Wednesday Evening, SFO... or maybe Thursday Morning, Ft Lauderdale...

Wednesday Evening, SFO...

We are off... It feels  weird... There was little or no emotional build up... I came home after work, checked my email, ate dinner... Stuffed a few things in the suit case, then relaxed for a few minutes... Now, I am sitting at gate A11 waiting to board or flight...  With a bit of luck I will sleep, then wake in Ft Lauderdale Florida, only to sit again, at a different gate, waiting for a second flight...

Security was quick, people seem resigned to stripping down,  piling stuff in grey plastic bins, and holding their hands over their heads while being "scanned"...   I was chosen for a nitrates wipe down...  I am special... It was a good that I didn't clean the pigeon loft today... Their droppings are "hot", high in nitrates, and could have resulted in a positive test.  Really... Bird guano, mined on islands off Peru and Chile was used to make explosives in the late 1800's.  those islands were one of the prizes taken during the war of the Pacific.

Back to SFO... We continue to sit near our gate, waiting for the call to board. We fly in less than 30 minutes... They are calling passengers ( by name) likely trying to address seating requests...  People are starting to mill...  I note there is a plane sitting at the jet way... Always a good sign.   People are starting to crowd the gate...  Crowd the jet way... The jet way is freezing cold... It is a cold night, a good night to make a run for the tropics.

Now aboard,  full flight... Settling in... Searching for those last few spots in the overhead bins... We are flying Jet Blue... So there is foot room... There is space in the overhead bins...

Now a four hour nap later,  about an hour out, over the Gulf of Mexico... There are stars, but no light...  I put John Hiatt on the IPad nearly four hours ago, and he has kept me company... There are still a couple of albums to go...  His catalog may make it all the way to Ft Lauderdale...  The plane is dark... Lights at each end of the cabin and the occasional video screen...  The passengers are starting to wake,  The cabin crew is working their way down the aisle with water, orange juice and coke...  I finally feel like this is a trip, but not yet a tropical vacation, and San Juan, about 8 hours away is an abstract concept.

A bit later... They announce we are 140 miles out... We start our decent... The sounds change as the plane pitches over... Now there are lights below...  The Captain "illuminates" the seat belt sign... People are stirring...  Again there are no lights below as we cross the great swamp which is the center of south Florida...

Now, sitting in the Ft Lauderdale airport, waiting for our next flight... We have a four hour layover... Food choices are limited... We ate at the Food Network Cafe... All the graphics and style of the TV show coming soon to an airport near you… I had a Cuban breakfast sandwich, it was good… But now are sitting...  At 7:30 local time, the airport still seems to be in overnight mode... Shops and bars closed, cleaning crews at work.  The airport is being renovated, so the floors are bare concrete, store fronts are boarded up, temporary lights hang from 2x4's... But no construction workers are present...

I find a quite corner and lay on the floor and nap… an hour or so later I wake and finish the blog post … the bar nearby is open… the airport is open for business…

One final note... This is my 300th blog post... I started back in November 2008, as something of an experiment after attending a conference, for work, where much of the discussion was about new media, social networks and generational communication...  A bit over 4 years later I am still waiting for permission to use that knowledge for work... So instead, I blog about my life and my travels, and occasionally complain about life and sometimes work...  Much of the time now it is a travel blog...

We fly in about 23 hours, 8:00 pacific time...

The bags are basically packed... (My bags are packed, I’m  ready to go, I am standing here outside your door, … original by Peter Paul and Mary  not exactly our situation… ) beyond the bags, the camera batteries are charged... there is a pile on the table... If all we do is pile the loose stuff in bags and make the airport in time we win...

Work is out of control, but work is always out of control... our project, scheduled to be done tomorrow is at least two weeks behind… There are things to be overseen, which will not be overseen… others will have to be responsible… This isn’t how I like to work, but…

Here in Northern California it is cold... by our standards bitterly cold... freezing... down to 30 or so... but the Orange tree in the front yard is safe, as is the lemon in the back yard... The house project (aka work) is suffering… paint won’t dry… its too cold… freezing here is not freezing elsewhere... but we are suffering... The Caribbean is looking good.

While I am packed, of course, there is stuff to be done... I am trying to upload new music to my Ipad... I want a replacement lens cap for the camera... but, if those don't happen the trip will still happen... I have Jeep parts to pick up… (not likely) and a grant to finish (Our Rotary club is drilling a well for a clinic in Africa… Likely to be finished while on the plane…)

Now about 11:00 (pm), the lovely Tina is asleep... the late news on... nearly time to go to bed...

We have a plan… the St Sebastian Festival in San Juan… explorations in St Croix, St Kitts, Canyoning in Dominica… tourist stuff in Genada… (which beats an invasion… reminiscent of a Tom Lear song…)

In St Thomas (a US Territory… ) we will visit nearby St John… mostly a National Park, with National Park Service Rangers in magic Smoky the Bear hats… and a brew pub…

Home via a visit with the son in Ft Lauderdale…

See everyone in a few days, Mardi Gras beads on... Mardi Gras beads can fix anything…

Stories and photos to come… maybe…

Randy (of Randy and Tina....)

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Travel is fast approaching…

The lovely Tina and I are off in a couple of days… to the Caribbean, the tropics, to escape, to explore, to cruise, to relax… god knows we need to escape and relax…

There is also an escape from what for us is cold, frigid weather… it will get near 32 degrees tonight… too damn cold… (there is a fire on the hearth a few feet away as I write this…) it is warmer where we are going… But before you can escape and relax you have to plan, and pack, and prepare…

We both seem to be as prepared at work as we can be… Tina more than I, but generally we are prepared… There is a project going on at the house, but I think I have done what I can in advance, have a crew coming in Wednesday to more the last of the furniture, and have to just accept I have done that that can be done…  I am close to setting up my summer camp program for the summer (summer camps in summer, who would have thought)

The Packing has started… suitcases down from the loft in the garage today… there are piles of stuff… growing piles… guided by lists… stuff to take, lists of stuff to find, to buy, and eventually to pack.

I am probably more addicted to technology than I should be… there are cameras (three) with battery chargers, memory chips, cables, extra lenses and such… an Ipad (I blog on the road on the Ipad) with its charger… a journal (sometimes I resort to paper… )  The cell phones need chargers as well… collectively it is a computer bag… a fat, heavy computer bag.

There are books… and clothing… we need something to wear… They expect us to wear clothing...  I have formal stuff (a white dinner jacket, and stuff… it is a cruise… ) swim suit and water shoes… there are tee shirts, shorts, and more… There are mardi gras beads… 

The planning is nearly done… there are guides purchased, guides downloaded and printed, and a plan, 7 pages long, 1,200 words or so, a very personal guide for the two of us…  Flight schedules and reservations, hotel reservations, a rental car, guided tours reserved in advance and “ideas”…. Places to explore once we have done what we planned to do.

Our plan…

We leave SFO on Wednesday evening after work… flying about 8:00 pm… red eye to Ft Lauderdale… Jet Blue… not my beloved Virgin, but a good airline… We arrive in Ft Lauderdale near dawn… then change planes for San Juan…  Two long flights… still domestic… 

We arrive in San Juan early afternoon on Thursday… We have a really nice hotel in Old San Juan, near the cruise pier… not the pier our ship is leaving from of course, but a cruise pier… our ship is leaving from a different pier, the Pan Am pier… an homage to Pan-American Airlines, aka Pan Am, who landed their clippers, large sea planes, here, before World War II…

We have Thursday afternoon, all day Friday, and much of Saturday in Old San Juan…  By chance there is a significant street festival going on… The St Sebastian Festival… parades, music, crowds, a zoo… we will explore and enjoy, but likely will not linger much…  We will likely use the local ferries, buses and subway to explore beyond old San Juan… We have visited San Juan before… I have blogged about it before at http://randyhees.blogspot.com/2010/11/san-juan.html That trip generated a album of 12 photos… found at https://picasaweb.google.com/108652524348276372534/November2010CarribeanCruise12Photos

Saturday evening we board our ship… the Celebrity Summit… We have sailed with Celebrety before, but never on the Summit… a new ship for a new trip.  We sail at 8:30, after dark… 

We visit St Croix, US Virgin Islands the next day… we will take a cab across the island to Christianstad to explore the National park… as in National Park Service, the US National Park Service, the guys in the magic Smokey the Bear hats…  having explored the park we will return to Fredrikstad and its attractions (and our ship) to wander about…

It is St Kitts the next day… Ft Brimstone… and some local low key explorations…

On Dominica we are canyoning… repelling down a waterfall… I haven’t repelled in near 40 years… it will be exciting.

On to Grenada… probably a ship’s tour to a nutmeg processing plant… a former plantation… then explore town and a local bar… I expect a good day.

 A day at sea… 

Then St Thomas, where we plan to take the ferry to St John…  

Then San Juan again… and how to waste a day before a 3:00 flight to Ft Lauderdale… rental car, hotel, a visit with the son… The son lives in Ft Lauderdale… we get to see the dog… We will have a brunch at Johnny V’s (we ate there before… it was good… ) then fly home.

At least we have a plan…plans are important...

Late Saturday night… A story about paint archeology

It’s a rare weekend with few job related responsibilities…  And I end up at work… not for work, but for other things… for all the right reasons…  A friend shows up with a 1875 locomotive headlight, and permission to sand through and explore the various layers of paint…  The friend, a museum curator, expert in Victorian paint and industrial design is in position of the headlight from Glenbrook… a locomotive owned by and undergoing restoration by the Nevada State Railroad Museum… He is doing a paint study… I participated in a similar study for a 1868 passenger car owned by the museum recently… We sand, discuss expectations, findings, and such…

But first, Jim hasn’t visited the farm before… (Ardenwood Historic Farm, a joint project of East Bay Regional Parks and the City of Fremont, 210 acres of a once 12,000 acre Gold Rush era grain ranch) we explore… the farm yard, the butterfly grove, the house, and the new railroad building… then set up a table outside (in bright sun) and attack the headlight with sand paper, 3in1 oil, magnifying glasses, and enthusiasm.  We are professionals, you should get out of our way… 

We are looking for evidence of 19^th century decoration… we fail, or in reality, the headlight fails us.  We sand windows in likely spots… we find primer, black, bright orange, with a stripe of yellow orange, and more black… There is a yellow layer in places… but no layers of wine, or rich brown, no decoration or other expected (documented) 19^th century colors… Somebody stripped the old paint off, circa 1938, and has erased the evidence…  At least that is our story… And we are what you call “experts”… We do find traces of wine or maybe brown… The likely original or second color, but not wine with decoration as hoped for… The decoration is gone, likely erased by a skilled painter preparing the headlight for repainting after the locomotive left service…  We have failed to find 19^th century paint, but Jim has a statement about the search and lack of physical forensic evidence for his report.

During the search, park guests stop by to ask questions, to find out what we are doing… they seem interested… They have not heard of paint archeology… they peer through magnifying glasses at paint samples exposed by sand paper and knife…  Their (young) children dream of Blue engines named Thomas but don’t see blue…

Back home, hours later… after dark… a fire on the hearth… a baked pasta for dinner, the 49’ers win… I am working on the planning for a  cruise vacation in a few days (canyoning on Dominica!)…  now late… a glass of cheap red wine at hand, I blog…

Trip planning, a cycle…

A week from now we will be off again… This time to Puerto Rico for a few days, then a Caribbean cruise, followed by a night in Florida to visit The Son…

The trip has been in the works for some time… booked last spring… airfare purchased in July or so… a hotel in San Juan… then the trip kind of sat at the edge of our brains, while life, work, holidays and a dozen other things demanded our full attention.  Both of us are really looking forward to the trip… but we have limited plans once there… that planning has finally started and we are getting excited…  Normally we would have already researched and booked a few local guides… This time we haven’t.  There is a “roll call” for our sailing at Cruise Critics, but neither of us has been real active there.

Now, evenings, I am googling (by the way, Microsoft Word doesn’t recognize the word “googling”, I am not surprised, but a bit disappointed, even worse, Blogger doesn't... very strange) the various islands (St Croix, St Kitts, Dominica, Grenada, and St Thomas)  Tina and I have been to San Juan and St Thomas before, but the other islands are new…  I had picked up a good guide book a few months ago from my favorite used book pusher… Tina had printed our a couple of web guides many months ago… I discovered that AAA no longer publishes a Caribbean tour book… at least I have an old one…

We are unlikely to “do” the typical cruise trips which are seemingly offered at every cruise stop, world wide…  glass bottom boats, zip lining, or two hour “sights of…” bus tours with shopping opportunities (never underestimate the power of shopping opportunities).  St Kitts has a scenic railway, which to Tina’s surprise we will miss… or maybe avoid.  We are much more likely to get a local cab to a historical site or local market, or walk about town.  Several of the islands have significant national parks which we may visit…  Some islands have rum factories… we may miss the overly corporate Bacardi Rum Factory, but since it’s a fun ferry ride across the harbor maybe we will go anyway.  We are likely to visit the bar that is credited with inventing the Pina Colada…

By chance, we are in San Juan for the annual St Sebastian festival. That should be interesting (or overwhelming… we will soon know).  Last time we were in San Juan we spent all our time in Old San Juan… this time we will venture beyond…

So, with the trip a week away, there are packing lists… a box is starting to gather “stuff”… a GPS, maps, cameras and batteries and chargers.   I had problems with one camera a couple of months ago… that has been addressed.  I am trying to choose a few books to take… I keep a shelf filled with “to read” books, some have been there for several years… others are new to the shelf… 

The vacation is becoming real