“I see that it is by no means useless to travel, if a man wants to see something new.” ~ Phileas Fogg, Around the World in 80 Days
With apologies to Jules Verne, I'd like to offer you another way to see something new. And it won't take 80 days. In fact, it'll take less than 70 minutes. This playlist, assembled by the DH, will slip you into our pocket and take you around the world with us in a video montage of our 2018 World Cruise on the Pacific Princess. You'll thread your way through Polynesia, stop in New Zealand, cruise around Australia, visit Singapore, two ports in India, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and glide through the Suez Canal.
Once in the Med, you'll see Greece, Slovenia, Croatia, and the glories of Italy in multiple stops including Venice, Pompeii and Rome! You'll visit Malta, Monaco, two Spanish ports and the Rock of Gibraltar before cruising across the Pond to Bermuda and then back to the US!
Just click on this link and you'll be on your way!
We love sharing our adventures with you and hope you'll enjoy them too.
"Everyone has a crew, a stone cold, never-blink, walk in slow-motion
crew..." ~ Borrowed from a Cadillac commercial
We've got ourselves a crew, too, and we're all heading for Alaska next May! We're taking my parents, #1 Daughter & Daughter-in-law, and #2 Daughter with us. My sister Linda's son (hereafter referred to as Nephew) has decided to join us to make it an even party of eight!
Originally, I'd thought about waiting until January to book this trip, hoping to snag a sale, but we really wanted to have 4 balconies in a row, so we've settled on the May 9, 2020 seven day sailing of the Ruby Princess round trip out of Seattle. This will be our third trip to Alaska, my parent's second, but it'll be the first time for all the kids.
From our 2017 trip to the 49th state
However, even though we've been before, this trip will be different. For one thing, it'll be in May instead of our previous September cruises. Winter will just be leaving instead of almost arriving. I'm curious to see how far into the Glacier Bay National Park the Ruby Princess will be able to sail. I also wonder if we'll see any babies among the wildlife since spring is their usual time to appear.
We have our airplane reservations. We'll all meet in St. Louis on May 8th, stay overnight, and then fly to Seattle non-stop on Alaska Air the next day. Our flight leaves at 6:oh-dark-twenty in the morning, so we'll need to be close to airport to make it on time. I really appreciate a non-stop flight. Less opportunity for our luggage to go off on adventures of its own. Once we touch down at Sea-Tac, we'll be whisked to the port for boarding.
Everyone definitely needs to bring a pair of binoculars!
Another thing that's different about this trip is that we'll feel responsible for everyone traveling with us. Lately, it's just the DH and me, looking after each other, though we did take my parents and our kids to Hawaii in 2012. Eight is the largest group we've led. This time, we want to make sure everyone has the time of their lives, which means hanging out with each other as much or as little as everyone wants. And that mileage can vary. I've asked that we all meet for supper each evening to share what we've done that day, but if we want to run around the ship or go on excursions together, that'll be fun too. It's everyone's choice. We'll have a plan the rest of the crew is welcome to join, but if they want to do their own thing, it's fine. (I do however, want to get at least one pic of us all strutting in that too-cool-for-school formation like the Cadillac commercial!)
The Ruby Princess is a Medallion Class ship, which means it's supposed to have super-fast wifi (for a cruise ship!) and the app we'll all download is supposed to let us find members of our party while on the ship. We'll see. I'm sure all the kids will be able to figure it out, and the DH retired from Google, so I'm golden. But my parents aren't terribly tech-ish. Mom has a phone she uses to text with, but I doubt it's new enough to even upload the Oceans app. Anyway, they'll likely hang with us and that'll be great.
Here's our itinerary:
And just to remind you of some of the glories of Alaska, the DH has put together a montage of our 2017 cruise. Our friends Mike and Joy met us in Seattle and joined us on the Holland America Eurodam for this trip. Enjoy!
Oh! And as usual if you receive this blog by email, you'll need to click over to the actual blog to see the videos. Sorry...
And just for grins, the DH put together some pics from our 2007 cruise to Alaska with my folks!
"Attitude is the difference between an ordeal and an adventure." ~ Bob Bitchin
Not all my travel is water-based.
Case in point. A few weeks ago, we drove from southern Missouri out to western Nebraska and South Dakota to take my parents to visit two of my sisters. We took a couple of days to make the 700+ mile trek to the first sister's house near Ogallala, then stayed from a Monday night to the next Thursday morning.
They live on a lovely acreage and keep a small herd of cows. This is Chubby, the newest addition to the group, son of Pumpkin, who I think is my brother-in-law's favorite. All the cows seem to adore him and come running when he calls. (Of course, the sweet corn stalks he feeds them might have something to do with it!)
We had a good visit with my sis and B-I-L, and my niece and her husband. After being over-fed more than the cows for a few days, we headed north through the Sand Hills toward South Dakota.
There is no direct route from Ogallala to Keystone, SD, so we traveled the skinny little lines on the map past Lake McConaughy and further into the back of beyond.
The terrain began to climb as we traveled north, and we enjoyed riding through the lovely Pine Ridge National Recreation Area near Chadron, NE. We were seeing some lovely sights, making good time, and everyone was happy.
Then we crested a hill and just over the top, we saw three large pieces of jagged metal debris strewn across the highway. There was a double yellow line to our left, which meant the DH couldn't invade the other lane to avoid them. Besides there was a big piece there too. To our right, the land fell away into a deep arroyo, so leaving the highway for the narrow shoulder was not an option. Even if the DH had laid on the brake, there wasn't time to stop and braking might have made the front of the van squat down low enough that the debris could have hit the grill and been thrown up into the windshield.
So rather than run into a piece of the metal with a tire and, given our highway speed, possibly flip over, the DH straddled the big chunk. The van rumbled over it, getting its guts torn to shreds as we went. Smoke billowed instantly and the DH braked, steered us toward the shoulder, and killed the engine.
Our passive restraint headrests had blown, but we were all okay.
The DH hiked back up the hill to get a decent cell signal and called 911. The nearest highway patrolman was 100 miles away (Told you we were back of beyond!) so the sheriff's department came out to assist us. They were terrific.
Then we really caught a break when the truckers whose 18 wheeler had dropped the rear drive train from their rig came back looking for the pieces they had lost. The officers were able to get their IDs and, even more importantly, their insurance information! Then, the deputy called for a tow for our van to the Chadron Chrysler dealership, and a small independent car dealership that would come get us and rent us a vehicle in which to continue our journey.
As a side note, said vehicle turned out to be of the "rent-a-wreck" variety. We hadn't gone two blocks when the "Check Engine Soon" light came on. I immediately called the dealer.
"Oh, yeah," he said. "We had that looked at last week and thought we figured it out. Guess not. But don't worry. You won't hurt it by driving it!"
Not my immediate concern, but we didn't have a whole lot of options. At any rate, the clunker got us to my second sister's place in the Black Hills without incident, though we did almost hit a deer. Once we made it to Keystone, we called our insurance company and they began working the problem. Our agent asked if we'd like to have the van towed to our hometown to be repaired. YES! Then she arranged for a more roadworthy ride to take us the 990 mile trip from SD back to our home.
So we were able to continue our visit with my sis & B-I-L without worries. We watched movies in their theater room. My Dad was able to root for his beloved MO Tigers, the Chiefs and the Nebraska Cornhuskers, my B-I-L's favorite team.
We even managed to play tourist a bit and visited the Chapel of the Hills, an exact replica of a Norwegian stave church. We didn't see one while we were in Norway. There's been a rash of burnings in recent years. The few that remain are quite off the beaten path.
So we found one here in the States. As it turns out, the DH had visited this chapel, which still holds vesper services, back when he was a kid.
He put together this little montage of photos for you: (Side note: if you receive my blog by email, you may have to click over to the post to see the little video!)
Then we headed home, stopping overnight to see my nephew in Sioux Falls. As I write this now, our van has been shipped home and is in the process of getting a new motor. As you can see, everything did turn out all right, even if our plans didn't go exactly as we intended.
I can't agree with Bilbo Baggins when he said, "Adventures? Nasty, uncomfortable, disturbing things! Make you late for dinner."
