Category Archives: Travels and Adventures

Places I’ve gone, people I’ve seen, things I’ve done.

Saint Martin

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Work up around 6am still feeling lousy. We decided to go ashore to find some cold medicine.

Had a very light breakfast of some honeydew melon and toast I’m sure that anything heavier would screw me up something fierce.

Turns out that every morning the captain hosts a ‘Story Time’ where he tells us what’s going on for the day and any other bits of info. I did my best to give a hearty “Good Morning Captain Sir , but my head & throat rebelled so I only croaked a it. Ginny was able to belt it out I suspect she’s going to regret it later.

The captains’ name is “Fernando he introduced the crew including Debra, the ‘Activities Mate’, and Laurie, the Purser. He also covered important stuff, like safety guidelines, etc.

We had lunch at a little French place called Antoine’s. Ginny had some good gazpacho soup, I had a chicken sandwich. I would have liked the soup, but wasn’t feeling very adventurous in a food way.

We wandered back into town to find a drugs store and found one. They didn’t have a lot of stuff, but they carried Nyquil & Dayquil, so we bought one of each. Not sure if that will last us, but it should get us past the next few days.

Ahoy Mate

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We’re on our way … wake up at 4am, cab arrives at 5am, flight is at 7am. OMG am I tired.

Arrive at San Juan, find a place for lunch. Nothing special, but ok.

Fly to St. Martin in a puddle jumper. We sat right next to the prop.

After clearing customs, we went to the main lobby of the airport and found the windjammer rep. We had to wait a bit to get on the bus because they had to wait for some other people. Bus ride was ‘interesting’, as the roads were very narrow. Everyone joked about inhaling a bit to squeeze by.

Bus stopped a few blocks away from the dock, so we had to hike down to where the launch for the boat was.

Check went fairly smoothly, although we had to go through the safety briefing twice. Were taken to our cabin, which was VERY VERY small.

Around this time I noticed a slight cough and dryness in my throat.

We went to bed around 10pm, after having dinner and wandering around on the deck.

I woke up around 3am feeling lousy. Head ache, sinus congestion, scratchy throat. Oh crap, now I have a sinus infection.

Preparing to leave

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We’re off on another vacation … this time to the Caribbean for a Windjammer cruise and some time on the British Virgin Island of Tortola.

Riley has figured it out he’s seen the duffel bags and knows we’re going away. He’s not in a good mood.

Ginny has a cough that hasn’t gotten any better probably caught it from some of her co-workers. She thought it was gone a week or so ago, but it came back. I was quite surprised that I hadn’t caught anything. I’ve been taking Echinacea and 1000mg vitamin C tablets for the past 8 weeks to avoid getting sick.

I aimed the web cam at the chair Riley likes to snooze in, so we might be able to watch him when we get to Fort Recovery.

Ginny realized that we forgot to get more dry food for Riley so she left a note for Pat, our pet sitter, and a ten dollar bill, in case she need to get a small bag.

Sea Fever

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I must go down to the seas again,
   to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship
   and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song
   and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face
   and a grey dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again,
   for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call
   that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day
   with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume,
   and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again
   to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way
   where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn
   from a laughing fellow rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream
   when the long trick's over.

— John Masefield

More on this later.

Timezone

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We’re still getting used to the timezone. Woke up very early (at least I did).

Asked about the internet access at the front desk … was told it’s still not working. Oh well, I kinda like this ‘not working’.

Snorkeled on the beach park down the way from the Condo. Not great, but not terrible. Got some pictures, but nothing that knocked my socks off. Still getting used to the camera The shutter release has a delay and I really can’t use the viewfinder at all. The display works, but it’s hard to see underwater.

On the drive back, we stopped at MacGreggor point to see if there were whales to see. Saw some big whales AND a Coast Guard air/sea rescue practice. They had a big plane dropping markers near some flares in the water. Very exciting.

Dinner at Maui Fish & Game / Maui Brewing Company. “Beach blond Pale Ale was good.

More fun with the car: To add insult to injury, we found on the headlights on the car were poorly aimed. Mostly down and to the left. Strike three. We are definitely going to get the car swapped.

Just another day

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Got the Maui News at the front desk … asked about internet access. Was told it was still not working. Darn, I’ll have to download my mail via my phone. Oh well. I can cope. I hope Ginny can too.

Drove around the island a bit … saw a blow hole and surf. Nothing to exciting, but enjoyable,.

Since we were out and about, I decided to take the cell phone charger so we would be sure to have a good charge. I plugged the charger in and got no power. I know the charger works, so it had to be the power outlet in the car. I tried the other power outlet and got nothing. Another strike against the car. Ginny and I decided to see if Avis had anything available, because she knows they had Ford Escapes.

Stopped for a smoothie. Return trip was on a one lane rode that was ‘exciting’. Ended up following a big 4×4 pickup that would win in any argument 🙂

Since we were not quite adjusted to the time zone change, we decided to eat in. We stopped at the Star Market and picked up some light food. Various poke’s, rice, a bottle of pino, soda, cereal, bread, coffee etc.

When we got back to the condo, I decided to see if the internet access is working yet. I plugged my portable wireless router into the ethernet on the cable modem and it worked! I had to agree to their AUP, but after that it seemed to work. Ok, I figure it must be working. I’ll sign up tomorrow. I figure one day charge won’t be too bad.

Paradise

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We have arrived. Another trip to Maui.

Picked up luggage with no problems.

Got car with lots of problems.

When checking in, we inquired about upgrading to a SUV with 4wd … we’re planning on driving out to Hana later in the trip and taking the back road for the return. Driving with more ground clearance and 4wd would make the trip much nicer. They had a Chevy Envoy. We rented that, but when we looked at it I decided it was too big for my comfort. I went back in and asked for the original midsize we had reserved.
Went to get into that car and received an olfactory assault as soon as I opened the door. It smelled like it had been driven for weeks without every getting cleaned out (or the driver taking a shower). It was also very dirty and beat up.

Told the rental agent and got a different car. This it was a Silver Chevy “Classic … went to the parking spot they said it would be in, but found a tan car. Asked one of the parking lot workers where the car was and, after about 5 minutes of looking, found it.

This car wasn’t much cleaner, but it didn’t stink. It had a LOT of scratches & dings, both inside and out.

Not wanting to deal with another trip into the rental office, we took it… but took extra time to document all the damage.
It didn’t drive well either, but it did drive.

Traffic to Napili was horrible. Took us about 2 hours to get from the airport to the condo.

We checked into the condo … very nice unit. Bed is comfortable and clean. Nice appliances. Internet access is available, but not working at the moment. We were told to check in later to find out when it’s fixed.

We’re obviously still on Chicago time, so we went to bed early.

Folk Life

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This was the second day of the Northwest Folklife Festival (although the first day for us).

We woke up around 8am and got in gear around 9am. Quite a record for us.

Outside the hotel we found it was kind of chilly. Ginny assured me that it would get warmer soon enough.

We wandered over to the Seattle Center only to find that Folk Life didn’t start until 11am.

Oh well, we had some time to kill. Asked a few of the vendors if they were serving coffee yet, but none were.

We people watched for a while and one of the vendors actually tracked us down and asked if we still wanted coffee, because she was starting a pot. SOLD!

After folk life actually started up, we checked out some of the acts. We watched the Morris Dancers a bit, checked out some of the crafts vendors,

The weather got a bit warm, almost hot, and both Ginny and I were beginning to feel it. We decided to take a short siesta and come back later in the afternoon.

After a short nap we went back. Saw some more acts. We made a point to stop at the Northwest Court stage to listen to the sea shanties. As an added bonus, they were next to the beer garden, so both Ginny and I had a drink.

We listened to the Celtic music, which was pretty darn good. Some of the audience members started dancing. Two of the dancers stood out… there was a young girl, probably 13 or so, who was obviously a trained ballet dancer. She was quite good. The other person who stood out was this guy who obviously loved the music and was dancing a rather good Irish jig.

Around 7pm we decided to head back to the hotel. Kind of early, but we were both tired.

Along the way back, we passed by McMenamins on Roy street. When we looked in the window, we saw three or four musicians from Folk Life sitting in the corner booth playing their instruments. I looked at Ginny and asked “Time for one beer? She readily agreed.

We went in, grabbed some seats at the bar, and had some really tasty beer and listen to the musicians. It was fantastic. Ended up having four beers (barman kept asking us if we wanted to start a tab, but we always responded “No, this is the last one . It became a bit of a joke between us.

By the time we left there were about 50 musicians in the bar, all playing and singing. It was incredible.

Seattle

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Flew out to Seattle from Chicago. Nothing really special. Ginny ran late, so the cab had to wait a few minutes.

Unfortunately, in the rush to get into the cab, I forgot my long sleeve jacket.

Flight was kind of bumpy, but nothing extraordinary. I tried to snooze a bit, as we were going to arrive late.

We arrived, picked up the luggage, and went to collect the car. Since we had originally rented a trailblazer, which was bigger than I wanted to deal with, Ginny had downgraded us to a RAV4. I wanted something that had real 4 wheel drive and six cylinders (since we were driving in the mountains), so we re-upgraded to a ford explorer. This explorer, however, was bigger than any explorer that I remembered. Ginny and I figured that they had upsized the explorer since the last time we rented one.

We got to the hotel around 11pm (thanks to Fred) and checked in. Had some trouble finding a parking place at the hotel due to the size of the Explorer. Desk clerk gave us permission to park in a handicapped spot.

Hawaii Vacation — We’re Home

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We arrived home today … had the redye from LAX to ORD. I hate red-eye flights. Even though I took a melatonin, I was unable to really sleep. Got a few naps, but nothing substantial.

Flight was uneventful and our luggage arrived in record time. The ground crew was probably making up for taking so much time in Maui.

I ordered our taxi and we went outside to wait for it … it was cold … yes, Chicago cold.

Home was just as we left it … all in good order. I turned up the heat and the hot water heater (not going to forget to do that again I think).

I tried to stay awake as long as possible … although I didn’t succeed. I stayed up to about 1pm, watching TV, then had to crawl into bed for a while. Back up at 4pm for more TV.

For some reason both Ginny and I are suffering from sore throats. I wonder if our brief layover in LA caused it. We are both pretty sensitive to bad air conditions. Actually, my throat was starting to feel dry the day before yesterday. Possibly ‘anticipatory Maui withdrawal’? Might have to do some medical research on that.