering and rebuilding.  (Photo by Linda)

 

From a web search:  Maui is an island formed by two volcanoes: Haleakala and Mauna Kahalawai. Haleakala is a 10,000 foot shield volcano that means “House of the Sun” and had its recent eruptions between 1480 and 1600.  Maui is an island formed by two volcanoes: Haleakala and Mauna Kahalawai. Haleakala is a 10,000 foot shield volcano that means “House of the Sun” and had its recent eruptions between 1480 and 160012. Mauna Kahalawai is an eroded shield volcano also known as the West Maui Mountains (the “head”) that last erupted 320,000 years ago. Maui does not have any active volcanoes, unlike Hawaiʻi Island, which has two of the world’s most active volcanoes: Kīlauea and Maunaloa.

 

We went on a shore excursion with “Hike Maui.”  Our first stop was the town of Paia.  From a web search:  Pā’ia is  a census-designated place on Maui, Hawaii with a population of 2,470 as of the 2020 census.  It is home to several restaurants, art galleries, surf shops and other tourist-oriented businesses. It was formerly home to the Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Mill from 1880 to 2000.  Pā’ia is the first town on the Hana Highway when heading eastbound towards Hana.  It was cute, inviting, and very walkable.  “Surf shops” were much in evidence.

 

We came across a ukelele shop while strolling around downtown Paia.  Yes, Ukuleles really are a thing in the Hawaiian Islands, and this shop had a lot of them!  They were all exquisite instruments whose craftsmanship was obvious, and are sold to customers all over the world.  They ranged in price quite a bit but some of them were, as you might expect, very expensive.

 

The front façade of the Mele Ukulele shop.  I had a nice conversation with the owner, as much about photography and cameras (he was also a SONY shooter) as about ukuleles and living on tropical paradise island.

 

“Hike Maui” has taken us to a bamboo grove.  Much of the bamboo was very tall, as shown in the next photo.  The tour provided water and a light lunch, which was appreciated.

 

The tour guide used Linda’s Pixel 6 to take this photo in which we are dwarfed by a stand of bamboo.  It was nice to have a photo of the two of us that wasn’t a selfie.  (Photo by Linda, sort of)

 

The plant life in Hawaii is remarkable; unique, diverse, beautiful and fragile (to outside negative influences).

 

Our tour guide stops to explain some plant life along the trail.  (Photo by Linda)

 

I just liked this plant, photographically:  An interesting backlit pattern in contrasting shades of green.

 

We pause on our way to the waterfall and wading pool for photo op.  (Photo by Linda’s phone, but someone else obviously took the photo.)

 

On part of a hike to a small waterfall and swimming hole we had to go through this tunnel of twisted branches.  This was one of just many interesting things that were part of the hike.

 

We always appreciate good signposts to help us get where we need to go.

 

This view seemed to be quintessentially Maui; a rugged coast with a white sand beach set off by beautiful blue and green water and a blue sky with some puffy clouds.  If you look carefully at the white sand beach, you will also see a large gathering of very large sea turtles.

 

A zoomed in view of a section of the beach showing the very large sea turtles resting on the sand.  This section of the beach was closed off and posted “No Admittance” but we saw people ignoring that, both from land and from the sea.  (Photo by Linda)

 

I included this photo to show that Hawaiians’ also have a sense of humor.

 

We are back on the ship and having diner around 7:30 PM.  We did not do specialty dining very often, but we got two dinner meals as part of our fare, so we apparently used our second one this evening to dine at Teppanyaki, the Japanese table side grill.  The food was excellent and the chef was very entertaining.  (Photo by Linda)

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Note:  This is the 11th of 16 posts about our 21-day trip that included a 17-day (16-night) cruise on the Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) ship SPIRIT from Vancouver, British Columbia to Honolulu, Oahu.  This post has six (6) photographs with captions and some narrative.  Photos were taken by me (Bruce) using a SONY alpha 6400 or Google Pixel 6 Pro unless otherwise noted.  (Photos by Linda were taken with a Google Pixel 6.)

 

WEDNESDAY 06 – SUNDAY 10 September 2023 — (T11-15,C8-12) At Sea on the North Pacific Ocean, and a Death at Sea (not one us)

The NCL SPIRIT departed Sitka, Alaska late yesterday afternoon and headed out into the open ocean for what would be our first of five (5) nights crossing the North Pacific Ocean to Kauai, Hawaii.  Once out of sight of land, we would be at sea for all or part of six (6) days, and not see land it again until the morning of Monday, 11 September, when we were scheduled to arrive in the port at Nawiliwili, Kauai, Hawaii.

Our main reason for doing this cruise was to see southeast coastal Alaska for the first time and make a return visit to the Hawaiian Islands, but this time on a cruise ship.  Another reason for doing this cruise was that we had originally booked the same cruise on the same ship for June 2025, but with the itinerary starting in Hawaii and ending in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.  That cruise was canceled by NCL, but Linda found this one in time to book a balcony stateroom in an acceptable location on the ship.

Another reason for doing this cruise at this time, as opposed to some unspecified future date, was to see how we would do spending extended days at sea.  Early in 2023 Linda (and Nancy) had booked a 4-month world cruise, starting in early January 2025, on the MSC Magnifica and we wanted to determine if we would be okay with extended sea days while we still had time to cancel that booking and get a full refund of our deposit.

I can report that we were fine being on the open ocean, out of sight of land and even other marine traffic, for an extended time.  We were favored with good weather, which probably helped, but we have been on cruise ships in less-than-ideal conditions, so we already knew we could handle that, at least for 48 hours.  While ports-of-call are usually new places to visit, with lots of opportunities for new, interesting, and even exciting experiences, cruise ships are fundamentally floating cities, with all of the necessities of life, i.e., housekeeping, interior climate control, food–water–sanitation, and lots of activities and amenities such as: entertainment, games, lectures, libraries, music venues, exercise rooms and classes, casinos and, of course, bars and lounges.  (I borrowed a book on the Bauhaus and managed to read it during the cruise.)  And shopping (lots of shopping).  Most ships have a walking track or promenade, so we could stroll there as an alternative to walking the shop and restaurant decks.  And we had our stateroom where we could relax, read, work puzzles, or just rest.  Without the hustle and bustle of going ashore and being part of shore excursions, we found our days at sea quite relaxing.  When the weather was amenable, we could sit on our private balcony, or go enjoy coffee in a more public, but still relaxing area of the ship.  Indeed, for many people, us included, the ship itself is an enjoyable experience.

What we did not do is “document” our time at sea, in part because the only things that change about the ocean are the weather and waves.  Sunrise and sunset are especially nice times, of course, and we hoped to see amazing stars at night.  But we knew from our Panama Canal cruise that the sky might be obscured by clouds, and the outside lighting on cruise ships never really turns off (presumably for visibility and safety) so the “dark sky” experience is elusive to non-existent.  It was also difficult to get photos that did not include other guests, especially their faces.  But at its core, while photography is a pleasurable hobby, it can be a bit of work, we just wanted to relax.

 

Following are a few photos to give you a sense of our time at sea on the North Pacific Ocean.

 

On our third full day at sea, Linda relaxes on our balcony with a book as the ship glides along under fair weather.  These large cruise ships are very stable and move smoothly through the water, all while traveling at 20 – 22 knots.

 

Linda pauses by the walking track for a photo.

 

A selfie sitting in the main theater waiting for the second show of the evening’s entertainment.  We got there early to get good seats, thus the empty seats behind us.

 

A panoramic composite of 8 images showing storm clouds brewing on the horizon at sunset.  I “enhanced” this photo in post-processing to bring out some of the colors (artistic license) but hopefully have not overdone it.

 

In spite of relatively good weather, we did have occasional rainclouds.  As shown here, we were treated to a double rainbow one day.  (Again, I have also used my artistic license to “enhance” this photo in post-processing to bring out the rainbows.  Again, hopefully have not overdone it.

 

This is the book I checked out of the ship’s library.  Though small, the library had a (perhaps surprisingly) good collection of “serious” books like this one, especially on travel and art.  People using the library as a game room were quiet and respectful of others who might be reading.  It was a small, but wonderful alternative place to the larger public spaces to spend some time without feeling cooped up in our stateroom.  (Note:  There is no reason to feel cooped up in a cruise ship cabin.  The ship is a floating city that operates 24 hours a day with massive amounts of deck square footage.)

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Epilogue — A Death at Sea

The most unexpected thing that happened during our entire trip/cruise was that the women in one of the cabins next to ours passed away while the ship was crossing the North Pacific Ocean.  We were only aware of this because we heard conversation in the hallway one morning around sunrise and opened the door to see what was going on.  The husband was talking to some crew members, and told us that she had taken ill in their cabin a day earlier and was moved to the medical center but died during the night.

Yes, cruise ships have medical centers.  I think the one on the NCL SPIRIT is typical of cruise ships of this class; a small medical center with two doctors and a nurse/technician, lab equipment including an X-Ray machine, and a small pharmacy.  Apparently this woman already had breathing and other health issues (asthma or COPD, but I don’t recall exactly) and was quickly diagnosed with CoVID-19 as well.  We chatted with the husband (listened, mostly) during the next couple of days.  He was very impressed with the care and skill of the entire crew, especially the medical staff as they worked to treat her, but she lapsed into a comma and passed away before the ship could reach Nawiliwili, Kauai, Hawaii and we were too far from land for an aero medivac.  The command staff gave him access to a phone so he could call relatives with the sad news and call someone in Nawiliwili, Kauai, Hawaii to make arrangements for the transfer of her body to shore and transportation home (lower 48 states in the USA).

It turns out that cruise ships also have a mortuary because, as it turns out, deaths do occur at sea on cruise ships.  Not many, but it does happen.  I decided to do some light research (web search) on the subject and found the following from TouristSecrets.com:

“The Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) reports that the mortality rate on cruises is considerably lower than on land-based vacations or other modes of transportation.  It is estimated that the annual mortality rate on cruise ships ranges between 0.14 and 0.25 deaths per 100,000 passengers.”   That’s 1.4 to 2.5 deaths per 1,000,000 passenger bookings, or roughly “1 in a million.”  This can also be expressed as 0.000014 to 0.000025 deaths per 100 passengers, which is 0.0014% to 0.0025%.  Any way you look at it, these are very low numbers or probabilities.  So, on a cruise ship with 3,000 guests and 1,500 crew (4,500 total people) the percentage chance of someone dying is 0.0063% to 0.0113% (to 4 decimal places).  But these are not random (roll of the dice) probabilities because people don’t just die on cruise ships for no reason anymore than they do on land.

Here is what I found (courtesy of Bing AI):

On average, approximately 200 people meet their fate aboard cruise ships each year (out of multiple millions of passenger bookings).  While the majority of these deaths result from natural causes, there are instances of accidents, suicides, and even murders.  Here are some key points about cruise ship deaths:

  1. Natural Causes: Most onboard deaths occur due to natural causes. These include health-related issues, age-related factors, and pre-existing conditions.  However, not all cruise lines and countries consistently share their death statistics, so the actual number may be higher than reported.
  2. Accidents: Accidental deaths can happen on cruise ships. These may involve slips, falls, or other unforeseen incidents.  Accidents can occur both at sea and while the ship is docked.  (Cruise ships are constantly moving when underway, and even when docked, and movement can be significant in really bad weather.  These ships also have a LOT of stairs, although elevators provide access to all guest floors.  Anyone with balance/stability/walking issues should be mindful of these factors.)
  3. Murders: While incredibly rare, cruise ship murders do occur. These are usually committed by someone the victim knows, often during heated arguments or due to a history of abuse. Guns are strictly prohibited on cruise ships, so most murders involve stabbings or pushing victims overboard.

I would add suicide to the list.  Again, very rare, but they do occur.  Remember that these incidents represent an incredibly small fraction of the millions of passenger bookings each year. The overall risk remains (extremely) low, but serve as a reminder that it’s essential to be aware of health and and safety measures/protocols while at sea.  And there is some comfort, I suppose, in knowing that cruise ships are prepared to deal with these situations.

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Note:  This is the 10th of 16 posts about our 21-day trip that included a 17-day (16-night) cruise on the Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) ship SPIRIT from Vancouver, British Columbia to Honolulu, Oahu.  This post has 21 photographs with captions and some narrative.  All photos were taken by me (Bruce) using a SONY alpha 6400 or Google Pixel 6 Pro unless otherwise indicated.  (Photos by Linda were taken using a Google Pixel 6.)

As I am writing these posts some five (5) months after our trip, I have struggled with getting the correct local time stamp for each photo and thus establishing the correct time sequence for images within a post.  The issue is the intermixing of photos from two Pixel smartphones with photos from a Sony a6400 ILC camera while shooting in different time zones far removed from home.  I think I have the photos in this post in the correct order, but have avoided making any reference in the captions to the time of day an image was captured.

 

TUESDAY 05 September 2023 — (T10,C7) Sitka, AK

This was day 10 or our trip, day 7 or our cruise, and our final stop in Alaska before crossing the North Pacific Ocean to the Hawaiian Islands.  We arrived in the Sitka harbor early this morning.  The weather was hazy upon arrival, but quickly gave way to blue skies with nice puffy clouds over the surrounding mountains.  It was just cool enough to require a light jacket, which made for wonderful conditions to walk around the town and go on a guided shore excursion with a very good local guide.

Sitka is a fascinating city with a history that placed it at the center of a crossroads of cultures.  The area around Sitka has been the traditional home of the Tlingit people for thousands of years, and they are still here.  The Russians arrived in 1804 and forcibly established a colony with Sitka (New Archangel) as its Capital.  It later became the Capital of American Alaska when the Russians sold the territory to the United States in 1867.

The Tlingit maintain a vibrant culture here with a performance center in the style of a traditional community clan house; offerings include song and dance.  Traditional art abounds in the Center and various art galleries, as well as the many intricately carved totem poles in the National Park peninsula.  Russian influence is evident in the onion domed Cathedral of St. Michael and the Russian Bishop’s House, as well as the Russian Cemetery and the names of places, buildings, and streets.  Russian dance is performed in town by the New Archangel dancers, while Summer music festivals celebrate Jazz as well as other musical traditions.

Paraphrased from Wikipedia:  Sitka is a unified city-borough in the southeast portion of the U.S. state of Alaska. It was under Russian rule from 1799 to 1867.  The city is situated on the west side of Baranof Island and the south half of Chichagof Island in the Alexander Archipelago of the Pacific Ocean.  As of the 2020 census, Sitka had a population of 8,458, making it the fifth-most populated city in the state.   Although the City of Sitka is located on a two small islands, the borough encompasses a vast area.  According to the United States Census Bureau, the city-borough is the largest incorporated municipality by area in the U.S., with a total area of 4,811 square miles (12,460.4 sq km ), of which 2,870 square miles (7,400 sq km ) is land and 1,941 square miles (5,030 sq km ), comprising 40.3%, is water.

We enjoyed our short time in Sitka, as we did in Ketchikan, Juneau, and Skagway, but we sensed that we would enjoy returning here for a longer visit and the opportunity to explore the area more thoroughly.

 

This photo is from the day before around 4 PM as the ship was departing from Skagway.  (Photo by Linda)

 

We had slightly hazy weather for our arrival in the Sitka area, and the best scenery was to the ESE, into the sun.

 

After playing around with this photo for a while in post -processing, I decided it looked best as a black & white image.  (I got my first camera when I was 16 and started out shooting with B&W film and learning how to develop it and make prints using a darkroom that belonged to my parent’s best friends.  It still appeals to me.)

 

We were “anchored out” during our time in Sitka.  (It was never clear to me if this was due to a lack of adequate dockage for a ship our size, or a limited amount of such dockage that was already occupied by another ship or ships.)  A fuel ship prepares to come along side and refuel the SPIRIT in advance of our crossing the North Pacific Ocean.  (The fuel ship is not a barge as it is under its own power.)  (Photo by Linda)

 

As the NCL SPIRIT was anchored out, we had to tender in to the Sitka marina.  Shortly after disembarking from the tender, we were greeted by this very helpful sign with highlights marked on a map of the main downtown area.

 

I never tire of views where mountains meet the water.  This was captured from near the Sitka marina looking out towards our ship, which is just visible center frame where the mountains and water meet.

 

The “Welcome to Sitka” sign seemed like a good place to take a “Apa and Ama are here” photo for grand-daughter Sadie.  We tried to remember to take a photo in each place we visited and text them to her parents so she could follow our travels.  (Photo by Linda)

 

Linda holds the Apa and Ama artwork for another “we are here” photo.  This one is in Totem Square with the Sitka Pioneers Home in the background.  It might look like a hotel, but it’s actually an assisted living complex; one of the nicest we had ever seen (at least form the outside).

 

On June 14, 1879 the U.S.S. Jamestown (a sailing ship of war) arrived in the waters near Sitka to relieve the U.S.S. Alaska, and eventually moored near where this sign now stands.  From 1879 to 1881, she was the official seat of government for the Alaska District.  The Jamestown was relieved in August 1881 by the U.S.S Wachusett (a steam ship of war), which continued as the seat of government for the District of Alaska until the Civil Government was finally established by the Organic Act of 1884.

 

Our shore excursion today included a visit to the Sitka National Historical Park (aka Totem Park).

 

Our visit to Sitka NHP included a walk in the woods.  The tour guide (left) and Linda (right) are sporting their Tilley hats.  Linda’s lightweight hoodie says “Travel Park Connect.”  This was the motto of the RVillage social media platform.  I have one too.  It was a great idea and good platform for RVers that was very popular but did not survive.

 

While walking through Totem Park, we got to stop at a small footbridge over the Indian River, an active Salmon run.  Although not really visible in this photo (I couldn’t get a good one) the stream was thick with salmon swimming against the current, presumably trying to reach their spawning grounds.  It was quite a sight.  As I mentioned in a previous post, when I think of Alaska I think of Grizzly Bears, Bald Eagles, and Salmon.  I would add to that Eskimos and other indigenous people, totem poles, Polar Bears, Moose, Elk, Caribou, Whales, Bush planes/pilots, and oil production.

 

A shed at Sikta NHP / Totem Park where totem poles are repaired and restored.  (Photo by Linda)

 

This panorama of the Historic Campus of the Sika Fine Arts Camp is a composite of seven images.  The image is 1920 x 270 pixels; clicking on it will display it full size on a device with a suitable monitor.

 

The Sheldon Jackson Museum, founded in 1888, houses an exceptional collection of Alaska Native ethnographic material gathered by Presbyterian missionary and General Agent of Education for Alaska, the Rev. Dr. Sheldon Jackson.  It was purchased by the State of Alaska in 1985.

 

This charming and well-maintained building is St. Peter’s By The Sea Episcopal Church.  It was established on Thanksgiving Day in 1896, the same year the Klondike Gold Rush began.

 

The Russian Bishop’s House is now part of Sitka National Historical Park.  Given that Alaska was Russian territory for 68 years before being sold to the USA, it was not surprising to see Russian influences everywhere, including in the names of islands, streets, buildings and, of course, churches.  Next photo please.

 

Paraphrased from Wikipedia:  St. Michael’s Cathedral, also known as the Cathedral of St. Michael the Archangel, is a cathedral of the Orthodox Church in America, Diocese of Alaska, in Sitka, Alaska. The earliest Orthodox cathedral in the New World, it was built in the nineteenth century, when Alaska was under the control of Russia.  After 1872, the cathedral came under the control of the Diocese of Alaska.  It had been a National Historic Landmark since 1962, notable as an important legacy of Russian influence in North America and Southeast Alaska in particular.  An accidental fire destroyed the cathedral during the night of January 2, 1966, but it was subsequently rebuilt.  The new building’s green domes and golden crosses are a prominent landmark in Sitka.  Some of the icons date to the mid-17th century; two icons are by Vladimir Borovikovsky.

 

Our shore excursion guided walking tour ended atop Castle Hill.  Looking northeast, the green domes and golden crosses of the Orthodox Cathedral are visible  through the trees.

 

A view (probably from Castle Hill) of the mountains, and the east end of the harbor, south of Sitka, Alaska.  (Photo by Linda)

 

We departed Sitka Harbor in the late afternoon / early evening and were greeted by this spouting whale and fishing boat.  Fishing boats were numerous in the harbor and marina.  This was the last time we would see land until the morning of Monday 11 September when we arrived at the port in Nawiliwili, Kauai, Hawaii.

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20230904_T9-C6_Skagway-AK

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Note:  This is the 9th of 16 posts about our 21-day trip that included a 17-day (16-night) cruise on the Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) ship SPIRIT from Vancouver, British Columbia to Honolulu, Oahu.  This post has 27 photographs with captions and some narrative.  All photos taken by me (Bruce) using a SONY alpha 6400 or Google Pixel 6 Pro unless otherwise indicated.  (Photos by Linda taken with a Google Pixel 6.)

 

MONDAY 04 September 2023 — (T9,C6) Skagway, AK — Miners Camp, Bar & Brothel, White Pass & Yukon Railroad

This was day 9 or our trip and day 6 of our cruise.  We had three shore experiences, but they were booked as one shore excursion that provided transportation between venues and ensured we met the starting times for each one, including getting back to the ship on time.

The excursion(s) started with a bus ride to the Liarsville Gold Rush Trail Camp & Salmon Bake, a private reproduction gold mining camp.  It was nicely done, but only provided a sanitized glimpse at what life must have been like during the Klondike gold rush period, which started in 1896.  The “camp” we experienced was certainly much cleaner than the reality of a by-gone era of fortune-seeking in the Alaskan wilderness.  Our visit to the camp included panning for gold (we didn’t get any), a show in the Hippodrome (which was very good), and a buffet lunch (with LOTS of salmon on offer along with lots of side dishes).

Back in town, we toured the Red Onion Saloon and Brothel.  It was a brothel in its day, but is now a museum (of course), although the saloon is still a functioning bar.  Again, a somewhat “sanitized” glimpse, but a glimpse nonetheless, into another aspect of frontier life in the Klondike Gold Rush era.

Our third experience, and one of the highlights of our entire trip, was a ride on the White Pass and Yukon Railway from Skagway, AK through White Pass Summit (mm 20.4) and ending in Fraser, British Columbia (mm 27.7). The return trip to Skagway was by motorcoach, which is much faster than the return trip by train, but also gave us different views.

Paraphrased from Wikipedia (and other sources):  The White Pass and Yukon Railway was completed in 1900.  The 3-foot “narrow gauge” railway extended from Skagway, Alaska to Whitehorse in the Yukon Territory of Canada, a distance of 177 km (~ 110 miles).  It was built in two sections; the first from Skagway, AK north to Carcross, BC (67.5 mi) and the other from Whitehorse, YT south to Carcross (42.9 mi).

When first built, the railway transported would-be miners, equipment, and supplies to the gold fields in the Yukon Territory, as well as points along the route.  It continued to service mines all along the route until metal prices collapsed and the railway closed on October 7, 1982.  The route reopened from Skagway to White Pass Summit in 1988 (20.4 mi) for tourist traffic only, to Fraser, BC in 1989 (an additional 7.3 mi for a total of 27.7 mi) and then to Bennett, BC in 1992 (another 12.9 mi for a total of 40.6 mi).  The reopening from Skagway north was at the urging, and with the active support, of the cruise line industry, which was already calling on Skagway and saw the potential for a unique onshore experience.  (The parent company of Carnival Cruise Lines is a major stakeholder in the current railroad operations.)

The hope has always existed that the entire route would reopen someday.  A train from Skagway, AK reached Carcross Station, YT in 1997 for the “Ton of Gold Centennial Celebration,” a distance of 67.5 miles (~110 km), and this is the currently active portion of the original line.  On October 10, 1997 a special passenger train (invitation only) ran from Carcross Station to Whitehorse, affirming that the rails were still intact and usable.

Here are some highlights of our day in photos and captions:

 

The entrance to Liarsville Gold Rush Trail Camp.  The “camp” is mostly based on tents displaying various aspects of camp life in the Klondike Gold Rush era.  “Rustic” permanent buildings on-site house a store, restrooms, and the Hippodrome entertainment venue.

 

Our Liarsville location photo for grand-daughter Sadie with her Apa and Ama artworks.  (Photo by Linda)

 

Signs to the most important places in the Liarsville camp (top-to-bottom): General Store, Brothel, and Restrooms.  (Photo by Linda)

 

The Liarsville Hippodrome; a covered entertainment venue (that would not have been part of an 1897 Gold Rush camp).  (Photo by Linda)

 

The young (to us) entertainers were very good.  (Photo by Linda)

 

Linda pans for gold.  (She didn’t find any.)

 

The Liarsville experience included a salmon bake luncheon.  Shown here is the Cookhouse.  It was here for tourists and employees and would not have been part of an authentic tent camp.

 

A view of the “back-room bar” at the Red Onion Saloon and Brothel.  The “madam” serves drinks to our tour group and “explains” the operation of the establishment.  The “rooms” are upstairs and we got to tour that area as well.

 

A massive snowblower used to clear the White Pass & Yukon Railway tracks.  My research indicated that it still works, and is still used, and is quite a sight to see in operation.  (Photo by Linda)

 

A rare selfie of the two of us.  We are in our Pullman-style train car as the train starts its journey up to White Pass Summit and Fraser, BC.  (Photo by Linda)

 

A view from of the left side of the train from in-between two of the passenger cars.  The views were constantly changing, and always amazing, but not always easy to capture from a moving platform with limited choices of shooting angle (and lots of other passengers also trying to take photos).  (Photo by Linda)

 

This a composite of two images that Linda shot with her phone.  The Coastal Range are some serious mountains.  (Photo by Linda)

 

The train approaches one of several trestle bridges that span deep gorges.  The construction of this rail line was quite a feat of engineering and labor.  (Photo by Linda)

 

In the area around White Pass Summit, the highest surrounding peaks are in the 6000 to 7000 ft AMSL category.  The highest peak anywhere near Skagway is Mt. Fairweather.  Located 89 miles to the SW of town, near the ocean coast, it rises to 15,325 ft AMSL.  It is part of a range with numerous peaks in the 10K, 11K, and 12K foot ASL categories, and must be quite a sight to see from the ocean.  (Photo by Linda)

 

Mountains, mountains everywhere, with snow still present in the highest elevations.  (Photo by Linda)

 

The WP&YR uses several different types of diesel-electric locomotives, and still operates a couple of steam engine locomotives.  Our locomotives were black with a red horizontal stripe, but I have been unable to identify the exact model.

 

If this photo is of the maintenance yard, it is out of order.  The sequence number (assigned by the camera), however, indicates that it is in the correct order, so I’m not sure what is being shown here, but I have included it anyway.

 

A view of our passenger car from the rear as Linda (closest person to the camera on the right) enjoys the scenery.

 

Somewhere along the White Pass & Yukon Route (the image has been manipulated, obviously).

 

Well, this is obviously a view from Rocky Point, which is mm 6.9, so we still had most of the trip ahead of us.  The day was obviously cloudy, but the views were spectacular nonetheless.

 

A jagged peak towers into the clouds.  Like I said earlier, the Coastal Ranges are serious mountains.

 

Our train crosses a gorge and disappears into a tunnel.  There are only two tunnels on the WP&YR route, Tunnel Mountain at mm 16.0 and a newer one (1969) at mm 18.8.  I was unable to determine which one this was after the fact.

 

The end of our train as it is about to cross a trestle bridge over a gorge and follow the rest of the train into a tunnel.

 

Distant views.

 

White Pass Summit and the monument marking the boarder between Alaska (USA) and British Columbia (Canada).  The Summit at White Pass is 2,864 ft AMSL.  The train starts in Skagway a few feet above sea level and climbs ~ 140 feet per mile traveled, on average.  That’s a 2.65% grade, on average.

 

The (old) North West Mounted Police (NWMP) station.  I think this was right after crossing into British Columbia, but I’m not sure of the exact location.

 

Our train ride ended in Fraser, British Columbia, where we cleared Canadian Customs before boarding a motorcoach for the return trip to Skagway via the Klondike Highway.

…

 

20230903_T8-C5_Juneau-AK

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Note:  This is the 8th of 16 posts about our 21-day trip that included a 17-day (16-night) cruise on the Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) ship SPIRIT from Vancouver, British Columbia to Honolulu, Oahu.  This post has 23 photographs with captions and some narrative.  All photos taken by me (Bruce) with a SONY alpha 6400 or Google Pixel 6 Pro unless otherwise indicated.  (Photos by Linda taken with a Google Pixel 6.)

 

SUNDAY 03 September 2023 — (T8,C5) Juneau (AK); Glaciers, Gardens, and Hatcheries

This was day 8 of our travels and day 5 of the cruise.  We signed up for a shore excursion to that included the Mendenhall Glacier, Glacier Gardens Rainforest Adventure (GGRA) (a private botanical garden and Yard Doctor Nursery), and the Macauley Salmon Hatchery.  The shore excursion started early and took most of the morning.

The Mendenhall Glacier is located in the Tongass National Forest.  Access is controlled and limited and, for whatever reason, our tour bus did have access today, so we only got to see the glacier from a distance.  Disappointing, certainly, but not the end of the world as we had just seen Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve yesterday.  We returned to the dock by noon and then walked around downtown Juneau, which is Alaska’s state capital.

 

Our tour bus stopped at a parking area that allowed us to walk north along a trail on the west side of the Mendenhall River, where I spotted this flower.

 

A stretch of the Mendenhall River, flowing strongly.  The Mendenhall Glacier is visible center frame just above the trees.  (Photo by Linda)

 

Glacier Gardens (GGRA) is known for their “upside down” trees.  Steve and Cindy Bowhay created this place, with the Rainforest Adventure opening in 1998.  Located within the Tongass National Forest, GGRA is a temperate rainforest environment.  The upside-down trees are just that; the lower portion of large trees and their root ball, inverted and stuck in the ground.  The top of the root ball is then used as a planter.  They are unique and delightful, with a wonderful variety of flowers and shrubs.

 

The GGRA Adventure involved climbing a small mountain through a dense forest in open-sided vehicles (shown later).  The road is constructed of logs in many places, with no shoulder and steep drop-offs in places.  There is a log curb, however, as shown in this photo, and our driver seemed to take safety seriously.  (Photo by Linda)

 

Another view of the road as seen from below.  The GGRA gardens were beautiful, and the views from the summit outstanding, but the road was an attraction in its own right, at least for those who are curious about such things (like me).  (Photo by Linda)

 

A view to the west (I think) from the summit of GGRA.  (Photo by Linda)

 

The extended wheelbase “vans” used to transport guests on the road to/from the summit of GGRA.

 

A small waterfall/feature at GGRA.  (Photo by Linda)

 

This planting bed at GGR caught our eyes.

 

A closer view of an interesting plant at GGRA.

 

Proof that I was here at GGRA.  (Photo by Linda)

 

Proof that Linda was also here at GGRA.  (Photo by Bruce using Linda’s Pixel 6.)

 

The landscaping at GGRA really was something.  This cascading stream looked very natural.  Glacier Gardens is not just a tourist attraction; is also a nursery and landscaping service for the greater Juneau area.

 

Our shore excursion concluded with a stop at the Macauley Salmon Hatchery (MSH), located northwest of Juneau on the Gastineau Channel.  Fishing in general, and salmon in particular, is a big industry in Alaska, of course, and there are many hatcheries and processing plants in the state.  The MSH is a working facility that is also open to the public for tours.  It was a great way to end our shore excursion.

 

The salmon run at MSH looking northwest.  The Gastineau Channel is to the left.  The tide was out and the water level was very low.

 

There were quite a variety of fish and crustaceans in the tanks at MSH.  I selected this photo because I thought it was an interesting composition.

 

The official (?) “Welcome to Juneau” sign.  We had, in fact, felt very welcomed everywhere we had been on this trip thus far.  (Photo by Linda)

 

We were not looking for it, but managed to stumble across the City Hall building for the “City and Borough” of Juneau.  The distinction must be important or the sign would not have mentioned it.  I wonder if the locals divide up into “townies” and “boroughies”?  And I wonder if “boroughies” is even a word?  (MS Word spell check doesn’t think so.)

 

I don’t recall what the significance of this building was, if indeed it had any special significance.  I photographed it because I liked its design and materials, and it had a cool totem pole.

 

This statue was in the plaza that is part of the State Capital complex, which included the Capitol, of course.  When I think of Alaska I think of many things, but especially Bald Eagles, Grizzly Bears, and Salmon.  This statue had two of those three, so …

 

We took this to be the main food/shopping street in Juneau, or at least typical of the retail sector in town.  Some of the shops and eateries might have been a bit more upscale, but not all of them, and the look/feel of the place was still very much coastal Alaska.  (Note:  The timestamp on this photo matches the time on the clock in the photo.  I love it when that happens.)

 

Like all of the coastal cites we visited, Juneau occupies land between the water and steep, high terrain.  Much of the city is built on the lower, flatter areas, when possible, but the land rises quickly and steeply as you move away from the water, and we saw plenty of structures up on the slopes that appeared to be mostly residences.  This staircase is very steep and long, and leads up to a building at the top that might be visible in this photograph.  (Photo by Linda)

 

Linda relaxes in our stateroom after spending the better part of 5+ hours ashore.  The ship in the background is the Seven Seas Explorer from the Regent Seven Seas Cruise Line.  It is one of their two new Explorer Class ships, the other being the Seven Seas Splendor.  ALL staterooms on ALL Regent Seven Seas ships are “suites” and come with butler service.  Regent Seven Seas offers a luxury cruise experience and tends to be more inclusive than most other lines, but with a fare to match.  In spite of being upscale, it is our understanding that these ships are quite relaxed, with freestyle dining, for instance.  They also tend to be mostly adult oriented, lacking some of the “entertainment” attractions on more family and “younger cruiser”-oriented lines.  I think we would enjoy this (or a similar) cruise line, if not for the cost.  (Winning a big lottery might chance that equation.)

…

20230902_T7-C4_Glacier-Bay-NPP-AK

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Note:  This is the 7th of 16 posts about our 20-day trip that included a 16-night cruise on the Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) ship SPIRIT from Vancouver, British Columbia north along the inside passage to Sitka, Alaska, and then across the North Pacific Ocean to the Hawaiian Islands, before ending in Honolulu, Oahu.  This post has 10 photographs with captions and some narrative.  Photos by me (Bruce) taken with SONY alpha 6400 or Google Pixel 6 Pro unless otherwise indicated.  (Photos by Linda taken with Google Pixel 6.)

 

SATURDAY 02 September 2023 — (T7,C4) Cruising Glacier Bay National Park & Preserve, Alaska

This was day 7 of our travels and day 4 of the cruise.  Our destination for today was Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve (GBNP&P).  We had an early departure from the port at Ketchikan yesterday, as it was a long sail from there to the Bay and our itinerary was planned to give us as much sailing time in the Bay as possible.  We anticipated that this would be one of the scenic highlights of our entire trip, and it was, in spite of less-than-ideal weather conditions.  The weather also made photography a bit more challenging, but I think we did okay.

Glacier Bay is a National Park & Preserve, so ships (cruise and otherwise) cannot just sail in as they please.  Access is controlled and cruise ships, in particular, have to book entrance for their itineraries well in advance.  They also have to stop near the entrance of the Bay and pick up a National Park Service Ranger/Historian, who remains on-board until the ship leaves the boundaries of the park/preserve.  The Park employee does double duty, both explaining on the P.A. system what the passengers are seeing, as well as (I suspect) “advising” the Captain about conditions in the Park so no harm comes to the ship or the Park.  Not a harbor pilot, of course, but an official Park presence for sure.  The Park employee is returned to their base as the ship exits the Park.

 

Our first large glacier appears on the port (left) side of the ship as it works its way north into Glacier Bay.  (Photo by Linda.)

 

Our APA and AMA “proof we were here photo for GBNP&P.  (Photo by Bruce using Linda’s phone.)

 

There were great views in every direction all of the time.  This photo is looking forward from the forward lounge.  The large glass windows distort the exposure and color.  I’ve corrected it as best I can.  (This image is 1200×675 pixels.  Clicking on it will display it full-resolution on a device with a sufficient screen resolution.)

 

The exposure on this photo was so bad I could not correct it.  I wanted to use it as it’s a nice shot of Linda and shows the forward observation lounge.  I adjusted it to make it “artsy.”

 

This is the same basic view as the previous two photos with an attempt at natural color corrections.  Some of the forward observation lounge windows are visible along with a few passengers for scale.

 

Winding our way around headlands as we sailed deeper into the Bay was exciting as we (literally) never knew what was around the next corner (even though we had a map of GBNP&P).  (Photo by Linda.)

 

Linda caught an especially nice photo of this headland with higher mountains behind.  I think this photo captures just how rugged GBNP&P is.  (Photo by Linda.)

 

The end of the Bay, ABIR.  The day started out overcast and grey, with weak light.  By later in the afternoon, the clouds had opened up a bit to let in light and reveal blue skies.  (This image is 1080×608 pixels, and can be displayed at full-resolution on an appropriate device by clicking on the image.)

 

Linda on the pool deck (13, ABIR) with mountains looming in the background, relatively close to the ship.  The experience of seeing the Park from a cruise ship was grand.

 

The land comes down to meet the sea as we sail south out of GBNP&P.  I liked the way this green island stood out against the somewhat monochromatic mountains and clouds.  (This image is 1200×628 pixels.  You know what to do.)

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20230901_T6-C3_Ketchikan-AK

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Note:  This is the 6th of 16 posts about our 21-day trip that included a 17-day (16-night) cruise on the Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) ship SPIRIT from Vancouver, British Columbia Honolulu, Oahu.  This post has 14 photographs with captions and some narrative.  Photos taken by me (Bruce) with SONY alpha 6400 or Google Pixel 6 Pro unless otherwise indicated.  (Photo by Linda taken with Google Pixel 6.)

 

FRIDAY 01 September 2023 — (T6,C3) Ketchikan, Alaska and Totem Bight State Historical Park

 

This was day 6 of our travels and day 3 of the cruise.  I’m not sure what time we arrived at Ketchikan, Alaska, but our first photos, taken from our balcony, appear to be from 6 AM local time.  If so, we were up early and dressed for the arrival.  The embarkation “sail away” is always a big deal, but we especially like arriving in a new port-of-call.  Cruise ships often arrive in ports very early in the morning to give their guests as much time as possible to go ashore (and spend money on shore excursions).  Departure is typically anywhere from mid-afternoon to early evening, depending on the distance/time to the next port.  These ships are able to set and course and speed and maintain it with considerable precision, so they have very accurate ETAs as a rule.   After a few photos, I presume we went in search of breakfast somewhere on the ship.

 

Proof of Arrival for grand-daughter Sadie.  The pony on the left (of the photo) is labeled “APA” (Grandpa Bruce) and the other one is labeled “AMA” (Grandma Linda).  (Photo by Linda)

 

We were docked starboard side in, so we had a view of most of Ketchikan from our stateroom balcony.  Most of the town is nestled between some small mountains and the water, and has an extensive waterfront.  This is a composite image of 4 photographs.

 

We booked a shore excursion to Totem Bight State Historical Park (TBSHP), which took up the late morning.  As we stepped ashore to gather by our tour bus, we were aware that this was the first time we had set foot on Alaskan soil.

One of things we noticed on the Coastal Alaska portion of this cruise was that many of the tour bus drivers/guides and venue guides were relatively young.  In conversation, we discovered that many of them were from Brigham Young University (Utah) and were here working seasonal jobs.  The reason is that BU has a semester schedule that makes it possible for students to take jobs in places like Alaska at times of the year when they are needed.  They also have a training program for tourist industry work, and many companies recruit from there as a result.  We were impressed that these relatively young folks had gotten their CDL-B (Commercial Driver’s License – Passenger Bus).

 

An information board on arrival at TBSHP.

 

A totem pole at the entrance into TBSHP.

 

The lovely, wooded entrance path into TBSHP.

 

The Lodge House at TBSHP.  Our tour guide provides scale for the carved figures that support the massive beams that support the rafter beams for the roof.

 

The Lodge House at TBSHP viewed from the entrance end.

 

A view of the Lodge House at TBSHP from the side, with several totem poles visible.

 

 

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A view of the Lodge House at TBSHP from the side, with several totem poles visible.

 

Another interesting totem pole as we were exiting the TBSHP.

 

Upon return to the cruise ship dock, we walked the town for a while before returning to our ship well ahead of “all on board” time.

 

A view of one of the streets in Ketchikan.  Ketchikan was a neat little town, but busy with tourists and vehicles and difficult to photograph in an interesting or meaningful way.

 

This photo is from mid-afternoon, not long after leaving the dock in Ketchikan.  Seven images were composited to form this panoramic photograph.

 

 

These ships are part of the Alaska Marine Highway System, which is headquartered in Ketchikan, Alaska.  There is a major dry dock facility just out of frame to the left with a ship in it for repairs.

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20230830_T4-C1_NCL-SPIRIT Embarkation and Sail-Away

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Note:  This is the 4th of 16 posts about our 21-day trip that included a 17-dat (16-night) cruise on the Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) ship SPIRIT from Vancouver, British Columbia to Honolulu, Oahu.  This post consists of 13 photos with captions and some narrative.  Photos taken by me (Bruce) with SONY alpha 6400 and Google Pixel 6 Pro unless otherwise indicated.  (Photos by Linda taken with Google Pixel 6.)

 

WEDNESDAY 30 August 2023 — (T4,C1)  NCL SPIRIT Embarkation & Sail-Away, Le Bistro French Restaurant

Today was the fourth day of our trip, and the first day of our “Ice & Fire” cruise on the NCL cruise ship SPIRIT.  Embarkation was at the cruise terminal at the Port of Vancouver, which we had visited during the last couple of days to make sure we knew where it was and how to get in as pedestrians.  Given that it was only ~0.5 miles from our hotel, which did not have a shuttle service, we walked to the cruise port with our roller bag suitcases rather than take a cab or Uber.  I’ve mentioned previously that central/downtown Vancouver is a very walkable city, at least in nice weather.

Embarkation was relatively easy.  We checked our larger bags, and took our smaller ones on-board with us rather than leave them for the porters to deliver.  We had to wait for a while to gain access to our stateroom but once we did, we dropped off our bags and explored the ship.  We would naturally do this anyway, as there isn’t much else to (other than drink or swim) while all of the guests are being embarked, but we have also discovered that this is one of the “tips” that is widely shared on Youtube cruising channels.

We made an assumption that the scenery going up the inside passage might be better on the starboard (mainland) side of the ship, so we booked a balcony cabin on that side (the right when facing forward towards the bow).  We chose a room on Deck 9 near the fore-aft center of the ship.  This deck was high enough to have a good view and a near optimal location to minimize the effect of the ship’s movement by being near the ships center of gravity.  This minimizes both roll (side-to-side, worse the higher up you are) and pitch (fore-to-aft, worse the closer you are to the bow or the stern).  (The most movement is felt high up at either end of a ship.)

 

I hold two “cards” that our 4-year-old grand-daughter made.  We tried to photograph them each place that we visited and share the photos with her.  This photo was taken around 10 AM local time near the bow as the ship was docked “bow in” such that the bow was close to shore and the buildings of central downtown Vancouver, BC.  (Photo by Linda)

After getting to our room, we explored the ship for a bit and then had some lunch in the café (buffet).

 

This photo was taken from the forward lounge (the bow of the ship is visible).  The “sails” to the right of the ship are on the roof the terminal, which also houses Canada Place.  The upper deck by the sails is publicly accessible and affords a great, close-up view of docked cruise ships.

 

This photo is a view of the rear of the ship with the small swimming pool surrounded by lounge chairs arranged on stadium tiers.  The land in the background is North Vancouver on the other side of the harbor.

 

A rare photo of me on an upper/rear deck above the rear swimming pool looking towards the exit from the harbor and the bridge to North Vancouver.  (Photo by Linda)

 

Departure was scheduled for mid-late afternoon local time, and the ship started to move away from the dock around 3 PM, ABIR (and as evidenced by my photos).  We had a lovely cruise out of the Vancouver harbor, with lots of seaplane activity, something we don’t see much at home.  We watched the scenery go by for quite a while, but eventually went to dinner.

 

The ship has left the dock, and is making a backing turn.  This and the next three (3) photos were taken from the upper forward lounge though large plate glass windows.  This resulted in reflections and a heavy blue cast to the images, which I tried to correct.  Notice how the cruise terminal juts out like the bow of a ship, which was the architectural intent.

 

Another view of the Port of Vancouver Cruise Terminal.  The ship-like appearance is even more apparent here, with the “sails” flying above the building.

 

The ship is bringing the bow around towards the harbor entrance with the Vancouver skyline visible to port (left).

 

From Wikipedia:  “The Lions Gate Bridge, opened in 1938 and officially known as the First Narrows Bridge, is a suspension bridge that crosses the first narrows Burrard Inlet and connects the City of Vancouver, British Columbia, to the North Shore municipalities of the District of North Vancouver, the City of North Vancouver, and West Vancouver.”

 

The entrance/exit from the harbor is underneath a bridge (center of the frame) that connects Vancouver (left) and to the North Shores municipalities (right).

 

The ship is about to pass under the Lion’s Gate Bridge that connects Vancouver (left) to the North Shores municipalities (right).  The bridge marks (symbolically) the boundary of Vancouver harbor with the larger Pacific ocean.

 

Once the ship was out of the harbor and underway we eventually went to dinner.  Dining on NCL ships is “freestyle,” which means we did not have an assigned dining room, time, or table.  This is not true with all cruise lines, but it’s something we like and will look for on future cruises, regardless of the cruise line.  On this occasion, however, we had booked a table at Le Bistro, the specialty French restaurant.  I think we got two specialty restaurant meals as part of our cruise fare, and Linda thought it would be nice to use one of for our embarkation dinner, and she was right (of course).  We booked a 7:45 PM seating.  The setting was lovely and the food was amazing.

 

Linda models our table at Le Bistro, with lots of glasses waiting to be filled.

 

Our salad.  I think it had artichokes, but whatever it was, it was amazing.

 

I pose with what I presume was the main course.  Whatever it was, it was also amazing, because our recollection is that everything about this meal was amazing.  (Photo by Linda)

 

The Le Bistro dinner menu for this evening.  The reality of cruise ship dining is that we have to become vegetarians (or pescatarians) as true vegan options are very limited to non-existent, unless we only eat salad from the café/buffet venue.  (Photo by Linda)

 

Sometime during the day, and certainly before we went to sleep for the night, we unpacked our suitcases and found a storage place for everything.  We appreciated that the empty suitcases fit neatly under the bed and did not take up valuable closet or floor space.  Had they been a few inches thicker, they might not have fit.  Something to keep in mind for future cruises.

…

20230828_T2_Vancouver-BC-CA-1

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Note:  This is the 2nd of 16 posts about our 21-day trip that included a 17-day (16-night) cruise on the Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) ship SPIRIT from Vancouver, British Columbia to Honolulu, Oahu.  This post consists of 25 photos with captions and some narrative.  Photos were taken by me (Bruce) with a SONY alpha 6400 or a Google Pixel 6 Pro, unless otherwise indicated.  (Photos by Linda were taken with a Google Pixel 6.)

 

MONDAY 28 August 2023 — (T2) Exploring Vancouver, British Columbia (Canada)

This was the second day of our trip and the first of two full days we allocated to explore the City of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.  The city had been on our bucket list for some time, and it was exciting to finally be here.  We had read that it is an economically vibrant place that is very ethnically and culturally diverse, and looked forward to seeing and experiencing some of that in our relatively short visit before getting on a cruise ship.

 

A view of the skyscrapers near the Vancouver BC Coast Coal Harbor Hotel as we head out just after 7 AM to find coffee and a light breakfast.

 

A view from outside the downtown 49th Parallel Coffee Roasters.  The coffee shop was near our hotel and with excellent coffee and bread/pastry choices.  (Photo by Linda.)

 

IAs mentioned in yesterday’s blog post, the elevators in our hotel required our key card to access the floors various floors.  Not just the penthouse floors, but all of them.

 

I don’t recall what floor our hotel room was on; it was not the top floor (20), but it was fairly high up.  This is a panorama from the floor-to-ceiling window facing roughly south to slightly southwest.  Linda picked this hotel because it was a) close (walking distance) to the downtown train station and cruise port (Port of Vancouver), and b) not too expensive for its location.  It proved to be a nice hotel and a great location.

 

Our first destination today was Stanley Park, one of the “must see” things to do in Vancouver.  Located on the peninsula northwest of downtown Vancouver, it was walking distance from the hotel, but also accessible via the hop-on / hop-off bus.  This is a view from the park looking back towards downtown.

 

Linda photographed this map signboard to help us navigate this rather large (1,000 acres) park.  (Better/digital maps are available online from the City of Vancouver.)  The park was very green, with large trees and wonderful flower beds.  It is one of the premiere urban parks in North America and is a west coast rainforest ecosystem.  It has 17 miles of pathways and a 5.4-mile-long seawall.  It lived up to its billing, and was a wonderful place to spend a few hours and get in some “steps.”  (Photo by Linda.)

 

One of the highlights of Stanley Park are the authentic Totem Poles.

 

Another view of the Totem Poles in Stanley Park.  (Photo by Linda.)

 

Linda stands by the base of very large tree for scale.  Stanley Park is a west coast rainforest and has approximately 500,000 trees, many coniferous (Red Cedar, Hemlock, and Douglass Fir).  Although heavily logged in the late 1800’s, some of the trees are hundreds of years old, with the largest trees standing 249 feet tall.

 

The trees in Stanley Park are not all green.  There were scenes like this all along our walk through the park.

 

The flowering plants and shrubs throughout the park were also wonderful.

 

Another example of the beautiful flowering plants found along the paths.

 

The entrance to the Granville Island Public Market area.  From Wikipedia and Trip Advisor (via Bing):  “Granville Island is a peninsula and shopping district in the Fairview neighborhood of Vancouver, BC (Canada) across False Creek from Downtown.  Formerly industrial, today it is a posh artsy neighborhood filled with shops, eateries, breweries, and the Granville Island Public Market.  Arts and culture festivals are hosted here year-round.”  It was charming, and popular.

 

This photo of a street in the market area of Granville Island does not do justice to the place or how busy it was.  The Public Market was extensive, with lots of interesting vendors, but it was bustling with people, so we did not get a usable photo of the inside.

 

Our hop-on/hop-off tickets included access to the small ferries that go to various docks on False Creek.

 

We visited the Maritime Museum.  This is a view looking back towards downtown.

 

A panorama from the same vantage point.  Mountains surround the Vancouver metro area.  They are visible here, but often did not show up in our photos as the weather was hazy.  (Photo by Linda.)

 

Another view of skyscrapers (they are everywhere) from the ferry before landing at the Plaza of Nations dock and resuming on explorations by bus.

 

You have got to love a plant-based pizza and ice cream place named “Virtuous Pie.”  Being located in Vancouver’s Chinatown district was a bonus.  At least one source claimed it was the best pizza in North America.  We haven’t eaten every pizza in N.A., so we can not substantiate that claim but our meal, pictured here, was absolutely delicious.  Really good vegan pizza is not easy to make, but our pies were top shelf and their plant-based ice cream was also outstanding.

 

What you are looking at here is a steam-powered mechanical clock with four clock faces and most of the workings visible.  From AtlasObscura (paraphrased):  The clock is located in the Gastown district (central Vancouver), the city’s original/oldest neighborhood.  Vancouver has a central heating system that supplies steam heat to much of the city’s core, and the clock gets its steam from that system.

 

Another view of the steam clock, located in the 300 block of Water Street.  It was built in 1977 and sits atop one of the steam vents for the central heating system.  It is one of only a few functioning steam clocks in the world and is a “must-see” attraction, so we did.  There was a small crowd there along with us, which apparently is always the case, and the clock did not disappoint.  I actually shot a video with sound, but I am not posting it here (too many megabytes).

 

A composite image of the Disney Cruise Line ship WONDER as it departs the Port of Vancouver BC.  The large building center-left is the Vancouver Convention Center West.

 

The Canada Place portion of the Port of Vancouver BC Cruise Port Terminal.  The design of this port/terminal is suggestive of a ship, and allows the public to get an up-close view of docked cruise ships and watch them sail away and dock.  There is no admission charge as there are shops in the complex.

 

Looking west from Canada Place towards the Vancouver Convention Center West, the objects in the water to the right of the Convention Center are seaplanes.  These are not something we see very often where we live, but there were quite a few of them here, and we often saw them taking off or landing.

 

A view from the Canada Place portion of the Vancouver Cruise Port.  The Viking Cruise Line ship ORION is docked to the right.  As shown here, the public can get a very close-up look at the ship.

20230828-152232_A6401840_598x336  A view from the Canada Place portion of the Vancouver Cruise Port.  The Viking Cruise Line ship ORION is docked to the right.  As shown here, the public can get a very close-up look at the ship.

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20230827_T1_Air Ice Water Fire Air

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Note:  This is the first of 16 posts about our 21-day trip that included a 17-day (16-night) cruise on the Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) ship SPIRIT.  Our trip started in Michigan with a flight to Vancouver, British Columbia where we spent a few days exploring the central/downtown area.  We then boarded the cruise ship and headed north along the inside passage to Ketchikan, Alaska.  We toured Glacier Bay and then made port calls in Juneau, Skagway, and Sitka, with interesting shore excursions in each port.  We then crossed the North Pacific Ocean to the Hawaiian Islands, visiting Kauai and Maui before ending in Honolulu, Oahu, again with interesting shore excursion in each port.

This post consists of 5 photos with captions and some narrative.  Photos were taken by me (Bruce) with a SONY alpha 6400 or a Google Pixel 6 Pro, unless otherwise indicated.  Photos by Linda were taken with a Google Pixel 6.

 

SUNDAY 27 August 2023 — (T1) Detroit, MI (USA) to Vancouver, BC (Canada)

The first leg of our Air – Ice – Water – Fire – Air trip was air travel from Detroit Metropolitan Airport to Vancouver International Airport via Seattle-Tacoma (SEATAC) International Airport.  Much like any other “vacation” travel that does not involve one of our RVs, we had the usual preparations for this trip.  There was trip planning, booking the ship, arranging the flights, deciding what to take (and what not to take), figuring out how to pack it, online check-ins, actually getting to/from our home airport and parking our vehicle (we used U.S. Park for the first time, and it worked well), clearing Customs and Border check-ins, physical check-ins for flights and the cruise, and navigating unfamiliar airports, train stations, cities, and a cruise port and.  All of that was work, of course, and although makes for an interesting experience, it doesn’t make for particularly interesting blog fodder.

What might be worth nothing, however, is that we originally planned to do this cruise in June 2024 from Hawai’i to Vancouver via the North Pacific Ocean and coastal Alaska.  This is sometimes referred to as the “Fire & Ice” cruise and we had booked it earlier in 2023.  Sometime during the year, however, we received an e-mail from NCL informing us that the cruise had been cancelled.  Disappointed, but undeterred, Linda found that the same cruise was available on the same ship starting in late August 2023, but sailing in the reverse order.

 

On the street in Vancouver near our hotel.

Well, alrighty then, apparently we were going on our second cruise of 2023!  We were excited about it, of course, starting with embarkation at the Port of Vancouver in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.  Vancouver would be a first time visit for us, and a place we had wanted to visit for some time.  Indeed, it was the first time we would be in any Province of Canada west of Ontario.  Although we plan to visit Alaska by RV in the next few years, this would also be our first time in Alaska, and we were aware that much of southeast coastal Alaska is best accessed by ship.

 

I have held a private pilot license since my early 20’s (a long time ago), and I enjoyed flying small planes, but I have no love for modern day airline travel, and Linda shares that feeling.  Flying out of Detroit Metropolitan Airport DELTA Airlines is our primary choice because Detroit Metro is a major hub for the airline and flies almost everywhere from there.  Their “service” seemed to be lacking this time, but we doubt that it’s any different/better with any other carriers.  We particularly dislike the luggage “self-check” system, which still requires us to interact with an agent, of which there never seem to be enough on duty to handle the number of passengers, resulting in long waits in long lines.  We do some of the work and DELTA gets to hire less people.

Adding to this annoyance is that they have special lines and agents for customers with higher loyalty levels, and these lines are often empty but the agents just stand around waiting for the next privileged customer to show up.  Once through the TSA security check-point (more on that in a minute) we object to people being allowed to bring suitcases/bags on a plane that are obviously too large to pass carry-on dimensions, even after being told (by public announcement) that this will not be allowed.  Add to that the small, cramped seats in the “main cabin”, a stupid loading order (front-to-back), and it’s just not much fun.  In fairness, our interactions with agents and cabin crew were pleasant and helpful, as usual, and things tended to work better once we are in the plane and in the air.  Until we have to deplane, which is always a zoo.  But again, to be fair, the other passengers tend to “play nice” and let people out of their seats as the plane empties out.

 

Another street view in our Vancouver hotel district.

The TSA security check-points are always a hassle, especially having to remove shoes, belts, etc. but on this occasion we encountered a new issue.  As we were getting in line (for the ordinary travelers, not those with TSA pre-check or other special security clearance credentials) the area was suddenly closed for a “shift change.”  Apparently the shift change involved a 100% rotation of personnel, necessitating the shut-down of the lanes.  We were directed to go through the check-point in the attached Westin Hotel; a considerable (1/2 mile) walk from where we were.  Once through security, we had an even longer walk (~ 1.0 mile) through the terminal to our gate.  Fortunately, we arrived at the airport plenty early to leave time for this kind of nonsense, but nonsense it was nonetheless.

 

A shot from the hop-on/hop-off bus.  Vancouver has some very interesting skyscrapers and other architecture.

When we have to fly, we typically have two roller cases each, one that just fits within the carry-on size requirements and one that is much smaller and fits easily under the seat in front of us if needed.  The airline rules do permit us to bring this combination on board, but we have taken to checking the larger bags and carrying the smaller ones onto the plane.  If we are going to be away for a long time, we will take one or two larger suitcases that must be checked.  As such, the smaller bags contain the essentials that we cannot afford to lose in transit: cameras, tablets, chargers, spare glasses, medications, personal toiletries, a change of underwear and socks, and our winter (down) jackets if required by the time of year and/or destinations.  If our larger bags on delayed or lost, the bags and contents are replaceable given some time to deal with the situation.  With that in mind, we always try to arrive at least one day ahead of embarkation for a cruise.  For this cruise, we arrived three days ahead of time, giving us two full days to explore a city we had heard so much about, and were excited to finally visit.

 

Another unusual skyscraper as seen from the hop-on/hop-off bus.

A direct flight from Detroit to Vancouver was not available, or at least not at a time that worked for us, and we ended up flying through SEATAC Airport in Washington (State) and changing planes.  Which was fine.  We had a bit of a wait for the second leg of our trip, but that was fine too.  Most importantly, our two checked bags arrived in Vancouver on the same plane that we did.

Once we had gathered our bags from the luggage claim in Vancouver, we made our way to the on-airport train station.  Vancouver has a train that runs from the airport to the train station in the heart of downtown.  The system was “self-serve,” and a bit confusing to us as first-time users, but we figured out quickly enough how to use a credit card to get through the entrance control gate and get on the correct train with our roller-cases.  The train ride was novel and fun, and we got our first ground level view of the Vancouver area.  Soon enough we were exiting the train at the downtown station.  The station was ~0.4 miles from our hotel and ~0.1 miles from the Cruise Port (in the opposite direction), putting our hotel only ~0.5 miles from the Cruise Terminal, which will be important a few blog posts from now.

 

Vancouver’s Chinatown was large and felt very authentic.  Vancouver is known as a cultural and ethnically diverse metropolis, and we saw clear evidence of that as we rode around on the hop-on/hop-off bus.  (Photo by Linda)

Linda had selected the Coast Coal Harbor Vancouver hotel for our three (3) nights in the city; partly for the reasonable cost and partly for its proximity to the train station and cruise terminal.  Rather than hail a cab or call an Uber, we walked to the hotel, rolling our suitcases as we went.  (If we were younger and more physically fit we might have opted for suitcases/bags that work like backpacks, but the wheeled cases were okay).  Once we arrived in what we thought was the correct location, it took us a few minutes to identify the entrance to the hotel, but once inside the check-in process was very smooth and the room, many floors up, was very nice with a view of some of the surrounding buildings.  It was the first time we had stayed in a hotel that required us to swipe our key card to use the elevator to access our floor.  This was true for all of the floors, not just the usual “penthouse” floor(s) at the top.

 

Our first impression of Vancouver was that it was an architecturally interesting, clean, vibrant city.  The hotel concierge gave us some brochures and suggestions about things to see and do during a relatively short stay, including places to eat (given our plant-based preferences).  He also suggested the “hop-on, hop-off” bus, which included a ferry service on False Creek, as the best way to quickly get acquainted with the city.  Vancouver is a large city, but its various districts and neighborhoods were very walkable.  We decided to have a first look at the city on the bus/ferry and then search out someplace to have dinner.

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20230311-12 – Miami, FL (USA) and home

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SATURDAY 11 March – Arrival in Miami and Disembarkation

[  This post consists of some narrative and 18 photos with captions.  ]

As our cruise was slowly drawing to a close, it would be an understatement to say that we had a great time.  We were grateful that Nancy and Paul invited us along on this adventure, as it was not even on our event horizon.  Had we decided at some point in the future to do this on our own, it would still have been a great trip, but getting to do it with close friends in one of the two “owner’s suites” of the NCL Joy HAVEN, was a unique (and probably once-in-a lifetime) experience for us.  And it was a very special experience, indeed.  Now where’s that lottery ticket?

We were up early to get ready to disembark and watch the ship come into the Port-of-Miami.  The Haven staff had laid out a breakfast buffet in the Haven’s Horizon Lounge, so we made use of that first.  The Lounge was mostly devoid of guests at this early hour, so following are photos of areas of the HAVEN that I have not previously posted.

 

The sign for the HAVEN Library, in the hall just outside the main entrance doors.  (We actually had a “back way” into the library as the emergency exit opened into the hallway right at the entrance door to our suite.)  The Library is on the middle (18th) of the three HAVEN decks.

A partial view of the HAVEN Library from near the main entrance doors, looking forward to port.  Our suite is just on the other side of the wall/bookcase at the left of the photo.

The hallway leading to the HAVEN Horizon Lounge.  The Lounge is all the way forward on the lower (17th) of the three HAVEN decks.  The center portion of the Lounge, however, has its ceiling at the top of deck 18.  All of the staterooms are on decks 17 and 18.  The Horizon Lounge, concierge desk, pool, and bar are on deck 17.  Deck 18 includes the Library and the Restaurant.  Deck 19 is indoor/outdoor lounging space.

The entire NCL Joy is an attractive and well-maintained ship, but even the signage in the HAVEN had a special, understated elegance.  (This photo also contains a selfie image of the photographer.)

The other members of our little “gang” having a bite of breakfast in the HAVEN Horizon Lounge while I roam around taking photographs.

The buffet area of the HAVEN Horizon Lounge.  We were there quite early (this photo was date/time stamped at 7:03 AM.)

The port side of the HAVEN Horizon Lounge.  The front portion of our suite, including the balcony, is above this ceiling but we never heard any noise from below when we were there.

A wider view of the HAVEN Horizon Lounge from mid-ship front looking to port.  The forward port corner of the library is visible in the upper left.  The front portion of our suite, including the balcony, is behind the upper wall with the slanted lighting.  To the right in the photo are the large forward-facing windows in the center of the Lounge which span both decks (17 and 18).

A view of the HAVEN Horizon Lounge and Library looking aft/starboard from slightly to port.  The forward wall of the Library is also all windows, so from there you can see all the way forward through the large center Lounge windows.  The wall with the lighting running at various angles is the other owner’s suite.

The HAVEN swimming pool and hot tub area.  The area is open all the way to the ceiling of deck 19.  The ceiling is retractable, but we never saw it opened during our cruise.  The opening on deck 19 has lounge chairs all the way around.  There is also access to the outside portion of deck 19 that is part of the HAVEN.

 

We arrived at the Port of Miami around 7 AM.  Our departure from Los Angeles was in late afternoon light under heavy mist and rain, so we didn’t really see any of the California coast.  With our approach to Miami, however, it was still dark and the sky was clear.  From our first sighting of lights along the shore, it took several hours to actually get to the cruise ship terminal.  While we might prefer national parks as places to visit and explore, there was no denying that the Miami skyline, lit up in the dark, is an impressive, urban sight.

 

 

Coming into the Port-of-Miami under the cover of darkness.  The cruise ship terminals are straight ahead.  (Click for a higher resolution image on appropriate devices.)

Heading towards the cruise ship terminals with the Miami skyline in the background; container dockyard on the left, superyachts docked on the right.  (Click for a higher resolution image on appropriate devices.)

The Royal Caribbean Harmony of the Seas at its Miami terminal on the left.  The Harmony of the Seas is even bigger than the NCL Joy.

As we come alongside the RC Harmony of the Seas, the NCL cruise ship terminal comes into view on the left.

The NCL terminal is very modern.  This photo shows one of the two enclosed gang planks.  They are similar to the jetways used at airports.  The whole structure moves parallel to the edge of the dock on rails and the opening for the ship can be adjusted (up and down) to match the boarding deck.

A final selfie of the “fab 4” by the maître de station of the HAVEN Restaurant.

 

As soon as we began disembarkation things got busy and we did not take any more photos until we reached the Orlando area.  The Norwegian Cruise Line terminal is a large, modern facility designed to make embarkation and disembarkation smooth and relatively easy.  We elected to take our own luggage with us and had priority disembarkation as a result.  (We each had an individual carry-on size rolling suitcase and each couple had a larger rolling suitcase that we checked when flying.)  We cleared in through US Customs quickly and found our way to the taxi / ride-share area where we booked a larger Uber to get the four of us and our six suitcases to the car rental area at Miami International Airport where we had reserved a car with Enterprise Car Rental for the next leg of our journey.

The rental car area was a new/large terminal in itself, and picking up our rental car was a relatively smooth, painless process.  We upgraded the size of vehicle at the counter for a small extra charge.  We also verified that we could use the toll roads.  The toll road system uses “toll-by-plate” and the tolls would be billed to Enterprise and passed along to us.  We were on our way by 9 AM and headed north on the Florida’s Turnpike towards Orland.  Our first destination was the boarding facility near Walt Disney World to retrieve Nancy and Paul’s mini-Goldendoodle, Bella, who was boarded there for the duration of the cruise.  (It was an amazingly nice boarding facility with a great staff, so Bella was in good hands while her servants were away on holiday.  She even had her own private “suite” with access to an outside area.  Sometimes “a dog’s life” is a pretty good life.  )

 

 

Nancy and Paul’s lot/pad at Mount Olive Shores North (MOSN) with their American Eagle motorhome.

 

Bella, Paul and Nancy’s mini-Goldendoodle, at the MOSN dog park.

With Bella in hand, we headed southwest on I-4 towards Lakeland, a route with which we were all too familiar.  Traffic on I-4 was as bad as usual, but eventually loosened up.  Soon enough, we were exiting for Polk City.  We arrived at Mount Olive Shores North (MOSN), where Paul and Nancy have a lot with a pad for their Class A American Eagle motorhome, a short time later.

 

 

Even through I wasn’t feeling well, we decided to go to Ford’s Garage in Lakeland for dinner.  Bella was with us, so needed their outside seating as dogs are allowed there.  We abandoned that idea shortly we arrived as the wait was going to be at least an hour.  We considered other dinner options, but ultimately decided to return to MOSN and pickup some pizzas in Polk City on the way.   We had a flight booked for the next morning from Tampa International Airport to Detroit Metropolitan Airport (DTW), and spent the night in Paul and Nancy’s motorhome.

 

SUNDAY 12 March – Closing the Loop

We were up early in order to be ready to go and skipped breakfast.  We said our “farewells until next time,” and “thanks yous,” “and left MOSN around 8 AM for the approximately 1-hour drive to Tampa International Airport.  This early on a Sunday morning the traffic wasn’t too bad, and returning the rental care was quick and easy.  Our flight home on DELTA Airlines was schedule to depart at noon, so we found some seats near our gate, got some coffee and bagels/muffins, and doodled on our iPads will we waited.

Our incoming flight was delayed so we waited a bit longer, but it was no big deal for us.  A couple sitting nearby was a bit anxious, however, and we struck up a conversation.  They were headed to Amsterdam (Netherlands) via a connecting flight out of Detroit Metro Airport.  Their window to get off of our flight onto their next one was already uncomfortably small, but I think we made it out of Tampa International Airport in time for them to make the connection in Detroit.

Our daughter was tracking our flight, and drove to DTW to pick us up and take us back to her house, where we left our F-150 while we were gone.  Back at her house, we transferred all of our luggage into our truck, ready to return to our house.  The truck started just fine, but displayed a warning message about the charging system, and the battery light stayed on.  Linda Googled the message and found that it was likely that our battery was not charging and our range might be limited a 20- to 30-minute drive.  Knowing that, we thought we might make it home, and started on our way.  We didn’t get very far, however, before deciding that this was not a good idea, especially later on a Sunday afternoon, whereupon we turned around and returned to our daughter’s house.  She was happy to let us borrow her car to get home and we promised to return it in a day or so.  It was not the conclusion to our epic adventure that we envisioned, and the problem was resolved over the next few days, but that’s another story for another post.

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20230309-12 – Georgetown, Cayman Islands & a sea day

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THURSDAY 09 March – Georgetown, Cayman Islands

[  This post consists of some narrative and 12 photos with captions.  ]

Our approach to Georgetown, Cayman Islands at first light.  (This image is 1920×862 pixels.  Clicking on the image might allow it to be viewed at full resolution on a device with sufficient resolution.)

Center frame; the tender dock and Port of Entry station at the heart of Georgetown, Cayman Islands as sunrise approaches.

 

Our penultimate port of call was Georgetown, Cayman Islands.  The port lacks a deep-water marina, so cruise ships “anchor out” and the guests “tender in.”  There are quite a few things to do on the island, and there were numerous shore excursions from which to choose.  This was not our first visit to Georgetown, however, and we were content to just go ashore and stroll around for a bit.  As port towns go it’s not very interesting.  Most of the things to see and do are elsewhere on the island(s).

 

Cloud figures; a horse plays with a hippopotamus on its back.

One of the tenders (shuttle boats) tied up alongside the NCL Joy.  Cruise ships are BIG; tender boats are small.

The NCL Joy is joined by the Carnival Glory cruise ship in the harbor.

Welcome to the Cayman Islands:  Nancy, Linda, and Paul.

Welcome to the Cayman Islands; Bruce, Nancy, and Paul.

 

The Cayman Islands in general, and Georgetown in particular, is known for its (offshore) banking industry.  We were here as part of our 2nd Holistic Holiday at Sea cruise in 2013, so we knew the town itself is relatively small, without too much high-rise architecture, and is very walkable, but without very much to see and do.  It seemed unchanged to us since our last visit.  The two most novel things about our time here were:  1) an actual police officer directing traffic, and;  2) the number of cruise ships in the harbor; four at one time (as best I recall).  The Joy departed at 5 PM for the final leg of our journey.

 

The Cayman Islands Parliament building and part of the plaza that it faces.  A lot of the buildings in Georgetown are white or light colored, so Paul is wearing his favorite tie-die shirt to add a splash of color.

When in Georgetown there isn’t any doubt as to its history and affiliation with England.  Even they way they post “NO PARKING” signs is very polite.

The Celebrity APEX cruise ship (left) has joined the NCL Joy (right) and Carnival Glory (center) in the Georgetown anchorage.  There’s a 4th cruise ship anchored here as well, but not visible in this photo.

 

In larger ports that can handle multiple cruise ships simultaneously, it’s a bit mind-boggling how many people they can disgorge into a waiting community.  Equally amazing, are the number of businesses (and people) that are in place at each port to service, and indeed depend on, these large number of visitors.  Cruise ships have their purpose, however, and we had thoroughly enjoyed our time on the NCL Joy and the places it stopped.  Perhaps someday we will return to some of these locations on our own, as well as others that our cruise skipped, and stay long enough to get a better sense of what they are really like.  But if not, at least we have experienced them, however briefly, and been keenly aware that we were in places that were very different from where we have spent most of our lives.

 

The NCL Joy puts its port side bow thruster to work to spin the ship 180 degrees around its mid-point.  Not shown (not visible from our port-side suite baloney) is that the starboard side stern thruster is also being used.

The Celebrity APEX has already completed it’s 180 degree turn and is headed out to sea as our ship completes its turn to do the same.

 

FRIDAY 10 March – At Sea

We sailed all evening on the 9th, all day on the 10th, and into the early morning of the 11th.  We had our last dinner meal aboard in the Haven restaurant on the 10th.  After dinner, we gave gratuities to the key crew who had made our trip extra special, namely:  Isidro (our Butler), Harold (our Stateroom Attendant), Patrick (the head Haven concierge), and Melody (the Assistant Concierge in charge of the Haven restaurant).  These gratuities were in addition to the ones that all guests pre-pay and are (presumably) divided up (in some equitable way) between the entire crew (except for the butlers and the Haven concierges, as we understood it).  These four people, however, had made our time onboard memorable in the best possible way.

Over the course of the day, I developed an irritated throat that got worse with time and eventually moved to my sinuses.  Not the way I wanted to end the cruise, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it except for symptomatic treatments, until we got ashore in Miami, Florida and back to Paul and Nancy’s place at MOSN in Polk City, Florida.

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20230307-08 – Cartagena, Columbia & a sea day

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TUESDAY 07 March – Cartagena, Columbia

[  This post has some narrative along with 22 photos with captions.  ]

After finishing our daytime transit of the Panama Canal on March 6th, we were at sea for the rest of the evening and overnight into March 7th, arriving at the cruise ship dock in the harbor at Cartagena, Columbia around 10 AM.

Our first full view of the harbor area of Cartagena, Columbia in the early morning haze.  We are already past the entrance in the breakwater into the outer harbor but have some ways to go before enter the inner harbor and get to the port/dock.

Linda takes in the upscale water-front area of Cartagena as the NCL Joy prepares to enter the inner  harbor.

The Holland America Zandam at the cruise ship dock.  We are pulling on the other side of the dock.  The Zandam is a big ship, but is dwarfed by the Joy.

Cartagena is a major shipping port.  This container facility is just one of many that we passed on the way into the dock.

 

The Zandam, a Holland America cruise ship, was already there when we arrived.  Cartagena is Columbia’s main Caribbean port.  It is mostly commercial, but the Columbian Navy has a base here, and there are marinas for pleasure craft and sightseeing boats.  We were amazed, however, at the number of containers stacked up in the shipyard and the number of gantry cranes that were in use moving them around.  Outside of the commercial and cruise ship docks, however, the city around the harbor is very modern and (we were told) has become a safe, inviting place for tourists.

 

This photo provides another view of the container shipyard adjacent to the cruise dock/port area, very close to a lot of commercial and residential buildings.  We counted at least 21 of the blue gantry cranes in this shipyard, and it seemed at times that most of them were busy moving containers around.  There was also a constant flow of tractors coming in to drop off or pick up containers.  (Photo by Linda.)

On our bus ride to the Old City, we saw lots of juxtapositions of old and new.  The old stone work in the foreground is 16th century.  The high-rise buildings in the background are late 20th to earl 21st century.

This photo was typical of the Cartagena streets that our excursion bus took to get to the Old City.  While the look and feel of the place was different from what have experienced for most of our lives, it was also fascinating.

 

Like Antiqua, Guatemala the Spanish presence in Cartagena dates back to the very beginning of the 16th century.  The Walled Old Town by the sea is still intact, and is another UNESCO World Heritage Site.  The four of us booked a shore excursion that involved a bus ride from the dock to the Old City, a walking tour of the Old City, and then a 1-hour boat ride around the harbor.  As part of the harbor cruise, we got a close-up look at the Caribbean fleet of the Columbian Navy base, which includes two small submarines and a 3-masted sailing vessel named Gloria (presumably for training cadets).  While on our cruise, we watched the Holland America Zandam back out from the dock, turn around and head for the ocean.

 

The entrance to the Old (walled) City.  This photo only provides a glimpse into the tourist crowd that awaited us inside the walls.

Many of the streets in the Old City were like the one pictured here, running straight for short distances before turning in a different direction.

Linda and Nancy enjoying a funny moment.  (They do this a lot.)  Paul is focused on something else.

The inside of the Cathedral in the Old City with its massive, carved altar.

A closer view of the altar with someone praying in the foreground.

There was a lot of variety in the architecture of the buildings in the Old City so it’s not really possible to say what was “typical.”  This style, however, was in the mix.

Cartagena was the seat of the Spanish Inquisition in the Americas, and it was administered from this building, now a museum dedicated to this part of Columbia’s history.

The Caribbean fleet of the Columbian Navy is based Cartagena, and moored in plain sight.

The Holland America Zandam backing out of its berth at the cruise terminal.  The NCL Joy is behind it, and difference in size is obvious.

A selfie on the little harbor cruise ship.  It appears that we were satisfied with the experience.  (Photo by Linda.)

It appears that Nancy and Paul also enjoyed the harbor cruise.  (Photo by Linda.)

A pair of Macaws at the zoo/shops that make up the entrance the cruise terminal.

Another pair of Macaws at the zoo/shops terminal entrance area.

The same pair of Macaws as the previous photo.  Such beautiful birds.

 

Following our harbor cruise, we were bused back to the cruise terminal, which we entered by walking through a small outdoor zoo and then past some gift shops.  Although farther north than Panama City, the climate, even at this time of year, was more tropical – warm and humid – and the birds reflected that.  We were always aware that we were getting a superficial “tourist eye’s view” of Cartagena, but nonetheless enjoyed our brief time in Cartagena, Columbia and felt like this was another port-of-call where an overnight stop might have allowed a closer, more relaxed acquaintance with the place and its people and culture.

The Norwegian Joy left Cartagena at 6 PM and headed for our next port, sailing all evening, all the following day, and overnight into March 9th.

 

WEDNESDAY 08 March – At Sea

We spent the entire day sailing NNW in the western Caribbean Sea, out of sight of land.  The weather was pleasant with blue skies and water and white, puffy clouds.  The only photo I’ve included shows the monitor in our suite.  Our present location is approximately half way to our destination of Georgetown, Cayman Islands.  The right end of the upper information banner shows that we have sailed 3,767.1 NM (nautical miles) from our starting point at the Port of Los Angeles.  We sailed overnight before finally sighting land around sunrise.

 

The monitor in our suite showing our current location, heading, and speed, along with other information, including our total distance sailed since departing the dock at the Port of Los Angeles.

 

While we enjoy seeing land from the ship, and getting off the ship at ports to explore, we also enjoyed our days at sea.  Far from being boring, sea days provided a chance to relax and explore/enjoy the many amenities the ship had to offer.  While cruise ships can take you to amazing places there is no doubt that the ships themselves (and especially the staff) are part of the experience.

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20230306 PCC 9of12 – Transiting the Panama Canal

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MONDAY 06 March – 51 miles between oceans on a ship

[  NOTE:  Most of this post consists of 36 photos with captions.  This is being posted more than 3 months after the fact – some of the details might be inaccurate and some of the photos might be out of sequence.  ]

Going through (transiting) the Panama Canal was the main reason for going on this cruise, and the experience did not disappoint.  The American Society of Civil Engineers considers it one of the seven wonders of the modern world.  (We have no seen all of the wonders of the world, ancient or modern, so we will take their word for it.)

 

The NCL Joy moving into the queue for entrance to the southern end of the Panama Canal.

The ocean in the vicinity of Panama City and the entrance to the Panama Canal was crowded with ships waiting to make the transit.  Ships can book a date/time to start the transit, but it is much more expensive than just waiting in line.  Ships with non-perishable cargo and less critical delivery timelines choose to wait their turn and get the lower price.  The fee for the NCL Joy to transit the Canal was approximately $750,000 USD.  The pricing structure for the Canal is very complicated.  (Photo by Linda)

The NCL Joy left the dock at 5 AM to be in position for the 8 AM scheduled start of our transit.  It was dawn by the time we were moving towards the entrance of the Canal and were opposite our starting point.  Part of the Panama City skyline forms the background of this photo, taken by Linda.

Starting into the marked channel that leads to the Panama Canal.  Our ship was docked in the harbor on the other side of the small hills to starboard (right).

The Norwegian Joy left the dock in Panama City at 5 AM and we were up to see it off.  We spent the entire transit in our front-facing 18th deck stateroom; usually on the balcony.  We even took our meals in our room, one of the few times we took advantage of this perquisite.

The Puente de las Americas (Bridge of the Americas) ahead.  Channel markers to the left and right of the ship are visible.  The hill on the right had the radio towers/antennas used to communicate with the ships using the Panama Canal.

Approaching the Puente de las Americas (Bridge of the Americas).  This bridge is considered the (unofficial?) southern terminus of the Panama Canal.  Note the crowd of guests gathered on the foredeck of our ship.  This area is normally only open to crew, whose quarters are located foreship near this level.

The Bridge of the Americas to port (left) of the ship just after our balcony passed under it.  We are now (officially?) in the Panama Canal, but still some way from the first set of locks.

Large commercial/cargo docks to starboard (right).

More commercial/cargo docks to port (left).

 

Ships transiting the Canal are queued up in the ocean and then proceed along a well-marked channel when cleared in.  The Bridge of the Americas is considered the southern terminus of the Canal and the Puente Atlántico (Atlantic Bridge) at Colon is considered the northern terminus.  Passing under either of these bridges is a cause for celebration on cruise ships.  And so, it was for us too; we finally opened our bottle of “welcome on board” champagne and toasted the moment.

The original 2-flight Miraflores Locks are to starboard (right).  The newer (2016) 3-flight Panamax class Miraflores West (Cocoli) Locks are to port (left).  We used the newer locks as the NCL Joy is too large for the original ones.  Both sets of locks are still referred to as the Miraflores Locks.

The NCL Joy lined up to enter the Miraflores West (Cocoli) Locks.  The tug boat is positioned to block the Joy from going in yet, and to render maneuvering assistance if/when needed.  (Photo by Linda)

The double lock gates are sliding open so our ship can move from the first to the second/middle basin.  The NCL Joy is just over 1,000 feet long; too big for the older/original locks at either end of the Canal, but much smaller than the maximum 1,400-foot length the new locks can accommodate.  A third phase of lock building is in the planning stages with locks that will accommodate even bigger ships.  (Photo by Linda)

As our ship entered the Miraflores West (Cocoli) Locks, we could see other ships to starboard (right) using the original Miraflores Locks.

The structure center-right in the photo is the sliding lock gate that will close behind the ship once it is fully in the lock basin.  The green surface on top is a road that allows Canal staff to get from one side to the other (when the gate is closed, obviously).  All of the new locks use these massive sliding gates.  The original locks using swinging gates.

The “Cocoli control tower” for the Miraflores West Locks.  We had one more basin after the one we are currently in.  Each of the basins is an “elevator) that works like a bathtub.  When filled with water any boat(s) in the basin are raised in elevation.  When the water is drained, they are lowered.  When the water level is the same on both sides of a gate, it can be opened or closed, allowing ships to enter or leave the basin.

Exiting the last basin of the Miraflores West (Cocoli) Locks northbound.  Miraflores Lake can be seen ahead to starboard (right).  Because of the geology of this part of the Canal Zone, the original southern lock system consists of two flights in the Miraflores Locks and then a single flight in the Pedro Miguel Lock.  The body of water in-between is named Lake Miraflores.  The new West (Cocoli) Locks achieve the change in elevation in a 3-flight (staircase) lock system.  The two channels reunite just north of the Pedro Miguel Lock.

 

There is a lot of information available online and in books about the Panama Canal.  It’s a long, complicated story, and not a happy one in most regards.  I was glad I had taken the time to read about this before being here (Panama Fever, by Matthew Parker).  The engineering is amazing, and the location is beautiful, but it has a context and only became a reality at enormous cost in money, lives, and political relations with the countries of Central and South America.

 

The Miraflores Locks Visitor Center and Control Room just left of center in the photo.

A smaller ship exiting the Miraflores Locks.

 

Regardless of which way you go through the Canal, the trip begins and ends with locks, three at each end, with Gatun Lake in-between.  The average sea level of the Pacific Ocean end of the Canal is only 20 cm higher than the average sea level on the Atlantic Ocean (Caribbean Sea) end.  Because this difference is so small, the original “vision” for the Canal was a sea level transit with perhaps one lock.  However, the tidal range on the Pacific Ocean end is 20 feet whereas on the Atlantic Ocean end it is 3 feet.  Thus, locks were going to be needed at each end just to account for this difference.  The fact that the Canal also had to cross the Continental Divide, ultimately meant that ships would have to change elevation by even more than the difference in sea levels, and the locks would have to accommodate this difference in elevation.

Gatun Lake is the largest man-made lake in the world, and was formed by damming the Rio Chagres.  The Rio Chagres was a raging river that would rise 20 feet during floods.  It had to be “tamed” (controlled) if the Panama Canal was ever to become a reality.  There are three locks at each end to accomplish the 85 ft change in elevation from sea level to the level of Gatun Lake.  New locks were built at each end, alongside the original ones, to accommodate larger ships and were opened in 2016.  Just north of the southern locks (Miraflores /  Lake Miraflores / Pedro Miguel are the old ones and Miraflores West (Cocoli) are the new ones.  I think Lake Gatun “officially” begins at the northern end of the Miraflores Locks complex.

Heading north from the Miraflores Locks area we came to the Culebra Cut.  Generally considered the most difficult part of building the Canal, it is a massively excavated passage through the Continental Divide.  The Canal was taken up 85 feet and through this area as it offered the best chance of actually getting through the divide.

The official length of the Panama Canal is 51 miles, which doesn’t seem like much, but it took the NCL Joy about 9 hours to make the trip, including the locks at each end.  As we sailed under the Atlantic Bridge we (officially) entered the Caribbean Sea (Atlantic Ocean) and continued on to our next port, sailing all night to get there by sunrise.

Following are the bulk of the photos from the transit:

 

The Centennial Bridge at the Culebra Cut.  (Photo by Linda)

Paul, Linda, and Nancy with champagne glasses ready to toast our passage through the Culebra Cut.  (Linda is holding my glass while I take this photo.)  The “cut” was dug through the Continental Divide, and was the most difficult part of the Canal to create.

The sides of the “cut” are terraced to prevent erosion, which was a huge problem during the excavation of this passage through the Continental Divide.  (Photo by Linda)

Panama is a beautiful place with lush flora.

Panama is also a place with a long and troubled history.  This compound to starboard (right) is where Manuel Noriega was held before being extradited to the USA for trial.  (Photo by Linda)

At this point, we are through the Culebra Cut and passing the town of Gatun on the right.  This town within the Canal Zone is the base of operations for much of the Canal maintenance.  Note the massive barge crane at the center-right edge of the photo.  This crane, named Titan (nicknamed Herman the German), is able to lift the older swinging lock gates for repair and maintenance.  A part of the history of the construction and operation of that Canal, Titan was built by Nazi for servicing U-Boats (submarines) during WW II.  At maximum height, the top of the boom is 374 feet above the water.  Like everything else connected with the Canal, it is massive.  (Photo by Linda)

We are passing a southbound cargo ship (tanker?) on Lake Gatun.  (Passing was always portside-to-portside.)  Most of the Panama Canal consists of Lake Gatun.  The lake was formed by a dam on the Rio Chagres near the northern end, and is still the largest man-made lake in the world.

Another view of Lake Gatun.  Channel markers are visible to port (left).  It was a generally lovely day for the transit with a mix of blue skies and clouds.  It was warm, but not uncomfortable on the deck (which always had a breeze from the movement of the ship) and we could go back into the stateroom if/when needed.

The clouds have filled in somewhat as we approach the northern end of the Canal and the end of the transit.

Approaching the new (2016 Panamax class) Gatun East Locks at the northern end of the Panama Canal.  The cargo ship that entered the Canal ahead of us this morning is in the locks.   The original Gatun Locks are off to the port (left) side out of the frame.

A small crowd of guests remains at the bow platform of the NCL Joy as we approached the Gatun East Locks and prepared to be lowered down to the level of the Caribbean Sea (Atlantic Ocean).  (Photo by Linda)

We are now close enough to the Gatun East Locks that a tug boat has taken up position on the port side of the bow to help guide the NCL Joy into the first basin.  (In a Q&A with the Captain of the NCL Joy, he was quite blunt about not needing the assistance of tug boats when maneuvering the Joy at docks, or elsewhere, and found their presence more bothersome than helpful.  I think he felt the same way about harbor pilots.)

As we entered the first basin of the Gatun East Locks, the ponds used as part of the system for emptying and filling the lock basins were visible on the port (left) side of the ship.  These ponds conserve some of the massive amount of water needed to operate the locks, where all of the water to fill the locks flows by gravity.

The water level in the first (Lake Gatun) basin has been lowered and the water lever in the second basin raised so that both basins are at the same water level, allowing the sliding gate to be opened so the NCL Joy can move to the second basin.

As the last lock gate opens, the NCL Joy has finally completed its journey from the Pacific Ocean, up and over (through) the continental divide, and back down to the Caribbean Sea (Atlantic Ocean).  It was quite a trip and we certainly had “the best seats in the house.”  (Photo by Linda)

As the NCL Joy exits the last basin at the current level of the Caribbean Sea, Paul points out the Puente Atlántico (Atlantic Bridge) and the Caribbean Sea beyond.

Passing under the Puerto Atlantic (Atlantic Bridge) and into the Caribbean Sea (Atlantic Ocean).

 

It was around 5 PM local time as we passed under the Atlantic Bridge, marking our transit time at 9 hours.  From here, the ship headed north (N) and then northeast (NE) for a short way  before turning East East North (EEN) on a fairly direct course for Cartagena, Columbia where we were scheduled to enter the harbor around sunrise.

 

As we pass through the breakwater that protects the harbor at Canal terminus at Colon, Panama we sailed into the Caribbean Sea and points east.

…

 

20230305 PCC 8 of12 – Panama City, Panama; Gateway to South America

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[ This post contains 12 photos with captions. ]

SUNDAY 05 March – Panama City, Balboa, and the Panama Canal Zone

 

A photo from last night of the other cruise ship next to the NCL Joy just after leaving the dock.  It will head around to the right (west) and position itself in the queue to enter the Panama Canal tomorrow morning.  (Photo by Linda.)

The other cruise ship heading towards the Pacific Ocean entrance to the Panama Canal just before 8 AM for the beginning of its scheduled transit of the Canal.  The ship left the dock next to us last evening to queue up in Panama Bay for its transit this morning.  A lot of ships move through the Canal every 24 hours, and it’s imperative that ships with reservations arrive at the first lock (at either end) exactly on time.

Panama City was the only port where we stayed overnight; in this case for two nights, before transiting the Panama Canal.  This meant that passengers had a chance to go ashore last night and take in the life of the city after sunset.  It also meant that passengers (and some crew) had a full day today to explore the area, either on a shore excursion or on their own without fear of not getting back to the ship on time.

 

The road leading out of the port/dock area and onto the causeway to the mainland.  (Photo by Linda.)

Paul and Nancy arranged a private tour of Panama City while we signed up for one of the shorter ship-arranged shore excursions.  Our excursion was aboard a motorcoach with an excellent tour guide and focused mostly on the southeastern end of the Canal Zone in Balboa, now a NW suburb of Panama City.  (The Panama Canal runs from Panama City northwest to Colón at the other end.)  We had read about the history and operation of the Canal in the book Panama Fever (by Matthew Parker) before arriving here, and the history/technology of the Canal was what interested us most about the area.  The following, however, is excerpted from the Wikipedia entry “Panama Canal Zone”:

 

 

 

The Panama Canal Zone … was an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the Isthmus of Panama, that existed from 1903 to 1979. It was located within the territory of Panama, consisting of the Panama Canal and an area generally extending five miles (8 km) on each side of the centerline, but excluding Panama City and Colón.  Its capital was Balboa.

The Panama Canal Zone was created on November 18, 1903 from the territory of Panama; established with the signing of the Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty, which allowed for the construction of the Panama Canal within the territory by the United States. The zone existed until October 1, 1979, when it was incorporated back into Panama.

In 1904, the Isthmian Canal Convention was proclaimed. In it, the Republic of Panama granted to the United States in perpetuity the use, occupation, and control of a zone of land and land underwater for the construction, maintenance, operation, sanitation, and protection of the canal. From 1903 to 1979, the territory was controlled by the United States, which had purchased the land from its private and public owners, built the canal and financed its construction. The Canal Zone was abolished in 1979, as a term of the Torrijos–Carter Treaties two years earlier; the canal itself was later under joint U.S.–Panamanian control until it was fully turned over to Panama in 1999.

 

(Photo by Linda.)  The Biomuseo (Bio-Museum) building.  From the Wikipedia entry “Biomuseo”:  “The Biomuseo is a museum focused on the natural history of Panama, whose isthmus was formed very recently in geologic time, with major impact on the ecology of the Western Hemisphere.  Located on the Amador Causeway in Panama City, Panama, it was designed by renowned architect Frank Gehry. This is Gehry’s first design for Latin America. The design was conceived in 1999 and the museum opened on 2 October 2014.  The Biomuseo highlights Panama’s natural and cultural history, emphasizing the role of humans in the XXI century. Its galleries tell the story of how the rise of the isthmus of Panama changed the world.” …

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Although no longer under direct US control or military protection, the “Canal Zone” still exists as a highly secured area.  This is one of many entrance gates.  The lettering on the arch reads “CANAL DE PANAMA”.  (Photo by Linda.)

While the long-term goal is to have the Canal operated and maintained by Panamanians, it remains the case today that many of the people operating the canal are US citizens who are also training Panamanians to take over those roles.

 

Much of our shore-excursion focused on the infrastructure that was built to house the administration, construction, and health care facilities as well as the housing needed by the canal employees, and U.S. military bases and personnel.  These facilities remain in use today, some still attached to canal operations while others are being converted into private or other public uses such as housing, schools, and health care facilities.

One of the many housing areas in Balboa original built to house the thousands of U.S. workers who oversaw the building and operation of the Canal.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The main administration building of the Panama Canal Company, still in use for its original purpose today by the Panama Canal Authority, part of the Government of Panama.  The operation of the Canal is a large, technically complex endeavor, and generates a significant portion of the revenues that flow into the Government of Panama.  (Photo by Linda.)

A view of the Miraflores Locks from the Visitor Center observation building, looking back towards the Pacific Ocean.  Between the road and the lock basin are the train tracks for the “mules” that control the movement of the ships through these locks.  The Miraflores locks are the original ones but are still in use for all but the newest/largest ships, which do not fit the length, width, or draft limitations.  The new locks, which accommodate much larger ships, are out of sight to right in this photo.  (Photo by Linda.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the control buildings for the Miraflores Locks.  The gates are closed, separating the basin on the left at a low-water level, from the basin on the right at a high-water level.  Water flows in and out of these basins by gravity.  The gates are only swung open when the water level on both sides is exactly the same.  This is conceptually the same technology that was used hundreds of years ago in Great Britain to create the canal system there; although the scale is much larger here.  The newer locks (opened in 2016) do not use swinging gates.  They use sliding doors (like pocket doors) instead.  (Photo by Linda.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We were there!  (Photo by Linda.  Not photoshopped, promise.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The U.S. Embassy.  The Torrijos–Carter Treaties treaty that returned sovereignty of the Panama Canal Zone to Panama as well as primary responsibility for its defense, nevertheless also preserved that right of the USA to intervene militarily if the Canal and its neutral operation (open to ships of all nations) should be threatened at any time in the future.  (Photo by Linda.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A view of Panama City from the balcony of our stateroom.  The Joy remained at the dock until early the next morning, when it departed to queue up for the transit.

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20230304 PCC 7of 12 – At sea & Panama City, Panama (Day 1)

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[ This post has 25 photos with captions. ]

 

SATURDAY 04 March – Enroute to, and arrival at, Panama City, Panama

Again, our original itinerary had us stopping in Puerto Caldera (Puntarenas), Costa Rica but the revised itinerary skipped this stop and went directly to Panama City, Panama.  We would have liked to stop in Costa Rica, but recalled that shortly before NCL changed the itinerary in early October 2022, the US State Department had issued a travel advisory against visiting the country.  We don’t know if this was the reason for the change, but it seemed to be more than coincidental.  Something similar might have been true for Nicaragua, but we did not recall any advisories regarding travel there.  It was possible that the other changes in the itinerary might have been a domino effect from the loss of the Costa Rica stop, but we were never informed of the reasons for the changes.  And  it’s worth noting that these kinds of changes are always part of the booking contract; the cruise lines do not guarantee their itineraries.

 

We were at sea for most of the day, however, and made good use of the time.  This was the only day that the NCL Joy was doing “behind the scenes” tours of the ship.  We knew ahead of time that this experience would be very limited, and signed up for the tour (they treat it as a “shore excursion”) as soon as possible after we got on the ship in the Port of Los Angeles.  It turned out that they only offered the tour on this day while we were at sea, and only offered two groups, both of which were limited in the number of participants.  Here are some images of parts of the ship where I was allowed to take photos or there was something interesting to see.

A view of the main kitchen under the Manhattan dining room at the aft of the ship.

The Linda/Nan culinary team enjoying their tour of the NCL Joy main kitchen facilities.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A view of the laundry facility.  The machines to the right are used to press certain clothing items, such as officers’ uniforms.

Another view of the pressing portion of the laundry facility.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some of the washing machines in the laundry facility.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This machine irons napkins.  The napkins shown here (with the blue banding) are unique to the buffet dining area.  The laundry facility handles approximately 6,000 of these napkins every day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This machine irons and folds bedding.  The operator hangs the sheet and then the arms spread apart and feed it into the rollers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Folder sheets coming off of the machine in the previous photo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our behind-the-scenes tour of the NCL Joy included a visit to the bridge.  Shown here is the helm/navigation station in the center (side-to-side).  The bridge covers the entire width of the ship at the forward end of Deck 14, and extend beyond the sides of the ship on both the port and starboard sides.  All of the bridge officers have their living quarters immediately aft of the bridge.  We also got to visit the engine control room (but not the engine room, for safety reasons).  I found all aspects of the ships operation to be fascinating, but the control room and bridge caught my interest in particular.

A view towards the port side wing station of the bridge.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The port side wing station looking aft.  The ship can be driven from this location, which is used when docking using the port side of the ship.  The pilot has a clear view of the port side of the ship, for and aft, as well as down through a glass portion of the floor.

There are a lot of controls at the port side wing station, and yet it had a beautiful, clean layout.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The view looking aft from the port side wing station of the bridge.

 

We were never south of the equator on this cruise, so that experience is still somewhere in our future.  While I did not make note of our most southern latitude, it had to occur somewhere between the southern tip of Isla Jicaron (7.2 deg N) and the southern edge of the peninsula southwest of Panama City that forms the western edge of the Gulf of Panama (also 7.2 deg N).

 

Prior to this, our furthest south latitude was around 16 deg N when we visited Roatán, Honduras on our second Holistic Holiday at Sea cruise on the MSC Poetia in March 2013.

 

 

An example of the map that was constantly available as part of the ship/route information on the monitors in our stateroom.  The NCL Joy’s location is the yellow arrow with the red circle, center bottom of the screen, heading north into Panama Bay.  Panama City is the orange area ahead of (N) and slightly to the left (NNW) of the ship.  The Pacific Ocean terminus of the Panama Canal is at Panama City (Balboa) and runs NW to it’s Atlantic Ocean (Caribbean Sea) terminus at Colon.  Gatun Lake is a major portion of the Canal.

This larger view of the area shows the location of our ship relative to both North and South America.  The ship’s track is shown from (just before) Acapulco, Mexico to Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala, and then to Panama City, Panama.  Our next port of call after transiting the Panama Canal will be Cartagena, Columbia, so it’s clear that our farthest south latitude was achieved as we rounded the peninsula to the southwest of Panama City.

I included this photo to give a better sense of our location relative to the equatorial portion of South America as well as the relative closeness of Africa.

Linda contemplates our arrival in Panama City.  The coast of Panama is faintly visible on the horizon.

Panama City sits on the northeast side of the Pacific entrance to the Panama Canal.  It is the capital of Panama, and has a modern, impressive skyline facing the ocean.  It is sometimes compared to the Miami (USA) shoreline, and has become a jewel of, and gateway to, South America.  And yes, it is considered to be in South America, the official dividing line between North and South America being the Panama Canal (which runs from SE to NW when going from the Pacific Ocean to the Caribbean Sea).

As we came into Panama Bay and approached Panama City, we saw more and more ships “anchored out”.  The number was impressive.  We eventually learned to many (most?) of them were waiting to transit the Panama Canal.  Ships transiting the Canal are able to make a reservation or can anchor in the harbors on either end and wait for an opening.  The wait can be as much as three (3) weeks, but is less expensive than a reserved entry time.

Coming into the cruise ship dock and terminal area.  This area is at the end of a long, man-made causeway, so Panama City proper is not really accessible by foot and requires some form of transportation to get into town.  A major improvement project was underway while we were there, but was not an issue.  A smaller cruise ship was already at the dock.  The ship in the distance has just exited the Panama Canal.

Panama City had lots to offer, however, and was the only port where we stayed overnight; in this case for two nights.  We are not “night life” people, and did not leave the ship this evening, but other passengers went ashore to explore and take in the life of the city after sunset.

 

 

 

The next day, Paul and Nancy arranged a private tour of Panama City while we signed up for a ship-arranged shore excursion, which I cover in the next post.  In the meantime, here are a few more photos from today:

A view of the Panama City skyline as Paul and I observe the docking process from our stateroom balcony.  (Photo by Linda.)

We were scheduled to arrive at the dock in Panama City around dinner time, so we opted to have dinner in our stateroom, allowing us to conveniently watch the whole process.  Panama City is visible through the doorwalls and the location map is showing on the monitor

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A better view of our meal.  Salud!  (Photo by Linda.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A composite image of 10 photos of the Panama City harbor skyline and the causeway that leads out to the cruise ship terminal and dock.  The water on the other side of the causeway leads (to the right) to the beginning of the Panama Canal.

The Centennial Bridge, visible in this photo, is usually taken as the official Pacific Ocean terminus of the Panama Canal.  (Photo by Linda.)

The Panama City skyline at night, as the other cruise ship leaves the dock to position itself in the Bay for its scheduled transit of the Panama Canal.

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202303(02-03) PCC 6of12 – Puerto Quetzal & Antigua, Guatemala & a sea day

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[ There are 23 photos in this post.  Most of the text is in the form of captions. ]

 

THURSDAY 02 March – Puerto Quetzal & Antigua, Guatemala

Arriving at the dock in Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala under the cover of darkness.  It was a tricky entrance, but the captain handled it like he was parking a small car in an empty parking lot.

One of the active volcanos we passed on the motorcoach ride from Puerto Quetzal to Antigua, Guatemala.  (Photo by Linda)

Antigua, Guatemala.  Our motorcoach was parked on this street, over the rise in the road, along with many others.  In the background, Volcán de Aqua towers over the city and was visible from most places.

We arrived at Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala around 7 AM.  Guatemala has a relatively short Pacific coast, and Puerto Quetzal is the only port of any size.  It is primarily an industrial port, but more than willing to welcome and accommodate cruise ships.

 

There was nothing of interest for tourists in the immediate port area, but that was OK.  We had signed up for a shore excursion to Antigua Guatemala, a 2-hour bus ride from sea level to 1545 m (5069 ft).  A relatively small old city nestled high up in the mountains, it is surrounded by volcanoes, some of which are still active.  To the south, Volcán de Aqua, dominates the skyline at 3,766 m (12,356 ft).  One of the volcanoes was “smoking” as we drove past.

 

 

A small slice of the Mayan history portion of the Jade Museum in Antigua, Guatemala.  Those of us walking the city on our own gathered here first to use the restrooms and learn a bit about history of the area and city.

Antigua was Guatemala’s colonial capital from ~ 1543 to 1773 when it was severely damaged by an earthquake and the Capital was moved to present day Guatemala City.  Many of the buildings were restored, however, and it is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site renowned for its Spanish Colonial architecture.

 

We did not do a guided tour, but merely wandered around the city soaking in the sites.  We also learned that there are still many people in Guatemala with Mayan ancestry, and 31 dialects of the Mayan language are still spoken here.  This corroborated what we had learned some years ago on our visit to the Mayan ruins at Tulum in the Yucatan peninsula.  We were definitely in a place that was different from any place we had ever been before, and we enjoyed our walk through history.

 

A street seller of hats crosses the central plaza in front of the main government building.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The main government building on the north side of the central plaza.

Proof that we were here.  The two of us in front of the government building.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This cathedral fronts the central plaza on the east side.

The central isle leading to the altar of the cathedral.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The entrance arch to the main cathedral complex.

On north side of the entrance arch looking back to the south.  Note how Volcán de Aqua to the south towers over the city of Antigua.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The front façade of the cathedral.  I believe the building to the left is the monastery.

As we walked the streets of Antigua, Guatemala, we often saw openings like this that appeared to lead into very inviting courtyards.  Some of them were hotels, some were retail spaces, and some appeared to be private residences.  The street-facing parts of most buildings had a very old and minimally maintained appearance, but we suspected that once away from public view, the interiors were much nicer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I had to get a picture of this, as it was not something I’ve ever seen in the USA.  This van has Argentina plates and the wording under the window, “De Argentina Hasta Alaska” makes it clear what journey the owners are on.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A view down a less crowded street somewhat away from the center of the city.  Many buildings here were rebuilt/restored after he devastating earthquake of 1773, but not all of them.  There were several abandoned/decaying churches, like this on (on the right) throughout the city, but many others were still in use.

A view down another street, again away from the center of the city.  The closer we were to the center of the city the more the streets were choked with vehicles.  Most of the streets and avenues, however, where “Una Via” (one way), which they needed to be as there was usually only enough space for one vehicle to get through.

The remains of this church were not far from where our motorcoach was parked.  I believe it was one of the buildings damaged in the 1773 earthquake, and never rebuilt.

I am interested in motorcoaches, of course, but the main reason for this photo was to capture the shear number of these conveyances that had descended on Antigua the day we were there.  On the other side of the plaza there are ~10 motorcoaches on each side of the dead-end street.  (They all backed in.)  The street on our side of the plaza had a similar number of motorcoaches in the same arrangement.  40 motorcoaches times an average of 50 passengers each is ~2,000 people.  It sounds like a lot, but there were many, many more people than that on the streets of Antigua while we were there.

Because some of the shore excursions were of very long duration (over 8 hours) the NCL Joy did not leave Puerto Quetzal until after sunset.  Although tugboats were at the ready, the captain backed the ship out, reversing how he had brought it in early this morning in the dark.  Some very impressive maneuvering, indeed. (The Joy is over 1,000 feet long and (~130) feet wide.)

Since our stateroom faced forward (towards the bow) we were treated to a spectacular view of the commercial shipyard lit up and working.  The number of containers being handled here would only be exceeded by what we later saw in Cartagena, Columbia.  But that will have to wait for a few more days.

 

FRIDAY 03 March– At Sea

After leaving Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala, we continued cruising along the Pacific Ocean coasts of Nicaragua and then Costa Rica.  Land is just barely visible in the haze towards the left side of the photo, but I do not know how far south we were by this point.

Our original itinerary had us in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua today but the revised itinerary turned it into another day at sea.  We were disappointed that Nicaragua was removed from the itinerary, but glad to have had the chance to visit Antigua, Guatemala.  Plus, our sea days were quite comfortable aboard the Joy.  It was during this leg of the trip that we saw occasional large pods of dolphins, flying fish, and a large number of sea turtles, singly or in small groups, float past the ship.  These were highlight experiences for us, but difficult to capture in photos.  We spent many hours of rapt attention focused on the water ahead of the ship, looking for the telltale signs of ocean life.

Dolphins off the port bow coming towards the ship!  Make that, a LOT of dolphins.

The ship had stumbled upon a superpod of dolphins and we had a front row seat to the show.  Some quick research revealed that dolphins usually live in family groups of 10 to 12 individuals, but sometimes these units gather in superpods.  Our best guess was that there were at least a couple of hundred individuals in this group.  We assumed they were hunting and had found a large school of fish, but we had no idea what kind.

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2023(0228-0301) PCC 5of12 – Acapulco, Mexico & at sea

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[ There are 8 photos in this post.  Much of the text is in the form of captions. ]

 

TUESDAY 28 February – Acapulco, Mexico

We arrived in the harbor at Acapulco, Mexico in the pre-dawn hours and proceeded to moor at the cruise ship dock under the first vestiges of the rising sun.  This is a composite image of 10 photos showing a 180-degree view from our stateroom balcony.  The image is actually 1920×418, so might be viewable at that resolution if clicked and displayed on an appropriate device.

The NCL Joy slowly nudges up to the dock at the cruise ship terminal.  The building with the open doors facing the water was eventually filled with motorcoaches waiting to take cruise ship guests on numerous shore excursions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A view from the inside end of our front balcony.  You might be able to see through the glass at the right down into the Haven front lounge on deck 17 below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A view of Acapulco looking forward from our stateroom balcony.

We arrived in Acapulco, Guerrero state, Mexico and docked at the cruise ship area.  We had not arranged a shore excursion here, opting instead to disembark and wander around on our own.  As a general rule, we would never wander very far on our own as the ship will not wait for us if we are late getting back.  With ship-organized shore excursions, however, you are guaranteed that the ship will not leave without you (as long as you don’t separate yourself from the excursion guide/group).

We disembarked from the Joy and strolled along the sidewalk between the main road and the shore towards the up-scale end of town across the harbor.

Looking back towards the NCL Joy from the promenade along the shore leading away from the cruise ship terminal.  You don’t really understand the size of these large cruise ships until they next to something that provides a sense of scale.

Acapulco was noticeably larger than Cabo San Lucas but we confined our walking to the area NE of the dock.  Once the hangout of Hollywood elites (a long time ago), the “party” had since shifted to Cabo.  There is still a lot of money and nice housing here, but we did not see those areas up close, and what we did see did not entice us to return.  We got the impression that Puerto Vallarta would have been more interesting, and were disappointed that it had been removed as a port-of-call from the itinerary.

A view of the Acapulco harbor as the NCL Joy heads back out to sea.  (This is a composite of 10 photos and might be viewable at 1920×294 if clicked on an appropriate device.)  We arrived this morning in the dark but departed around 5 PM.

 

WEDNESDAY 01 March – At Sea

One of the TV channels on the ship provided continuous information about the ship’s position, heading, and speed, as well as weather information.  We often had this on when we were in the stateroom, with the sound muted.  Even though the Joy was consistently doing 20 to 22 knots, the distance down Mexico’s Pacific Ocean coast is considerable.  One of the things we did not anticipate was that we rarely had clear skies at night.  I never discovered the actual reason for this, but my presumption was the warmer and somewhat more humid air the farther south we traveled.

Our last look back at Acapulco, Mexico  from the port side of our stateroom balcony as the NCL Joy leaves the harbor and heads out into the Pacific Ocean.

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202302(26-27) PCC 4of12 – Cabo San Lucas, Baja California Sur, Mexico

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[ There are 12 photos in this post.  Much of the text is in the form of captions. ]

 

SUNDAY 26 February – Cabo San Lucas, Mexico

A pleasant morning on the balcony heading towards Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.  In this view looking towards the center of the ship, the bulkhead at the far end of the balcony is the port side wall of the open space above the center of the Haven front lounge on deck 17.

We arrived in Cabo San Lucas, Baja California Sur (BCS) state, Mexico around 11 AM.  Cabo does not have a cruise ship dock, so we anchored out and took tenders to the NCL dock in the commercial/tourist marina area.

 

This was not the first time we had set foot in Mexico, having spent the 2014-15 snowbird season in Quartzsite, Arizona, and visiting Los Algodones in northern Baja California (on the California USA border).  It was also not the furthest south we had been, at ~N22.87o.

 

In the morning hours heading into the Cabo area, we finally saw whales!  Humpback whales, specifically.  Always an amazing sight, we never tire of seeing these magnificent mammals of the sea.

 

As part of our second Holistic Holiday at Sea cruise on the MCS Poetia in March 2013, we visited Playa del Carmen (N20.63o) and Tulum (N20.215o) in Yucatan state, Mexico (Yucatan peninsula), and Roatán, Honduras (N16.264o).  When I retired in 2012, we also got near the southern tip of the island of Hawaii (the big island) (we got to ~N19.058o).  (The farthest west we have been, to date, was the island of Oahu, Hawaii, ~ W158o)

More of our stateroom balcony looking to the port side of the ship.  It curves around and continues down the port side past the master bedroom/bathroom suite.  The first portion is accessible as part of this main/front deck.  A small portion farther aft is only accessible from the master suite.

With land now clearly in sight, Linda contemplates our journey to the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula and Cabo San Lucas.

Four photos were used to create this composite image of the main cruise terminal tender dock area in Cabo San Lucas, Baja California Sur, Mexico.  (You might be able to see it full size on an appropriate device by clicking on it.)  The harbor was deep enough for the NCL Joy, but there are no cruise ship docks.  Small boats (tenders) are used to transport guests and crew to/from shore.  This was our first port-of-call after leaving the Port of Los Angeles, and we were glad to see that crew members were allowed shore call, depending on their ship duties at the time we were there.

Another view of the main marina area, a bit further on around to the right from the previous composite image.  There were some big private yachts here, in addition to lots of more normal sized, but still very nice, pleasure boats.  There were also a lot of condo / timeshare developments here, and the port area was lined with shops and restaurants (of course).  Cabo has a reputation as a party town and can be noisy around the harbor until late into the night (according to some Youtube channels I follow).  We left around dinner time, so were not bothered by any of that.

Our ship, the Norwegian Cruise Lines (NCL) Joy.  (You might be able to see it full size on an appropriate device by clicking on it.)  As this is the port side, our stateroom is visible at the very front (bow/left) on the first enclosed deck down from the top.

These rocks are WSW of the port/marina portion of Cabo San Lucas.  El Arco (The Arch rock) is visible.  Our sightseeing boat got a bit closer, but the area was crowded with lots of smaller personal boats.

I noticed that many of the motorcoaches being used to bus cruise ship quests to their various venues had this unusual mechanism on their steer tires.  It appeared to be a tire inflation device designed to allow the wheel/tire to turn, but I have no idea if that was actually the case.

We had booked a shore excursion and made our way to the rendezvous point.  The excursion started with a boat trip around the harbor that included a view of El Arco (The Arch rock).  Back at the dock, our group was then escorted to a waiting motorcoach.

 

We visited a glass factory with a glass blowing demonstration.  The factory makes various objects, both functional and decorative, out of recycled glass and has been in operation for quite a long time.  From the glass factory, we visited a viewpoint on a headland across the harbor from the main port area, and had some light refreshments.  Our tour guide, bus driver, and the people operating the boat were all very gracious and spoke English well enough that we could understand them without difficulty.

The glass-blowing demonstration in progress.  We are sitting in the back/top row of a set of wooden bleachers.  The small parking lot was crowded with motorcoaches when we arrived, and was still crowded when we left.  There was another cruise ship in the harbor at the same time as us, and this is a popular shore excursion destination.

While the glass factory was interesting, and the viewpoint was nice, our general impression of Cabo was that we did not need to return anytime soon.

 

It has a reputation as a party town, with restaurants, bars, and timeshares crowded into and around the port/marina area.  The harbor is often crowed with boats and loud music can be heard late into the night.  At least that’s the impression I have gotten from Youtube videos.  All of this was congruent with our first-hand experience of the place.  Our stateroom in the Joy really did provide a “haven” from all of that.  The ship departed at 7 PM and continued south, so whatever partying might have occurred after dark, we were none-the-wiser.

 

MONDAY 27 February – At Sea

The final product of the glass-blowing demonstration; a turtle with a sombrero and bottle of tequila.

In early October, 2022 NCL changed the original itinerary for this cruise.  We were supposed to be in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico today, but spent the entire day at sea instead and overnight into the 28th.  This part of the cruise took us across the mouth of the Sea of Cortez and then along the Pacific Ocean coast of the mainland of Mexico.

 

The roof leading from the workshop/demonstration area to the showroom / retail market area.  The roof is a famous feature of this facility, and one of the reasons tourists visit this business.

Besides dining, on “at sea” days we took in the shows in the main theater and checked out The Social, a small venue with comedians and other entertainment.

 

We had almost all of our meals with Paul and Nancy, but on many of our “at sea” days, they had dinner in one of the specialty restaurants.  We did not make use of the specialty dining during the cruise and dined at the Haven restaurant or in the Garden Café (buffet style) on these occasions.  We found the buffet quite acceptable, and enjoyed the variety of things that were available, including vegan options.

A view of the harbor at Cabo San Lucas, Mexico looking southwest towards the main port/marina area from restaurant / event venue on a headland on the northeast side of the bay.

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202302(24-25) PCC 3of12 – The Norwegian Joy:  Embarkation, Departure, and the Ship

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[ There are 25 photos in this post.  Some of the text is in the form of captions. ]

 

FRIDAY 24 February – Embarkation and Departure

The rainy weather moved into the Long Beach area overnight but our Uber was able to pick us up under the canopy in front of the Staybridge Hotel near the Long Beach airport and drop us off at the Port of Los Angeles (also in Long Beach) under similar cover.  We had an embarkation window of 11:30 to noon, and arrived just ahead of that time.  We had received text messages yesterday changing our terminal, and had the Uber driver take us to the new location.  Upon arrival at the terminal, we were a bit perplexed, as our ship was nowhere in sight.  The terminal was also not what Nancy and Paul expected, based on previous experience with NCL, and not what we had been told to expect with respect to the Haven (ship within a ship) “experience” on the Joy.

Everything seemed “makeshift” and that, indeed, turned out to be the case.  The Joy was at a different dock, but the high winds of the last few days had damaged the tents that had been set up to serve as the welcoming and processing center, so those operations had to be moved last minute to our present terminal.  A separate waiting area had been created for guests in the Haven, but it wasn’t a comfortable lounge and we waited for quite a while before being escorted on a long walk to an area with several dozen motorcoaches were waiting to shuttle us to the ship.  It turned out that NCL had been scrambling since yesterday to hire as many of these motorcoaches as they could find in the area.

At dinner in the Haven Restaurant (photo by Paul or Nancy).

Once our bus was full, we were then driven to where the ship was actually docked, and went through the actual embarkation process, which was not especially well organized.

We had been told we would have separate, priority access to the ship and be taken directly the Haven in time to have a relaxing lunch, but that didn’t happen, as the process of getting from the terminal onto the ship was quite lengthy, the Port of Los Angeles staff did not appear to know what they were doing, and some of the PoLA security people were actually a bit rude.

Linda, Nancy, and Paul in our stateroom.

We eventually made it to our room, however, as did all of our luggage.  Our bottle of champagne was there waiting for us, even though the ice had melted by now, but we were not in a festive enough mode to enjoy anyway, and decided to save it for some other occasion.  While not the embarkation we expected, in the end, we were all in our stateroom in the Haven with all of our luggage, and were able to relax before going to dinner.

Bruce, Nancy, and Paul in our stateroom.

The ship was scheduled to depart at 4 PM and actually pulled out closer to 5 PM under heavy mist.  Once out of the port, the Pacific Ocean had big swell, but the Joy handled it well.

The ship can accommodate up to 5,000 guests, but there we not that many on board this particular cruise.  We had dinner in the Haven restaurant, a place we would visit frequently during the cruise and be one of the highlights of the ship for us.

Back in our suite, which was certainly the main highlight of the ship for us, we unpacked our luggage and set up our bedroom and on-suite bathroom.  We also met our butler, Isidro, and our stateroom attendant, Harold.  It was immediately obvious that we would be treated to a very high level of service on this cruise.  As something we were not accustomed to, it that took us a few days to become comfortable with this.  We eventually did, but we never took it for granted.

The following photos are a fairly complete tour of our stateroom:

The common area (living/dining) portion of our stateroom and one of the three doorwalls to our forward port side balcony as seen from the entry hallway.

Our stateroom entry hallway.  On the right (in this photo) from the entry door are a toilet room, a closet, and the door to our bedroom.

Our stateroom common area.  The “fireplace” did not produce heat, but did make a pleasant, low intensity light.

Our stateroom common area viewed from the bar.  The sofa was comfortable, and could convert into a bed, although we did not need to use it in that configuration.

The master bedroom, with the entrance to the master bathroom suite.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A partial view of the master bathroom (vanity and toilet alcove).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A partial view of the master bathroom (tube, shower, and dressing mirror).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our bedroom as viewed from the murphy bed, which is currently folded into the wall, looking towards the door from the hallway.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our bedroom as viewed from the murphy bed, which is currently folded into the wall, looking towards the desk and closet/storage area.  The on-suite bathroom is in the space behind the TV, entered from the hallway on the right.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A view of the murphy bed and entry door in our bedroom.  The bed is folded into the wall, making a sofa available.  We had our stateroom attendant (Harold) fold the bed out and leave it that way for the duration of the cruise.

A partial view of our on-suite bathroom (shower stall and part of the toilet).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Leaving the Port of Los Angeles in Long Beach, California, as seen from the common area of our stateroom looking out across our forward port side balcony.  It was cold, windy, and rainy, with limited visibility, but we were finally on our way.

 

SATURDAY 25 February – At Sea

Our first morning in our stateroom enjoying Nespresso in our NCL provided robes.  Good friends in a good place.

We were at sea all night on the 24th, all day on the 25th, and overnight into the 26th headed south along the California coast and then along the Pacific coast of Baja California and Baja California Sur (south), Mexico.

The sea eventually settled down a bit, but the coast was often shrouded in haze and/or clouds.  We were also far enough off shore that we couldn’t see land most of the time anyway.  (My presumption was that we were probably in international waters so the ship could operate the onboard casino.)  We took this time to familiarize ourselves with the ship, starting with the Haven.

The Pacific Ocean and the west coast of Baja California, Mexico, as seen from the balcony of our forward /  port side stateroom.  This was some of the best/clearest weather we had on our cruise down the coast.

The Haven is NCLs “ship within a ship” concept.  On the Joy, it occupies the front portion of Decks 17, 18, and 19, the front part of 19 being an open roof deck area.

The upper / aft deck of the NCL Joy had a 9-hole miniature golf course.  We played a round (and came back another day with Paul and Nancy for another one).

Deck 17 has a lounge with large windows across the entire front of the ship with a small buffet area that was stocked for a light breakfast or afternoon snack.  Just aft of the lounge were staterooms (all with outside balconies).  In the center was a small swimming pool, hot tub, and lounge chairs.  The area above this was open all the way to a retractable glass ceiling above Deck 19.  (We never saw the roof retracted.)  The aft portion of Deck 17 was a small lounge, small bar, and the concierge desk.  Behind the bar and concierge disk were the service elevators, which the concierge staff used to get us to the theater and to/from the embarkation deck.

The upper / aft portion of the ship also features a 2-level race track with electric formula style cars.  This is the pit area.  Cars are allowed to race head-to-head.  We did not try this activity, but it was interesting to watch people racing.

The forward portion of Deck 18 consisted of the two “Owner’s Suites” (2-bedroom staterooms), one on the port side (that was ours) and one on the starboard side.  In-between the two owner’s suites are the high ceiling of the front-center portion of the main lounge, with a library aft of it.

The remaining length of the port side, and about half of the starboard side, were staterooms, again all of them with outside balconies.  The aft portion of Deck 18 was the Haven restaurant (starboard side) and kitchen (center portion).

Every stateroom in the Haven had butler service, and one of the perks of staying here is that you can have your meals (from the Haven restaurant) in your room.  One of favorite perks of being in the Haven was that our butler brought coffee and breakfast baked goods every morning around 6:30 AM.

By sunrise, we had traveled far enough south to get to beautiful, clear weather and calmer seas.  Since we would be at sea all day, we took the opportunity to familiarize ourselves with the ship.  We were also able to see the Baja California, Mexico coast at times.

A portion of the outdoor lounging, walking, entertainment, and water activities area of the ship as seen from the aft potion looking forward.

This is a composite image of part of the Pacific Ocean coastline of the Baja California peninsula of Mexico.  Land is visible just at the horizon, along with some clouds, but probably too small to see in this photo.  The photo file is larger, and this image can be clicked to see it at a larger size on a device with a larger screen.

The outdoor lounging, walking, entertainment, and water activities area of the ship looking aft from the walkway above the large outdoor video screen.

Above the Haven (at the front of the ship) is the Star Wars laser tag area.  It has two entrances, fore and aft, for two competing teams to enter and battle it out.  Linda and I had just entered the aft portal as the venue was not in use.  We did not do this activity, and never saw or heard anyone else using it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This display shows the layout of the entire Star Wars laser tag venue.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Linda and Nancy at the wine tasting.

Shipboard activities also opened up.  Linda, Nancy and I (Bruce) booked a wine tasting while Paul booked a Single Malt Scotch tasting.  The wine tasting was run by the wine director (head sommelier?) for the ship and featured red wines.  It was unusual, but very well done, in that we tasted the wines in the reverse order from what is normally done, working from the sweetest to the driest, and pairing food items with each wine that were both appropriate and inappropriate.  This approach allowed us to actually experience and start to understand why each type of wine is usually paired with certain foods.

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202302(20-21) PCC 1of12 – Preparing for a 15-night Cruise on the NCL Joy

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[ Note:  This is the first of 12 posts covering a 15-night/16-day cruise from Los Angeles, California to Miami, Florida via the Panama Canal.  There are no photos for this post.  These posts were delayed due to work on the barn project and the time required to select and process photos.  Regular posts covering the barn project, travel, and general topics will resume after these 12 posts have been published. ]

 

20-21 February — Pre-Trip Preparations

As mentioned in my previous general post, Linda started packing for our upcoming Panama Canal cruise on the Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) Joy (with our friends and RV travel buddies, Nancy and Paul), several days before our flight to Los Angeles, and I shifted my attention away from the barn project towards travel preparations shortly thereafter.  We made our final packing decisions for the trip on the morning of the 21st and, just after lunch, checked-in for our flight to Los Angeles the next day on DELTA Airlines.

I spent that afternoon finalizing blog posts for December 2022, our holiday trip to Disney World and Universal Studios, and the electric utility work that took place in January 2023.  I had all of those posts uploaded by 4:30 PM and was done with blog posts until after our cruise.

As also mentioned in my previous general post, I bought a new digital camera, settling on a Sony a6400 (APS-C) with a 16-50 mm E-mount zoom lens as the best compromise of size, weight, performance (specs), and price.  The cruise would be its first big test.

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202302(01-21) – General Update (not the barn project)

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WEDNESDAY 01 February — TUESDAY 21 February

Although this post is not (primarily) about the barn project, I did spend a lot of time during this period working on the electrical plan and researching devices, particularly lighting fixtures.  Happenings specific to the barn project will be covered in separate posts following this one.

 

WEDNESDAY 01

 I decided to buy a new digital camera for our upcoming Panama Canal cruise on the NCL Joy with our friends (and RV travel buddies) Nancy and Paul.  I wanted something small and light but good quality.  My birthday was just a few days away, so that was my additional “justification” for buying it (not that I really needed one).  After weighing various factors, including cost, I settled on a Sony a6400 with a 16-50 mm E-mount zoom lens.  I placed the order with B & H Photo Video, which has been my go-to place for photography equipment for a while now.

This will be my third Sony digital camera, and I have been very satisfied with the first two; a DSLR-a100 and a DSLR-a99.  ABIR, the DSLR-a100 was Sony’s entry into the digital camera space in 2006, having absorbed the Konica-Minolta A-mount system and lenses.  I have a fairly complete Minolta 9000 35mm film camera kit, and the fact that I could use my existing lenses with this new Sony camera was a big decision factor.  The only limitation was the 10 Mp APS-C sensor.  Besides the inherent resolution, this also meant my lenses produced more magnification than on a full-frame 35mm body.

I used the a100 a lot and eventually bought the DSLA-a99.  This was Sony’s highest end body at the time, with a full-frame (36mmx24mm) 24 Mp sensor, but maintaining the A-mount system.  Both of these bodies are true SLR designs, with flip-up mirrors.  The a99 is large and heavy, especially with the additional bottom-mount battery pack (like the motor drive attachments of old), but I like the way it feels in my hands.

 

FRIDAY 03

The new camera arrived today.  The a6400 has an APS-C sensor (25.1mm x 16.7mm) with the same 3:2 aspect ratio as a full-frame 35 mm sensor (36mm x 24mm), so it presents an image format with which I am familiar and comfortable.  That said, it is definitely small and light weight.  Significantly, it has a 24 Mp sensor, so the same resolution as my a99!   Also, the 16-50mm zoom lens provides the same field of view as a 24mm-75mm zoom lens on a full frame sensor camera.  This is similar to the range I have on my Sony/Zeiss 24mm-70mm zoom lens, which I use with the Sony a99 most of the time.  The kit lens is not of that quality, of course, but I am looking forward to the images I get from the new combination.  I still like my Sony a99, and I absolutely love my Sony/Zeiss 24mm-70mm zoom lens, but the combination is heavy, and I felt it was too much camera to take on this particular cruise.

The big tradeoff, of course, was the E-mount system for the lenses.  But it’s not like I had a choice within the Sony product line as Sony had officially abandoned the A-mount system sometime after I purchased the.  (The did bring out an a99-ii with a 42 Mp sensor, with a year of when I bought the a99, but the price was just too steep for a hobbyist.  Still, in retrospect I wish I had bought it.)  The other major difference (besides price) was that the a6400 is a “mirrorless” camera; the viewfinder, like the rear screen, is just a small monitor.  Again, this has it’s good and bad points, and the web, including Youtube, is cluttered with articles and videos that get into all of this.

 

SATURDAY 04

My birthday was on Saturday and the 14’ Werner Twin (2-sided) step ladder that I order from Lowe’s on December 3rd finally arrived at the store, so Linda and I went to pick it up in the F-150.  In order to carry it home, I had to move and re-secure the three large Rubbermaid tubs that collectively hold about 300 pounds of sand to add weight to the drive axle during the winter.  I needed to create a space in the center of the truck bed to allow the narrower top end of the ladder to sit in the bed (vertically) all to way to the front wall behind the cab.  Even then, with the tailgate down, the lower half of the ladder hung out way past the end of the lowered tailgate.  We took additional ratchet straps and large rubber bungee cords to lock it in place, and tied red plastic flags on the protruding end for the short trip home.  The ladder was strapped closed along with two packing boards.  As delivered, it weighed 86 pounds, and the combination of size and weight was quite a handful for the two of us.  But I have a lot of wiring to do in the barn, some of it 16 or more feet above the floor.  I did not want to do that with an extension ladder, and the only one we have is the Little Giant aluminum convertible unit that can be configured as a 14’ extension ladder.

 

SUNDAY 05

We had the family over for brunch to celebrate my birthday.  It’s always lovely when the entire immediate family is able to gather.

 

WEDNESDAY 15 February

The Motor City Electric Utilities boom truck in the SE corner of our yard.  The new utility pole (on the right) is already in the ground.

 

The wires have been moved to the new utility pole and the old pole has been “topped” in preparation for removal.

It turned out that the crew from Motor Cities Electric Utilities showed up this morning to replace the pole in the SE corner of our property.  In fact, it was same crew that was here in January to work on the pole for the house/barn and then started to work on this other pole before deciding to leave.  This pole replacement was NOT part of the barn project, however, but a regular maintenance item intended to replace an old pole with a new/taller one, with the added benefit of helping raise the lines across our driveway a bit higher.  (The new pole for the barn is also taller than the old one, and also helped raise the wires across our driveway and where they cross the street to the SW corner of our property.)

 

 

 

While they were working, I got a call back from the C/S person at DTE.  She had checked on this pole, and found out it was not a DTE work order, and had (probably) been initiated by either AT&T or Comcast (those would be the other two choices).  I thanked her for checking into this and getting back to me, and let her know that a contracted crew was here doing the work.  What surprised me about this was that I was under the impression that the utility easement was granted to DTE Energy, that the utility poles belonged to them, and that all other users “leased” access on the poles from DTE.  But then, the gas line that was run through our subdivision in 2013 is owned and operated by Consumers Power, and it was installed in the same utility easement, so perhaps I don’t correctly understand the arrangement(s) between these various companies viz-a-viz the rights to use the easement.

 

The old utility pole being lifted out of the ground by the crane on the boom truck.

 

As I thought about all of this, I remembered that back in October, but sometime after I had initiated the work with DTE, someone was walking down the street checking all of the utility poles.  I presumed he was working for DTE, but perhaps he was there on behalf of all of the utilities that use these poles.

 

The AT&T terminal box (gray) and the Xfinity broadband cable (orange) relocated (temporarily?) to the new pole.  I have no idea whether DTE communicated with AT&T about this, but it was suggested to me that I would like have to submit a request to have this dealt with and “pester” them until it is taken care of.  For that matter, I suspect that the Motor Cities Electric Utilities crew closed out their job on the secondary pole, but I don’t know who with, and whether or not they notified Comcast/Xfinity, as our broadband cable comes from this secondary pole, and it looks to me like they should (need to) come tidy it up as well.  So, I don’t know much, but I do know this, the crews that dealt with the poles and the power lines, made it clear that they are not allowed to do anything with the phone and broadband cables, other than move them out of their way and re-secure them as best they can.

SUNDAY 19

No barn work today.  Linda had already been packing for our upcoming cruise, and it was time for me to get serious about doing the same thing.

 

TUESDAY 21

 

We made our final packing decisions for our trip this morning and, just after lunch, checked-in online for our flight to Los Angeles tomorrow.  I spent the afternoon finalizing blog posts for December 2022, our trip to Disney World and Universal Studios over the holidays, and the electric utility work that took place in January 2023.  I had all of those uploaded by 4:30 PM and was done with blog posts until after our cruise.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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20220928 – A visit to the Eastman Museum in Rochester, New York and lunch at the Red Fern nearby

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WEDNESDAY 28 September

(All photos taken with a Google Pixel 6 Pro smartphone.)

I was in bed before midnight last night, unusual for me, so I was up this morning just after 7 AM.  Linda did not go to bed until 11 PM and got up around 7:30.  We had our usual two cups of coffee, but Linda made pancakes for breakfast, with a side of fresh bananas, blueberries, and strawberries.  A special treat, and a nice way to start the day.

The weather forecast for today was for cool, overcast conditions, with small possibility of rain, but was much nicer for the following three days.  We thought we would visit some of the wineries on Canandaigua Lake as we are camped just north of it, so we spent some time researching the six establishments on the Canandaigua Lake Wine Trail.

The conservatory as seen from the dining room.  The console for the pipe organ is at the far end and some of the pipes are installed in the 1st and 2nd floor walls beyond that.  Most of the house was dimly lit, but the conservatory was full of light even on this overcast day.  Like many wealthy individuals of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, George Eastman liked to hunt and had two hunting lodges.  George Eastman House / Museum, Rochester, New York.

One of them was not open today, one was basically a wine store in Canandaigua, one had what appeared to be fruit juice infused wines that could be used to make spritzers, and one was a “boutique” winery that required reservations, and all of them appeared to be tasting rooms, not the actual wineries.  So that was:  no go, no, no way, and not interested.  Most of them indicated what grapes were used to make each wine but some didn’t, an absolute non-starter for us, and most of them were based on grapes that fairly commonly used in the products we can buy at good wine stores at home.

It didn’t seem worth the time and fuel to drive down just for the other two wineries, so we scraped the wine trail idea for today and decided instead to visit the Eastman Museum in Rochester, New York, just a 30-minute drive northwest of our campground.  I took up photography as a serious hobby when I was 16, so I’ve been trying to be a photographer for some 54 years now and the Eastman Museum seemed like a good place to spend an otherwise dreary day.  We left the KOA around 11:30 AM and were at the museum by noon.

Part of the stair case between the 1st and 2nd floors of the George Eastman House.  This is the view from the landing.  The stairs to the 3rd floor are visible, but were closed to public access.

The Eastman Museum is located on the grounds of George Eastman’s Rochester, New York 10-acre estate on East Avenue.  East Avenue was obviously the place where the wealthy of late 19th-century Rochester built their magnificent homes and mansions.  A trip to that area just to look at the architecture would have been worth the time, but we were they to visit the museum.

The museum complex included his magnificent home and gardens which are open to tour with paid admission.  Indeed, the museum (galleries, archives, offices, and labs), theater, gift shop, café, and lobby are joined to the house to form a single building.  The collection, small pieces of which are periodically rotated into the publicly accessible galleries, contains over 400,000 photographs and 28,000 motion pictures, including the original negatives for Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz.  The museum also has an extensive collection of photographic technology going back to the earliest days of photography in the 19th century.  It’s an excellent museum, and we spent about 2-1/2 hours going through the house and all of the galleries.

The East Garden at the George Eastman House as seen from his mother Maria’s bedroom window.  Eastman Museum, Rochester, New York.

When we arrived at the Canandaigua-Rochester KOA yesterday, Linda research vegan dining options and discovered that Veg News had rated Rochester, New York “the best small city in America for vegans.”  That did not automatically translate into lots of vegan dining options, but she did locate the Red Fern, just 0.4 miles from the museum, so we went there for lunch.

The Red Fern was a small place in a half-basement (the upper half of the dinning room was above grade level), in a nice neighborhood, with a nice selection of items on the menu.  Linda had the ABLT (Avocado Bacon Lettuce Tomato) sandwich with a salad on the side, and I had the Buffalo Blue Cheese Focaccia sandwich, also with a salad on the side.  My sandwich was huge, so I only ate half of it and got a to-go box for the other half.  Linda had a chocolate brownie for dessert, and I had a crumb-top apple cider jam bar thingy.  The brownie was huge, so she only ate half of it and got a to-go box for the rest.  Everything was very tasty and reasonably priced (in our opinion).

The ‘modern’ 4-manual organ console.  This console replaced the original 30-manual console after the organ was enlarged.  It was, and probably still is, the largest pipe organ installed in a residence in the U.S.  George Eastman House / Museum, Rochester, New York.

From the Red Fern we set our navigation system for the Wegman’s supermarket in Canandaigua.  It took about 45 minutes to get there, including long slow rolls through the town of Victor and then Canandaigua itself.

This was our first ever visit to a Wegman’s and all I can say is “Wow!”  The store was very large and the variety of items they stocked, including some we had never seen before, was almost overwhelming.  Their whole-foo, plant-based (vegan) offerings were as good or better than we had ever seen anywhere else.  They also had a restaurant (drinks and live music on the weekends), a sub sandwich shop, and extensive deli section that included a “burger bar”, an “Asian bar”, and a “Sushi bar.”  You could even order Food to Go and drop by to pick up your prepared meal.  We didn’t actually need anything, but we found a vegan parmesan cheese, and picked up a container of Just Egg, some vegan butter, and a pack of paper bowls.  We will probably go back on Saturday and restock the refrigerator and panty before heading to Hershey, Pennsylvania on Sunday.

This opening is in the ceiling of the 2nd floor just above where the staircase from the first floor reaches the 2nd floor.  George Eastman House at the Eastman Museum, Rochester, New York.

What we did not find was the specific Dr. Elsey’s cat liter than Linda likes.  There was a Petco across the street, so we went there and, voila!, there was the specific liter that we had not seen since leaving home in mid-June.  Our shopping done, we returned to camp.

Back at camp there was another airstream travel trailer in our row, in addition to the one three rows back.  Another one came later, making four in our section of the RV park, including ours.  There was another one in the far west section when we arrived yesterday.  We didn’t notice if it was still here, so there might be five of them here.  That would be a surprisingly high percentage of the total occupancy at the moment.

For dinner, I finished my sandwich from lunch while Linda had a cheese sandwich and finished her brownie from lunch.  After dinner, she read while I worked on the blog posts and photos for yesterday and today.  At 8:30 PM, we streamed the next episode of The Great British Baking Show.  Linda headed off to bed at here usual 10 o’clock hour.  I stayed up long enough to finish and publish the blog posts for yesterday and today and made it to bed just after midnight.

The West Garden at the George Eastman House as seen from the  parking lot entrance at the Eastman Museum, Rochester, New York.

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20220927 – A travel day; Verona, NY (TVaTSRvPk) to Canandaigua-Rochester KOA Holiday, Farmington, NY

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TUESDAY 27 September

Linda was up this morning around 7:15 and I got up at 7:45.  Since it was a travel day, we each had a cup of half-caff coffee as soon as we got up, and a slice of toast with Mango-Peach jam for breakfast.  Check-out time was 11 AM, and the check-in time at our next location, the Canandaigua-Rochester KOA Holiday in Farmington, New York, was 1 PM.  We had less than 100 miles to travel, and all but ~5 miles would be on the New York State Thruway (I-90) at 65 mph.  Linda called the KOA to see if we could arrive early.  There was someone in the site, but they were required to be gone by 11 AM, so no problem arriving after that.  We targeted a 10:30 AM departure in order to be there by 12:15 – 12:30, and started breaking camp around 9 AM.

I often do not have too many photos (if any) for travel days, and we rarely venture out after we arrive and set up camp, other than a quick grocery and/or fuel run.  That affords me the time (luxury) of being able to wax philosophical, to contemplate and reflect on the more general experience of being extended-time RVers.  Thus, I seem to have the most to say on the days where we have had the least to do.

This was our second of two, two-night stays in a row.  We had a very nice stay at The Villages at Turning Stone RV Park in Verona/Oneida, New York.  It was an attractive, and well-maintained park, and we were able to do our laundry in their nice laundry room.  There wasn’t much for us to do here, however, as we had no intention of visiting the casino, the resort restaurant, or the live music venue.  Still, we could have sat here another day, especially if the rain let up and the sun re-appeared.  But also, because a two-night stay is actually more work than a one-night layover.

We go through the same process, and the same amount of work, for a two-night stay as for one of much longer duration.  For a one-night stay, we can often leave the truck and trailer hitched together and just plug in the shorepower cord.  We always travel with enough water in the fresh water tank that we can easily run off of that for a night or more (depending on how full the fresh water tank is, of course).  We also do not need to dump waste water before we pull out the next day.  That’s not a complaint, just the reasons we prefer to stay three or more nights wherever we stop.  It helps if there are also interesting/accessible things to see and do in the area.

The Villages at Turning Stone RV Park was on a municipal water supply, so I did not hook-up our freshwater pressure regulator, filter, and water softener when we arrived.  I also did not hook up the sewer hose because it was raining, and it wasn’t necessary that it be done right then.  But the tanks needed to be dumped before we pulled out, and that was my second departure task.  (My first one was to pack up my laptop computer and move our technology to the truck.)  We had prepared the trailer/truck for departure enough times by now that we had a good handle on how much time it would take; 1-1/2 hours allowed for a deliberate, but leisurely pace.

It took me quite a few small adjustments to line up the truck/stinger with the trailer/hitch, but I got it done.  The problem was the way the site curved out, restricting how far I could pull straight forward in front of the trailer.  I do better when I can start from farther away.  Even so, we were ready to go by 10:30, but decided to walk over to the office building and use the restrooms, as much to stretch our legs as anything else.  We pulled out of our site at 10:45 AM.

The drive on I-90 was smooth and uneventful, just the way we like it.  We took exit 43 at Manchester and dropped down onto NY-96, headed west to County 28 / Macedon Road, and then south to Canandaigua Farmington Town Line Road, which only ran west from there.  It was just over a mile to the KOA.  I was disappointed in our fuel economy, 10.5 mpg average, but we did travel at 65 mph for most of the trip, and the transmission shifted down frequently as we climbed grades.

Our rig, slightly left of center frame, as seen from the other side of the pond at the Canandaigua Rochester KOA in Farmington, New York.

We pulled into the KOA at 12:30 PM.  As usual, Linda got us registered while I sync’d my phone app to the LevelMatePro+ in the trailer.  We were assigned site 18, a 50A/FHU pull-through with a patio (W3W=”hottest.sesame.dishing“).  (This was the second time we had site #18 on our trip.)  It was clear how to get to it and pull in, but a man from the campground insisted on leading us there and directing us in.  Neither service was necessary, but the escort to the site was appreciated, and he was helpful in getting me on the gravel with the truck somewhat aligned with the trailer.  He was surprised, however, that our trailer door was towards the rear and positioned us in the site where he thought we would want to be, with the door/stairs opening onto the patio.  He was wrong, but that was OK.  Sometimes the best/only thing you can do is say “thank you.”  I indicated that I needed to reposition the rig slightly, both to level, side-to-side, and position it so the truck would fit in front of it.  He returned to the office to help the next arrival.

As it turned out, I was able to back the trailer up to a position where it was level, side-to-side without having to use any of our leveling components.  And it was only 3.75” low in the front, so that was easily adjusted after we secured the trailer tires and unhitched.  As a bonus, this location put our shore connections exactly opposite the utility hook-ups.  Winner, winner, tofu dinner.  I plugged in the shorepower while Linda moved Juniper-the-Cat to the trailer.  This is always a necessary first step, as I have to lift the rear seat in the truck to get to the tools we use to for the hitching/unhitching process.

There was rain in the forecast for later in the afternoon, but for now, it was sunny with a breeze, so I went ahead and hooked up the water and sewer hose.  We had seen fire hydrants along the road, so Linda had asked in the office if the park was on a municipal water supply.  It was, so once again I did not hook up the fresh water pressure regulator, filter, and water softener.  I powered up our Verizon Jetpack Mi-Fi and moved it around the rig to find the best signal.  It ended up on the nightstand in the bedroom this time, with the Netgear flat panel antenna attached looking north towards Farmington, and the Thruway.  All told, it took us about an hour to “make camp.”

For lunch, Linda reheated the leftover risotto from Sunday night’s dinner, and served it with a banana and a slice of Italian bread.  Yum.  We went for a stroll around the campground after lunch, and watched as additional RVs rolled in every now and then.  The park was far from full, but also far from empty.

The center of the rear section of the park was clearly seasonal sites, with a variety of RVs that had obviously not been moved in a long time.  Most of them had wood patio decks, and the usual paraphernalia that clearly identifies a seasonal (permanent) RV/site.  But we understand that seasonal/permanent RVs provide an important and reliable income stream for an RV park, while requiring minimal park employee labor.  Also, seasonal sites almost always have metered electric, so the RV park does not have to be concerned with how much power they use.  They do, however, have to read the meter (usually once a month) and collect payment from the customer.

Our walk took us by the office, where we chatted with the woman on duty (presumed to be the owner).  She gave us a variety of pamphlets and brochures on things to see and do in the area, especially wineries, as we expressed an interest in those.

Back at our rig, we both set up our computers.  I checked e-mail and then started working on today’s blog post while Linda checked her e-mail and then worked on entering and reconciling our financial transactions.

For dinner, Linda made black beans & rice in the Instant Pot.  (She also used this for the risotto on Sunday.)  I always find beans & rice a tad bland, but Linda had anticipated that and put the Chipotle Tabasco sauce on the table.  She put a little on hers too, and agreed that it “kicked it up a notch” (‘props’ to Emeril Lagasse).  After dinner we relaxed for a bit with our iPads until our Tuesday evening FBI programs on CBS started at 8 PM.  Linda was off to bed as soon as the shows ended at 11 PM, and I was in bed before midnight.

We are not in “vacation” mode, because we don’t take vacations, but we have migrated into a kind of “tourist” mode, and a “returning-to-life-at-home” mode as we have approached the end of our summer/fall 2022 grand tour.  (I think this started with the Pirate Cove Adventure Mini-Golf in Bar Harbor, Maine.)  Indeed, one of our main foci in the Finger Lakes region of New York will be visiting wineries/meaderies.  This region is known for its Riesling wines, and related wines like Gewürztraminer, so we will certainly be on the lookout for those, but probably won’t buy very many bottles of either as they are common wines easily found at good wine shops.  We will be looking for wines that are a bit different from our everyday choices, but still to our taste and within the price range we are willing to pay for fermented fruit juice.  This will include “fruit” (non-grape) wines, meads, and grape wines like Cabernet Franc and Rivaner.  (Black Tower Rivaner is supposedly available at the State Liquor Store in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, so I hope to buy some there if we don’t find another Rivaner wine before then.)

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2016/04/01-05 (F-T) J-P-Shuffle CCAFS Farewell Celebration

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2016/04/01 (F) The J. P. Shuffle

Linda was up before me and got to see one of the cruise ships come in at 6:20 AM.  She said it was all lit up and quite a sight.  I got out of bed at 8:20 AM and made coffee.  Linda prepared toast and jam for breakfast and gave each of us half of an orange.

I finished up my post for yesterday, worked on this one, and then noticed that an iOS 9.3.1 update was available for the Apple iOS 9.3 update that I installed Wednesday evening and Linda installed last night.  It was only 18 MB but still took a long time to download and install.

Today was April Fool’s Day and time for us to once again do “the Jetty Park shuffle.”  I have checked at least once, and often twice, each day to see if an appropriate full hookup site had become available through cancellation for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights, but it had not.  Around 10 AM I walked to the office to check one last time.  Scott Ward was the JP staff person on duty and was very helpful but a site was just not available.  He was able, however, to put us on site #357 for Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday night’s.  I shortened our stay on site #3 to two nights and paid the balance for the one night.

Site #3 is a water only site, no electricity and no sewer connection, and the rules say that NO pets are allowed in that section, which is right along the channel and outside the regular fenced campground.  The staff was aware, however, that we have two cats onboard and let us have the site anyway.  We do not ever want them to escape, but especially here.

Our generator can produce more power than we can get from a “50 Amp” RV electrical connection, so not having electricity is not really a problem.  The only real downsides, other than having to move, are that we can feel, hear, and sometimes smell the generator.  We also had a problem with a circuit breaker for its cooling fan last winter.  I made a temporary fix to it but have never fixed it permanently.  We also do not like to leave the genset running when we are away from the coach, such as will be the case on Saturday morning.

I selected/processed three photos of the manatees we saw on Tuesday at Merritt Island National Wildlife a Refuge and e-mailed them to Pat and Vickie.  I then replied to a couple of e-mails from Gary at Bus Conversion Magazine.  By this time it was 11 AM so we prepared the bus, inside and out, to be moved.  With all of the Windows and roof vents closed it warmed up quickly inside even with a lot of the coach in the shade.  When I turned the ignition key the engine turned over but would not catch and my heart just sank.

I really like this bus, but I have grown weary of the uncertainty of whether things will work when needed.  I turned the ignition key off and rechecked the transmission selector and parking brake settings.  I also switched the suspension out of Level Low to drive mode although that should not have mattered.  With the ignition key turned to the ‘ON’ position the 12 V chassis battery seemed a little low and a red light flashed a few times on the transmission selector, so I turned the key off, went to the outside battery disconnect switches, and turned both the 12V and 24V disconnects off and then back on.

Back in the driver’s seat I tried again.  Normally the engine only turns over a few times before it fires.  This time I let it turn for four or five seconds and it finally started.  If I had any sense I would have driven it to the W. W. Williams Detroit Diesel service center in Orlando, but I moved it to site #3 at J. P. instead.

Our coach in Site #3 at Jetty Park & Campground, Cape Canaveral, FL. This is the “water only” camping by the shipping channel. All of these rigs are parked facing north towards the channel. It’s a great spot to watch the ships come and go.

To get from site #358 to site #3 I had to exit the fenced campground and drive around the east end of the park past the beach parking, concession building, and playground and then west along the edge of the shipping channel and around to the back row of the water only sites, all of which face the shipping channel.  As such it was a long drive to get to a site we could see from the one we just vacated.

We left the car at site #358 temporarily and Linda rode along in the bus.  I made the whole trip in 1st gear, to keep the RPMs up, and turned on the OTR A-C, both to cool the interior of the coach and to put more load on the engine and help get it up temperature.  I did not pull the tag axle up as we had walked the park/campground enough to know that I did not need to make any really tight turns.  When I was mostly into position on site #3 Linda got out and spotted the final position of the rear end.  These channel-side sites slope down towards the channel (facing north) and the back row sites get steeper the farther off the back off the site you go.  I wanted to pull forward just enough to get our tow bar clear of the access road behind the site and Linda accomplished that with an inch or two to spare.

I left the engine running and switched it to high idle to run the OTR air-conditioning.  While Linda went back to get our car I got out the step stool and awning pole and deployed all four awnings.  I then started the Genset to make sure it was going to run and produce electricity.  I also thought we might run the residential air-conditioners.  When Linda returned with our car she wanted to open up the coach so I shut off the OTR bus A-C, dropped the engine idle to low, and let it idle for a couple of minutes before shutting off the engine.  I left the genset on for the time being.

Both of our systems had been reacting to what we had eaten the last few days so we passed on lunch and just hung around our new site which was, in fact, very pleasant with a view of the water in the channel and the high ground of Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on the opposite bank.

Our driver side neighbors stopped to chat on their way to the beach and let us know that they had just spotted dolphins in the channel.  I walked over and caught a glimpse of several arching repeatedly out of the water but by the time Linda got there they had submerged and not resurfaced.  Given where we are parked we should have a good chance to see dolphins and view cruise ships coming and going from the Port.

Linda made a cold garbanzo bean salad for dinner last night.  After dinner I was trying to get us connected to the park Wi-Fi system but could not maintain the connection or get us logged in.  I tried using our Verizon Mi-Fi but could not get the WiFi Ranger to work with it.  I tried to reconfigure the Amped|Wireless router to work directly with the Mi-Fi but there were problems with that as well.  At one point my ASUS notebook computer decided that it could not detect any Wi-Fi networks even thought it had two of them sitting within a couple feet of it.  I got disgusted with the whole situation, shut everything off, and we went for a walk.

Linda waves to the Disney “Magic” cruise ship as it heads out to sea from Port Canaveral, FL. There is always a crowd along the channel to wave the cruise ships in and out.

We walked over to Pat and Vickie’s coach and Vickie joined us.  We headed to the beach where we enjoyed a very brisk breeze until lightning to the southwest signaled that it was time to return to the safety of our rigs or one of the park buildings.  We headed back past the playground area towards our coach and Vickie split off for the gate in the campground fence that provided the most direct access to her site.

Back at our site we closed up the coach against the humidity and coming storm.  I then started the auxiliary powerplant (genset) and turned on the air conditioners.  Not long after that it started to rain, lightly at first, but it eventually became very heavy for a while before finally moving offshore.

With the A-C’s running I was reminded that I need to change some of the AC circuits in the main panel.  The front and middle air-conditioners are on different legs of the AC power system, front on L1 and middle on L2.  That makes sense as we would normally want to run both of them at the same time to cool the front half of the bus (living, cooking, office space) when we are awake and using the bus.  The 3rd/bedroom A-C has to go on one of the two legs and either one could create load balancing issues.  Unfortunately, the middle A-C unit is not currently producing any cooling.

To make matters worse, the charger section of our Magnum 4024 inverter/charger also draws its power from L1.  Again, it had to go somewhere, but the current configuration tends to put too much load on L1 and not enough on L2.  Even though the genset is oversized for our electrical needs an imbalance between L1 and L2 is still a problem because it is set up as a 240 VAC unit with a 240 VAC voltage regulator.  Although it has an active neutral, allowing it to supply 120 VAC to both L1 and L2 (180 degrees out of phase) the regulator is only concerned with maintaining the 240 VAC between the two legs, not the 120 VAC between each leg to neutral.

If the loads on the two legs are not reasonably balanced, the 240 VAC will “drift” off center from neutral with the voltage on the high load leg dropping and the voltage on the low load leg rising.  That, in turn, can/does cause havoc with some of the devices onboard, especially the microwave oven, APC uninterruptible power supply that powers the Amped|Wireless router, and the APC line voltage stabilizer that powers the laser printer.

We were, however, able to watch TV and found Ken Burns’ JAZZ documentary on channel 24.1.  By 11 PM we needed to get to bed as we had to be up and ready to go by 7:45 AM tomorrow morning.  I turned the genset off around 11:30 PM and let the house electrical system switch to the inverter.  I tried to watch the end of JAZZ on the TV in the bedroom but the TV and antenna controller kept losing power.  That, in turn, caused the TV to shut off and the controller to reset to position 8.  My phone and iPad chargers, both of which were plugged into AC outlets, also kept cutting in and out.

I encountered this same issue when we were boondocking at John Palmer’s place in Mayo, Florida at the end of November 2015.  At that time I turned off the SEARCH WATTS feature thinking that it was causing the problem.  Apparently that was not the problem.  My best guess is that under very low load conditions the inverter is either:  a) not inverting at all, or b) producing a voltage and/or current that is not well regulated.  In either case, it would play havoc with our entertainment and communications electronics.

Rather than screw around with this anymore tonight I gave up , turned off the TV, unplugged the antenna controller, resolved to ignore the device chargers, figuring they would work when the refrigerator or air compressor ran, and tried to fall asleep.  I could have turned on the AC lights in the living room, or our small portable fan, to draw enough AC current to keep the inverter working, but that’s really contrary to the whole notion of minimizing your energy usage to only those things that are absolutely necessary when running on batteries.

2016/04/02 (S) Cape Canaveral Lighthouse Tour

I was awake at 6 AM and we were both up and dressed by 7 AM.  I did not make coffee or have breakfast and Linda just had a piece of bread as making toast would have required me to start the genset.  The batteries were at roughly 24.6 VDC (and showing 72% SOC) with no load being drawn by the inverter so there was no need to recharge them this morning.  We were due at Pat and Vickie’s coach at 8 AM so I gathered up my camera, holster, and extra batteries.  We left at 7:40 and took our time walking over to their site.

Pat and Vickie have seating for four in their Jeep Grand Cherokee and have been providing transportation for our group outings.  We left just after 8 AM for the short drive to the Exploration Tower at the west end of Port Canaveral.  We signed up for a tour of the Cape Canaveral Lighthouse that departed from the Tower at 8:30 AM and included admission to the Tower when we returned.

There were only twelve of us on the small tour bus plus a driver (Mike) and two tour guides.  The Cape Canaveral Lighthouse is located on the grounds of the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS).  One of the tour guides (Jim) had worked at the Station and was our main guide for information about the Station and the various launch sites we visited; and we visited a number of them.  One of the things we learned was that CCAFS is a Station rather than a Base because no one lives there.  All of the Air Force personnel working at CCAFS are from Patrick Air Force Base, which is located south of Cocoa Beach.  The U. S. Navy also has a presence here with facilities that service ICBM and attack submarines.

The Cape Canaveral Lighthouse located within the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, FL.

The Lighthouse had its own cadre of docents, and was very interesting to see and learn about, but only accounted for a little less than an hour of a 3-1/2 hour tour.  The other tour guide was Ron and he provided most of the information about Port Canaveral.  Just after exiting CCAFS we visited a small museum devoted to the history of the Station.  It was located next to the building that now houses the launch control facility for SpaceX, the commercial spaceflight venture of Elon Musk of PayPal.  There are other private/commercial companies operating at CCAFS besides SpaceX .  One of the largest is United Launch Alliance (ULA), an independent company that was formed by merging the space operations of Boeing (which absorbed McDonnell-Douglass years ago) and Lockheed-Martin.

All that remains of one of the launch pads at CCAFS, FL.

We did not really understand ahead of time what we were going to see and we were surprised by the dilapidated condition of the old launch sites.  All that remains at most of them are concrete and brick works.  Metal superstructures that were subject to rusting were long ago removed and control centers that were once stuffed full of equipment are now “abandoned in place” or used for storage.  It was like visiting an ancient historic site, which in fact it is; the first rocket launched from this site was a German V-2 in 1950 and the Mercury missions occurred in the early 1960’s over 50 years ago.

A continuation of the previous image, this is the command bunker and tunnel. CCAFS, FL.

Back at the Exploration Tower, which is owned and operated by the Canaveral Port Authority (CPA), we got wrist bands good for admission through closing time today.  The weather had been overcast all day and a check of the radar on our smartphones showed heavy rain moving our way.  Even though we were hungry we decided to experience the Tower before the rain moved in.

This is all that is left of what was once a heavily reinforced HVAC building at the launch pad. The superstructure in the distance is in active use by SpaceX and ULA. CCAFS, FL.

The Exploration Tower has seven floors plus additional structure at the top.  We took the elevator to the top floor which features an outdoor observation platform oriented to give a commanding view of Port Canaveral, CCAFS, and the John F. Kennedy Space Center to the north, as well as the Banana River to the west and the Atlantic Ocean to the east.  There are also views to the south of the cities of Cape Canaveral and Cocoa Beach.  We took the stairs down to each floor in turn.  Each floor has a theme with related exhibits and we stopped at each one.  The 3rd floor is a small theater that shows a 20 minute film about Port Canaveral and the surrounding area; past, present, and future.  The film starts on the hour and half hour so we caught the 1 PM show.  The second floor is a balcony that affords a view of art hanging above the 1st floor lobby and gift shop.

The Exploration Tower at Port Canaveral, FL. The top floor includes an outdoor observation deck.

Back on the 1st floor I bought two coffees while Linda and Vickie shopped for gifts.  Linda found a stuffed toy of a manatee for our grand-daughter Madeline.  When we finally got back to Jetty Park at 2 PM Linda made sandwiches for lunch and I washed off some grapes.  I checked the house battery bank voltage and it was still OK.  The temperature had cooled off under cloudy skies with a strong southerly breeze, so I did not need to run the air-conditioners.

I took a nap for an hour.  Not long after I got up we noticed activity in the shipping channel so I took the camera and we went out to see what was going on.  We set up two chairs in front of the bus to watch the action.  The blue tug boat was hanging around the entrance to the Trident Turning Basin, which we had not seen it do before.  The Brevard County Sheriff boat came out along with one of the harbor pilot boats.  A U. S. Coast Guard boat, with a large caliper machine gun on the bow that was manned, headed out the channel towards the ocean at high speed.  We thought perhaps we were going to get to see a submarine arrival, which are always unannounced, but the reason for all this activity turned out to be the Carnival Cruise Ship “Valor” coming into port.  It was delayed from its scheduled arrival by almost 12 hours but that worked to my advantage as the cloud cover had thinned and provided nice lighting on the bow of the ship as it traveled west into the channel.

A 180 degree panorama, from west through north to east, from the observation deck of the Exploration Tower at Port Canaveral, FL.

A little while later the Norwegian Cruise Line “Spirit” left its dock and headed for the Atlantic Ocean accompanied by the police, Coast Guard, and harbor pilot boats.  About 20 minutes behind the NCL Spirit, the Disney “Fantasy” left its dock and started its slow trip down the channel.  Vickie showed up before it got to our position and had her iPad with her.  As the boat came abreast of our position, Vickie spotted dolphins swimming just in front of the bow.

I got out another chair and we sat in front of the bus and chatted for a while.  Vickie eventually returned to her coach to fix dinner and we went inside.  I transferred today’s photos to my computer and selected two to process and send to Vickie.

A dolphin swims in front of one of the Disney cruise ships as it heads down the channel from Port Canaveral, FL. towards the sea.

For dinner Linda improvised a potato and broccoli dish with onion, garlic, and couscous.  It was light and very tasty.  After we were done eating I texted Vickie.  They were also done with dinner so we met her at the office and went for a walk.  Back at our coach Linda checked online and found a news story about the Carnival Valor.  The Valor was delayed due to a medical situation that required them to return to the Turks and Cacos.  According to CruiseTimeTables.com, passengers were being advised to embark starting at 9 PM and to be onboard by 11 PM, with departure shortly thereafter.

Back at our coach we watched some TV and waited up for the Carnival Valor to leave as the nighttime departures are rather something to see with the ships all lit up.  Linda waited until midnight and then turned in for the night.  I stayed up until 1:30 AM but it was still docked at the west end of the port so I gave up and went to bed.

2016/04/03 (N) Bon Voyage

I was waiting for the Carnival Valor to leave Port Canaveral last night but by 1:30 AM it was still at its terminal.  It was all lit up but going nowhere, so I finally went to bed.    By midnight the skies had begun to clear and the wind, which had been steady all day, became stronger and started shifting around to the northwest and becoming noticeably cooler.

The cruise ships are particularly magical at night and I had hoped to capture some images of them, having set my camera to SCeNe selection mode (SCN) and selected “Night.”  In spite of being up late I did not sleep soundly and was aware of headlights around 5 AM.  Someone had apparently driven over from the campground to watch ships, or perhaps driven into the park, which opens at 5 AM, for this purpose.  I then noticed a ship in the shipping lane heading for the mouth of the channel.  Around 5:30 AM another cruise ship came in.  I got up, put on my robe, and tried to photograph it from the cockpit of the bus.

The nighttime arrival of the Carnival “Victory” cruise ship at Port Canaveral, FL.

I got up to stay a little after 8 AM and started the genset so I could make coffee and heat water.  Linda got up shortly thereafter and prepared our breakfast cereal.  We could see cruise ships docked at the west end of Port Canaveral so Linda checked the CruiseTimeTables.com website, and found that there were four cruise ships scheduled to depart today; three at 4 PM (the Carnival Sunshine and Victory, and the Royal Caribbean Freedom of the Seas) and one at 4:30 PM (the Disney Magic).

The Magnum ME-ARC indicated the house battery bank was at 24.6 VDC and 69% SOC.  I turned on the genset and the charger started in Bulk Charging mode drawing 110A at 24VDC, or just over 2,600 Watts, on L1.  I turned on the Aqua-Hot electric heating element, which is on L2, to balance the load on the genset a bit.  When the battery charger had backed off a bit and switched to Absorption mode I turned on the block heater for the main engine, which is currently on the same leg (L1) as the charger.  Balanced loads lead to balanced voltages, but it is also better for the genset mechanically to run under a somewhat heavier load than a light one.

Around 10 AM I walked over to check site #357.  It was already vacant so I went to the office to confirm that we still had it reserved for tonight through Tuesday night.  We did, so I told the office clerk that I was going to go ahead and move, if I could get the engine started, and would then come in and register.  If I couldn’t get it started I would extend our stay on site #3 until we could get the problem resolved or get it towed.  The clerk was not particularly sympathetic, but then he was the one who would have to deal with an irate customer who could not have their reserved site, and the people who camp here have very particular preferences about their sites.  Fortunately, site #3 was open so we could have stayed there until we needed to dump our holding tanks.  We could minimize water usage by using the campground bathrooms, so we could have stretched our dry camping if needed.

Back at our rig we started preparing to move it.  I moved the car over near the pedestrian gate that is very close to site #357 and walked back to the coach.  Linda had secured the inside enough for the short, slow trip.  I checked the maintenance chargers for the chassis batteries and they indicated 100% charge levels.  I opened the air supply valve for the engine accessories, engaged the 12 and 24 volt chassis battery disconnect switches, pulled the wheel chocks, and put the entry step stool away.  I put the Level Low system in Drive mode, just in case that mattered, and turned the ignition key.  The bus motor cranked quickly and fired right up!  That was a relief.

The Centurion Battalion of the United States Navy Sea Cadet Corps had arrived at the picnic area sometime before 8 AM with a large contingent of cadets and their adult leaders/chaperones.  And they had arrived in a large number of cars that filled the available parking spaces just on the other side of the road that ran behind the back row of RV sites where we were parked.  There was still plenty of room to back out, but Linda positioned herself outside to keep an eye on the back end of the rig.

The motorhome on our passenger side was also ready to leave and backed out before I did.  I don’t think he would have presented an obstacle, but having him gone was one less thing to have to keep an eye on.  I pulled up the tag axle and then pulled forward to the right to position the coach at an angle to the road behind it.  I then backed up and cut the steer tires hard left to swing the nose around to the passenger side and guide the rear end cleanly into the road well clear of any other vehicles.  Linda climbed on board and I turned on the OTR A-C, partly for comfort and partly to put more load on the engine.

We made the 5 MPH trip around the east end of the park and campground back to the campground entrance on the south side where Linda got out to open the gate.  Once I was clear of the gate she got back onboard.  We wound our way through the campground, familiar now with the road system.  When I got to the 2nd to last turn I saw that the last turn was blocked by a pickup truck pulling a 5th wheel trailer out of its site so I continued straight ahead and went clockwise around Red Knot Circle.  By the time I got back to the same intersection the pickup truck and 5th wheel were out of the way and I was able to proceed to site #357.

Linda hopped out to act as spotter.  Using what I learned two years ago from Big Bill while getting parked at Suncoast Designers in Hudson, Florida I moved to the right edge of the road as the back-in site was on that side.  As I pulled past the site and the rear wheels were by the front of the site I cut the steer tires to the left, positioning the coach at an angle to the site, all the while avoiding trees, RVs, cars, and other obstacles.  I backed straight, keeping an eye on Linda in the driver side rear view mirror, and started swinging the nose to the driver side while keeping an eye on the car parked on the other side of the road.

As soon as I was clear of that car I swung the nose hard to the driver side.  We were well clear of the Sea Grape trees on the passenger side so I straightened the steer tires and pulled forward until I had a good view of the concrete pad on one side.  I backed in following Linda’s hand signals until I could see the pad on both sides, got the rig straight and centered, and backed up until Linda gave me the stop signal (arms crossed at the wrist above her head).  We ended up parking with the front tires just off the front edge of the concrete pad as the coach was close to level and we wanted to avoid lower branches at the rear of the site.  As it was, I still had to lower the front slightly, but at least the Level Low system worked this time.  I also had to adjust the rear on one side, which worked a lot better after I lowered the tag axle.

With the coach neatly tucked in to its site and sitting level Linda walked the short distance back to where the car was parked and drove it around to our site.  Once the car was parked I walked to the office and took care of the registration.  When I got back I tried to get our network up and running but encountered all sorts of problems.  I wasted most of the rest of the afternoon trying to resolve them, to no avail.

While we were camped on site #3 I had to reconfigure the Amped|Wireless router/range-extender to work directly with our Verizon Mi-Fi.  That configuration worked OK out there, but was not working here.  The Wi-Fi ranger was seeing a number of campground Wi-Fi signals with adequate to very good signal strength, but was having a very difficult time connecting to them.  When it did, the connection would drop after a very short time.  The Amped|Wireless router/range-extender was having an equally difficult time connecting to the Wi-Fi Ranger and staying connected when it did.  I tried connecting the Wi-Ranger to our Verizon Mi-Fi but that did seem to work either.  I also noticed that the cellular signal was not as strong as usual.  Linda commented that her phone was having trouble connecting.  I finally got disgusted with the whole thing and set it aside.  Sometimes the best solution is to “just walk away.”

There were four cruise ships starting down the shipping channel roughly on time and in the order specified and Vickie joined us for the ship parade.  We were out there waiting for them, camera at the ready, and by the time the last ship was headed out to sea I had shot about 200 images.  Vickie had already eaten, and we were not ready for dinner yet, so we walked the campground and park, including the pier.

It was chilly all day yesterday with a high temperature in the low 70’s and a steady breeze from the north that resulted in a hazardous conditions warning for the beach.  As the light faded it got colder and we returned to our motorhomes.

Dinner was a nice salad and Amy’s enchiladas.  Simple, easy, tasty.  It turned colder after sunset under clear skies and a stiff northerly breeze.  It was very refreshing, initially, but eventually the coach was a bit too cool so I closed the roof vents and Linda narrowed the window openings to just an inch.  We were a little tired, not particularly captivated by what was on TV, and had to be up earlier than usual in the morning, so we were in bed before 11 PM.

2016/04/04 (M) Farewell For Now

It turned chilly after sunset last night under clear skies and a stiff northerly breeze.  It was very refreshing, actually, but eventually the coach felt chilly and we closed it up, mostly, and were in bed a bit earlier than usual.

We were up at 7 AM this morning and got dressed right away.  I made coffee, which used up our supply of Sweet Seattle Dreams beans, and we headed over to site #303 at 7:30 to see Pat and Vickie off.  They have been here since mid-February and today was departure day.  The bus motor was already running when we got there and we just watched while they got ready to pull out.  We learned long ago not to “chat” with RVers during their final departure preparations.  They drove around by the office to hook up their car and we walked over to watch.  I took a couple of pictures with my phone and used the “dawn” setting for the first time.  Soon enough they were ready to go, so we said our final “farewells for now,” and, just like that, they drove off and were gone.  Assuming no mechanical or weather issues they will be home in northern Indiana Wednesday evening.

A group of five brown pelicans coming up the channel just above the water. Jetty Park at Port Canaveral, FL.

We always find that leaving an encampment after we have been there for an extended period of time has a strange feeling and we experienced that vicariously as Pat and Vickie drove away.  The strangeness, as best I can describe it, is a combination of a sense of loss—the giving up of a familiar place and the people there—and anticipation of the journey ahead, both positive and negative.  The anticipation is positive in the sense of the possibilities of new experiences that come with the adventure of the road while the negative anticipation stems from the potential for mechanical, weather, traffic, or health problems.

With Pat and Vickie out of sight we returned to our coach and had a light breakfast of toast and jam and finished our coffee.  Linda then worked on a grocery list while I tackled out networking problems.  I gave up in disgust around 10 AM and we drove to Cocoa Beach to do some grocery shopping.  We went to the Publix supermarket first and found most of what we needed there.  A quick stop at Sunseed Food CO-OP filled in our list with blueberries, coffee, and vegan mayonnaise.  I stopped at one of the Shell stations on the way back to J. P. and topped off the fuel in the car so we would not have to deal with that tomorrow morning.

Back at our coach we got the groceries unloaded and put away.  Linda then heated some leftovers for lunch and washed some grapes.  After lunch I put in a call to Chris Yust, our National General Insurance Agent, to ask her about the letter/form we received regarding Coordination of Medical benefits.  She called back a short time later and we discussed it.  She logged into her agent support system but there was no indication of the letter/form.  Normally she can see anything the insurance company has sent to her customers.  She confirmed that we really did need to send the form in with the requested documentation.

Linda had already photographed the fronts and backs of our MPSERS/BCBS cards.  When she tried to print them the printer was “offline”.  We had this same problem at the beginning of our winter travels and it turned out to be NETWORK related.  The fix back then was to use the Advanced IP Scanner to determine what IP address was assigned to the printer and then manually reconfigure the printer to that address.  That was under Windows 8.1.  Under Windows 10 the IP Scanner didn’t work the same way and the manual reconfiguration didn’t work either.  What is particularly puzzling and annoying is that the printer does not appear to be responding correctly when set as a DHCP client.  If it was, we would not be having a problem communicating with it.

I seem to have spent a lot of time this past week dealing with network and wireless communications malfunctions, so I did what I often do and we went for a walk at 2:30 PM.  We went out on the pier and were just starting back when someone spotted a manatee between the pier and the jetty swimming towards the ocean.  The water was clear and we got a good look at it for quite a while.  It was large and presumably a full-size adult.  They really are gentle giants and it was a thrill to see it.

We walked back to the office for coffee before returning to our rig.  As soon as we went in Scott Ward handed Linda a card.  She has not been in the office that much but I have, and have often interacted with Scott while checking on, or registering for, sites.  Still, I was impressed that he remembered my last name and made the connection to the card.  The card was from our younger grand-daughter, Madeline.  It was a ‘thank you’ card for Linda for all of the custom photo postcards she has created using the PhotoPostCard app and had printed and mailed to Madeline by the PhotoPostCard service out of San Diego, California.  Linda took a picture of the card, texted it to our son, and asked him to tell Madeline “thanks” in return.  He texted back a photo of Madeline looking at the most recent postcard, which was a photo of Linda by the channel with one of the Disney cruise ships heading out to sea.

The Royal Caribbean Enchantment of the Seas was due to sail at 3:45 PM followed closely by      the Disney Dream at 4 PM.  We walked over to the shipping channel at 3:40 PM and by the time we got there the Enchantment was starting to move away from its dock.  Something did not look right and then I realized we were looking at the stern of the ship.  The cruise ships usually dock facing the ocean, so it needed to turn around to get out of Port Canaveral.

One of the amazing things about these amazing machines is their ability to maneuver in close quarters.  When in port, they can independently push the bow and stern to either side, which means they can move sideways or turn the ship around its center (or any other point).  In this case they pushed the stern out from the dock on the south side of the channel and into the opening of the middle turning basin on the north side of the channel opposite the dock.  They then backed it up slightly into the turning basin, brought the bow around into the channel, pushed the stern out into the channel, and then started moving forward down the channel towards the ocean.  It was quite a skillful maneuver and the first time we have seen this in the two weeks we have been here.

Not long after the Enchantment cleared the Jetty and turned southeast to stay in the channel, the Disney Dream started moving slowly forward and away from its dock.  The Disney terminal/dock is in an alcove (basin) on the north side of the west end of the Port so it has to turn into the straight portion of the channel.  Of all the cruise ships we have seen come and go the Disney ships appear to be in the best condition, not that any of them look bad.

We returned to our coach and I transferred photos to my computer from the camera and from my cell phone while Linda started preparing dinner.  Dinner consisted of a kale salad followed by a brown rice and kale dish with sautéed carrots, onions, and garlic.  Linda has not had any wine in a couple of weeks because of the medications she’s been taking, but I had a glass of the Arbor Mist Raspberry.  I find “flavored” wines a questionable choice, although I like Sangria and hot mulled or spiced wine.

We went for a walk after dinner that included some time on the beach.  The park and beach were a beehive of activity yesterday but things were quiet all day today and there were only a handful of people on the beach this evening.  Both conditions are nice, in their own way.  There was, however, some activity in the Trident submarine turning basin today.  The big crane was moving and a Coast Guard cutter was in and out of the basin.  An attack helicopter from Patrick AFB also made repeated passes over the area and up/down the beach.  Our friends told us that when things start getting active around the basin it usually means a submarine is coming in but that did not happen while we were watching.

Back at our coach we turned on the TV but all of the CBS programs were repeats because the NCAA Basketball final game was on cable.  I reconfigured the Amped|Wireless router to work directly with our Verizon Mi-Fi and was able to get my computer connected to the Internet and to our NAS, which is critical for backing up photos and documents.  I did not, however, mess around further with the printer.  My plan is to move it back into my office at home and leave it there.  I will find a newer one, with better networking functionality, to put in the bus.

We planned to be on the road in the morning between 8 and 8:30 AM so we went to bed before 11 PM.  Linda fell asleep before NCIS-LA ended but I watched the channel 6 news/weather before turning out the lights.  The Cleveland Indians baseball home opener was postponed because of snow on the field and the TV weatherman reported that the average last date for snow in Cleveland is April 18, and for Detroit, April 22.  In spite of a mild winter and early spring, I knew there was a reason we were not in a hurry to return home.  The low at our house was forecast to be 18 degrees F overnight.

2016/04/05 (M) Celebration

We were up at 7 AM, showered, and got dressed.  We tended to our cats and prepared the motorcoach for them to be comfortable while we were away for part of the day.  We each had a banana, and a little orange juice to wash down our vitamins, but did not have a full breakfast or our usual morning coffee.  We gathered up all of the things Linda needed for her doctor’s appointment and were in the car and on our way at 8:10 AM.

Our destination was the office of Dr. Michael Seidman in Celebration, Florida, a trip of 60 to 65 miles from Jetty Park that would take about as many minutes.  Most of the route was Toll Road (FL-528 and FL-417) and we did not have to slow down for the toll booths because we have a Florida SunPass transponder that we can move between the bus and the car.  We put the address of the clinic, which is attached to Florida Hospital, into the GPS.  It accepted Celebration as the city, but the routing showed the destination as Kissimmee.  I didn’t care what it called the place as long as it got us to the correct location.

We left earlier than needed in order to arrive earlier than required and allow for traffic and navigational contingencies.  Less than a mile from the medical center we spotted a Panera Bread Company store and stopped to have bagels and coffee.  While we were there we made use of the free Wi-Fi to update apps on our iPads and smartphones.  We left at 10:15 and finished the short trip to the Florida Hospital complex.  We found a parking spot, found the clinic building, and found the suite for the Head & Neck Surgery Center of Florida (H&NSCF).  Linda had already completed much of the required new patient paperwork so we were there with time to spare.

Sheila, one of the office assistants, got Linda checked in and wanted to know if we had brought copies of her records from Henry Ford Health System, where Dr. Seidman worked for 30 years and treated Linda for the last 20 of those.  I had e-mailed Sheila the day after she asked me to get those records to let her know that HFHS would not send them to another hospital or clinic at Linda’s request and that the H&NSCF would have to request them.  Sheila said she did not receive that e-mail, even though I replied to one she sent Linda.  Oh well, there was nothing to be done at that point.

It was a great relief to Linda to be able to get in to see Dr. Seidman.  Dr. S and his PA, Katherine, carefully went over the history of Linda’s illness and treatment of the last three weeks.  He indicated that the treatment was what he would have prescribed, which was comforting to know.  His routine ENT examination did not reveal any indication of infection or fluid in her “good” (right) ear, which was also good to know.  He really wanted to compare the recent audiological results with her last tests from HFHS so he made a call to someone at the HFHS ENT clinic and was able to get them to fax the test results.  He chaired the ENT department for much of his time at Henry Ford, and that was apparently still worth something with former colleagues.

Dr. S also inserted a scope through Linda’s right nostril and into her throat to exam the areas that cannot be seen any other way.  The scope is a thin, flexible cable with a camera and LED light source at the tip.  The image is fed to a monitor, where I got to see it in real time, but was also recorded so Linda got to see it afterwards.  Her vocal cords did not close completely and were slightly bowed, which Dr. S thought probably accounted for her weak, slightly horse, voice but there was no sign of infection or other pathology, such as tumors.  He noticed that the Eustachian tube opening was “bubbling” which he thought was a good sign.  He also examined the left nostril and did not see anything unusual there either.

All of that was good news, of course, but we were both a bit let down that there wasn’t any additional treatment he could provide at this time.  Direct injection of steroids into the middle ear was still a possibility but he wanted Linda to wait at least four weeks to see if she improved on her own before going down that path.  Equally frustrating was that her hearing, while marginal, was too good for a cochlear implant.  Not that she is eager to have one of those, of course, what she wants is the hearing in her right ear restored to what it was before she got sick a month ago.

Our friend, Mara, was moving her motorhome today from Clermont to Winter Haven and her friend, Michael, was driving to Orlando International Airport to drop off a rental car and fly back to Phoenix, Arizona.  They had hoped to do all of that by way of Celebration and have lunch, with or without us, at Ari, a Japanese sushi restaurant.  We had indicated that it was very doubtful we would make it to lunch, given the timing of Linda’s appointment, but called Mara when we got back to our car to update her.  It turned out that when she got ready to leave her motorhome slideout would not slide in.  (I think that’s why they are called slide “outs.”)  Michael returned home as planned while Mara arranged for a technician to fix her non-sliding slideout.

We needed to fax a few documents to National General Insurance Company, so we went in search of a Staples with a copy center.  Having taken care of that we wanted to have lunch before heading back to Cape Canaveral so as not to be eating dinner too late in the day.  We found another Panera near FL-417 and Orange Blossom Trail and ate there.  The kale-romaine-couscous-almond salad was excellent and the black bean soup was as good as usual.  Well fed, we got on the FL-417 Toll Road and headed back towards the FL-528 Toll Road, which we took back to Cape Canaveral.

We were back at Jetty Park before 2:30 PM and just relaxed for a while.  Around 4 PM we went outside to take care of a few things in preparation for our departure tomorrow.  I got out the waste drain hoses and connected two of them together to reach from the utility bay connection to the sewer connection, which was inconveniently located directly behind the RV pad.  We drained the waste tanks, rinsed out the hoses, and returned everything to their storage tub.  Using the 3-step stool, I retracted the two awnings on the driver side, which I had previously deployed to shade the Windows from the mid-afternoon sun.

We then emptied out the back of the car so I could add air to the temporary spare, which gave us a low pressure alarm on the drive from Webster to Cape Canaveral.  I had turned on the TireTraker TPMS earlier and most of the readings looked OK, but as long as I had the portable air compressor, hose, air chuck, and pressure gauge out I checked the front right (curb, PS) tire as a check on the TPMS. The tire gauge pressure was several pounds lower than the TPMS indicated pressure and was fairly close to where I wanted it so I left it alone.

Our destination tomorrow was Williston Crossings RV Resort in Williston, Florida, a trip of about 140 miles.  We had about a half tank of fresh water so I did not get out the softener and add any.  Somewhere in the middle of all this work we chatted with several neighbors, but eventually we got the car and bus repacked, including the patio mat and the two bag chairs.  At that point we only had the entry mat, entry stool, and power cord to deal with and the outside would be ready for travel.

Before dinner we went for a walk out by the shipping channel, the pier, and the beach.  There were people out and about but the park did not feel crowded and was quiet and calm, unlike the festive energy of the weekend with its day visitors, picnickers, and family campers with younger children.  It’s as if J. P. has moods, and one has to spend enough time here and experience them to begin to get a sense of the place.  We could understand why Pat and Vickie like to come here every year, even if that is not what we would choose to do.

I could not recall what Linda made for dinner because I am trying to finish this post a week later.  What I do recall is that the Norwegian Breakaway was scheduled to set sail at 9 PM, well after sunset.  It had been a pleasantly cool day with clear skies but turned chilly with the setting of the sun and a noticeable breeze, especially outside the campground by the water.  Linda was tired and a little chilled and chose not to walk out and watch the ship leave.  At 8:45 PM I got my camera, walked over to the channel, and positioned myself by the “Minimum Wake” sign.  I had a good view of the Port to the west and could lean on one of the posts for support if needed.  I put my camera in SCN (scene selection) mode, selected the “Night” setting, and waited.

I had not noticed that the ship was docked with its stern facing the ocean until it started to move.  Its position at the dock meant it would have to do a 180 degree turn before moving down the channel and into the ocean.  And that meant it was going to take longer to exit the port and give me more opportunity to photograph it.

The Norwegian Cruise Lines “Breakaway” doing a 180 degree maneuver in the turning basin. Port Canaveral, FL.

The cruise ships are always brightly illuminated when coming and going in the dark and are quite pretty to see as they glide almost silently by.  They are also challenging to photograph as they are often very high contrast (high dynamic range) subjects, especially at night.  Ideally I would shoot multiple bracket exposures and combine them using HDR software, but I would have to get the camera on a tripod and even then the exposures would be just long enough that the ship would change position slightly between frames.  I did the best I could with single frame, hand-held exposures braced against the sign post.  By the time the Breakaway was in open water I was getting chilled and headed back to the warmth of our bus.  I transferred the images to my computer and took a quick look at them before settling in to watch a few minutes of TV and then go to bed.

 

2016/03/31 (R) Historic Cocoa Village

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2016/03/31 (R) Historic Cocoa Village

I got up briefly at 6:30 AM to close the roof vents as a stray rain shower drifted over Jetty Park (JP).  I got up again around 7 to put some fresh food in the cats’ bowls so they would stop trying to get us up and then went back to bed.  Linda was up around 7:30 AM to take her last steroid pill and I finally got up to stay at 8:30.  I walked over to the office around 9:15 but it was closed until noon for store inventory.  I knew that from yesterday but had forgotten.  I walked back to our coach and brewed a pot of Ethiopian Yirgacheffe half-caffe coffee, which was much better than the office coffee anyway.

It was sunny but humid this morning and by 10 AM it was up into the 80’s in the coach so we closed up and turned on the air-conditioners.  Linda has been doing accounting work for the bakery but was waiting on a document from the controller so she walked over to use the shower facilities.  I worked on filling in yesterday’s blog post until she returned and then I walked over to get my shower.  Back at the coach I exchanged text messages and phone calls with Vickie regarding plans for today while Linda exchanged text messages with Mara regarding a possible meetup next week.

A small part of downtown Historic Cocoa Village, Florida.

Pat and Vickie picked us up at noon and drove to Historic Cocoa Village on the mainland.  It was all boutique shopping and restaurants but still quaint and interesting enough.  Linda located The Garden of Eden Cafe and Bakery on Happy Cow but it was no longer in business and we ended up driving back to a Steak ‘n Shake on Merritt Island for lunch.  It was right on the 520 Causeway so it was very convenient.  Linda, Vickie, and I had garden salads and Pat had a hamburger.  I also ordered onion rings.  The salads were good but the onion rings were some of the worst I’ve ever had.  They were very greasy which was probably due to the fry oil not being hot enough.

We stopped at the Ron Jon Surf Shop (RJSS) in Cocoa Beach on the way back.  In the six years that Pat and Vickie have been coming to JP they had never visited the RJSS.  Linda wandered away from the group so I followed her, after which we could not find Pat and Vickie.  It turned out that they also got separated.  The store is big, with two floors, but not THAT big.  It is, however, crammed full of merchandise and the layout made it hard to see most of the store from any given vantage point.  It was also packed with people, which further obscured my view, but through text messages and phone calls we eventually all ended up in the same place and finally drove back to JPCG.

A little piece of Florida charm in Historic Cocoa Village, Florida.

It turned out to be a very warm, humid, partly cloudy day and we were glad we had closed up our coaches and turned on the air-conditioners before we left.  Jasper and Juniper were glad too, and also glad to see us.  I walked over to the office to see if any full hookup sites had opened up, but they had not.  There wasn’t anyone else in the lounge area so I switched the TV to The Weather Channel to get a sense of the national and local weather situation.  A line of strong to severe storms was draped from Michigan’s thumb all the way to the Gulf of Mexico at the Texas/Louisiana border.  It was moving east across the continent with numerous severe thunderstorm watches and warnings, and a few tornado watches and warnings, ahead of it.  The northern tip looked like it would pass through our hometown but be below severe intensity.

Back at the coach Linda had resumed working on accounting for the bakery.  I checked e-mail, replied to one from Gary at BCM, and then logged into RVillage to deal with another one.  Scott and Tami had requested to join the CCO group, which is private, so I had to approve their request.   I also updated our checkout date at JP to Wednesday, April 6.  I updated the Excel spreadsheet that I use to track water/tank/softener usage and was just finishing up when I spotted the Carnival Victory cruise ship coming down the shipping channel from its dock at Port Canaveral.  I grabbed the camera and hurried over while Linda locked the bus and followed me.

It was hazy due to the heat and humidity but I clicked off a few photos anyway.  We knew that one of the Disney cruise ships would also be setting sail shortly so we stuck around the channel and walked down towards the pier looking for a better/different vantage point.  These ships always leave between 5 and 5:30 PM heading east down the channel so it is not an ideal time of day to photograph them as we are looking northwest if we want to see the bow.  Once they pass us we are looking northeast with the sun over our left shoulder so the lighting is much better.  I might do better driving up to the Exploration Tower area of the Port and trying to photograph the Disney ships as the leave the dock.  There’s a lot more ‘stuff’ up there (boats buildings, cranes, etc.) to provide foreground and framing, but it might also just obscure the view.  I won’t know which it is unless I investigate it, which I probably will not do on this visit.

At 5:30 PM I spotted the Disney Magic coming out of its terminal basin into the main channel.  It took a while to get into position for the photographs I wanted to take.  After it cleared the shoreline and another set of buoys it turned southeast.  Linda checked the schedule latter and found out it was headed for the Bahamas on a three night cruise.  She also learned that the Magic and the Dream are the only Disney Cruise Line ships that sail from Port Canaveral, which explained why we saw them as often as we did.

A Little Blue Heron by the jetty and shipping channel. Jetty Park, Cape Canaveral, FL.

We headed back up the channel towards the west and stopped when I spotted the dorsal fin of a dolphin breaking the surface of the water by the entrance to the submarine turning basin.  We saw it three or four times as it headed back towards the ocean but then it disappeared.  While we were standing there chatting with a local resident a Little Blue Heron flew over and landed about five feet away from me.  It was looking for a handout, which we did not have, but I was able to walk around it and photograph it from different directions for a few minutes before it flew off in search of better prospects.

Back at our coach I worked on this post while Linda started preparing dinner.  She decided to make angel hair pasta with garlic, mushrooms, onions, and sun-dried tomatoes.  It’s a favorite “go to” meal that is relatively quick and easy to prepare but absolutely delicious.  Because of our late lunch, eaten between 2 and 3 PM, we did not have dinner until 7:30 PM.

After dinner we turned on the TV and put on our usual Thursday evening comedy programs.  I needed to proofread and edit a short article that someone else wrote for BCM but did not feel like doing it this evening.  I also needed to off-load today’s photos from my camera to my computer and Vickie wanted a picture of the manatees from the Merritt Island NWR, but I deferred all of that to tomorrow.  I did, however, fill in today’s activities in my blog post.  That is something I can comfortably do on my iPad while watching TV.

Around 9 PM it was still 76 degrees F outside but we turned off the air-conditioners and opened up the coach anyway.  The temperature was forecast to only drop to about 70 but we figured we would be comfortable enough, preferring fresh air and roof vent fan noise to recirculated air and the roar of the air-conditioner evaporator fans.

Around 10 PM Linda started the update of her iPad to iOS 9.3.  That took over an hour and when it finally rebooted her tablet she went to bed.  I watched channel 6.1 (CBS) long enough to see the weather forecast and then switched to 24.1 (PBS) to watch Charlie Rose.  At midnight I tuned in The Late Show with Stephen Colbert for a few minutes and then went to bed and fell asleep.

 

2016/03/29-30 (T-W) Merritt-Island Grills Lionfish

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2016/03/29 (T) Merritt Island NWR

Our day had four distinct parts.  Part one was our usual early morning routine which involved coffee, orange juice, homemade granola with fresh blueberries, and iPads.  Part 2 involved a trip to the office by me around 10:30 AM to pay the balance (2 nights) of our next three nights at Jetty Park.  The reason for this was that we had to move our bus from site #352 to site #358 at noon.

The current occupants of site #358 were packing up as I left for the office and pulled out by a little after 11 AM.  We shook out the patio and entry mats and laid them back on the ground.  We then removed all of the window/windshield covers and laid them on the patio mat.  Once they were stacked Linda rolled them up and put them away in the front bay.  While she did that I disconnected the fresh water connections from the supply faucet and coach inlet.  I then dumped the back water and gray water waste tanks.

Site #358 is a full hookup site but the waste drain is on the “wrong” (passenger) side of the coach at the back edge of the concrete pad.  In that location it would be almost impossible to use, but that would not be a problem as long as I dumped the tanks before we moved.  We can go 9 to 10 days before we have to dump but after today’s move we will be moving again in three days and again three days after that.  The next move is to a water only site (#3) by the shipping channel but we can stop at the dump station on the way if needed.  The last move we will be to site #303 with a sewer connection in the correct location.  What this comes down to is that waste management is not going to be a problem as long as the waste tanks are empty before we leave site #352 today.

Site #358 is directly behind site #352 so rather than load everything into the bays, I carried the water softener, fresh water filter, and hoses to the new site and then transferred the waste drain hose and support accordion while Linda carried the patio and entry mats and the entry step stool to the new site.  Linda also tidied up the interior enough that I could move the coach without anything getting broken.

At this point we were basically ready to move.  I shut off the air-conditioners and electric heating element for the Aqua-Hot, shut the main AC circuit breaker in the utility bay, and disconnected the shorepower cord.  I coiled the cord and carried it to the new site.  I then turned on the air valve for the engine accessories, connected the chassis batteries, and started the engine.

It took a couple of minutes for the chassis to air up during which time I lifted and dropped the tag axle a couple of times because I wasn’t sure it was responding to the control lever.  The people next door to us on the left were away so their pickup truck wasn’t there to impede our departure.  Linda moved a bicycle on their site just enough to make sure it was also out of my way.   The site was much easier to get out of than it was to get into, in part because there was a pickup truck parked next door when I backed in.

I slowly drove clockwise around Red Knot Circle to enter the northern branch of the loop going the correct direction (east) to be able to back into site #358.  There were no obstructions to impede backing into the site and I was able to maneuver the coach using the side mirrors and rear view camera while Linda spotted the rear end.  With no obstacles at the rear of the concrete pad we were able to center the tires side-to-side with a few inches to spare and front-to-rear with about a foot to spare fore and aft.  I dropped the tag axle and checked the level of the kitchen counter.  It looked good so I let the system air up until the air-dryer purged and then shut the engine off.

The back end of the coach was only about 40 feet from where it was 15 minutes earlier but we had to go through the whole departure/arrival process.  I disconnected the chassis batteries, closed the engine accessories air valve, connected the shorepower cord, and put AC power to the coach.  I then stored the sewer hose as we would not be needing it right away, and put the water softener in the front bay temporarily.  While I did that, Linda spread out the patio and entrance mats and set up the entrance step stool.  Pat and I were sitting at the picnic table enjoying the shade and the breeze when Vickie called to see if we were ready to go on our afternoon outing.  Pat walked back to their site to get the car (and Vickie) and so began Part 3 of our day.

Linda packed a light picnic lunch and I grabbed my small camera bag.  Pat and Vickie arrived at our site a few minutes later, picked us up, and we headed out.  Our destination was the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge just north of the John F. Kennedy Space Center.  The route was FL-A1A/FL-528 west to US-1 north to Titusville and then east on 403 to the NWR Visitor Center.

Linda needed to eat before she could take her next steroid pill so our first order of business was lunch on one of the picnic tables.  Once we had eaten we checked out the displays inside and then walked the boardwalk.  Vickie had her Senior Access pass and got a holder to hang it from the rearview mirror before we headed deeper into the refuge.

There is a channel that connects the Mosquito Lagoon to the Indian River Lagoon.  The channel is part of the Intercostal Waterway and is crossed by a drawbridge on Route 3.  The north bank of the channel east of the bridge is a regular hangout for West Indian Manatees and the refuge has a parking lot and viewing platform to safely accommodate visitors.  Pat and Vickie had been here before and not always seen manatees but today was our lucky day.

West Indian Manatees in the channel that connects Indian River Lagoon and Mosquito Lagoon. Merritt Island NWR, Florida.  The channel is part of the Intercoastal Waterway.

As best we could estimate there were at least a dozen manatees feeding and frolicking along the bank, including at least two juveniles.  We spent 30 minutes there, maybe longer, during which time I took about 50 photos.  The weather was heavily overcast and the water was a little murky, neither of which was ideal for photography.  The added challenge was that manatees usually only bring a small amount of their body out of the water at any one time, typically just their nostrils or tail and only for a short time.  The juveniles, however, seemed to be trying to climb onto the backs of what we presumed were their mothers and occasionally were sufficiently above the surface to have a good look at them.  Even so, getting a good photo was going be a matter of timing (anticipation) and luck, especially given the limitations on where I could position myself.

We saw a Wild Boar as we pulled out.  We still had plenty of hours of daylight and decided to drive the Wildlife Loop Road.  We saw lots of birds, a couple of alligators, and a Flamingo on the wing.  We then headed back to Titusville where we stopped at a CVS Pharmacy so Linda could restock her OTC medications.  Before we got out of Titusville the weather moved in with thunder and lightning.  We saw a pair of Flamingos on the wing on the way back to Jetty Park.

We got back to Jetty Park about 5 PM where Part 4 of our day was a quiet evening at home.  In spite of somewhat elevated humidity, and the possibility of rain in the forecast, we turned off the air-conditioners and opened the windows and roof vents/fans.  Linda was tired and did not want to go for a walk but felt well enough to make nice salads and heat some Amy’s Pad Thai for dinner.  We watched NCIS and NCISLA, both of which were reruns, and the James Corden “Car Pool Karaoke” special that was on instead of Limitless.  We are rarely up late enough to watch The Late Late Show but I had to admit that Corden is a very funny guy; hyperactive crazy, but very funny.  Since Linda could not hear the singing or banter, she did not really experience what was going on.

Once again Linda tried sleeping in bed but lying down was still causing increased pressure in her ears so she moved to the makeshift bed using the two facing captain’s chairs in the living room.  I watched the news/weather on the Orlando CBS affiliate and then watched part of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert before going to sleep at midnight.

2016/03/30 (T) GRILLS Lionfish

We had some light rain last evening that forced me to close the roof vents.  It appeared to be done by bedtime so I opened the vent in the bathroom and set the fan to exhaust on speed 2.  By the time we both got up this morning I did not feel like making coffee so we got dressed and walked to the office with our coffee mugs.  We watched the Bloomberg financial channel and The Weather Channel on cable/satellite TV in the lounge area and then checked to see if any full hookup sites had opened up for the weekend.  They had not, so we walked back to our rig.

I finished up yesterday’s blog post and then checked with Vickie about activities for today.  The John F. Kennedy Space Center is now an expensive “entertainment experience” run by a private company.  After checking our options we decided to pass.  The normal senior adult price for a 1-day pass is $46, $75 for a multi-day pass.  Two optional extended tours were $25 per adult per tour, so this would be a $100 to $125 per person, and probably require at least two days to do, if we wanted the full experience.  CocoaBeach4Less.com has a special for the general admission of two adults for $19.99 total.  The catch?  Sitting through a 1-hour presentation on the travel agency’s extensive services.  No obligation to buy, of course, but “no thanks” just the same.  We got to visit the Space Center as USAF ROTC cadets when it was in active use for the space shuttle program in the late 1970’s, so visiting it as an expensive entertainment experience did not hold much interest for us.

Vickie checked on the Exploration Tower and Cape Canaveral Lighthouse Tour.  It was $27 per person and only operated on Fridays and Saturdays.  (The Tower is open 7 days a week.)  We could not go on Friday because we have to move the bus again (our third Jetty Park Shuffle since we arrived on March 21st).  The tour was tentative for Saturday based on insufficient bookings.  Vickie explained that there would be four of us and was asked to call back at noon.  She did, and the tour was a ‘go’ so they signed up and then I called and signed us up.  They needed our full names, driver’s license numbers, and dates of birth as the historic Cape Canaveral Lighthouse is in the USAF Cape Canaveral Air Force Station which is restricted access property that is not open to the public.

I have had a really nice Logitech UltraThin Bluetooth Touch Mouse for a while and it has worked well.  It started acting up yesterday, which is to say it quit responding even though Windows 10 indicated it was connected.  I restarted my computer and recharged the mouse even though I did not think it needed it and it worked again until today, when it quit responding again.  I was not in the humor to waste time with it, and Linda needed some additional medications, so I drove to Cocoa Beach.  My first stop was the CVS Pharmacy and my second stop was at Radio Shack, both very conveniently on the right hand (west) side of N. Atlantic Avenue when heading south.  When I returned I moved my computer to the portable dining table so Linda could use the desk.  She worked on accounting for the bakery while I started editing blog posts from early January 2016.

We checked with Vickie around 1 PM but they were having lunch so we went for a long walk to the beach and pier without her.  Back at our coach Linda made nice salads for lunch, which we ate around 2 PM.  I then took a nap while she researched restaurant possibilities for dinner tonight.  She suggested GRILLS on the shipping channel and Vickie agreed to a 6 PM dinnertime.

When I got up Linda handed me a Livingston County Court Jury Summons for April 4 through 15.  Our daughter was checking our mail, saw it, scanned it, and e-mailed it to us.  That was obviously not going to work, so I called the phone number in the letter and got rescheduled to the last two weeks of June.  It was just dumb luck that the timing worked out as our children only check our mail every other week.

GRILLS is located towards the west end of the shipping channel on the south side near the Exploration Tower, deep sea fishing charters marina, and a number of other restaurants, bars, and shopping.  There were a lot of cars and people in the area and when we checked in with the hostess we were told it would be 45 minutes to an hour wait for a table.  Ugh.  Waiting for a table at a restaurant is not on my “favorite things to do” list.

We walked around a bit and browsed the shop across the street where we looked at Lion Fish in an aquarium and learned about them.  They are a highly invasive species with no natural predators in this part of the world.  Their spines are extremely venomous but their meat is not.  It is apparently incredibly tender and delicious and GRILLS features it on their menu.  It only took 30 minutes to get a table and the time passed quickly enough as we had something to occupy us.  The restaurant was crowded and noisy with spring break vacationers but Linda did OK.  She and I had black bean ‘burgers’ with salsa, Pat had a ‘real’ hamburger, and Vickie had fish tacos.  We walked down to the Weyland Gallery after dinner but it was closed.  We were all very full and returned to Jetty Park.  It was 8 PM when we got back to our rig.  For whatever reason we were picking up a lot more OTA TV stations tonight which gave us two PBS affiliate options.

As I wrote in yesterday’s post, we vacated site #352 just before noon and moved to site #358.  A smaller class C motorhome occupied site #352 last night but left this morning.  As of 5 PM site #352 was still unoccupied, so the park staff could have left us there and put the class C on site #358 last night.  As nice as Jetty Park is, and it is a nice place with generally friendly and helpful staff, it is owned and operated by the Canaveral Port Authority.  The CPA is a public/government entity and one gets the sense that the policies and procedures here have been developed more for the convenience of the operators than the comfort and convenience of the paying guests.  To be fair, we were probably still going to have to move before Friday, but if the park had a 1-night reservation for Tuesday, nothing for Wednesday, and a 1-night reservation for Thursday they could have left us on #352 until Friday when we move to site #3.

I had an iOS update available for my iPad2 and waited until 10 PM to initiate it using the Jetty Park Wi-Fi.  It took 30 – 45 minutes to download and install.  Once my tablet restarted I immediately had 10 app updates. The smallest was 27 MB and all the others were over 50 MB with the largest being 103 MB.  I did the updates one-at-a-time while I watched the news and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.  Linda went to bed at 11 PM and I finally climbed in at 1 AM after starting the last update.  Being on the road with a limited cellular data plan is not like being at home with a DSL connection so we do what we have to do to manage our data usage.

 

2016/03/21-23 (M-W) Webster Cape-Canaveral Jetty-Park Recovery

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2016/03/21 (M) Webster to Cape Canaveral

I was up sometime before 8 AM after a less than completely restful night’s sleep.  Yesterday was our last full day at Florida Grande Motor Coach Resort (FGMCR) in Webster, Florida and today was departure day.  I am always a bit anxious when the time comes to move the bus after sitting for a while, and even though we have only been here for two weeks it has been a lovely, comfortable place to base camp.  Although we only had about 100 miles to travel today, I was more anxious than usual because of a combination of factors.

At the top of the list was the tag axle brake issue.  While I was hopeful that Joe had taken care of it, at least for now, we would not know for sure until we moved the bus.  Another big factor was that Linda has been very ill for the last few days and was still not well this morning.  That meant I would have to do more of the work of preparing the bus for travel.  I didn’t mind, of course, I just did not want to overlook something that was normally part of her portion of the departure routine.  The third, forth, and fifth factors were:  3) using our new SunPass transponder for the first time; 4) taking the bus on the Florida Turnpike and Toll Road system for the first time, and; 5) traveling a route that came into the Orlando area from the northwest and swung around the southern edge before heading straight east towards the Atlantic ocean.  The sixth and last factor was our destination, which was not a motorcoach resort with wide, straight roads and big sites, but rather a county park with narrow, twisty roads, closer sites, and lots of trees.  Charming, but not necessarily “big rig” friendly.  I knew, because I had visited Pat and Vickie Lintner here two years ago.

We had a reservation at Jetty Park Campground on Cape Canaveral where our GLCC friends, Pat and Vickie Lintner, have been since mid-February.  We had reservations starting today and running through the 28th, with departure on the 29th unless we decide to extend our stay and there was a site available.  Check-in time was 2 PM and our mapping app indicated 104 miles and a little over two hours for our preferred route.  Based on that we wanted to pull out of FGMCR sometime between 11 AM and noon.  That gave us most of the morning to prepare the bus for travel, and that was comfortable even with Linda being ill and not able to do as much as usual.

I did not have coffee this morning—I never do on travel days—and we just had a couple of pieces of toast early for breakfast.  In spite of not feeling well Linda got most of the inside of the bus ready to travel and even swept the floor.  I packed up our computers and iPads and then prepared the outside stuff.

The biggest, most time consuming job, and my least favorite, is checking and adjusting tire pressures.  I had plugged in the TireTrakker TPMS repeater last night and I turned on the receiver/monitor this morning after letting it recharge overnight.  It eventually acquired temperatures and pressures from all 13 tires.  The temperatures were all in the 60’s so I knew the pressure readings were current rather than left over from our previous trip.  The sensors are not accurate enough, however (in my opinion), so I checked all of the tires with my tire gauge except the mini-spare in the car.  The passenger side steer tire on the bus needed an extra 2 PSI, but all four tires on the car were low and needed to be increased.  So did the car spare, but I was not about to empty out the back of the car to get to it.  I should have taken care of this sometime during the last two weeks as the pressure was low enough to keep triggering an alarm on the monitor, and was not at the correct pressure for use should we need it.

By 10:30 AM we were ready to go except for disconnecting the shorepower and hooking up the car.  I was going to reposition the coach so we could hookup the car at the site and then exit to the left but a landscaping crew showed up, parked along the other side of the road to our left, and unhooked their trailer.  I was not going to ask them to move, and I doubt that they would have even if I did.  It was easier to just exit to the right anyway and hook up the car at the staging area by the clubhouse where we unhooked when we came in, so that’s what we decided to do.

At 11:20 AM I disconnected the shorepower and stowed the cord.  Chassis batteries ON; engine accessory air supply ON; inverter operating; main engine start; no problem.  I let the suspension and brakes air up on low idle as Joe had suggested and then pulled up the tag axle.  Linda moved the car to the empty pad across the street to the right and watched as I pulled out.  Once I cleared the turn I put the tag axle back down and Linda followed me counterclockwise around the front “pond” to the staging area where I shut off the engine and she pulled the car up behind the bus.  Many (most) RV parks have “no engine idle” rules.  There isn’t one posted here, and the staging area is far enough from the clubhouse and the closest sites that our engine would not have bothered anyone, but since we would be hooking up the car directly behind the engine we did not want to listen to it while working.

No less than three people stopped to chat with us while we were hooking up the car for towing.  That actually violates good RVing manners (unwritten rules) but they were just curious, being friendly, and/or wishing us safe travels.  The problem is that you are engaged in a critical process and anything that distracts you can result in overlooking something with potentially serious, even disastrous, consequences.  We are experienced enough at this point, however, to double check everything before we drive away, especially if we have been interrupted.  This time we backed the car up until the tow bar arms locked in place and then secured the air line and electrical cables so they would not pull loose.  Linda remained outside to do the light check while I started the bus engine and operated the controls.  Everything checked out and once Linda was back on board we were ready to go.  She had entered our destination into the GPS unit before we pulled out of our site.

Pat & Vickie Lintner’s site at the Jetty Park Campground, Cape Canaveral, FL.

As I pulled around to the exit gate the gatehouse attendants saw or heard us and opened it.  We got big smiles, waves, and “safe travels” from them as we left.  It was 11:50 AM.

The GPS routed us the same way we had determined using our iPad mapping apps.  We turned left out of the resort onto CR-478 headed east.  The road curved around to the north about four miles later and ran up to the town of Center Hill where we picked up CR-48 eastbound.  A half mile later the road turned northeast and a couple miles up the road the GPS told us to turn onto CR-704 (FL-?).  I had just started the turn when I saw the weight restriction sign; nothing over 28,000 pounds GVWR permitted! What the?!!!

I stopped soon enough that I was able to turn back onto CR-48 without having to back up, after traffic cleared, so we caught a break there but were both a bit unnerved by the failure of our Rand-McNally TripMaker RVND 7710 GPS to route us correctly.  It then occurred to me that the very small update I Installed last night might have reset the vehicle configuration as I vaguely recalled this happening once before.  Why R-M would design their GPS unit so it loses configuration data as a result of an update is beyond me, but there are several things about this unit that defy common sense.

Linda used her cell phone to try to figure out where we were now headed and determined that we could still get to where we needed to be.  She then opened the preferences screen on the GPS unit and found the configuration screens.  Sure enough, it thought we only weighed 20,000 pounds (we are closer to 42,000) and were only 12’6″ tall (we are probably 13’1″).  I really fault R-M for this as it creates a potentially dangerous situation.  Anytime the settings are changed, certainly if they are reset as part of an update, the unit should display a message to that effect and not allow the unit to be used until it is acknowledged.  Better yet, I don’t understand why the configuration should be changed as part of the update process.

At some point we turned left onto US-33, which seemed wrong, but Linda verified it was correct.  We ended going south on US-27 all the way back to Clermont and then getting on the Florida Turnpike (FL-91) headed south towards Miami.  We made it through the first Toll Plaza with an “OK to Proceed” sign, so we knew that the new transponder was working, which was a big relief.  The lane guidance feature of the GPS unit worked well and we did not have any difficulty negotiating the interchanges.  Linda kept an eye on the tire sensors throughout the trip.  All of the tires indicated temperatures in the 60’s except the driver side tag, which was 90 to 102.  It was definitely elevated, but not enough to be an immediate problem.  This was not unexpected as I knew that the new pads were dragging more than on the passenger side.  Interestingly, the pressure in that tire had not risen disproportionately higher than any of the other tires, indicating to me that it was probably the valve stem that was warmer due to its direct contact with the wheel, rather than the rubber of the tire, which was getting plenty of cool air blowing around it.

We arrived at Jetty Park at 2:15 PM, only 10 minutes later than our original ETA before we had to detour around the weight-restricted road.  Our name was not on the list (sigh) at the entrance gate but we were given the gate code and directed to the campground.  I found a place to pull up and shut off the engine while I went in to register us, as Linda had effectively lost her voice.  We were not on the list (double sigh) there either (same list, I suspect) but they found us in the computer.  I had confirmation e-mails, if needed, but had not brought them in with me.  We unhooked the car and parked it at the office.  We drove the bus around through the narrow, curvy gravel roads but I was able to make all the turns, even with cars parked near the edges, so the road system here is laid out better than it appears.

Jetty Park is a county-owned and operated public park and beach with a campground that has been turned over to the Cape Canaveral Port Authority to manage.  It is in a premium location in Cape Canaveral, Florida just north of Cocoa Beach and just south of the Kennedy Spaceflight Center and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.  It is on the south side of the shipping channel that connects Port Canaveral to the Atlantic Ocean.  Cargo ships use this port/channel, but the main attractions are the Disney and other cruise ships and the U.S. Navy Trident submarines.  In addition to all of its other charms, it is one of the best places from which to watch rocket launches, and there is one scheduled for tomorrow night!  I think this is the first time we have stayed in a county park with the motorcoach.  It is more like a state park than the private RV parks and resorts where we usually stay.  It’s probably closest in appearance and feeling to a nice KOA.

Pat and Vickie saw us drive by and walked down to watch while Linda helped me back into site #343, a full hookup, 50 Amp site with nice trees around it.  I could not back far enough into the site to get the front tires onto the concrete pad due to low branches at the rear of the site.  As a result we were slightly low in front.  That would not normally be a problem but the Level Low system would not adjust the front end.  I have a spare air leveling solenoid and might have to work on this while we are here.  Ugh.  I took a picture on my phone and e-mailed it to our son and daughter.

Site #343, our first (of many) sites at JPCG (on right, beyond the trailer. Cape Canaveral, FL.]

I did not plug in the shorepower cord as I wanted to let the house batteries discharge to 24 VDC (50% SOC).  Linda and Vickie searched online for medical clinics.  Linda selected one about three miles away in Cocoa Beach and I drove her there.  It took about two hours from the time we arrived until she had her prescriptions.  We went to the CVS Pharmacy across the street to have them filled.  They would not be ready for 2 to 2.5 hours so we went back to the campground so Linda could rest as comfortably as possible.

Back at our rig I got our Wi-Fi Ranger connected to the park’s public Wi-Fi system and got our iPads and my computer online.  I did not set up Linda’s computer as it will likely be a few days before she is in the humor to use it.  I checked e-mail and the throughput appeared to be usable, if somewhat slow.  I suspect it will be better between midnight and 8 AM, but that is not when I tend to be up.  If we have updates, however, or I need to upload or download are files to/from BCM, I might adjust my schedule.  The RV life requires agility.

I left at 6:30 PM and drove back to Cocoa Beach to pick up Linda’s prescription medications.  I stopped at a Publix supermarket first and bought various groceries before going to the CVS Pharmacy.  On the way back I stopped at a Dunkin Donuts for a coffee for me and finally got back to our coach at 7:45 PM.  Linda helped get the groceries inside and then took her first dose of meds.

I turned the front TV antenna towards Orlando and rescanned for channels.  The TV found at least 60, including CBS and two different PBS affiliates.  I pointed the rear antenna in the same direction and rescanned the rear/bedroom TV but the scan would not compete successfully.  I tried it a couple of times with the same result each time.  Arrrgh.  When in doubt, do a power-off power-on reset, right?  I unplugged the power from the antenna controller and the TV set, waited long enough for any power capacitors to bleed down, and plugged them back in.  I pointed the antenna again and then scanned for channels.  Eureka, this time they were all there!  I should have tried that while we were at FGMCR.  Doh!

We watched our usual Monday night TV shows on CBS plus a few minutes of news and weather and then went to bed.  Given how Linda felt and was still coughing I figured neither of us was going to get a good night’s sleep, but we were both tired and there wasn’t anything else to do except try.  An overnight low of about 50 degrees F was expected so I had closed the roof vents and left the windows open just a crack.  We were still operating off the house batteries and inverter so I did not turn on the usual night lights.

2016/03/22 (T) Jetty Park Atlas

Linda had a really bad night last night, maybe the worst yet since she took ill, with persistent extended episodes of painful coughing.  She was obviously uncomfortable, and no doubt also frustrated, as she was finally able to start taking medication last night at 8 PM.  She was already wrung out and very tired, and I was a bit spent myself after the day we had yesterday, but neither of us got a good night’s sleep.  Today will need to be an easy day, of necessity, and we will need to rest so we can be up and alert late this evening for the rocket launch.  An Atlas V (5) launch is scheduled from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 11:05 PM this evening.  It is a resupply mission for the International Space Station.

I got out of bed at 7:15 AM and fed the cats.  I was not well-rested, and would like to have gotten back under the nice warm covers, but I was also uncomfortable and had spent as much time supine as I cared to for one night.  The outside air temperature overnight got down to 51 degrees F but we closed the roof vents, and only left the windows open a crack, before going to bed last night so the inside temperature only dropped to 65.  I did not plug in the shorepower cord when we got here yesterday so I could not use the electric heater pad on the bed, but we had plenty of covers (and cats) to keep us warm and I did not need the extra heat.  I put on my sweats this morning, and was very comfortable.

Linda got up around 7:45 AM to take her medications.  She needed to heat a cup of water to make a salt water gargle mixture but the house batteries were down to 24.0 VDC.  That is roughly a 50% SOC (State Of Charge).  Lead acid batteries, including AGMs, can be discharged a bit more than that but it shortens the number of times they can be cycled so I do not like to let them go much below that level.  I took a few minutes to plug in the shorepower cord and soon enough we had 240/120 VAC power to the coach.  After Linda prepared her gargle mixture I rearranged the kitchen counter and then made coffee and got our vitamins and juice ready.

Linda tried to play a few games on her iPad while I worked on the drafts of my blog posts for the last two days and started the one for today.  Pat and Vickie were out walking and stopped by to see how Linda was doing.  I walked over to the office at 11 to register/pay for the next 7 nights of camping and walked past site #352 on the way.  It was still occupied, but the current occupants were clearly in the final stages of vacating the site.  I walked past the site again on my way back from the office and the current occupants were just pulling out.  When I got back to our coach I let Linda know it was time to move.

We walked over to the new site to scope out where to put the car and how to approach getting the coach backed in and then walked back to our current site.  Linda closed the front windows and secured a few loose items, but mostly left everything sitting right where it was as we were only going for a short, easy ride.  I turned off the Aqua-Hot electric heating element and then took care of the outside stuff.  I shut off the shorepower, disconnected the cord, and stowed it away, once again wishing that I had a cord reel.  I turned on the chassis batteries and engine accessory air supply, and started the engine.  While the engine idled and the chassis aired up Linda drove the car to the new site, parked it, and awaited my arrival.

Moving the coach from site #343 to site #352 was a simple matter of driving counterclockwise almost all the way around Red Knot Circle, the easternmost loop of the campground, and pulling into Siskin Drive headed east.  The location of trees and a light pole made for a tricky spot to get into.  The guy in the site to our east (driver’s side) offered to move his truck but I determined that it was not really in the way.

I lifted the tag axle to shorten the turning radius of the bus while maneuvering through the campground.  The drive was easy but it took a little bit of back and forth for Linda to get me backed in and centered on the concrete pad.  The trees at the back of the site were trimmed up high enough that I could back the coach in far enough to just get the steer tires onto the pad.  That was important as the pad was level enough that I did not need to adjust the leveling of the coach, which was a good thing because yesterday the front end portion of the Level Low system would not work.  I got out of the coach a couple of times to check the location of the tires and tree limbs and was pleased to see that the tag axle tires were actually off the ground.

I shut the engine down and we went through a modified arrival routine.  As usual, I shut off the chassis batteries, closed the air supply valve for the engine accessories, plugged in the shorepower cord, and put power to the coach.  The Magnum 4024 inverter/charger worked fine yesterday and it worked fine again today.  I do not know what caused the fault on the drive up from Arcadia to Webster, but resetting the unit seems to have restored it to proper operation.

The beach at Jetty Park & Campground looking south at Cocoa Beach, FL.

Linda got out the door mat, patio mat, our two bag chairs, and our plastic side table.  She also got the tire covers out of the car and put them on the bus.  I got out the windshield covers and the Little Giant step/extension ladder and set it up.  I retrieved the rivets to hold the lower windshield wipers off the glass and then Linda handed me the windshield wiper covers.  I wanted to put these on first to protect the windshield cover from getting snagged on the metal edges of the arms and wiper blade inserts.

This was the first time we have put the new windshield covers on since we got them two weeks ago so we had to figure out the easiest way to do it, or at least a way that worked. We positioned the large one-piece windshield cover behind the lower wipers and above their drive shafts.  That supported the fabric while I pulled it up under the upper wipers and attached the upper center snap and the lower driver side corner snap.  I repositioned the ladder to the driver side front corner of the bus, pulled the fabric up, and attached the driver side upper corner snap.  I moved the ladder to the passenger side front corner of the bus, pulled the fabric up, attached the upper corner snap, and then the lower corner snap.  I had to stretch to reach the upper snaps, so next time I will make the step ladder a little taller.

There are three covers for the passenger side: one for the door, one for the window above the door, and one for the window behind the door.  These are all small enough that there was no particular difficulty attaching them.  The trick was to start at the top and attach as many snaps as possible before climbing down and repositioning the ladder.  For the one large driver side cover I started with the upper center snap, then attached the upper rear snap.  I moved the ladder forward and attached the upper front snap and then did the three bottom snaps. When we were done with that we were finally free to relax.  Vickie and Linda discussed walking the park and Linda suggested starting between 3 and 3:30 PM.  I gathered she was finally feeling a little better, or was just sick and tired of being sick and tired.

At 2 PM Linda asked me get her some more tissues and sore throat spray.  I headed for the CVS pharmacy but ended up at the Publix supermarket, which is closer by a mile or so.  Besides liking Publix, that meant less traffic to deal with.  Somewhat like the Florida Keys, but not as extreme, we are on a long, skinny island with one main road running along its spine.  Unlike the Keys, there are more side roads and an occasional causeway that goes over to Merritt Island and on to the mainland.  I found what I needed at Publix and was back at the park in due course.

At 3:30 PM we went for a stroll around the campground and park with Vickie as tour guide.  After our stroll Linda was hungry and heated up some Amy’s Tomato Bisque Soup (vegan).  I was really tired and laid down in bed to take a nap that lasted over two hours.  When I got up I had the rest of the soup and a large green salad.  We then watched out usual Tuesday evening CBS TV programs but did not get to see the last 15 minutes of Limitless as Vickie texted to jet me know they were on their way over to fetch us and walk to the shipping channel to watch the rocket launch.

The Atlas V resupply mission for the International Space Station lifted off from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station right on schedule at 11:05 PM.  The launch pad was much farther away from our position than the one used for the military satellite launch two years ago, but was illuminated by multiple light sources producing beams and shadows projecting up and highlighted by the clouds.  For all the launches Pat and Vickie have seen from this park, this was the first time they recalled seeing these lights.

Even though the Atlas V was a much larger rocket than one I saw two years ago, it was not as loud or as visually impressive as the other one.  There were scattered clouds at liftoff, which made for interesting viewing, but the rocket was fairly quickly above them and then disappeared from sight.  I tried to take a few photos, but I did not bother bringing the tripod or spend any time ahead of time figuring out appropriate camera settings.  I did, however, spend a few minutes playing with manual adjustment of the ISO setting.

A man sitting next to me was monitoring mission control on a radio so we knew what was going on before, during, and after the launch.  Only minutes after liftoff the rocket had burned enough fuel to reduce its weight by 75%, was 120 miles above the surface of the earth, was 338 miles downrange, and was traveling just under 10,000 miles per hour!  It’s time to orbit was projected to be 21 minutes and I believe the orbital velocity would be approximately 18,000 MPH.  (The actual orbital velocity would obviously be a very exact number.)

When it was all over we carried our chairs back to our rig and then walked to Pat and Vickie’s coach so she could drop her’s off.  Pat went in for the evening but the three of us went for a leisurely midnight stroll around the entire campground.  In spite of the event that had just occurred the campground was quiet.  There is some general purpose street lighting here, but not too much.  It’s a nice campground and I could see why Pat and Vickie like to come here.

Back at our coach Linda decided to sleep in the living room.  More specifically, she decided to sleep in the two captain’s chairs by locking them in position facing one another, reclining the backs, and putting the hassock between them.  She thought she might sleep better in a partially upright position.  I finished a few e-mails and retired to the bedroom where I was joined by the cats.  I was too tired to write but too awake to go right to sleep so I turned on the TV.  After flipping through the channels I settled on an old movie, The Battle of Britain.  By 2 AM it was still on, owing to too much time for commercials and not enough time for the movie, so I turned it off and went to sleep.

The “Jetty” and pier at Jetty Park. Cape Canaveral, FL.

2016/03/23 (W) On The Road To Recovery

Linda slept seven hours last night with very little coughing, at least that I heard.  She slept in the living room (her choice) and left the bedroom to me.  I had a long early evening nap and did not fall asleep until 2 AM.  Even then I did not sleep that well and got up at 8 AM.  Linda was still asleep but woke up not long after.  She wanted coffee so rather than grind up beans and deal with the whole do-it-yourself process we walked up to the campground office with our two Tervis mugs/caps and filled them there.  Free coffee all day, every day, is a nice campground amenity and not one we have found anywhere else.

Pat and Vickie decided to go to Epcot Center at Disney World today for the annual flower and garden show.  Vickie texted me to see how Linda was doing and if we wanted to go.  Linda was definitely not well enough yet to go anywhere or do anything, so we stayed behind and had an easy day at our home on wheels, starting with toast and jam for our breakfast.  Linda read a little and checked our banking.  I talked to my sister about our dad for a bit, but spent most of the morning completing draft blog posts for the last three days.  We both got showers, which brought our fresh water level down to ~1/6th tank (20 gallons).

I copied the photos I’ve taken during the last week, including the rocket launch last night, to my computer.  I selected one of the rocket launch for this week’s post card, processed it, and e-mailed it to Linda’s iPad.  While she created a post card for grand-daughter Madeline, I connected the fresh water hose and water softener, tested the harness of the water supply, (7 to 10 gpg), filled the fresh water tank (100 gallons), and connected the waste water drain hose.

With my outside chores done I selected two photos from my article on replacing the bearings in a Webasto diesel burner and e-mailed the image numbers to Gary and Jorge at BCM.  They will be used on the “Coming in June” page of the May issue, one for my articles and one for Lloyd DeGerald’s multi-step maintenance list.

The nighttime launch of a rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station as seen from Jetty Park. Note: This was a long-exposure handheld shot. I was braced against a sign to take it.

I heated a can of Amy’s Golden Lentil “Indian Dal” soup and washed some black grapes for our lunch.  There was a cool breeze outside but a bit of heat gain in the coach so we sat outside, doodled on our iPads, and dozed in our folding bag chairs.  A little before 5 PM Linda decided she wanted to go for a walk on the beach.  The wind was strong out of the east with 3 to 4 foot waves breaking just off shore, but the late afternoon sun was warm enough to make for a pleasant stroll south towards Cocoa Beach.  As the sun dropped lower in the sky and was filtered by thin clouds it turned slightly chilly so we turned around and headed back to Jetty Park.  We continued our walk through the picnic and playground area and walked along the channel to the boat ramps and then to the campground office.  We got a couple of cups of coffee and sat down to watch the news but the TV was tuned to FOX News, so we left and walked back to our site, noting that Pat and Vickie’s car was back at their site.

We discussed what to do for dinner and decided on cooking the vegan Italian sausage and using it to top a salad.  I texted Vickie to ask how the garden and flower show was, and let her know that Linda was feeling slightly better.  We gave the cats their monthly dose of Cheristin flea medication, which they were due for yesterday.

Vickie came over at 7:15 PM with her iPad and we looked at all of the pictures she took at the Epcot Center Flower and Garden show.  It was clearly a spectacular exhibition and since we could not attend we were glad to see it through Vickie’s photographs.  By the time Vickie returned to her coach it was almost 9 PM so Linda suggested that we just have granola for dinner.  That sounded quick and easy to me, besides which I love her granola, so I did not need any convincing.

On Wednesday evenings we like to watch nature, science, and technology programs on PBS.  We have two PBS stations potentially available to us here at Jetty Park Campground but neither of them have 100% reliable signals.  I experimented with a range of antenna directions and selected the one that seemed to offer the most reliable signal for the 24.n channels.  NOVA was on the recreation of Noah’s Ark and Secrets of the Dead was on the discovery of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon in Ninevah, 250 miles north of Babylon and built by King Sennacherib.

Linda once again set up the captain’s chairs as a bed so she could sleep sitting up.  I could not tune in channel 24 in the bedroom so I finished watching the show in the living room.  At 11 PM I tuned off the lights in the front of the coach and left Linda to sleep while I retired to the bedroom to write, play a few games, and watch a little more TV before going to sleep.

 

2016/03/08 Custom Window Covers for the Bus

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Bill and Brenda Phelan, of RV Windshield Covers of Florida, operate a mobile business based out of Lakeland, Florida.  This is a photo gallery of the 1-day process they went through to make and install a set of five mesh covers for the windshield and front side windows of our 1991/92 Prevost H3-40 VIP Royale Coach (Monaco) converted coach.  We were at Florida Grande Motor Coach Resort near Webster, Florida, at the time.  Their mobile workshop is a converted EMS truck and is also an RV suitable for business trips of up to three weeks.  The photos are not captioned.  Click on any image to open the gallery view.

2016/03/04-06 (F–N) BTCRVR Conclusion

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2016/03/04 (F) Pre-departure Prep

I was up much later than normal last night trying to write my blog post for yesterday, get our network back online, and get my computer usable again.  I managed to do all of that, and was finally able to check my e-mail and off-load the photos I took earlier in the day to my computer and back them up to our NAS.  I saw some late night TV programs along the way and it was 2 AM when I finally got to bed.  On the plus side, I was tired, fell asleep right away, and slept well until 6 AM when the rain and the cats woke me up.  I got up, closed the roof vents, put a scoop of food in their bowls, and went back to bed.

Linda walks a lot but finds it difficult to just stand, and we did a lot of standing yesterday, both at the Edison Ford Estates and on the drive through the Wildlife Refuge on Sanibel Island, so she was a bit sore and tired from yesterday’s outing.  She got up around 7 AM this morning and I got up to stay an hour later.  I made coffee and she toasted bagels, which we enjoyed with some of the vegan cream cheese she picked up the other day at Publix.

We only have three nights left for this winter season at Big Tree Carefree RV Resort (BTCRVR) and we have been trying to prepare for our departure on Monday in small increments.  Chores that we accomplished before lunch included:

  • (B) Checking the bus tire pressures. I had to add 2.5 PSI to the passenger side steer tire.  That required me to get the air compressor out, along with the hose and air-chuck, and then put it all away; a lot of work for 2.5 PSI, but it had to be done.  It  reminded me, however, of how much I would like to have a built-in high pressure air-compressor and tank with distribution lines running to the four corners of the bus and terminating in air hose fittings.  That would allow me to just use a short (curly) air-hose that is easily moved to each position and takes very little space to store.
  • (B) Checking the windshield caulk. It was a mess and had water behind it that apparently kept it from setting up (curing) correctly.  I tried to fix it by pressing the water out but that just made a bigger mess.  I was going to test it for leaks with a hose but changed my mind after seeing the mess that was already there.
  • (B) E-mailing Pat and Vickie about the March 11 rocket launch at Cape Canaveral.
  • (L) Vacuuming the interior of the bus and mopping the floor.
  • (L) Cutting my hair.
  • (B) Calling Butch. He and Fonda were still in Quartzsite but planned to leave tomorrow or Sunday and take 3 to 4 weeks to get home.  Butch was actually in Phoenix with a ham radio buddy on their way to the Ham Radio Outlet (HRO) store when I called but was able to chat for a while.

Lunch was vegan hot dogs and sliced apples.  After lunch Linda got a text from her sister, Sr. Marilyn, informing us that her 50th Jubilee is scheduled for August 6 (this year).  That immediately changed our plans for the second half of this coming summer and the first half of the fall.  Our plan was to attend two RV rallies in the northeast U.S. and then visit the Prevost Car Inc. factory in Quebec enroute to the Canadian Maritimes, from which we would work our way back through New England in the early fall, arriving home by mid-October in time for Nickolas Guy-Erickson’s wedding on the 21st.  I was going to call FMCA today and register for the national rally in Springfield, Massachusetts, but the dates are August 3 – 6, so that clearly was not going to work.

We are committed to attending the Escapees RV Club 56th Escapade in Essex Junction, Vermont, which starts Sunday, July 24th, as we are both working the event as staff.  We will have to be there sooner, but do not know the exact date yet.  Departure will be on Friday the 29th, which gives us plenty of time to make it to St. Louis, Missouri before the Jubilee.  Still, the news suddenly left us with a whole lot of new decisions to make.  It will also allow us to attend the August CCO/GLCC Back-to-the-Bricks Rally in Clio, Michigan, and the September GLCC Surplus & Salvage Rally in Elkhart, Indiana.  Indeed, it opens up the possibility of building the barn this summer and/or having Daryl Mech, from DCM Heating and Cooling, install a new air-conditioning system for the house.  The one thing we knew for sure was that we were not going to travel from Vermont all the way to Missouri and then turn around and head to Quebec or the Maritimes.  That will have to wait for some other year.

Our afternoon chores included doing the laundry and updating my iPad, which I did while waiting for the laundry.  But first I loaded up a few additional recyclables and drove over to the Turner Center to drop them off.  There was some sort of problem at the NW corner of FL-70 and Turner Avenue that involved police, fire, and EMS vehicles and personnel, and had traffic tied up in every direction.  I managed to make the turn from westbound FL-70 onto Turner (which only goes north from there) but decided not to return by that route.  I headed east from the Turner Center but was not able to cut through Arcadia Village as the north (rear) entrance is gated.  The first available north-south road that went through to FL-70 was many miles farther east, but it made for a nice drive in the country.  I stopped at Walmart for grapes and bananas before returning to our RV resort.

We had planned to go swimming in the late afternoon and then take showers but it did not work out that way.  I would normally dump the two holding tanks before we travel, but I did not want to this time as I want to slosh the ingredients around on the drive from Arcadia to Webster.  As such, I am trying to get them reasonably full, but not so full that I have to dump them.

For dinner Linda made nice, large salads.  After dinner Linda went down to Mara’s motorhome to take care of her cats.  I called Chuck but he did not pick up so I left him a message.  Friday night TV is a bit of a wasteland so I edited the last few blog posts for November 2015.   I then selected a photo that Linda took of me standing in front of a Mysore Fig tree at the Edison Ford Estates to use in her next PhotoPostCard for Madeline.  She also made a post card for our grandniece, Lilly, using the photo of the baby alligators from Everglades National Park.  I found a photo of Lilly that her mom, my niece Amanda, had taken and set that to Linda to use to make a “sticker” to put on the photo post card.  I decided to purchase a license (lifetime) for the Faststone Image Viewer software and took care of that.

When Linda returned from her cat sitting duties we made the bed, had a few grapes and a small glass of wine (Barefoot Riesling), and turned in for the night.

2016/03/05 (S) Mara & Michael Return

It was pleasantly cool last night, with temperatures in the 60’s at bedtime and headed towards an overnight low in the upper 50’s; in other words, perfect sleeping weather.  And sleep we did.  Linda got a text message from Mara letting us know that she and Michael were waiting to disembark from the cruise ship and indicating that they had a wonderful time.  They were planning on stopping at a Whole Foods Market and wanted to know if Linda needed anything.  Linda requested plum vinegar, seitan, and vegan ricotta cheese, items we cannot find in Arcadia.

Linda got up around 8:15 AM and showered.  I got up at 8:30 AM, made our coffee, and then took my shower.  As a result of these showers, which we were going to take at the shower house, I am going to have to make some decisions today or tomorrow relative to dumping our holding tanks and adding fresh water.  We don’t need very much fresh water in the on-board tank for the trip to Florida Grande Motor Coach Resort in Webster on Monday and I would like to dispense with that weight in favor of keeping the black- and gray-water tanks mostly full.  The idea is that the motion of the coach will create an agitation effect which will help clean the tanks.  (I don’t really expect that it to happen, but it’s worth a shot.)

We had a slow leisurely morning as we lingered over our coffee and had granola with blueberries and bananas for breakfast.  Linda and Mara arranged for the four of us to have dinner together this evening so she made a grocery list.  I downloaded a new game named Wood Puzzle and tried it.  It’s a little bit like Tetris, but without constantly moving pieces, so it was somewhat fun.  I was never a big fan of Tetris.

Linda left at 10:30 AM to tend to Mara’s cats and then walk to the Winn-Dixie supermarket.  I got dressed, checked my e-mail, got the registration code for Faststone Image Viewer, and entered it into the software.  I checked the notifications in RVillage and visited the RVillage Stakeholders Group.  Curtis had posted a link to an “explainer video” so I e-mailed the link to our iPads.  I then gathered up the bedspread and large bath towels and headed to the laundry room.

While I was waiting for the laundry I finished yesterday’s blog post, uploaded it to our Dropbox, started today’s post, and played a few games.  The laundry was finally dry at 1:30 PM and I returned to our coach.  Linda had already returned, done some prep work for dinner, and was out walking around the resort when I returned.  She wanted to shop at Joshua Citrus one more time before we left so she drove there while I settled in to work on uploading blog posts!  My goal was to upload the remaining posts for October 2015, starting with the one for the 21st.  I accomplished that goal just before 6 PM.

Mara and Michael got back to Big Tree Carefree RV Resort mid-late afternoon and arrived at our coach for dinner at 6:30 PM.  Linda found a recipe for vegan Parmesan cheese and made some earlier in the day.  She used it to make a kale salad with almonds and a lemon dressing.  It was outstanding.  The main course was a quinoa and black beans dish that she has made before.  It was served hot and was a good choice for a cool evening.  She bought an Alamos Malbec wine (Argentina) and a bottle of Barefoot Moscato, but I was the only one drinking white wine so I finished the Barefoot Riesling we opened earlier this week.  Dessert was non-dairy chocolate ice cream with fresh sliced strawberries.

We had a good chat about Mara and Michael’s experience on the Holistic Holiday at Sea cruise.  There were a few speakers that we heard on the two cruises we went on, but an equal number of new speakers that we have not had the opportunity to hear in person.  Mara bought four cookbooks and left them for Linda to peruse.  It was very satisfying for us that that they had such a good experience since we were the ones that got Mara interested in the cruise and she got Michael to come along.

They left a little before 9 PM and walked back to Mara’s rig.  We watched an episode of Lucifer and then parts of two different fundraiser concerts on PBS; Brit Floyd and The BeeGees One Night Only.

2016/03/06 (N) Last Day Here

The cats were prowling by 6 AM so I got up, added food to their bowls, plugged in the charging cable for our Verizon Mi-Fi, and went back to bed.  It was already getting light and the birds were starting to chirp as if their calls were somehow responsible for the rising of the sun.  Squirrels and rabbits were, no doubt, scurrying about on the ground around our rig, as Juniper was taking it all in with her usual morning intensity.  Juniper got under the covers between us for a while and we drifted in and out of sleep in rhythm with the cats activities until 7:30 AM when we finally got out of bed to stay.

It was a bit chilly in our motorcoach, so I put on my sweats and slippers.  I made our morning coffee and then settled in on the sofa with my iPad and monogrammed throw.  I was joined by Jasper and later by Juniper as we listened to the Mockingbirds and Crows and watched the Vultures soar just above the trees as they headed out on their daily search for food.  Linda perused the cookbooks that Mara left, looking for recipes, while I put the finishing touches on yesterday’s blog post and started on today’s.

Today was our last full day at Big Tree Carefree RV Resort (BTCRVR) in Arcadia, Florida and we did not have any big plans other than a trip to one of the local supermarkets and dinner with our friends, Mara and Michael.  Mara and Linda definitely wanted to use the swimming pool one last time.  We leave tomorrow morning and Mara and Michael are pulling out on Tuesday.  We are headed north about 100 miles to Florida Grande Motor Coach Resort near Webster, Florida.  Mara and Michael are headed north a much shorter distance to the Thousand Trails Preserve in Wauchula on the Peace River.  We plan to meet up with them again in Winter Haven for a quintessentially “old Florida” water skiing show.  They might also drive over to Jetty Park while we are there to see a rocket launch, assuming it actually lifts off as scheduled on the 22nd.  It is an Atlas 5 resupply mission for the International Space Station, so it would be quite an experience.

BTCRVR has been a nice, comfortable place to spend a couple of months this winter and has provided the base of operations we hoped it would for exploring south and southwest Florida.  The resort is a bit older with approximately 80% park model trailers, and I estimate that more than 90% of the units here never move.  It is a 55+ community, but most of the residents are quite a bit older than that.  It is a clean, well-kept, and attractive park, however, with nice facilities and very friendly people.

Big Tree is also an active park, with regularly scheduled events every day (morning, afternoon, and evening) as well as special events like concerts, dinners, and dances.  These activities are well attended from what we saw, and lots of folks walk, ride their bicycles (and tricycles) every day, and use the swimming pool.  Many permanent residents have their own washer and dryer so I never had a problem getting our laundry done in the laundry room.  Although the park did not have a distributed Wi-Fi system, it did have free Wi-Fi available at the office/activity building and we made use of it for downloading updates for our smartphones, iPads, and notebook computers.  Given that we updated both of our computers from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10 while we were here, the Wi-Fi was very much appreciated, allowing us to use our 12 GB Verizon data plan for routine tasks such as e-mail, banking, visiting websites, browsing for information, and transferring files, all of which we prefer to do in the comfort of our coach.

I took care of sending an e-mail to a dozen friends and family members and then settled in to upload blog posts starting with November 1, 2015.  Linda went to the swimming pool at 12:30 PM and I joined her there at 3 PM.  Mara and Linda were sun bathing when I arrived but joined me in the shallow end of the pool where we sloshed around and chatted about the whole-food plant-based approach to human nutrition and our travel plans for the next year or so.  We were soaking in the hot tub / whirlpool when Michael arrived and pulled up a chair.  We all chatted briefly and then Linda and I took showers and returned to our coach.  We called our son-in-law, Chris, to wish him a happy birthday.  I then resumed uploading blog posts.  By 5:30 PM I had uploaded the posts through November 12, 2105 and stopped.  We were due at Mara’s rig at 6:30 PM for dinner so I took a short nap.

Linda gathered up Mara’s WFPB cookbooks and we walked over to her rig at 6:25 PM.  Michael served the wine and we chatted for an hour while Mara pulled dinner together.  She made a salad of julienned vegetables with a sesame seed dressing.  The main dish was quinoa, lentils, sweet potatoes, and broccoli.  Dessert was a chocolate mousse made with avocado, banana, and cocoa and served with fresh raspberries and a piece of dark chocolate.  Seriously, with food like that why wouldn’t you be a vegan?

It was going on 9 PM by the time we finished dinner so we stayed and watched the final episode of Downton Abbey.  All’s well that ends well, I suppose, and the final two hours of the series did, indeed, end well.  It was one of the most popular (most viewed?) programs ever to air on PBS, and deservedly so.  Fortunately there is a lot of quality programming available on the PBS channels and Masterpiece Theatre, along with Masterpiece Mysteries, will no doubt continue to draw large numbers of viewers in the years to come.

When we walked back to our motorcoach at 10:50 PM the night air was very crisp, the sky dark and clear, and the stars very bright.  Orion hung high in the southwest sky and the Big Dipper claimed the northeast quadrant.  If not for the light pollution of the RV resort it was the kind of night where we might have seen the Milky Way.  Back at the coach we put on a PBS program about the WW II WASPs (Women’s Airforce Service Pilots) and one women in particular who went on to continue flying into her late 80’s and logged over 40,000 hours of flight time before she stopped recording it.  We are moving to a new RV resort tomorrow so I had the lights out before midnight and quickly drifted off to sleep.