Friday, November 29, 2019

Day on shore at Puerto Corinto, Nicaragua

3:49 pm here in Puerto Corinto, Nicaragua.  Listening via internet to Iowa Nebraska football game.  Walked the deck at half time.
Went ashore around 9:30 and back to ship around 12 noon.  Took a ride on a trike - and walked around the tourist area.










Breakfast this morning.

There is something up there!

As we left the ship this morning

On our ride - many of these trikes in use

Stopped at this truck with fresh caught fish in it.







Jimmy said Coke is made there in town.




Some comment on the Panama Canal.  When the Cruise Director made her presentation about the canal and what we would see, she said they paid $200,000 to make the pass,and an additional $35,000 to guarantee a time of entrance at 5:30 that morning.  This, obviously, would come out of the 1400 or so passengers.

Will 

Thanksgiving day in Costa Rica

Been a rainy day here.  Last several hours just overcast.  5:00 pm CST as I start this on Thursday.


Just downloaded this picture of granddaughter with great granddaughter - and dogs.  Guess they are relaxing at home.

Wrote to son to see what they were doing, but have not gotten return e-mail.  According to internet reports, there is snowstorm in much of Iowa.
Attended two shows by Emily & Joey after supper



Turkey dinner - I also had 2 slices of ham

Phyllis' desert Pecan pie with ice cream

My desert - delicious, but don't recall what it was called

They had turkey with display at entrance to Dining Room

Well, is 9:35 am Friday and they just said we can go ashore at Nicaragua

Wednesday, November 27, 2019

Full day at sea

Full day at sea today, Wednesday 11-27-19.  Sea depth 10,860 ft, temperature 82 degrees, humidity 47% (but feels like 97%) we have traveled 2078 km.  at 1:37 pm (Think this Central time - we have changed our watches several times.

Listening to my part of Barbershop music

Alternative to $25 for small bag for ship crew to wash

 
No refrigerator, so this is how to keep insulin cool.
Potato soup as first delivered to table.
Potato soup after they poured liquid from a pitcher.
Think this is where we dock all day tomorrow






These two photos were taken off
the TV, showing where we are.
I have only taken 1077 photos (that weren't deleted) and have taken quite a lot of time editing and labeling them.  Thankfully, I am not posting all of them here.  Right now must take a break to go to a movie.  Will write more later. ---- now 4:11 pm.  Saw movies on National Geographic Penguins, caves, wildlife in Alaska.


Photo at left taken a few
moments ago.










Below are some photos of last part of our coming out of Panama Canal on Pacific Ocean end.






Lots of interesting people aboard.  We saw two children around 10 years old when we were boarding in Fort Lauderdale, FL and have not seen them since.  Saw a probably 6 year old last evening -- those are the only ones we have seen under the age of 50.  Many with canes, walkers, electric scooters.  A marked difference from the cruises we have been taking on Carnival where kids and families are the rule and much, much more noisy, etc.

Well, later, Lynn

Tuesday, November 26, 2019

In the Panama Canal Tuesday November 26, 2019

90º here in the Panama Canal about 10:45 am EST Tuesday.  Passed through the two locks on the Atlantic end about 10:05 am. 
Gates in canal next to us

Eating breakfast - other canal out window

Gates closing


View from outside our room



































Earlier this morning we were on bow deck

Earlier this morning we were on bow deck

As we came to first lock

Phyllis using her cameera

 We were going out on the bow deck early and it was raining hard.  So, we, and many others, headed back to the elevators to go to the Crows Nest inside on deck nine forward.
Looking out of the "Crows Nest"




Some notes on fellow travelers.  Phyllis strikes up a conversation whenever possible.  I listen.  One lady we ate breakfast with one morning said she had a week's notice for this trip.  She is on a list with her travel agent to fill in on last-minute bargains.  She said she got on at about one-half price, but did have to fly from Canada north of Seattle to Fort Lauderdale.  Another couple we ate breakfast with yesterday morning are full time RV'ers, but spend their winters in the Rio Grande Valley closer to McAllen.  Another couple recounted how they bought a sail boat some 15 years ago and set out on the Pacific Ocean.  Spent some 13 days to some island and then some 45 days around the islands before spending 23 days back to California.  They had never been on a sailboat before, but said they had no problems.  They don't sail anymore as they sold the boat.  Met people from Washington State, California, Louisiana, Florida, Britain.  Lots of Britain's it seems.  Our table mate Cheryl has some funny eating habits.  She usually does not eat what is on the bottom of any food, meticulously scraping off fish scales, little over-cooked rice; sorting out anything she didn't recognize.  Last night she took all the bread out of the French Onion Soup---and then commented there wasn't much left.  She always asks for plenty of lemon slices and sweetener, then squeezes the lemons, cuts several envelopes of the sweetener into her glass.  She won't drink just plain water.  One couple mentioned they came on this "shorter" cruise (16 day) as they were seeing how he got along after recent heart problems.  They were in their 90's and had gone on many 50 day cruises and several 60 day cruises.  Supposedly, you get discounts on future cruises if you book while aboard now; and, with "Black Friday" shopping the day after Thanksgiving you can get terrific deals!   I have looked at literature where 30 days are spent repositioning a ship from California to Australia with many stops in between -- then another 33 days stopping all around Australia and New Zealand.   Have no idea what it costs, but would be quite a trip.

Here is something I read:

On the Day I Die by John Pavlovitz

On the day I die a lot will happen.
A lot will change.
The world will be busy.
On the day I die, all the important appointments I made will be left unattended.
The many plans I had yet to complete will remain forever undone.
The calendar that ruled so many of my days will now be irrelevant to me.
All the material things I so chased and guarded and treasured will be left in the hands of others to care for or to discard.
The words of my critics which so burdened me will cease to sting or capture anymore. They will be unable to touch me.
The arguments I believed I’d won here will not serve me or bring me any satisfaction or solace.   
All my noisy incoming notifications and texts and calls will go unanswered. Their great urgency will be quieted.
My many nagging regrets will all be resigned to the past, where they should have always been anyway.
Every superficial worry about my body that I ever labored over; about my waistline or hairline or frown lines, will fade away.
My carefully crafted image, the one I worked so hard to shape for others here, will be left to them to complete anyway.
The sterling reputation I once struggled so greatly to maintain will be of little concern for me anymore.
All the small and large anxieties that stole sleep from me each night will be rendered powerless.
The deep and towering mysteries about life and death that so consumed my mind will finally be clarified in a way that they could never be before while I lived.
These things will certainly all be true on the day that I die.
Yet for as much as will happen on that day, one more thing that will happen.
On the day I die, the few people who really know and truly love me will grieve deeply.
They will feel a void.
They will feel cheated.
They will not feel ready.
They will feel as though a part of them has died as well.
And on that day, more than anything in the world they will want more time with me.
I know this from those I love and grieve over.
And so knowing this, while I am still alive I’ll try to remember that my time with them is finite and fleeting and so very precious—and I’ll do my best not to waste a second of it.
I’ll try not to squander a priceless moment worrying about all the other things that will happen on the day I die, because many of those things are either not my concern or beyond my control.
Friends, those other things have an insidious way of keeping you from living even as you live; vying for your attention, competing for your affections.
They rob you of the joy of this unrepeatable, uncontrollable, ever-evaporating 
Now with those who love you and want only to share it with you.
Don’t miss the chance to dance with them while you can.

It’s easy to waste so much daylight in the days before you die.
Don’t let your life be stolen every day, by all that you’ve been led to believe matters, because on the day you die—the fact is that much of it simply won’t.
Yes, you and I will die one day.
But before that day comes: let us live.



Back in Kenwood from our 9-day vacation

67º here in La Feria, TX at 9:45 am on Wednesday.      Last week we had a very enjoyable vacation on board the Harmony of the Seas a Royal C...