Finally

Okay I'm finally sitting down at the keyboard.  My last travel post was when we went to Hawaii.  After that it was time for me to retire(12/28/2011).  We moved to Idaho Falls and within a couple of days I was asked to return to the fire department for a few months.  Reluctantly I agreed and returned to the desert.  Our house hadn't closed yet so I was able to stay in it.  I worked at both the Riverside and Palm Desert office and continued to train two assistant fire marshals, that in my opinion didn't really need any additional training.  While I was in the desert I got the flu, mostly because I kept putting off getting my flu shot.  I kept working but then got another bug and thought I was going to die, I was very, very sick for several days and couldn't keep anything down including water.  Sylvia was in Idaho which was a good thing.  I received a great deal from our travel agent on another Alaska cruise.  It was so good that Laura and her family went also.  So I told the Fire Chief that when I left for the cruise in April I wouldn't be back.

The cruise, what a great time it was our first one that was a round trip from Seattle.  We had adjoining cabins with Ben, Laura and family.  The staff opened the door between our balcony's so the kids could run back and forth.  We had fixed dining which in the overall scheme of things was okay, although the kids didn't care for the formality of it all.  Ben and Laura did the specialty restaurants a couple of times and had a good time.  One of our best meals was when Laura ordered room service as we were cruising in Tracy Arm, she ordered hot chocolate, hot soups and sandwiches for everyone and we stayed on the balcony.  Room service is, of course free.

As we went up Tracy Arm they announced that there was so much ice the captain wouldn't take the ship any closer but then we noticed that we were breaking through thick ice and he kept going.  It was great we had never done anything like that before.  Chucks of ice were coming up colored with paint from the ship on them.

In Juneau Ben and I went on a gold mine trip while Sylvia and Laura took the kids to the top of the mountain on the tram.  In Ketchican we walked around the town and in Sitka we went to the raptor center and walked around town.  The whole trip was lots of fun.

When we got back to Idaho we decided we should take a trip to Yellowstone for the day.  We saw Buffalo and Elk however we wanted to walk the geyser loop at Old Faithful the Park Service because of bear activity.

We then decided to take a trip to Branson Missouri, we had picked up a time share offer for a two night stay at the Bass Pro shop resort on Table rock lake.  So we started for Missouri, we discovered along the way the the state flower of Nebraska must be the orange cone.  I don't think we traveled more than a couple of miles without  having one of the lanes closed on the freeway through the entirety of the state.  We also ate at a place that was recommended by the clerk at the hotel it was called Runga, we don't recommend it, it was pretty bad.  You can check my review and others on Yelp.  When we got to Missouri we went to Lamberts restaurant, I do recommend it, we enjoyed it so much we went again when we left.  It is had to believe but Sylvia had a hog jowl sandwich and loved it.  we checked into the resort, which is beautiful by the way set up our reservation for the tour and then called Kay.  We did the tour, said no thanks got out $150.00 in Bass Pro gift cards and then went to visit Kay.

After spending a couple of days in Branson we took off and headed to Nauvoo and Carthage to visit some church history.  Oh we also stopped at Lamberts again.  Nauvoo and Carthage were great visits, most of you follow my FB posts.   Oh, I almost forgot we were in Branson we signed up for another timeshare presentation, we went to it on our way out of town said no thanks and received $100.00 visa card for our trouble.  Onward we got back home and I found a great deal for us to stay at  Marriott summit watch in Park City the week in a two bedroom was only $59.00, that was for the entire week so off we went to Park City.  While there we started our paperwork for a Church Service mission.  Okay this is the first installment, I'm sure I left out a lot of stuff but its my own fault for not doing this on a regular basis.  I'm going to put in the summer mission and then try to start updating on a regular basis.  As I type I remember I forgot that we went to Karls in Portland twice, Lauras at least twice, The desert and Katrinas at least once and Kims I can't remember how many times.  So as I said once before we're not actually home a lot.

Okay I now will have time to start blogging again.  My intent is to sit down this week and give a short(lol) review of the things we've done since my last post, the biggest of course was actually retiring.  With any luck I will follow through with this.

The cruise vacation

Okay so I’m a lousy blogger, sorry I am just getting started at this blogging thing.  So we boarded our ship, the Golden Princess on Wednesday December 7, 2011.  The first thing I noticed while we were in the terminal was the number of old, and by that I mean old! over 70 folks there were.  As we were waiting in the priority embarkation line, thanks to our platinum status, we noticed that we were being passed by a large number of scooters, wheelchairs and walkers in the disabled line.  That should have been a clue as to how we would be getting around on the ship-slowly.  Sylvia made a comment that first day that I still remember, just how many walkers can you get in an elevator?  Let’s just say that it has been interesting weaving in and out of foot (ya right) traffic as you go from one end of the ship to the other.  Elevators were a different story although I was supposed to limit my walking or standing I found it easier to use the stairs if we only needed to go a floor or two.  Mind you there are 14 elevators but they are slower than cold molasses especially when they need to stop at every floor for 1 or 2 minutes to let people creep off.

I think you get the picture, as I posted on facebook I estimate somewhere around 300 wheelchairs, walkers and scooters, or more that 15% of the passengers.  Oh yeah and canes also.  Well we finally got on and in our cabin we have a nice view and a good location on the ship.  We had asked for open seating for dining and that what it said in our confirmation however in our room was our confirmed reservation for traditional dining, same time, and same table every night.  That turned out to be a blessing in disguise.  Our table was by the entrance and we had some wonderful table companions.  The food as you can imagine was very good and the service great, albeit a bit slow which gave us more time to talk with our tablemates. 

We spent 4½ days at sea getting to the islands during that time we went to art auctions, trivia games, art lectures, watched movies and just relaxed.  We met some folks in the first trivia game and the 6 of us ended up being trivia partners the rest of the cruise.  As we were cruising I would check e-mails and facebook and saw that Jackie and John were flying to Kauai, we didn’t know they were going to Hawaii and they didn’t know we were going.  What a kick, we ended up meeting them and their friends for breakfast at the feral pig; they picked us up at the dock.  As we were walking around with them we saw that there was a free shuttle back to the ship so we took that so they didn’t need to drive us back to the ship.  For anyone going to Kauai there is a K-Mart, Wal-Mart and a Costco among everything else you might need, Ross, etc.  Kauai was our third port and if you ever come over believe it or not the cheapest place to by tourist things that are actually made in Hawaii is K-Mart. 

Okay enough rambling out of order.  We landed in Hilo on Tuesday with no real plans.  We got in the free shuttle to Hilo Hattie’s a local store that specializes in the tourist trap trade.  That’s not being fair really but they do give you a free ride to their store, every island has one and a free shell lei.  While waiting Sylvia saw a sign for a free shuttle to a tour of the island the tour was $70.00 each and by far the cheapest we had seen, so we jumped on the free shuttle which turned out to be the tour bus.  I’ll leave that story for another tome, but it evolves beating the system for the tour operator.  Once on the bus and having signed the release of liability forms the bus driver informed us that they only accept cash, when I told him I don’t carry that much cash when I walk around he said no worries and took us to an ATM, wasn’t that nice of him.  Sylvia said the bus driver reminded her of the Hawaiian guy on 50 first dates and he really acted like him.  The tour was supposed to last 4-hours but went for 5½ -hours and turned out to be a real nice tour.  We went to the steam vents, a couple of volcanoes, the Thurston lava tube, a macadamia nut farm(Mauna lio) which is now owned by Hershey’s and of course Hilo Hattie’s.  Lots of walking, good thing it was the first day.

On Wednesday we arrived in Honolulu, I had pre-purchased an excursion to the Polynesian cultural center that includes a tour of the island.  We were picked up at 07:45 in the morning at the dock and got back at 10:30 that night.  It was one busy day the island tour was great we stopped at a couple of beaches and several overlooks went to an active crater and to Dole pineapple farm.  We arrived at the PCC around 1:00 and started taking in the different villages, oh and by the way it rained a couple of times.  Around 4:00 we were pooped and Sylvia thought it would be a good time to take the free shuttle to the temple tour.  We got on the shuttle with one other couple and as the shuttle pulled out it started to pour, not just rain pour.  The driver had the wipers going full speed and it was still hard for him to see the road, on the way to the temple they take you by BYI-Hawaii and then on to the temple.  When we arrived at the temple it was still coming down but they park next to a small shelter that leads you into the visitor center.  We went inside with our tour guides, two sister missionaries the visitor center is decorate with some beautiful Christmas trees.  We talked with the visitor center director and he said that the temple gave each of the 17 stakes a tree, a scripture and asked them to decorate the tree use that theme.  It was a great idea, the director and his wife have been on a mission for 4-years.  They did a 1-year church service mission and while on that were called to the Hawaii temple as the visitor center director for 2-years and then were asked to extend for another year.  A couple of very friendly folks and of course talked to us about serving.   When went back out to catch the shuttle back it had stopped raining.  We then went into the shops for a little while we waited for the restaurant to open, dinner was part of the package.  Somehow, although I had paid for the cheaper package we were given the prime dinner package which is the best of the best, not what I was hoping for.   It includes all you can eat prime rib, king crab legs, fresh sushi and all sorts of high end chicken and fish dishes.  I just want Kailua pork and poi neither of which they had in this restaurant.  They did have pog though so it wasn’t an entire loss.  We then went to a couple of more shows and then waited for the big show that ends the night.  The show is wonderful and I would recommend it to anyone to go at least once.  Okay back to the ship for a rest.

Thursday we landed in Kauai, Sylvia called John and Jackie and they came to the dock and picked us up.  We went to a local joint called the Feral Pig and had breakfast.  Mom had macadamia-banana bread French toast and I had the macadamia nut pancakes.  They have a thing called loco-moco which is 2 hamburger patties covered in brown gravy on top of rice with two eggs on top.  John likes it, maybe next time for me.  We discovered a free shuttle back so after breakfast we went back to the ship on that.  We then decided to wait in the free shuttle line, there are free shuttles to wal-mart, k-mart, Harbor mall, the ABC store and Hilo Hattie’s of course.  First we went to K-mart that was the first shuttle that had room.  When we got to the store we noticed that it is next door to Costco and a large outdoor mall.  We also found out that the best place to buy Hawaiian stuff is K-mart, go figure.  After buying junk while waiting for the shuttle back to the ship I noticed a stand selling malasadas (Portuguese doughnuts) they are so good, just saying.  We went back to the ship and then got on another shuttle this time to Hilo Hattie’s, bought more stuff (read junk) Hilo Hattie’s is out of town and the driver of the free shuttle was nice and gave a small talk about the area and island while he was driving us there. 

Thursday we were in Maui, we tender in there so Sylvia and I went down early to get our tender tickets.  We were in the first group off the ship and into town.  We walked around for a while and talked to some different tour operators about prices.  We had gotten the typical bait a switch on a whale watching tour.  After walking to their store, they didn’t have a booth on the wharf (should have been a clue) they told us the published fares weren’t for this harbor but for the harbor on the other side of the island but they could make us a deal.  We said thanks, we’d think about it and left.  We walked back to the port and decided to take the Ocean Institute tour.  Same price as most of the others but the money goes to a good cause.  The trip was great we saw lots of whales and Sylvia got some good pictures.  After that trip we walked around own some more and talked with a time share operator, pretty much about everything except his time share, which was a nice change.  Then some “marks” came by and he went back into selling mode and we left.  Tendered back to the ship and spent the rest of the afternoon onboard.

We left Maui around 4:30 and we are now at sea.  I write more as I remember things that I left out, which are many.

November already

Well it's November and I still haven't posted anything of any importance.  I finished my paperwork for retirement and my last working day will be Dec. 28, first day of retirement Dec. 29.  We will be on a cruise from 12-7 until 12-21, yes I know it is before I retire.  We had planned this before I decided to retire and it works out real well with my schedule and earning vacation time while I am on vacation.  Our house is in escrow and with any luck will close the same time I retire.  There are only two downsides, moving, I hate packing and moving maybe that's why we lived at our lat place for 21 years.  Also moving away from friends we've had for over 20 years.  Ah, but life goes on.

Getting ready

The time is fast approaching, Sylvia retired last month and already started traveling to watch the grand-kids.  I am meeting with the retirement board Friday.  The intent of this blog is to post our travels and other things we will be doing together or separately depending on the trip, the time and the excuse.  I'll update as I remember.