Monday Evening, Crooked Island Passage

Monday, November 8, mid day, at sea

Since the last report, the sun has be sighted, not consistently, but occasionally, we are now closer to the Bahamas, and the islands have been transformed from cold grey shapes to islands, with beaches, greenery, and the occasional building… you can feel it becoming tropical…

We have tucked behind the lee of Cat island, in Exuma Sound… Many experts believe Cat Island was the sight of Columbus’s first landing in the new world… of course many islands claim Columbus… as does Spain, Genoa Italy, and most Americans of Italian descent…

The ship is big, bigger than we are used to… It is easy to be removed from it being a ship… not from the sea that surrounds, but from the mechanics of being on a moving object, away from the life boats, and the bridge, and all the things that make it go… The captain noted that while the officer cadets on board still practice celestial navigation, there is a problem… they have an enclosed bridge, with enclosed wings, so now the cadets have to make their way up 5 decks to find a place where they can see the horizon and the stars at the same time to take their noon observations. Captain Mercer also suggested that we are close to abandoning paper charts for the convenience of computers and GPS… Currently they have much of the outdoor space, including the promenade and sports decks closed for our safety… So, we can stare at the ocean, but it is hard to feel an ocean breeze.

Now Sunset… Transiting the Crooked Island Passage, Bahamas - The sun is fading fast… nearly gone by 5:30… just peeking under the cloud layer. The skies are dark, there are rain squalls to starboard… It’s a bit too cool to be outside… not too cold, but too cool… and dark and foreboding… the Dark and Stormy Night of bad novels… As if to provide contrast, the cover over the pool area is closed, but there are still people lounging, still swimming, still drinking tropical drinks with umbrellas.… It’s still party time on the Neiuw Amsterdam… But it is also formal night, when the people who were sitting in the sun by the pool done long dressing and tuxedos… on their way to a formal dinner in a formal setting… I hope I don’t get shot for wearing my white dinner jacket after labor day…

Now at Sea

Sunday, November 7^th, 2010,

We had a wonderful, lazy day… we got up late… showed and packed, checked out of our hotel and went in search of food… Even with the advantage of a free hour, courtesy of the change due to Day Light Savings time, It was nearly noon before we reached a beach bar on Ft Lauderdale beach… We had to make a quick decision, breakfast or lunch… One kitchen crew did breakfast, and was preparing to leave, a second, just arriving would do lunch… lunch offered the option of alcohol… (but only after 12:00 noon, It’s the law.) We chose lunch…

Tina had a Blue Burger and a glass of chardonnay; I had alligator and a glass of beer… I was seeing a trend, Last night I ate a bunny wabbit, Big Bird, and Bambie’s mom, today I am after a big lizard… I can’t decide if I am an adventuress eater, or if I am trying to consume every cartoon character I can… At least I am irritating the vegetarians I know…

Having eaten, we went in search of a liquor store to purchase supplies… It’s seven days at sea after all, then went to the cruise port and left our luggage… We knew we couldn’t board until 4:00, but others thought they could board at 1:00, and some had been told that boarding would start at 11:30… We figured the further we could be away from the cruise terminal the better… but we wanted our luggage to have a head start on the transfer process…

Having sent the luggage on its merry way, we headed back to Ft Lauderdale, to their historic downtown village/square… where it was the monthly Jazz in the park… (we didn’t hear much music, but we saw many, many people picnicking, with lots of wine and beer, and even more dogs… apearrently Ft Lauderdale is a dog city, who knew?) We found a parking place (with strange and unexpected ease) then went to the New River Inn, a 1905 hotel, which houses Old Fort Lauderdale Museum of History. Our goal was a tour of the 1907 King-Cromartie House, a house museum (I run a house museum, I like to visit house museums)… The next tour was nearly an hour away, so with time to kill we joined a historic walking tour… very well done, tying many loose bits of local history together… returning to the hotel late we got an abbreviated tour of the house…

By now it was after 4:00, so we headed to the airport, to return the rental car, and grab a cab for the cruise port… All went well, all quickly, and we arrived at pier 26, to find the shuttle busses with the throngs of early arrivals returning from their shopping trips… (because of the late departure, Hal (aka Holland America Lines) had arraigned shuttle busses to the convention center, where there was more room, and access to the rest of the city… ) Many of the passenger were frustrated with the late departure, the shuttle, the convention center, and the phase of the moon… we did not share their frustrations…

Now aboard Nieuw Amsterdam in Ft Lauderdale…

We missed the delay and late boarding and arrived about 5:00 after boarding had started… it was close to a walk on… less than 30 minutes from taxi to stateroom

The ship is beautiful… as others have noted a bit sparse, but really pretty… They have the most ornate flower arraignments I have seen on a ship.

The Capt. has announced that he expects to sail a bit earlier than planned at 7:30 or so… Of course that didn’t happen… the earlier departure announcement was followed by announcements that they were looking for two couples, 4 passengers, who we suspect were not aboard… but were not required to be aboard per the ship’s schedule… we suspect they were having a wonderful evening somewhere in Ft Lauderdale, since the ship was not planning to sail until 10:00… and the ship didn’t, while we were at dinner, about 10:15, the ship quietly dropped her lines and made her way out the channel, disembarked the pilot and entered the Florida Straits.

Monday, November 8, 2010, Aboard Nieuw Amsterdam

At Sea, off Exuma Islands, Bahamas

The Florida straits can be rough… The Gulf Stream passes through the Florida Straits, and there it meets the continental weather for the first time… Many years ago on our first cruise we crossed the Florida Straits to find conditions so rough that the ship’s propellers we regularly coming out of the water… Most of us spent time in the state room that night with Mal de Mar… Last night on this ship the propellers didn’t come out of the water, but the ship moved, in unpredictable and interesting ways… kind of like a cork screw… I suspect many passengers went to bed to hide…

I rose a little early (6:30 am) got coffee an half a grapefruit… Returned to the cabin, to work on this, and get Tina for breakfast, followed by the captain speaking about the ship…

Outside its grey, the skys cloudy, rain squalls on the horizon, the seas steely blue grey… There are swells, but not many white caps… Although the Bahamas are in sight, it doesn’t feel very tropical… Who cares? We are on a ship, at sea, on vacation...

A Caribbean Cruise… getting started…

T. and I are in Florida, Ft. Lauderdale Florida… We flew out from San Francisco on the red eye last night. We arrived a little after 7:00 in the morning… We both managed a little sleep… I slept through the take off… The flight was fine… We flew Jet Blue… One issue… the plane was hot… in the middle, where are seats were, but was freezing at the ends… don’t you love to fly…

Once on the ground we waited for checked luggage (first bag free on Jet Blue… this was why we chose them over the other guys (including my beloved Virgin America) who charge for every checked bag.) Grabbed our rental car (why do we distrust rental car companies… the correct answer would be because they are too often not trustworthy, the second question being why are they so often lying thieves, with lost reservations, and cars reserved not available…) The car procured, inspected, and mirrors adjusted we headed south towards Miami and South Beach… we found a Mexican restaurant on Washington Street that had a breakfast menu… Breakfast in Miami Beach is a challenge, it’s a community that wakes late…

From there we headed south to Vizcaya, a 1916 Estate, now historic house museum… The house was interesting… the home of John Deering of International Harvester… very wealthy, and able to afford anything he wanted. It is in the tradition of European styled estate summer homes… like Hearst’s The Enchanted Hill or San Simeion, Ringling’s Ca ’da’Zan, or any of the may Providence Rhode Island estates…

There are lots of ways to approach a house museum, especially a house like Vizcaya… on one level it is a beautiful place… the gardens extend all about, and are particularly spectacular and beautiful. So beautiful that they are one of the preferred locations for Quinceañera photos… and there were at least 8 groups there that day, taking what at first glimpse are wedding photos, but instead are celebrating the young woman’s 15^th birthday… In some Latin cultures, this is as significant a celebration as a wedding.

Being a few minutes early we walked once around the house, to look about and in search of a bathroom… to reach the bathroom you had to walk once around the house, construction had blocked one corner… and behind the blocked corner were found the facilities we were in search of… so starting at the back of the house (where the entrance is, and always was located) we first headed around the north side where we found the pool, to the east side, facing Biscayne Bay, around the south side with its massive gardens, to the north west corner of the house, 100 feet from where we started, but as in so many things, we couldn’t have gotten there from here…

Having rested, we headed back to the front of the house… all the way around the house… because the entrance of course was where we started, and you can’t get to there from here… Our passage around was blocked at the side gate by a Quinceañera photo shoot… as was the front entrance (by a different shoot, by now there were so many photo groups that they were standing in line to get the good shots…)

Inside, we explored a bit while we waited for a guided tour… Photos are not allowed inside but they were not enforcing the rules, and I shot a few…

The house is interesting, the basic design very pleasant… It is in the Mediterranean style, but something of a cross of several Mediterranean styles, as was popular in the early 20^th century… It’s a bit Spanish, a bit Moorish, a bit Venetian… borrowing from each without apology. As built, it was a roughly square house, around an open courtyard (which now sports a modern glass roof overhead). It fronted on Biscayne Bay, with a grand patio, and breakwater in the form of a stone ship… The entrance was not at the front, but at the rear, with its entrance road… Both the front and the rear walls were open to the elements… providing for breezes… both are now, as a museum house enclosed… While I understand why this was done… it fundamentally changes the house… The public rooms surround the lower floor, a balcony runs around three walls of inside, the front and sides, but not the rear or entrance… the guest rooms all open on to this balcony… at first glance is seemed to be a perfect home, a perfect place to entertain, understanding and adapting to local conditions… (at least before all the added glass)

Then we went into the downstairs public rooms… and we were bothered… Inside, away from the courtyard, the rooms were just too much… a spectacular example of the early 20^th century rich trying to establish that they too, like Europeans had culture, by adopting the styles, and frequently whole rooms, ripped from their buildings, imported to the US and installed in their mansions… The public rooms had tapestries from France, Italy and Spain, more like hunting trophies than as beautiful objects… painted walls, from Italian villas, Over the top decorative ceilings… heavy furniture… apparently Deering preferred smaller spaces, rarely used the dining room and entertained upstairs… but he needed his trophies… The library, where business meetings were held had heavy English book cases full of books indicating knowledge, but one case was a door, and the books had been cut down, only 1” or so deep… so the books were not about knowledge but the appearance of knowledge… It bothered me…

Upstairs the bedrooms all had a theme… All overly fussy… all too filled with overly decorated antiques…

Throughout the house there was little to indicate who Deering was… It felt more like a beautiful place he paid for with the art mere trophies... not unlike a deer's head on the wall.

Having visited the house we returned to the gardens… wonderful beautiful, sometimes playful gardens, full of photographers taking pictures of overdressed 15 year old girls…

We explored, then found our car and headed back north… through downtown Miami, then on the freeway north, stopped at the Bass Pro Shop… If you haven’t visited one you need to, I had been to the stores in Oakdale California, and in Las Vegas (the Las Vegas store is an order of magnitude larger, and has a casino attached… and is truly a landmark of destination shopping) but Tina never had visited a Bass Pro Shop, so we stopped…. The scale of the store is unreal… they have live fish, game fish, big fish… If like Tina and I you are from an urban area in a blue state, you may not be aware of the culture around fishing and hunting… The store huge… with departments supporting boats and boat supplies, fishing (Tina liked the pink fishing rods for girls…) hunting (guns, reloading supplies, gun cleaning kits) there was outdoor clothing (there is nothing not available in camouflage, camo baby booties anyone?) but also camping supplies and if you are successful in the hunt, cooking equipment, sausage casings, recipe books, and folding filet tables. They had a single aisle dedicated to turkey fryers… of course also adaptable to other outdoor cooking, and most disturbingly, they were scheduled to unveil their Christmas merchandize that evening… But as we left, just outside we found our “it” for the day… the live bait vending machine… a typical soft drink machine adapted to dispense worms and night crawlers and such… guaranteed to be alive… Tina and I, pleased to know that if we found a need for live bait we could in fact get it, day or night, got in the car and headed north towards Ft Lauderdale and our hotel for the night…

We stayed at the Riverside, on Los Olas Blvd… they upgraded us to a balcony room, which by chance faced the cruise port, a couple of miles away. That evening we could see ships leaving… a virtual parade of ships… tomorrow we will be part of the parade, abet a bit later than the others… we sail at 10:00 pm

We walked around… Los Olas is a street full of shops catering to those with money, there were Ferraris and other exotic cars in evidence… but there were also empty store fronts, city busses and tee shirt tourists… The weather was by their standards cold… (by the standards of Kodiak Alaska it would have been a heat wave) the first cold front of the season had blown in… We had a drink in the hotel’s bar (outside table) and eventually made our way across the street to Johnny V’s for dinner…

Johnny V’s is the restaurant owned by celebrity chief Johnny Vinczencz. He competed on Iron Chief… (against Bobby Flay, battle Citrus, Bobby Flay won) Our dinner was wonderful… I had the game trio… Venison steak, Ostrich chop, and bunny sausage, Tina had the special Ahi with crab mashed potatoes… There was an amuse, spicy tomato soup, with goat cheese on a cracker… plus desert… I had a cheese plate… they are especially proud of their cheese selection… It was an “Oh my god moment” There was wine involved… We would recommend the restaurant… highly.

This morning we slept in, watched the ships come in… I worked on the blog… I uploaded photos… we are now packing and getting ready to spend the day in Ft Lauderdale before boarding the ship late today (about 6:00… boarding starts at 4:00, but that will be a zoo… we will board fashionably late…)

Off on an adventure...

T. (aka The wife, aka DW (dear wife) in cruise speak) and I are off on a Caribbean cruise… I may have mentioned this before…

There is a plan.

We pack… The plane leaves in less than 4 hours… we haven’t packed… some might think this is an issue… we don’t… we are professionals… If you are not professionals, don’t try this… but it works for us.

Back to the plan…

We fly the red eye to Ft Lauderdale Florida… spend Saturday, Saturday night and now most of Sunday in South Florida… before boarding our ship … it’s a two day get away before THE VACATION starts… what a concept… If we laid one more vacation on this thing I would think we were retired (fat chance)

We will land early Saturday morning in Ft Lauderdale, claim our rental car, and drive south on I-95 in search of breakfast… I have my eye on a couple of places in Miami Beach… Both are modern diners, they are cute, painted pastel colors, and at 9:00 in the morning no one else will be up… we will enjoy our meal.

Having eaten we will resume our trip south, towards Vizcaya, a museum, a house museum (I run a house museum, its my job) and gardens… It is reportedly quite an estate… (T. has been there… I never have, but will be going soon)

Having toured a house museum, we will retreat north towards Ft Lauderdale… we may pause in Miami, in one of their Cuban neighborhoods, or we may speed past on I-95 north…

We have a place to stay, the Riverside Hotel, on the “New River, on Los Olas Ave… By the time we return north we can check in… then wander about… We need wine… there is a good used book store nearby, and there is a house museum nearby (I run a house museum, I like house museums, when traveling I tend to visit house museums ) Actually there at three house museums in Ft Lauderdale… I have visited two, including the Stranahan house, with is one block from our hotel… the third, so far unvisited is nearby, and we will probably visit it, claiming another merit badge on my house museum manager’s uniform (we don’t really wear uniforms… but if we did there would be patches or merit badges for every house visited… but we don’t wear uniforms (we don’t need no stinking uniforms) so we don’t have patches and merit badges, but if we did…)

Sunday, we will find breakfast, find provisions (a couple of bottles of an oaky Chardanay, and a couple of books) and if we haven’t yet visited we will visit Old Fort Lauderdale Village where we will find 1907 King-Cromartie House, a museum of pioneer lifestyle… (and another merit badge, not really)

We were supposed to board our ship, Holland America’s Neiuw Amsterdam, after 1:00… today they announced that boarding was being pushed back to 4:00… they have a tummy virus on board and need to clean the ship up… in an effort to evict the virus (Norovirus… a really contagious intestinal bug.) Appearently we are still planning to sail at 10:00.

We (T. & I) will delay our boarding until 6:00 or so to avoid the crowds, and there will be crowds…

We have a friend joining us on our trip, Tomas, tropical storm/hurricane/tropical storm/hurricane/tropical storm… (repeat) Tomas…

The Weather Channel is covering it… as a special “thing” They have special reports… from Haiti, from Grand Turk (we will visit Grand Turk on Tuesday…)

As of now, Tomas is a Cat 1 hurricane… aka a bad storm that circles…

The Weather Channel has special coverage…”Hurricane Tomas” From their coverage… “There is potential for strengthen, not major strengthening, but strengthening…. Tomas pounds the Caribbean… We are talking about 75 mile per hour winds, maybe… up to 95 mile per hour winds… Big time heavy rainfall… (2” in 24 hours…)

It isn’t really much of a storm… We get harder winds during winter storms, but they aren’t hurricanes… they don’t circle… and more rain in 24 hours… but the storm doesn’t circle… Southern California reaches higher wind speeds with the dry Santa Anna winds… but they don’t circle…

Hurricanes can be devastating… just look back to Andrew in 1992 and Katarina in 2005… but this is not Andrew or Katarina… Tomas is dangerous, particularly if you are a Haitian earthquake survivor, living in a tent… It that is your life this sucks…

But, if you are on a cruise ship, with stabilizers, buffets, a really nice dining room, an attentive staff, too many bars, a pool, several hot tubs… you may need an umbrella ashore… you may miss a port… but this isn’t a disaster…

But if you are the Weather Channel, and need to fill airtime, calling it a disaster, doing live feeds of 70 mph winds… “Its tearing at the corner of the roof over there”… “look at the lawn chair being carried down the street” or “the water is rising… Its now several inches deep in the street” makes it immediate and real and brings higher viewer numbers….

I am tired of it all, I think I will go on a Caribbean cruise… We have a plan... reports to follow…

Packing (or not)

We fly tomorrow night… on a red eye for Ft Lauderdale… the prelude to the next adventure…

We will spend a couple of days and one night in Ft Lauderdale, then off on Holland America’s Nieuw Amsterdam for a Caribbean cruise… Grand Turk, San Juan, San Martin, and a private island in the Bahamas… add a couple of days at sea, along with cross country flights, and it looks like a one week vacation.

As noted before, this is a true vacation… no agenda… no required sites… just a vacation, a getaway, to celebrate an anniversary, our 30th… for us it is just another year… friends and coworkers seem to think it is important.
We will spend a week on a ship… with stops in tropical ports… their maybe alcohol involved, wine, beer, whisky, and maybe even rum… We will spend time on a tropical beach or two… we may swim…

There will be meals, memorable meals… some elaborate, but some, likely less so… not less good, but less elaborate…

We are not ready… we haven’t packed… It’s not our fault… we blame work… both of us… I worked late last night… until 9:00 or so, then home to cook for a potluck, at work. A turkey, and dressing (don’t stuff the bird, stuffing is evil, or so says Alton Brown, and I agree, Brother I agree.)


“Suddenly it's Christmas,
The longest holiday.
When they say "Season's Greetings"
They mean just what they say:
It's a season, it's a marathon,
Retail eternity.
It's not over till it's over
And you throw away the tree.


Christmas will come soon enough, whether I am ready or not (I’m not… I will go on record as saying that… I am not ready for Christmas) We use artificial trees at Patterson House, and we never throw them out… we just take them to the Teen Center in March where they become part of the “Enchanted Forest” for Leprechaun Land… and event for small children… and parents…

But I am tired, and not ready for the vacation… there is a coverage plan due, and meeting agenda that needs to go out… and there is the Tiny Tot trip to Ardenwood… It’s in my performance plan… as a thought, a maybe, but a goal none the less… and on Oct 27th, it became a possibility… and needs to become a reality… 300 three year olds visiting a house museum, and the surrounding farm… As of this afternoon it is close to a reality… we have a plan… which needs to be approved tomorrow before I leave… for the vacation, where I am to escape work, and planning for a visit by 300 three year olds… 300 three year olds sounds a lot like small children… (and parents…)

Tina and I are beyond small children (as in 300 three year olds) this is just not where we are… except at my work… our darling kids (everyone involved in cruises, and cruise vacations is Darling… Darling Husband (aka DH) Darling Wife (similarly aka DW) or Darling Kids, more specifically, darling daughter (DD) and Darling Son (do I need to say it a fourth time?, DS) ours, Steph 24, Brian 22, as far as I know neither have plans to make us Grandparents… eventually probably, but not now… (this is known as a “good thing”)

All of this means that while I and T. need a vacation, all is conspiring to prevent the vacation… the relaxation… We will escape the pull of the jobs… we will board the airplane… stay at the hotel… board the ship for the cruise… but right now it doesn’t feel that way… the flight, in 24 hours is far, far away, and we are not really ready.

A second post in one day…

More and more I find that it is travel that inspires me to write for the blog… hence the 2^nd post.

T. and I continue to get ready for the latest trip… while waiting for the World Series to start… the Giants are playing, our Giants… I have dyed my beard black and am wearing orange and black…

We took a break and went over to the coast for lunch… For those of you not familiar with the location of Casa de Hees, we are in San Mateo on the San Francisco Peninsula, about 15 miles south of San Francisco. San Francisco Bay lays about 200 yards to the east, the Pacific Ocean lays about 6 miles to the west, across the local version of the Coast Range… a chain of low, 1,000 to 2,000 foot tall mountains protecting inland California from Pacific storms… of course, to the ocean its closer to 20 miles of two lane road. Directly across the hills is Half Moon Bay, a small, cute, rural town. Our target was further north, in Princeton, with its small boat harbor, and lots of restaurants… we favor two, the Half Moon Bay Brewing Co, and Sam’s Chowder House… today the Chowder House won. We sat outside… it was warm, almost hot… we both had lobster roll sandwiches, T had wine, I had beer…

Half Moon Bay and the coast side can be difficult in the month of October… Half Moon Bay is known for its pumpkin festival, and its pumpkins… getting there over the windy two lane roads can be difficult if not nearly impossible (I would say impossible, but officially, something like 250,000 folks make it each year… all in search of orange squash.) Today was different, there was no traffic, there was no wait at the Chowder House… there were still lots of pumpkins for sale, still ponies to be ridden, but apparently the folks who wanted pumpkins and pony rides had come on the previous weekends, and were now at home getting ready for the annual fall candy hunt (as opposed to the annual spring candy hunt, aka Easter).

Having eaten, and lounged in the sun, on the shores of the Pacific, we returned home to the planning and packing…

The suitcases are down from the rafters, Tina has set up the portable clothing rack, and has started to hang the chosen items… she has modeled several outfits and swim suits… decisions have been made.

I have much of the miscellaneous stuff piled on a chair. This is getting real.

The World Series coverage has started… Lyle Lovett signing the National Anthem, accompanied by a man on an acoustic string base… nothing fancy, just a wonderful rendition of our national song… followed by the former Presidents Bush throwing out the first pitch… I didn’t agree with their politics, but can respect the two men as our former leaders.

Back to the packing and planning… I am tracking a hurricane, Hurricane Tomas, as it builds in the Caribbean.

It is currently (Sunday Oct 31^st) a class 1 storm (wind speed currently 75 mph) roughly due south of Puerto Rico, headed west, but projected to stall, then hook north and reach Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic) Friday the 5^th. It’s not clear if it will strengthen or weaken (currently weakening, but expected to cross some warmer water and could strengthen.)

If it does hook, and then continues north, at predicted speed, it could be in the Bahamas or off South Florida on Sunday the 7^th. The water north of Hispaniola and north is cooler, so if it goes that way it will most likely be a weakening storm…

The commonly published storm track (aka the cone of unpredictability) does not extend beyond Friday the 5^th, so much is conjecture, although Host Terry has posted a weather underground chart on the first page of this discussion that suggest that it should be in the Atlantic, 5 degrees north of our path (or 300 knots, 350 miles) by Monday the 8th. The 10 day forecast for Ft Lauderdale shows Sunday the 7^th as broken clouds, temperatures in the 70’s…

I suspect that our cruise will not be affected, but it doesn’t hurt to keep an eye on the storm, and I continue to watch the Weather Channel, the National Weather Service and Weather Underground. This could become an obsession. I don’t expect it to impact our cruise, but I am worried about the impact on Hispaniola, particularly to Haiti and its many earthquake refugees.

Now the game has started… at the top of the 1^st, with our second batter up, we have a man on base… no outs and the game calls me more than the blog…

Goodnight…

Packing…

T. and I are off again… flying next Friday after work, off to Ft Lauderdale for a Caribbean cruise… This trip is a true escape, a vacation... we chose the sailing based on the date, not on the destination(s) Grand Turk, San Juan, San Martin, and the Bahamas.

Today is Sunday, our last day off before, and we have the extra bedroom, so packing is commencing…

Packing is more than just a chore; more than stuffing random clothing and stuff in a suitcase… it’s the first pre departure ritual… Well, not the first of the pre departure rituals… those start months before as Tina sends me emails about possible trips, we send each other links to information about ports and possible activities… but the packing is the first of the real physical acts…

The basic clothing is easy… so many socks, underwear, a bathing suit (it is the Caribbean after all) shorts, and flip-flops… Then it starts getting complicated… I take my tux (yes, I own one) and need to find all the accessories… studs, cuff links and cummerbund… the shoes are probably at work (I run a historic house, a Victorian house and occasionally wear tails at work…)

I need to gather the cameras, the memory cards, the batteries, make sure the laptop case is ready with cords and cables and such. We will need phone chargers, or cables to connect the phone to the computer… I take a GPS and a map… Tina claims that I want to tell the Captain where to steer, but I just like to know where I am. The GPS needs batteries, so I need to find those too. We are spending some time in Ft Lauderdale before, so I need that map too.

I need books… there is a pile at my feet of so far unread wonders… I need to decide which will accompany me.

We are likely to head over to the Coast for lunch… Sam’s Chowder House and a lobster roll sandwich are calling… and there is a baseball game tonight… The 4^th game of the World Series… Its kind of important… we have a dog in the fight this year… the Giants are ahead by one going into tonight’s game…