Loverly

This has been a most excellent, loverly day. We began by going to recycling, and then to McDonald's for decaf and iced tea. Then we headed to Suttons Bay to put out three new caches in area parks on the bay.
Dick's description of the first cache site, which is located in a sweet little park on the edge of town:

The plaque in front of the rest rooms indicates that Suttons Bay was established by Mr and Mrs Sutton in 1854. That plaque, placed to commemorate a centennial celebration shades the history of this spot a bit. Harry Sutton did establish a station for the shipping of wood from this well protected and deep harbor in 1854, and did own the land together with his son-in-law. They named their little settlement Suttonsburg. The village proper was laid out by a missionary priest Father Herbstrit who hoped to found a Catholic settlement which would include a church and a school. With hopes that exceeded reality he planned a college he tentatively named National University. It was to be the focal point of his town which he named Pleasantville City. The church and school survive.
By 1880, the village, now known as Suttons Bay, was home to more than 250 people and had daily stagecoach service to Traverse City and Northport. It was a bustling place with two hotels, a sawmill and a number of stores.
The cache is among the rocks between the rest rooms and the water.

Here Dick is preparing to hide the "Sutton" cache in a Suttons Bay Township Park.

Dick organized a cache to place in the Vic Steimel Park near Suttons Bay. The road leading up to it is called Lover's Lane. Here's Dick's description:

Suttons Bay Township actually has a street named Lovers Lane. Where the short street meets Grand Traverse Bay there is a park dedicated to Vic Steimel who arranged the transfer of the property to the township thereby guaranteeing access to the public forever. Although at this time the park lacks a sandy beach and playground equipment, it is a very pleasant spot for a picnic or just to pause and enjoy the view of the water.

We placed a micro cache at this pleasant little park. Can you read the sign? Don't you think they should have put "Have a Nice Day" at the bottom? ;) Dick's cache description:

This is a log-only micro at Hendryx park near Lee Point on Grand Traverse Bay. You can drive to within 10 feet but bring your own pencil. If you try to get much closer you might hit a rock.

Then it was time for lunch, and we took back roads to Glen Arbor to try the soup at Art's.

Art's Tavern, a Glen Arbor hangout.

Dick took a picture of the light over the famous descending pool table (on an elevator).

Chip's alma mater is proudly displayed on the ceiling at Art's.

The friendly waitress spotted our camera and offered to take our picture. She's saving her money to move to Colorado to become an elementary teacher - she just graduated from college and is working two jobs.

This is the interior of Art's Tavern - it's comfortable with a great staff and always good food.
It's always fun after leaving Glen Arbor to stop by the sand dunes and watch the climbers. There weren't many climbers today, but we saw cars from all over - Georgia, New York, Alabama, Texas, Massachusetts, as well as the usual Big Ten States. It's amazing how many tourists come here from all over the country.
After the Sleeping Bear, we always drive on the Pierce Stocking Trail - you can't have one without the other! There was moderate traffic on the Trail today. The day was sunny and clear, and the woods were deep and dark. "This is the forest primeval, the murmuring pines and the hemlocks, bearded with moss..."

I told Dick I didn't know what a hemlock looks like. Ever the ecologist, he found a tree and took a sample so I could ID it. This is on Shauger Hill Road, right next to the Pierce Stocking Trail.

Hemlock, up close and personal. Notice the size of the cones! The needles are flat and friendly, just like a fir tree.

We had a little cache maintenance to do at one of our S2S cache sites at Garey Lake. Both campgrounds were totally deserted - made me wonder why people complain so much about muggles here.















On the way home, we stopped at Moomer's for a treat - the most enjoyable treat in our area! It's also enjoyable since this means that we won't be cooking dinner. Yaaay!














Back in Traverse City, we were treated to a beautiful blue bay, and picturesque white sails.

Golden Wedding Anniversary

This is our Golden Wedding Day. Happy 50th Anniversary to us! We were married on June 22, 1957 in the First Congregational Church on Washington Street. The church building is now part of the new court building. It was 90 degrees and windy on our wedding day. The reception was in the church parlor, and it was very modest by today's standards. For our honeymoon, we took a road trip from Traverse City to Detroit by way of Ontario. We crossed the Straits of Mackinac on the ferry because the Bridge was not yet open to traffic, although it was almost finished.

Since we already celebrated this event in the best way in April with our kids on the Caribbean cruise, today was fairly low-key. Two beautiful 50th Anniversary cards came in the mail from the Hardys and the Washingtons - really lovely. We went out to dinner, and Dick gave me a GOLF CAR !! It is so exciting! When you drop in to see us, I'll gladly give you a tour of our property! It's a neat, neat gift, and I am a happy camper.

The Proud Owner



At The Wheel

It Seats Four!


Pleased As Punch

B-Day Party

It's Father's Day but we didn't do anything special at home. All of the kids called to talk to Dick, and that's always the best part anyway!

We were excited about going over to Grayling for Susie's Surprise Birthday Party! We had a marvelous time. It was interesting and fun to meet the neighbors that Tim and Susie talk about so often. The party was at the lovely home of Phil and Arlene on the Manistee River. We were so glad to be included! Now we know why Tim and Susie want to stay on Shady Lane.

Happy Birthday Susie!

Copenhagen

Sniders have been here for a couple of days, and besides all of the wine tasting (very mellow) and touring the peninsula, we stopped in at AAA and began planning a Scandinavian cruise for next May (2008).

It's very exciting to think about, even from this far away. The cruise will begin and end in Copenhagen, and will stop in Stockholm, St. Petersburg, Talinn (Estonia), Gdansk (Poland), and Oslo. Woo Woo! We'll be going on the Crown Princess. The brochures won't be available until the end of this month, and we're all on the mailing list.

It's lovely to think about it and the four of us are all very excited already!
I haven't been able to get this song out of my head - I've known it for decades - it was in the old Danny Kaye movie musical about Hans Christian Anderson - maybe we really will sail up the Skagerrak and sail down the Kattegat!

Wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen
Friendly old girl of a town
'Neath her tavern light
On this merry night
Let us clink and drink one down
To wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen
Salty old queen of the sea
Once I sailed away
But I'm home today
Singing Copenhagen, wonderful, wonderful
Copenhagen for me
I sailed up the Skagerrak
And sailed down the Kattegat
Through the harbor and up to the quay
And there she stands waiting for me
With a welcome so warm and so gay
Wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen
Wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen
Friendly old girl of a town
'Neath her tavern light
On this merry night
Let us clink and drink one down
To wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen
Salty old queen of the sea
Once I sailed away
But I'm home today
Singing Copenhagen, wonderful, wonderful
Copenhagen for me

Here's what another blogger had to say about this song:

Wonderful Copenhagen
(and the meaning of "Kattegat")
I'm off to Copenhagen for the weekend. I made the plans some time ago, just to add my minor support for a country that did so much to protect Jews during WWII and that suffered from boycots because of the cartoons published last year.

Before going, I decided to refresh my memory about the lyrics to the Danny Kaye song "Wonderful Copenhagen" from the movie Hans Christian Anderson (but I have since been warned not to whistle or sing that song while I am there — too bad; I loved the movie when I was a kid.)

After I downloaded the lyrics, I wondered, "Where and what are the Skagerrat and the Kattegat that he sings about?"

I sailed up the Skagerrak
And sailed down the Kattegat

The Skagerrak is the strait between Denmark and Norway, and the Kattegat is the strait between Denmark and Sweden. So it makes sense, when you look at a map, to say that on your way to Copenhagen from the Atlantic Ocean, you've sailed up the Skagerrak (it runs up to the northeast) and down the Kattegat (it runs down to the southeast).

But check out the origin of the word "Kattegat"!

Here is what Wikipedia has to say about Kattegat:

The name Kattegat derives from the Dutch and Middle Saxon words Kat (cat) and Gat (hole). It refers to the medieval navigation, where captains spoke of this area to be as narrow as a cat's hole, since there are several flats in the sea, which made navigation difficult.

The second segment of the name is of greater antiquity, appearing, for example, as Codanus in Pliny's Natural History (4.13.96). It is described as a sinus (bay) between Scandinavia and Jutland. Julius Pokorny (Page 423) repeats the hole derivation, listing the Proto-Indo-European root, *ghedh-, "to defecate, hole".

In keeping with sailors' well-known use of the language of bodily functions, one might paraphrase the concept by stating that, to seafaring men who must use it, the Kattegat has always been the anus of the Baltic.


.

CSI Series

The CSI Series of geocaches is in honor of a book (Abomination) which is a murder mystery in which at least one body is found by geocachers.
It's a unique series of a dozen caches placed in many different areas
of northern and central Michigan. We regarded it as a real challenge.

We went to the U.P. last week to find some CSI
caches, and some others, too. The weather was cool and clear, and we
had a marvelous time. Crossing the Mackinac Bridge is always a special
treat. We spent the night in St. Ignace.

This week we left on
Sunday to finish the series, and we were successful. This time we spent
the night in Clare. The weather was wonderful again, but about 20
degrees warmer - in the 80s instead of the 60s. Because we finished in
a timely fashion, we'll be receiving a couple ofgeocoins, and an autographed copy of the book Abomination when it comes out next fall.

Here's Dick's log for the final caches in the series:

Home again after our second two day excursion seeking the CSI
series. We have had a fantastic time. On the way home we were in
agreement that these have been our favorite, most enjoyable caching
days yet. The weather was fantastic all four days, the caches were fun
and we saw a lot of new and beautiful territory. All told, we logged
880 miles, spent $230 for food and gas, spent two nights in motels and
logged 18 other caches in addition to the CSI series along the way. It
is hard to pick a favorite cache. Carp River scores high because of the
unusual route in, the scenery along the way and of course because one
drives across the "Mighty Mac". We give Peaceful Mountain high marks
because of the drive in on Kolka Creek Rd. It really appealed to us. An
award should also be given to Solitude. We didn't expect to find what
we think of as a true northern Michigan cache down in the "flatlands".
It was nearly five PM when we drove to the area where our solution of the
coordinate puzzle told us we should. We felt a great deal of relief to
see public lands with a trail just where we were hoping one would be.
After finding the well hidden container, we signed the log, took a
shell necklace and the "coin", left our now signature bug wipes and
returned the ammo can to its resting place. We are pleased with our
accomplishment but are left with a slight sense that it's closing night
and the final curtain has come down on our play. What are we going to
do tomorrow?
Thanks and our appreciation to Capt. Bud, Craig 333, Sleepy Weasel73, Vanman
30, Coy Chev, Gideon, (whoever you might be) and all who helped put
this series together. We are aware and appreciate the work required to
pull it off.

Round Robin 2007

Here we are, 54 years ago! What the heck happened??

Once a year the Round Robin letter appears in the mailbox. It's filled with pictures, letters, and stories from my High School friends (Margo, Freda, Sandy M., Sandy N., June, Donna, Betty, Nola, Ann, and Mary) at Traverse City Central High School, class of 1953. It came this weekend, loaded as usual with news, health issues, happiness, sadness, travel and empathy and understanding. I sent it off today, with new pictures of our cruise, and a letter of our past year. This is it:

Great timing for the arrival of the Robin. I love it when it comes before the happy confusion of summer in T.C. The pictures are fascinating - it’s a wonderful way to watch those grandkids grow up.

Looking back over the past months since I last wrote makes me think of the famous quotation “ It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...” (Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities).

The Worst of Times:
Briefly, I had a back injury last summer resulting in severe sciatica, nerve damage and weakness in my left leg. I lost the whole month of September, being heavily medicated with pain meds. I began aqua therapy in November. and regular Physical Therapy six weeks later. After months of P. T., Dick and I are continuing to go to the gym twice a week. Improvement is coming slowly but surely (emphasis on the “slowly”). Today, my leg is still noticeably weak, and I use a cane for distances.

What I learned through that whole ordeal is that I picked a peach in the garden of love. Dick’s favorite thing is Univ. of Mich. football - and he only went to one game last season - he stayed home with me the rest of the season. He did go to the Mich.-Mich. State game, but he arranged for a good friend from Belleville to come here and “babysit” with me while he was gone. He took care of the house, cooking, shopping, laundry and everything for several weeks. He’s a real winner in the human race!

My Mother spent the week between Christmas and New Year’s in the hospital, and was discharged to a skilled nursing facility instead of back to her assisted living apartment. Mom passed away in February at the age of 98. Her last days were peaceful and quiet. She was ready to go.

The Best of Times:
In March we took a road trip to Memphis and St. Louis for 10 days, finding a geocache in each of 7 different States. It was wonderful to see daffodils and blossoming trees after such a gloomy winter. One of the highlights for me was finding the burial site of my Kanitz great-grandparents and long forgotten relatives in Arthur, Illinois.

But the highlight of the entire year was a Caribbean cruise in April with our whole family to celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary. Our kids gave us the cruise for Christmas, and the best part is that they all came with us! Dick and I were in a lovely suite with lots of closets, a living room, and a huge balcony. We sailed from Miami to Belize (Mayan Ruins), Cozumel, Costa Maya and Grand Cayman. It was such a marvelous experience - a once in a lifetime event. We were thrilled by the whole thing. The cruise was with Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines - the ship was The Explorer of the Seas.

Our kids are all fine and they are all in the same places - Laurie, Chip and Dylan, the world’s greatest grandson, live in Palm City, Florida. Laurie and Chip both work for American Airlines, and Laurie spends a ton of time volunteering at Palm City Elementary. I knew that degree in Education would come in handy someday! They come to stay with us every July, and we’re expecting them again this year - it’s the best time of the year for us. I think you all met them at one of our reunions.

Tom lives in San Diego and works for Cymer Corporation designing lasers for computers. He’s a mountain biker on the side, which means he keeps a good supply of bandaids! He was just here last week for a long weekend to attend the wedding of a cousin. We love having him around.

Jana is in Washington, D.C. working at Congressional Quarterly. She has a great position and she does a terrific job. Last September she came home to stay with me for a while when I was down and out. Her bosses sent me flowers - I was very impressed! She came back home at Christmas time which she likes to do every year - she loves the snow and Christmas at the river. Tom goes to Florida for Christmas to be with Dylan!

Dylan is 9 ½ years old, just finished the 3rd grade and can hardly wait to get to T.C. He loves tennis, camping, geocaching, biking and computer games. He’s a delightful boy and we feel that even though we have only one grandchild, somehow we managed to get the best one!

The National Governors Conference will be held in Traverse City the weekend of July 20. Dick will be working long hours the whole weekend - he’s in charge of the 75 volunteers who will be at the Cherry Capital Airport meeting and greeting the Governors and their families. They will help the visitors get to their lodgings, get rental cars, and just generally ease their arrival. He’s just hoping that no luggage is lost along the way!

The kids will all be here again on July 28th when we host GenFest, the annual Steiger family reunion of all living descendants of Dick’s Mother Gen.

A couple of you mentioned the possibility of a 55th class reunion next summer (2008). As of this weekend there’s no date posted yet on the Central High web site for the Class of ’53 for next summer. As soon as I hear something I’ll let you know so you can make plans. We’ll be here, “the good Lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise” so you can plan on a pre-reunion reunion.

Stay well, spoil those grandkids, and keep in touch.

Memorial Day Weekend

It was an absolutely beautiful weekend - each day was a gem. We bought flowers, put geraniums in the cemetery, worked in the yard, just generally grooved on the start of the summer season. There was a big soccer event -huge- at the Keystone fields. We've never ever seen so many cars and people there. As a consequence, downtown was booming too - lots of foot traffic. At the marina everybody and his brother was putting in and taking out.

Memorial Gardens had all of their flags flying again this year - very inspiring. Barbie did her annual great job with the floral decorations. Dick thinks that Donald's marker needs to be replaced.

Dick is doing his usual great job of planting flowers, mowing, trimming and fertilizing! He works so hard that it makes me feel like a slug. I'm the Weak Sister of the Universe. But I'm happy to be able to be out and about to feel the sunshine and enjoy the flowers.

Since today is Memorial Day there naturally has been a lot of Iraq talk and military talk - even more than usual. Our local veterans set up a mini-cemetery of white wooden crosses in the Open Space.

Rosie and Elisabeth (You Probably Don't Care)

I freely admit that I like to watch The View. I have always enjoyed it, but especially so since Rosie joined the panel. I used to watch the Rosie O'Donnell show as often as I could, and was sad when it left the air.

I admire Rosie for her generous spirit, her love of children (all children), her loyalty to her friends, and also because I agree with her politics and she is an enthusiastic spokesperson. She's not particularly well-educated and her facts are sometimes incomplete, but her heart is in the right place and she's not afraid to stand up for what she believes.

E.H. is also on the panel. She impresses me as being an ill-informed Republican lackey. She is gullible and susceptible to all of the fear talk that comes from the White House. It's alarming to me that it seems she actually believes the outrageous things that she says. The fear she feels is palpable...she sees a terrorist behind every bush (so to speak). She supports whatever comes out of W's mouth. It's not even believable to me that she can do that. When she gets into a heated conversation it's obvious that she is very earnest in her statements. It's also obvious that she parrots everything from the White House and from Fox News.

Wednesday R & E got into a heated argument about terrorism, our troops, and Iraq. It was scary to watch how angry they were with each other - they were both close to coming to blows or to tears. I felt a little depressed all day because of it - hate to admit that I was that affected by their argument.

Here's an article explaining what happened:

A couple of the comments at the end of the article explain how I feel better than I can verbalize:

Posted By: kathypsf1 | May 24 2007 at 09:22 PM

Tigerz, the easy answer would have been to conduct the war where it began - in Afghanistan. I can't believe we as a country do not even get what the real issue is here. Osama bin Laden was not in Iraq, and he is not in Iraq. Afghanistan gets worse by the day because Bush missed the boat by being an idiot and sending troops to Iraq instead of conducting a full scale campaign in Afghanistan and the border of Pakistan and has completely neglected the true seat of terrorism. He has so misled and misconducted this whole war on terrorism and has instead created a huge and undoable mess. It has nothing to do with isolationism. People just can't support a complete blunder like this.

Posted By: biggy | May 25 2007 at 12:42 AM

In case you don't remember..it started back when Elizabeth was asked to speak at the Republican Convention (their way to get back at the very "Liberal" opinionated show called the View.) It was, I felt, a way the Republicans could "stir it all up". Now Elizabeth feels obligated even more after the White House dinner invite with the Queen. Let's face it, we invaded a country that is not one that had WMD, we've destroyed their country, and most importantly, made the terrorists more mad than they were to begin with. Deep down I believe Elizabeth feels this way but can't get out from under the position they have put her in.

Posted By: mugwomp | May 25 2007 at 02:08 AM

Yeah, pretty comical Trump couldn't resist keeping his fat trap shut on this one. He insulted both of them, (class act, that guy) anything for publicity for whatever b.s. he was doing yesterday. Elizabeth is typical of the kind of American who believes what she's told, obeys, and if you think for yourself, you're a commie. People like her scare me.

OK, that's enough. I could go on forever. For what it's worth (not much) Donald Trump called Elisabeth the dumbest person on TV.

OK - once again - that's enough!

Shelly's Wedding Day

Before the festivities, we met at Scot's for dinner with some of the out-of-towners
- John, Sharon, Doug, Odette, Tom, Kevin, Amy, and Derek. It was great
- we had a nice view of the harbor - and the food is always good at
Scot's. At the end we were surprised because Sharon and John picked up
the tab for everyone! What a special treat - thanks John and Sharon! It
was splendid.

The wedding was a private ceremony at Shelly's
house with only immediate family there. There wasn't a best man or a
bridesmaid, but there were three adorable flower girls. The reception
was for all of us - and what a great party it was!

Tom was here from San Diego, Kevin and Amy came from Phoenix, Derek from
Minneapolis, Dave and Beth from Indiana, and Doug,Odette,Roger and
Megan from Rochester Hills, John and Sharon from Lansing - and of course Peter and Melissa from Kalamazoo.

The DJ was great (I love that country music), the dancing was such fun to watch, and the company was outstanding. Lauren and Fay really got into the spirit of things on the dance floor - I enjoyed watching them almost more than anything. The report was that when Lauren (pre-school) was put to bed she said, "I could have danced
all night long!" Brooke, Autumn and Lydia were dancing up a storm too -
those children really had a good time.

I especially enjoyed talking to Odette, Adam, Peter, Kevin and all of the Steigers at our table and the neighboring table - which was also full of Steigers.

Shelly and Chris seemed to be having a great time - as time went by, Chris took off his white shirt, and underneath was wearing a shirt that said "Under New Ownership". It cracked us up.

There was an after-glow at Shelly's and Tom went over there - I think it was 2:30 when John brought him home.

Petoskey Run

It was a yucky day for doing anything outside - cold, misty, damp and gray. Our plans were to meet Tim and Susie near Petoskey, do some caches, and then visit Don in the Hospital. So what did we do? Press on regardless! Off we went through the mist, and everything went off just as planned, and it was a bunch of fun. We had a ton of enjoyment and a lot of laughs, and only one DNF (did not find).

Don should be home by now - they were planning on discharging him today. I hope they sent him home with good pain meds. He seemed to be in good spirits.

After a great lunch at the Mitchell Street Pub, we tried some more caches and had some success - but this was certainly our day to run into muggles. Who would think so on such a wet day?

This is the log that Dick wrote when we got home - it's a hoot:

5/16/2007 You found Bear River (Traditional Cache)

On a cold (42°) misty, rainy day, we teamed with the Dino Duo on a Capt. Bud rescue mission. We had been notified by the First Mate that the Captain was imprisoned with out proper sustenance in the Petoskey Hospital. Although spinal surgery left him with some discomfort, being deprived of his namesake nourishment had put him in excruciating pain that even the most potent of pharmaceuticals could not numb. We ramped up for our mission by acquiring this and a few other caches and then assaulted the Hospital grounds. Our appearance had an almost immediate effect because a physician appeared to consult with the Capt. and agreed that plain H2O was not having the desired effect and, after agreeing that he should be released forthwith, began to prepare the discharge orders.

Our successful rescue team followed his instructions to proceed to his favorite Pub and hoist a Bud on his behalf. We did as ordered and the only fact that kept this from being a completely successful mission was that the waitress, extremely cooperative in all other ways, refused to place the libations on the Capt's tab.

Petoskey is a truly beautiful city with many amenities, and a wonderful waterfront/park area. The road construction made navigating around downtown a little difficult, but I have to give the people of Petoskey credit for creating an impressive town.

A Day in May

This morning we closed out Mother's accounts and split up the funds - sent cashier's checks to Jim. It was kind of a bittersweet transaction.

We had lunch at Bubba's - it was excellent. I love that place.

The cherry blossoms are adrift out on the peninsula. It was the perfect day to go for a drive. It was so scenic - try to visualize bright blue sky, white, white blossoms, fields of bright yellow dandelions under the trees in the orchards - what a gorgeous sight.

We even stopped at Bardon's for a Wonder Freeze on the way home. It really has been a most excellent day.

Today's headlines according to MSN:
News Navigation As of 4:26 p.m. EDT
• Iraqi president says U.S. troops should stay
• Cheney warns Iran to keep sea lanes open
• Graduation bittersweet for Va. Tech families
• Taliban releases French aid worker kidnapped in Afghanistan
• Record number of U.S. foreclosures lures opportunists
• U.S. postal rates set to rise as 'forever' stamp goes on sale
• Work begins on Brad Pitt-backed New Orleans homes

Clean Screens

My cold is improving. Thanks to Dick and neighbor Tom I contacted the clinic and got some good meds. Dick is busy washing all of the screens and windows.


As of 5:09 a.m. EDT • Suicide truck bomber kills 19 in Iraq
• Wildfire burns in middle of Los Angeles
• Cheney makes unannounced visit to Iraq
• Store clerk tip key to Fort Dix plot
• Fidelity brokers fined for misleading U.S. military personnel
• 'Encyclopedia of Life' to list all 1.8 million species
• 'Axis of Evil' comics get laughs during time of war

Dylan's Movies

I finally figured out how to put Dylan's digital movies on the blog! Dick suggested YouTube, and the first time I tried that I couldn't make it work. But today I got lucky, and here is my favorite movie from the cruise - this was in Belize at lunch after visiting the Mayan Ruins. The special effects are by Dylan - what I really enjoy is the conversation and the live marimba music:

LUNCH IN BELIZE


AT SEA




THE GREAT GLASS ELEVATOR (Don't get Dizzy!)


THE SKY ABOVE BELIZE (Don't Blink!)


OCEANOGRAPHIC LAB ON EXPLORER OF THE SEAS (Dylan's View)


BIDDING FAREWELL TO OUR CRUISE (Thanks, Maria-Ximena)

Royal Visit

Visit of Queen Elizabeth II

The Queen was in Virginia this week to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown by English settlers. We've visited Jamestown, and we saw how tenuous their hold was on life in the New World. Everybody knows about the hardships they faced and the death and disappearance of the whole settlement.
This current English settlement anniversary reminded me of the Randy Newman song about the Great Nations of Europe, and how they ravaged the native populations through conflict and disease:

Great Nations of Europe

The Great Nations of Europe
Had gathered on the shore.
They'd conquered what was behind them
And now they wanted more.
So they looked to the mighty ocean
And took to the western sea
The great nations of Europe in the sixteenth century.

Hide your wives and daughters,
Hide the groceries too,
Great nations of Europe coming through.

The Grand Canary Islands
First land to which they came.
They slaughtered all the canaries
Which gave the land its name.
There were natives there called Guanches
Guanches by the score.
Bullets, disease, the Portuguese,
And they weren't there anymore.

Now they're gone, they're gone, they're really gone.
You've never seen anyone so gone.
Some pictures in a museum,
Some lines written in a book.
But you won't find a live one no matter where you look.

Hide your wives and daughters,
Hide the groceries too,
Great nations of Europe coming through.

Columbus sailed for India,
Found Salvador instead.
He shook hands with some Indians
And soon they all were dead.
They got TB and typhoid and athlete's foot
Diphtheria and the flu.
Excuse me - Great nations coming through.

Balboa found the Pacific
And on the trail one day
He met some friendly Indians
Whom he was told were gay
So he had them torn apart by dogs
On religious grounds they say.
The great nations of Europe were quite holy in their way.

Now they're gone, they're gone, they're really gone,
You've never seen anyone so gone.
Some bones hidden in a canyon,
Some paintings in a cave.
There's no use trying to save them
There's nothing left to save.

Hide your wives and daughters,
Hide your sons as well.
With the great nations of Europe you never can tell.

From where you and I are standing
At the end of a century
Europes have sprung up everywhere as even I can see
But there on the horizon is a possibility -
Some bug from out of Africa might come for you and me,
Destroying everything in its path
From sea to shining sea.
Like the great nations of Europe
In the sixteenth century.

I know that Randy got the century wrong - but I think it's a most profound statement on the effects of colonialism and imperialism.

Cruise Afterglow

(Heavy Sigh)

Professional Photos

Explorer of the Seas - Day 8 - Disembark

It only took one hour to disembark. The whole procedure was relatively painless and well organized.

Waved bye bye to Tom and Jana - they were taking a bus to the Miami Airport. Chip drove the rest of us back to Palm City.

We went out to lunch at Panera's - a new deli right in Palm City - very nice place.

Laurie and I both fell asleep on the couch!

Ordered pizza for dinner. Chip has to get up a 3:30 a.m. to drive back to Miami to go to work. Back to the Real World!

Explorer of the Seas - Day 7 - At Sea

All seven of us met for breakfast at the Windjammer Cafe. Then Dick and I packed up even though we don't have to until tonight - because I don't want to worry about it all day!

Then we went to the Solarium on Deck 11 and parked out by the pool for the day. Maria-Ximena hung out with us too.
Dick picked the perfect arrangement - we had three chaises, and a table with chairs - very comfortable. I highly recommend pina coladas in the Solarium!

Dick, Chip and Tom had an exclusive private tour of the ship's Bridge.


We also played some shuffleboard with Dylan - well, Tom and Dick played and I watched and was the official photographer!


Dylan also had a private ice skating lesson in Studio B.


This was a day for taking group pictures. Maria-Ximena was great about helping take the pictures.
We took green T shirt pictures, white T shirt pictures, pictures with the Explorer of the Seas sign, and for a grand finale, had professional pictures taken, which we can pick up tomorrow. We don't want to forget anything about this whole experience!


**********************HAPPY 50th ANNIVERSARY TO US !!***************************

Explorer of the Seas - Day 6 - Grand Cayman

This is another stop where tenders take you ashore. I really liked riding in the tenders - this one was an especially short ride, though.

We were going to do the under water exploration boat tour, but there was a mix-up somehow in telling us where to wait, and we missed our tour. The Royal Caribbean tour person suggested we try the Jolly Trolley tour, which turned out to be not so Jolly. It was a fun trolley ride, but very short, and with a not-so-talented tour guide from Canada who had been on the job for 2 months. I did love seeing the beautiful gardens and the storybook houses - so very pretty.
Dick was just disgusted with the whole thing.

We went to find Margaritaville, because we planned to meet everybody there at 2 p.m. for lunch, after their snorkeling excursion. Fortified with a little air conditioning and some iced tea, we set out to find a George Town cache in the Seven Mile Beach area. We caught a cab which dropped us off 30 feet from the cache! Dick found it in about 3 minutes. We walked over to a condo resort called Treasure Island and called for another cab back to Margaritaville. It was a lovely, cool, breezy place to wait.

The whole bad experience of the Jolly Trolley was trumped by our lunch with everybody at Margaritaville. We were all in a great mood and Margaritaville at Grand Cayman is not a bad place to be at all!

It was lively, with great music, a fun staff, and wonderful food. We were having a party. They have a pool and a water slide right there, and Chip and Dylan had a ball with that. Chip estimates he went down the slide 15 or 20 times.

After riding the tender back to the ship, Laurie and Jana discovered that they had bad sunburns on their backs from snorkeling. Jana's seems to be especially bad, but they are both hurting a bit. Mostly because of the sunburns, we decided against going to the formal dinner in the dining room tonight. Dick, Tom and I ate at Windjammer together.

We weren't interested in the Palace Show tonight, so we just went back to the room after dinner. I was delighted to find Pride and Prejudice on the cruise TV.

Explorer of the Seas - Day 5 - Cozumel

Chip, Laurie and Tom's excursion today is three hours of biking in Cozumel - from 8:30-11:30 a.m. Jana's excursion is an all day tour to Mayan Ruins at Tulum. Dick and I won custody of Dylan for the morning.
We had a terrific time - we had a great breakfast at the Windjammer, and then watched part of "Spirited Away" in the stateroom. He had picked out three movies to bring on the trip but Spirited Away was the only one we saw part of. After that, he invented a new game called "Walrusie Get There", and we played the inaugural version. It's very much fun for about 45 minutes and then it begins to wear a little thin!

After biking, Laurie and Tom took Dylan into town for a little snorkeling on the beach. Dick and I walked to town to find a cache at a dive shop. It was very hot, and so I stopped to watch the snorkelers and Dick went on to find the cache (Cruise 'n' Cache). We took a taxi back to the shopping center near the pier - I found the walk to be hot and tiring, and I was glad to be back in the room. Just for the heck of it, I ordered room service lunch on the TV! It was just like using the computer, and it was great fun, and it worked! Everybody else walked to the Windjammer for lunch.

Souvenirs for the day - Dylan bought me a beautiful turquoise necklace, and Jana gave us a Mayan calendar version of our wedding day - unique and beautiful.

The show at the Palace tonight was the Beatles, performed by Rain. I loved it. They played all of the great, familiar Beatles songs except they didn't play All You Need is Love. I was only mildly disappointed.

After dinner in the dining room, the younger generation went to Studio B to play Quest, an adult scavenger hunt game. We headed for bed.

Explorer of the Seas - Day 4 - Costa Maya

We've been meeting for coffee every morning in our room. Dick orders coffee at 7 a.m. and more is ordered as more is needed - we have decaf and regular coffee drinkers, so it always involves more than one carafe. Today in our room we had 4 trays of coffee with 8 cups! At 9 we went to breakfast at Windjammer.

Tom, Laurie, Chip and Dylan went kayaking and biking in Costa Maya.

Dylan was fascinated with the coconut - he enjoyed watching the man open it up, and he was thrilled to be able to drink the coconut milk. He brought back part of the shell so we could all have a bite of the coconut.



Jana spent some time in the hot tub. All of the shops on board were closed until 5:30 p.m. when the excursions get back.

Tonight we went to an ice show - "Planet Ice" in Studio B. It was spectacular. I don't know where you could see a better show. Half or more of the skaters were from Russia, plus the Ukraine. Four were from Canada, and there were a couple from the USA. It was a fantastic show.