Yesterday we drove through 4 states — Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Our main goal was to get to Baton Rouge, but we made a couple of stops to break up the drive. The better stop was at the National Wildlife Refuge in Mississippi. This is the only place where Sandhill Cranes live. When the wildlife refuge was created m there were only 30 Sandhill cranes. Today there are more than 150. We learned a lot about Sandhill cranes and this savanna habitat.
When we got to our hotel, I was feeling better but Danita had caught my cold. By 7:30 last night we were both asleep. I’m almost back to normal but Danita has a fever. We planned to be in Baton Rouge two days. We might spend most of that time recuperating.
We drove to a museum in Tallahassee. They had indigenous wild animals, barn yard animals, and antebellum buildings. I didn’t take any pictures because I was shaking from being cold. From there we drove to our hotel in Pensacola.
Hopefully I’ll feel better tomorrow. In the mean time, we’re doing carry out dinners.
We had extra time today and decided to us it visiting the hard core tourist area (where every admission to each building needs a different (expensive) ticket. It was fun and we learned stuff, but the fort was the better visit for me. We drove to Lake City, FL. I got a cough, then aches, then the shivers. Danita and I practically had masks glued to our faces thee whole time. Fortunately, the first COVID test was negative. Here’s hoping. And here’s a few pics on the web site. Plus two pics below specifically for Ryn.
St. Augustine is the oldest city in the US (I think I have the correct modifiers here.) According to one local, if you arrive at the historic district when school is out, the place is mobbed. It’s impossible to drive. There’s a large parking area on the outskirts. We arrived when the area “isn’t busy”. We stopped at Castillo de San Marcos and found cars literally crawling around the parking area looking for the opportunity to spend $10 on a parking space.
It was an easy drive up I-95 but long. It takes 4.5 hours to do the drive, but of course we have to stop. One stop was for a car wash. After being parked under a tree for 21 days, the car was so filthy we didn’t want to touch it. But all is well. We found a great car wash. The weather cooperated. Traffic was a little heavy at times but overall it wasn’t bad. The fort is quite nice. We heard an excellent presentation about the weapons of the day and how they were used to attack and defend a fort. We also learned the origin of several common sayings, including “lock stock and barrel”, “flash in the pan”, and “going off half cocked”. We decided not to visit the “million lights” exhibit because we were tired from the long drive, plus there’s a good chance of rain this evening.
Our hotel is right next to the historic area visitor center. Tomorrow we’ll have breakfast at “Schmagel’s Bagels”, then visit a few more attractions around here. Then we’ll head north, turning left at Jacksonville and starting our way across the Florida panhandle.
There are a few pics on the website. I hope this finds everybody doing well.
After taking a ride on the sugar cane train, we are leaving St. Kits. This marks the end of this part of our adventure. We have two sea days before we disembark.
One of the “challenges” I never figured out was ship time. The captain would announce moving the ship’s clock an hour one way or another. Our phones and computers would use its GPS to figure out what time zone we were in and automatically adjust themselves to the correct time. There was usually an hour’s disagreement between the ship/island time and our phone time. There was usually 5 hours difference to the computer times because our internet access was funneled through England. I suppose there’s an app for that.
Yesterday we took a self-guided walking tour of Barbados, which was nice but not noteworthy. Today we took a tour in St. Lucia. We ate cassava bread with banana catsup, mango jam, and nutmeg jam. We also heard many interesting stories about St. Lucia, some of them true ;-). This was the first day we had any rain at all. The rain was quite heavy for a while. Fortunately, we were under cover stuffing cassava bread in our faces. I put some pictures in the website, if you are interested.
The big mystery is the man who left the cruise yesterday. There are lots of staff all over the ship. I always assumed some of them were security. But Danita saw a real security person, with a large “Security” on their shirt and obviously carrying a gun escort a man about my age off the ship. This was the first time either of us saw a cruise person with an obvious security badge or anybody carrying a weapon of any kind. Not long afterwards, as we exited the ship for our daily walk, we saw the local police with a man about my age sitting in the back seat of the police car leaving the terminal area. So far as we could tell, the man didn’t even have his luggage. Very few people knew what was going on. We couldn’t find any scuttlebutt. I’m pretty sure our room steward knew about it, but he wasn’t talking. I don’t normally think that men my age who have the money to take a cruise would do anything that would merit expulsion in mid-cruise. This appears to be a story that will never be told.
Martinique is the most enigmatic of the islands we have visited so far. The islands we visited so far are Dutch, French, US, or a mixture of these. They brag about of languages spoken and the nationalities of their residents. Not Martinique. They are stubbornly French. In other words, they can’t speak English unless they want something from you. I’m sure there are also many who just can’t speak English. And I did meet one delightful young woman who was kind enough to answer a few questions.
We decided to take a self-guided walking tour. When we got off the ship, we quickly found ourselves in the middle of a protest. France president Macron has increased the retirement age from 62 to 64 years. This protest was much like the student protests I used to see in Paris.
Our first tourist attraction was to be the St. Louis Fort. This was closed. Many other tourists were milling about looking for the fort entrance. There were plenty of signs pointing towards the fort museum. Part of the fort is a police facility. One couple asked and were rudely rebuffed. Is the museum permanently closed? Is is closed for today due to the protest? We will never know.
We found one museum that was open. The fee is 4 Euro (no US dollars, please). That wasn’t a problem for us. Danita knew all about this. She gave the non-English speaking attendant a 5 Euro note. I stood and waited while he searched for our change. There was an exhibit about Black musicians in French only. Upstairs, there was an exhibit about the French colonial period. Those had English translations, so we could be sure to understand how bad colonialism is.
The other, more important museum was closed due to “Extraordinary technical difficulties”. But we were able to see the cathedral. It is a magnificent building, well worth a visit.
Our topper was lunch aboard the ship. They were offering Key Lime pie. It was excellent. Both Danita and I had a slice, plus I got an extra slice for my imaginary friend.
This was our high adventure day. We did a conventional zip-line that had four segments. Then we went on a super-fast zip line that dropped 1,000 feet in 45 seconds. Finally we did a waterless inner tube ride. Along the way we saw breathtaking views of the island. Danita was skeptical of this adventure, but she ended up having a great time. I was focused on not dropping my phone. The phone stayed in a secure pocket the entire trip, so there are no pics.
After a bunch of sea days, we’re trying to get back into being an active participant in our vacation. But not too active. St. Thomas is known for having the best shopping in the Caribbean. So naturally, after we took the cable car to the top of the hill and visited the pirate museum (Argh, matey), we went back to the ship for a more sanely paced afternoon.
I call this last shot “The color of money”. The prominent yacht is worth $350 million.
The “B” in ABC stands for Bon Aire. You already know Bon Aire decided they had enough cruise ships, and didn’t need one more. The “C” is for Curacao. We did a self guided walking tour of Curacao. It’s a very attractive town, as Danita demonstrates.
Curacao
Curacao has a unique and interesting bridge arrangement, including the Queen Emma pontoon bridge. It appears to block all ships, making the cute draw bridges useless. But it actually has a hidden and clever secret. I’ll put a photo-story on the website for those who are interested.
The first pic is of one of the clever draw bridges, the second is the Queen Emma bridge. Emma has no draw bridge capability, but ships have no trouble getting by. That third photo is not a “oops — bridge to nowhere”. The entire bridge disconnected from the road. The blue boxes have outboard motors that swing the bride up against the other shore. The fourth pic shows the bridge reconnecting with the road. The last pic reveals Emma’s secret. On the opposite side, one corner of the bridge is connected to a hinge. The other is on a wheel that allows the bridge to swing along the side of the river.
We did A for Aruba last of all. We took a tour to the other side of the island. Instead of seeing endless white sand beaches, we saw cave paintings circa 1500 and a very impressive cove.
Cave PaintingCove
Tomorrow we visit Half Moon Cay. This is a private island owned by the cruise line. It features miles of white sand beaches, chairs, and hamburgers on the grill. There’s a pretty good chance we won’t bother getting off the boat.
We aren’t really taking a 21 day cruise. We are taking a 10 day cruise followed by an 11 day cruise. We don’t have to pack up and change rooms, but there is a down side. Taken in turn, our schedule starting today is sea day, Half Moon Cay, Ft. Lauderdale, Half Moon Cay, and sea day. That’s 5 days in a row on the ship, with nothing more than live entertainment, movies, and a pool. We will have good food that we don’t have to cook and don’t have to clean up after. Life is hard.
