Happy New Year!

Cape Horn

On Monday (Dec. 31st) we cruised around Cape Horn. This is where the Antarctic, Atlantic & Pacific Oceans meet. It was extremely windy & the weather fluctuated from sunny to rainy to hailing in about 10 minutes.

It’s the End of the World: Ushuaia, Argentina

Ok, maybe it’s not really the end of the World but Ushuaia does consider itself to be the southernmost town. It sits along the southern coast of Tierra del Fuego, along the Beagle Channel.

We hopped aboard a smaller catamaran and cruised through the Beagle Channel to see several islands full of Sea Lions, Cormorants (black & white sea birds that look like Penguins from a distance) and lots of other sea life. We disembarked the smaller ship and then drove through the Tierra del Fuego National Park. At this point we picked up a tour guide who had certainly spent too much time bonding with nature.

She told us her name, but followed it up with “everyone calls me Crazy Horse.” Ms. Horse (the “Crazy” part would soon be clear) pointed out all the different varieties of plants that, for all we could tell, were various weeds. We pretty much knew we were in trouble when our guide started to do animal impersonations (she did a very nice male Llama call). Things went downhill when she started to do TV animal personality “voices” such as Flipper. This was followed by a detailed description of the difference between Flipper and a Kingfisher (complete with audio examples). We feared that she was about to start some sort of “animal call sing-along.”

Next up… Animal Kingdom Karaoke where Earl from Bass Lake, Georgia will sing along to “Jingle Bells” in the styling of Billy the Big-Mouth Bass.

Maybe that’s why most people got off of the bus at the very next stop. In all fairness, this was the town Ushuaia where you could do some shopping (rather than staying on the bus all the way back to the ship).

Glaciers Galore in the Beagle Channel

Our ship cruised through the Beagle Channel which is a part of the Strait of Magellan. There were 6 major glaciers and several minor ones. The pics say more than we ever could.



A pod of Orcas also appeared. At home (and on the Alaska cruises), these creatures are considered the highlights. Around here, no so much. The locals do not like them so much because they eat the fish & the penguins. We suppose that if our Orcas ate something cute & cuddly (like kittens) they wouldn't be too loved either.

Our First Penguin Sightings!

Okay... Lori and I (this is Joel posting) are super excited about our stop today in Punta Arenas, Chile. We got our first penguin sightings! We both got some amazing snapshots and had to share them with you.

Chilly Chile -- Amalie Glacier

While today is another day @ sea we cruised into the Peel Inlet to view the Amalie Glacier early this morning. This is 1 of 48 glaciers in the Southern Ice Fields. While the ship was not able to get as close to this glacier as it can to the ones in Alaska it was still a spectacular site.

Puerto Chacabuco/Coyhaique

About 1400 people live in Puerto Chacabuco, Chile & most of them fish for salmon for a living (they pronounce the L in salmon). We took a tour through Coyhaique & Simpson Valley where we saw many beautiful sites. In Coyhaique we stopped at their natural history museum that was about the size of a double-wide trailer. It had artifacts such as a cordless phone, radio, empty liquor bottles & of course, the rare hand-crank pencil sharpener (those were seriously the highlights). The visit to that museum had to be probably the best 10 minutes of our trip so far!

Puerto Montt – Nothing says Christmas more than Llamas and Salmon

Puerto Montt has a climate very much like what we have in the Northwest. The plants, trees and even animals are very much in tune with home. So, it was really easy to forget that we were in South America.

• Dandelions -- √
• Volcanoes that have recently erupted -- √
• Mountain Ranges (Andes) -- √
• Lots of green -- √
• Usually lots of rain -- √ (although it was sunny & warm when we were there)
• Salmon -- √ (most people in the area fish for Salmon for a living)
• Scotchbroom -- √ (they seemed quite proud of having this)
• “Billy the Big-Mouth Bass” interactive wall sculpture -- √ (complete with festive Santa hat)

That is until you saw the families spending their traditional Christmas at the beach (apparently, that’s what they do).

Since it is the start of summer here students were on their summer vacation.

Rough Seas...

We've been fortunate enough to go on a dozen or so cruises in many parts of the World & have never experienced such rough seas, especially at night (which has made sleeping an interesting experience). Many of the crew members are turning shades of green.

Aside from a few bruises from bumping into things due to the rocking of the ship, we're still OK.

The odd thing is that the weather has been quite nice.

Merry Christmas!

This is the chicken after 2 days of extremely rough seas!

Valparaiso, Chile – Both Kinds of Transportation: Bus & Motor Coach

Okay… On the bus to Valparaiso, our guide was very clearly practicing his English. He did his best to fit in as many words as possible on the 2 hr. drive. At one point he listed every name of every vine stock found in Chile. I suppose if you were a cork-head, you would appreciate that one particular “extinct” vine stock was rediscovered here in 1983. Lori and Joel? Not cork-heads, but his droning did provide time for a nap.

The port in Valparaiso is very commercial and was not really setup for cruise ships. This meant that we were ushered into a big empty building and given a number for a boarding group. Once our group was called, we then boarded a bus (3rd one this trip for those keeping score) that took us down the long pier to the ship. Once on board, we were funneled down to the main lounge where we could check-in. This was a very different embarkation experience from what we have had in the past.

So, we’re back on the Norwegian Dream. The Dream is not the most glamorous or largest ship that NCL has but does seem to have some of the more “exotic” itineraries. Ok, at least ones we are attracted to. This is the 3rd time we’ve cruised on this ship:
1. Summer, 2006 - Baltic Capitals (where we thought the Russians took off with our luggage w/o us)
2. Spring, 2007 - Mexico, Belize & the “exotic” port of Houston
3. Now - South America (this cruise)

We’re figuring that the wheelchair access on this ship must be spectacular, too. They say that the longer the cruise the older the average age of the passenger. We don’t know if this is true, but let’s just say that we are feeling extremely young.

Welcome to Santiago, take your jewelry off!

Luck started going our way early on in the trip.

While making our way to the second leg of the flight to Santiago, we stumbled across some Texas relatives of the chicken. After a warm reunion (and a heart-felt goodbye) we boarded our flight to Santiago.

Once in Chile (and at our hotel), we discovered that NCL had a small hospitality desk setup at the hotel. We were able to sign up for an afternoon tour as well as direct transportation to the pier the following day. So we quickly cleaned up and got onto a bus for a city tour of Santiago. One of our directives was to take all of our jewelry off & leave it at the hotel.

One of the most interesting stops was in the heart of a market. In the large square stood a tree (sponsored by Coke – what’s up with that?). It was a bit wrong seeing this huge Christmas tree decorated with logos standing in front of one of the larger cathedrals. It seemed like half of Santiago (about 3 million for those of you keeping score at home) was there all at the same time.

Off the beaten path, our guide negotiated a short tour of a local armory. Afterwards, the captain asked for a group photo so he could document the tour for his duty logs.

The tour ended with a funicular trip up to the top of San Cristobal, which gave us some spectacular views of the city.

For tomorrow? An early bus ride to the pier in Valparaiso and our first day of the cruise.

A Foray Into Podcasting!

powered by ODEO

If you listen closely to this podcast you will hear Chloe performing an aria in the background. To the left is a pic of her in action.

• Click on this link for more info. about the Flip Video Recorder

• Click on the link below to subscribe to the audio podcasts via iTunes as well as through RSS feed readers:
  
  http://odeo.com/channel/672973/view

South American Chilean Fjords Itinerary

• Santiago, Chile
• Valparaiso, Chile
• Puerto Montt, Chile
• Puerto Chacabuco, Chile
• Cruise Strait Of Magellan
• Punta Arenas, Chile
• Ushuaia, Argentina
• Cruise Beagle Channel
• Cruise Cape Horn
• Stanley, Falkland Islands
• Puerto Madryn, Argentina
• Montevideo, Uruguay
• Buenos Aires, Argentina

South American Chicken Excitement

The Chicken is truly excited about his upcoming South American trip. It's less than a week away!

Click here & give the web page time to load

DSW @ ORD

Shoeaholic Alert!

Our overnight hotel in Chicago was right across from a shopping mall and a DSW (for those not savvy, DSW = Designer Shoe Warehouse). It would have been a landmark day on the calendar for Lori to stay the night across the street from a shoe store, but not go in. However, we ended up there anyway.

As we were walking across the street to the mall to pick up some items that were not packed with the carry-on (Joel did not anticipate the canceled flights, etc), Lori's shoe broke! So, we turned around and headed for the shoe store. We could have sold tickets as we walked across Skokie Blvd with Lori only wearing one shoe.

Somehow, our shoe and weather karma has ensured a memorable end to our vacation. We are now waiting for the departure for our flight home. Hopefully we have enough airline karma to get home tonight.

Mrs. International 2007

As we were having breakfast on the last day of the cruise, someone had to say "... and we haven't had any weather disasters!" This was in reference to tornadoes in Dallas, hurricanes in Jamaica, an unseasonable heat wave in Paris, and a canceled Mexico trip due to Wilma, etc. It just seems that our last several vacations have included some sort of significant weather event.

Fast forward 15 hours when we were getting ready to land in Chicago (after a very tight connection in London where we ran from one terminal to the other to catch our "closing" flight) and were told by the pilots that there was some heavy rain in Chicago and we were going to "circle" because the airport was backed up. We landed about 50 min. later and found that our final connection to Seattle was delayed 90 min. We grabbed a bit of dinner and settled in at our gate as we watched an amazing thunder and lightning storm hit the airport. About 30 minutes later, our flight was officially canceled.

After getting our flight re-booked for today, we got on the phone to find an hotel room. The cots that were strewn out on the L-Concourse would have constituted "camping," which we were not up for.

Now, what does all this have to do with Mrs. International 2007? Well, when we arrived at the hotel, we found that the majority of the rooms are booked out to contestants for the pageant. Needless to say, the chicken was star struck this morning as breakfast was spent with many tall women in evening gowns and wearing sashes.

French Riviera - Monaco, Monte Carlo, Eze & Villefranche

Monaco – Beautiful palace, beautiful location, the prince was home, very expensive

Monte Carlo – Beautiful, lots of rich folks, extremely expensive, the chicken wasn’t allowed into the Casino.

Eze – This was a small 13th century stone village located on a hill along the water. We will come back here sometime.

Villefranche – Beautiful -- The ship anchored in the harbor & basically dwarfed the town.

Marseille – 18 years have gone by so fast

Today did not start off too well. We had a chance to sleep in, and when we woke up, Joel had started developing a bit of a cold. We decided to forgo a trip into the French countryside in favor of a quick trip into town followed by some down time on the ship.

Since this is officially our 18th anniversary, we had a special dinner at the special, adults-only restaurant Palo. The dinner was wonderful, but the chocolate soufflé… It doesn’t get much better than that.

Anyway, it is Pirate night and there is a big bash on the upper deck tonight. Everyone is running around with bandanas, parrots and/or eye-patches. It looks like it is going to be fun.

La Spezia (somewhere between Firenze and Pisa)

Originally, we had planned to bum around La Spezia in the morning and then head out to Pisa in the afternoon. However, we had been hearing over the past couple of days that there was not much more in Pisa than the tower. Also, it turns out La Spezia is pretty much a port and little else – not a good bumming around option.

Instead we groveled at the Shore Excursion desk and got the last two seats on a Florence/Pisa tour. It was an almost 11 hour tour, but was well worth it. It started out in Florence (a gorgeous city, BTW) and we had a full 2-hour walking tour of the historic center of town.

The time went by very quickly and we found ourselves eating lunch on a patio nestled into a hillside overlooking the heart of the city. The food was good, but the view was amazing. From there we hopped back on the bus and, with a very long ride, we headed for Pisa.

What we had heard was spot-on. There really isn’t much more to Pisa than the tower. The field where the tower sits had a church and some other very nice structures, but the tower is what everyone shows up for. The pedestrian street that runs up to the tower was lined with very “interesting” booths selling everything from leaning tower coffee mugs to t-shirts with Bart Simpson standing next to the tower saying “I didn’t do it.” Everything you could imagine was being sold. Most things were tower related, some not (we still don’t know how dreadlock wigs or fake Prada handbags are representative souvenirs of the tower).

Needless to say, we got some great pictures. However, there is a growing sense of frustration in that we have yet been able to upload much since getting on board.

Chicken of the Sea

Today was a day at sea – which is always very relaxing. Even the chicken got into the act and did some sunning, swimming, etc. Everything was going fine until the top deck BBQ where the main menu included chicken burgers and chicken tenders. Needless to say, the chicken will not be going topside anytime in the near future.

Phonetically, it is Chiv-itah-veck-ee-ah.

Say it with me. “Civitaveccia.” Just about 20 miles south, it is essentially the port for Rome. Since we spent the four days before the cruise in Rome, we decided to go on a tour of the Tuscan countryside.

We visited Tarqania, Marta and Tuscania. All three places were a very nice change of pace. Everything was very casual and everybody was very friendly. Our guide had spent quite a bit of time in these villages while growing up, so we ended up going to very private and out of the way places that had amazing views.

Overall, it was a very nice, but long day. When we got back to the ship, we went and saw Ratatouille – the new Pixar movie. It’s very fun and there is something a bit special about seeing a first-run movie in the big theater on the ship. Too bad Transformers is not a Disney film.

Three things you'll want to know about Olbia, Sardinia

Before getting to the two things... Olbia was not what we were expecting – although we are not sure what we expected, Olbia was not it. The north end of Sardina, where Olbia is located, has only recently been developed -- over the last 40 yrs -- after the US helped eliminate a huge mosquito/Malaria problem.

Anyway, the three things to will want to know about Olbia:

First, when we asked for a Coca-Cola Light™, the person at the bar counter said “No Coca-Cola Light™, just Coke. I can mix some water in!”

Second, sheep outnumber people there 2.3 to 1.

Third, the bathrooms… Er… Well… Maybe you only want to know about two things about Olbia.

Naples - Pompeii - Sorrento - Capri

Note: The pics for this post will come later as the network connection on the ship is being finicky tonight.

Remember 6th Grade Social Studies? Remember reading about Pomeii and seeing the pictures of the petrified people? Remember thinking "why do I need to know this? I will never get to see it." Well, we got to see it. It was actually pretty amazing and oddly educational. It was interesting to hear Mt. Saint Helens referenced as a comparison of what happened at Pompeii. Also, our guide looked a bit like Luke Wilson. His name was Luca. Hmm...

From Pompeii, we hopped a bus to Sorrento. It was very picturesque and is what I think of when I think of southern Italy. From the terraces of homes and shops, to the steep roads and staircases down to the sea. We loved our time there and were thinking that nothing could top this.

Then we boarded a jet-foil to the island of Capri. This topped Sorrento! We went up the hill and spent most of the time in a village overlooking the port. It was fantastic. Our time there was way too short.

One of the things we love about cruises is that you go a visit all these different places and find places where you will want to go back and spend a full vacation. Sorrento and Capri are places like this. We will go back.

Palermo, Sicily

Today we visited Palermo, Sicily. The day kicked off with a guided tour of the town and open-air market. The market was like nothing we had ever seen before. It’s hard to describe, so we will post some pictures soon.

After getting back to the boat, we went to a “drive in” movie. On DCL, they show movies on a huge outdoor screen on one of the main stacks. It was pretty silly, but lying out on a beach chair, watching “Finding Nemo,” and enjoying the sun was pretty fantastic.

Tomorrow is Naples; which will include a trip out to Pompeii, Sorrento and Capri. It is going to be a long day, so we need to cut this short.

Rome to Barcelona

Okay… Alitalia… We may just have Marci add this to our “never again” list of airlines. First off, they only allowed 20 kg. per passenger. Well, when you pack for 18 days of vacation (cruise included), you are going to have more than 20 kg. After paying an arm and a leg for “extra baggage,” we ended up sitting on the runway for 90 minutes (the flight was only supposed to be 105 minutes) before they could take off because they couldn’t get anyone to sign off on the boarding. Then when we finally landed, we waited almost another 30 minutes for a bus to come and pick us up from the plane. Oh, and that extra baggage cost? Well, we were lucky and got all of our luggage. Many people ended up boarding the ship without any of bags as they were scattered around London, Rome and/or Madrid.

One of the funniest things about the Alitalia flight, was when an Italian businessman just started in on one of the flight attendants in Italian. He was clearly upset and being very animated in his side of the conversation. When he finished, he felt the need to do it again, in English, so all of the tourists on the plane could hear what he said. We felt sorry for him since he was delayed more than 12 hours from Naples to Barcelona – a flight that is not much different from Seattle to San Francisco.

Anyway, we made it to the ship and got checked in. Once we got a bit settled, we hopped off and grabbed a Taxi to go into Barcelona. We popped by Cathedral to see how it looked with all the scaffolding off – last November it was being restored. It was still being worked on, but we got some good photos anyway.

Before heading back to the ship for our safety drill, we walked over to La Rambla and then down towards the port. This is such a wonderful area, and we were sad to have as little time as we did.

Check out our checking out!

When checking out of our hotel, we noticed a large, gold bag with tissues and other decorations. When we looked really close, it was addressed to Donatella Versace. I wonder how many pairs of shoes she packs for a short stay in Rome? Okay, she probably doesn’t pack her own bags. So how many shoes does her assistant Elizabeth pack for Donatella? Was it more than Lori packed? The World will never know.

Rome, Day Four

It was really nice to have a full day of free time in Rome to go back and see things we wanted to go back and see again. We also realized that due to the time changes and our sleep schedule, we hadn’t gotten a chance to see any of the sights of Rome at night – so we booked a nighttime tour that would give us that chance.

We spent a chunk of time down at the Tomb of the Unknown Hero, which is right next to the Forum. The structure is nicknamed “the wedding cake” because of all color (white) and all the many tiers to the building.

We also did some last minute junk/souvenir shopping down in the heart of the more trendy Rome shopping area. They even had a Disney Store! We did not buy anything, but it did remind us that we were hopping on the cruise ship on Saturday.

Rome at night was really quite stunning, but a tour may not have been the best way to do it. We would have loved to spend more time in some areas and much less time in others. San Pietro was absolutely gorgeous, but since we never even stopped long enough to take a picture, we made do with “drive by” photography.

Rome, Day Three: Big Guns, Big Stars & a Big Church

On our 3rd day in Rome we got up quite early & took a tour of Vatican City. Of course, the rest of the tourists in the city decided to do this, too. However, our pickup from the hotel was at 7:15 AM. We went outside to hop into the van and were greeted by two Italian men carrying really big Italian guns. It seems that the President of Afghanistan checked into the hotel overnight. It turns out our hotel is popular with the famous. Apparently, President Bush stayed here the last time he was in Rome.

Anyway, we joined two other couples from the hotel in the van. We discussed with some folks from Texas and Wales the difference between "Y'all" and "All Y'all" -- the latter being plural for the former. Who'd of thunk!

Once we got started, our tour included the Vatican Museum, Sistine Chapel and San Pietro (St. Peter's Basilica). If we had not taken a tour we would probably still be standing in line waiting to get in. Once we were in we were herded like cattle through each part of the museum. However, it was still a very powerful experience & we are now "very best friends" with the 3,000 others who were crowded into the Sistine Chapel (Sardine Chapel?).

We got to see the Sistine Chapel!

After the tour we spent some time shopping next to the Vatican. In one of the stores we ran into the big, hairy guy from the TV show "Lost" (Jorge Garcia, aka "Hurley"). Because we know you are dying to know this, he bought a poster of the Sistine Chapel and a magnet.

We got to see the Sistine Chapel, including the ceiling!

From there, we did some exploring on our own. We stumbled across the Trevi Fountain and from there found our way to The Pantheon.

What's Up With the Chicken?

I think we need to explain a bit about the chicken. One of Lori's friends just retired and for his retirement party. The master party planner found a bunch of squeaking rubber chickens for the centerpiece decorations. Well, there were a couple of dozen of these things hanging around and someone got the bright idea for us to bring one with us on our trip.

So with some encouragement (no money changed hands), we brought the chicken and have been carting him/her around for photo ops. Its pretty funny when we whip out the chicken for a photo and other tourists wonder what in the world we are doing. We get odd looks, funny comments, and some down right appreciative responses.

Watch for more of the chicken photos. Also, we are asking for comments to this post with your suggestions for a name for the chicken. Lori has already said no to "McNugget the McTourist."

Rome, Day Two

Happy 4th of July!

Here are some pics from our 2nd day in Rome. Hover your mouse over the picture to show the slideshow controls and to view captions.



The 3 most difficult things about today were:

1. The chicken came with us & took some pictures.
2. Learning how to spell Colosseum.
3. The Blogger editing tool only showed up in Italian.

Rome, Day One

We arrived in Rome around 6am on Tuesday morning (which would have been about 9pm on Monday in Seattle time). Since we were both tired, we didn't do too much exploring today other than to quickly see some of the sights from the taxi and walk to both the local grocery store and through Villa Borghese.

The hotel is beautiful (visit link)
http://www.parcodeiprincipi.com/en/main.php?content=dovesiamo

Here are a few pics from today. Hover over the pictures and click once on the small cartoon "balloon" to view the captions or double-click your mouse to view the pics & captions in a larger size.

Disney Magic Podcasts, Video Tours & The Horn

Click on the link below to see what the staterooms look like. Note: This was created by Disney so it plays a bit like an infomercial.
Disney Magic Staterooms Podcast

This one's not so hokey: Virtual Tour of Stateroom

This next link covers the arrival of the Disney Cruise Line in Barcelona for the 1st time. Again, this was created by the Disney folks.
Disney Magic Arrives in Europe Podcast

Mediterranean Itinerary July 2007

Well, it's almost time for our summer trip to Italy, France, Spain & a few other assorted locations. We are so very fortunate! Our itinerary is listed below.

Days 1-5 - Rome

Day 6 - Barcelona, Spain
Saturday, July 7, 2007
Ship: Disney Magic

Day 7 - At Sea
Sunday, July 8, 2007

Day 8 - Palermo, Sicily
Monday, July 9, 2007

Day 9 - Naples, Italy (Pompeii)
Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Day 10 - Olbia, Sardinia
Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Day 11 - Civitavecchia, Italy (Rome)
Thursday, July 12, 2007

Day 12 - At Sea
Friday, July 13, 2007

Day 13 - La Spezia, Italy (Florence, Pisa)
Saturday, July 14, 2007

Day 14 - Marseille, France
Sunday, July 15, 2007

Day 15 - Villefranche, France (Monte Carlo, Cannes, Nice)
Monday, July 16, 2007

Day 16 - At Sea
Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Day 17 - Barcelona, Spain
Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Future NCL Cruises - Here we go again! :)

When you are on a cruise, you have the opportunity to book future cruises at great prices (seriously). We booked 2 future cruises this time around. We are extremely fortunate to be able to do this!

14-Day Chilean Fjords Cruise
Winter Break 2007















Itinerary:

• Santiago (Valparaiso), Chile
• Puerto Montt, Chile
  
• Puerto Chacabuco, Chile
  
• Cruise Patagonic Channels
• Cruise The Chilean Fjords
• Cruise Straights Of Magellan
• Punta Arenas, Chile
  
• Cruise Beagle Channel (Glacier Cruising)
• Ushuaia, Argentina
  
• Cruise Cape Horn
• Stanley, Faulkland Islands
• Puerto Madryn, Argentina
  
• Montevideo, Uruguay
  
• Buenos Aires, Argentina
  

9 Day Southern Caribbean Cruise
Spring Break 2008















Itinerary:

• Miami, Florida
  
• Samana, Dominican Republic
  
• Tortola, British Virgin Islands
  
• St. John's, Antigua
• Bridgetown, Barbados
• Castries, St. Lucia
• Miami, Florida
  

Various Shipboard Winnings

Ok, we didn't win a free cruise, but did win a bit of goodies.

Lori = $141 from Bingo
Lynn = $161 + a keychain from Bingo
Megan = Satisfaction of being the superior gender from last night's competition.
Joel = $310 from various things

Belize, Part Two

Another lesson learned: Don't let the husband make any unsupervised posts to this blog!

Belize is a pretty amazing place. We took a tour around Belize City on the bus that time forgot that broke down once in-between a few heavily-armed police checkpoints. Yeah, THAT was fun. We later boarded an airboat to see Mantees, native birds, gators, etc.

The country is very young & still developing. from a US standard of living, the residents have nothing (the typical person earns about $80 a week). However, our guides and others we had the opportunity to talk to were extremely proud of their country & how it is much more developed than some of their neighboring counties.

However, everyone we talked to mentioned that pretty much all Belizians (sp?) who had electricity @ home had cable & were very in tune to all-things USA.

Pretty much any kind of meds that require a prescription in the US could be purchased in Belize w/o any needed doctor's note in many of the tourist shops & pharmacies.

Belize It or Not (part 1)

Handy travel tip... Never bring your husband on an airboat ride through the mangroves outside of Belize City. Why? Because he will spend the rest of the day holding his arms out, leaning to the left & making airboat noises (sounds like "Bpphbpphbpphbpph").

More to come tomorrow.

Free Range Iguanas

We're very fortunate. How many people get a chance to see and photograph free range iguanas? Today we spent the day in Tulum, which are ancient Mayan ruins by the sea near Playa del Carmen. Eventually, we'll get the pictures posted. Until then...

Here's an imaginary picture of "George, the Iguana of Great Importance" sunning himself (on 2nd thought, it could be "Georgette, the Iguana Wife of George") on the rocks of the Tulum ruins. A smile crosses George's mouth. He is watching tourists from all over the world (including two from Seattle) fawn over his great importance. George is posing. Posing for a spread in "Mode" (the magazine headed by Daniel Meade -- Betty ran out and picked up some crickets for George's mid-day snack). George rules!

Anyway. We heard over dinner that there was snow/ice in Seattle yesterday. Cool! We are suffering through 88 degree weather while you all are snow-shoeing.

Tomorrow's stop is Belize. We'll miss George.

Progreso (not the soup)

We spent most of the day in Merida, which is the captial of the State of Yucatan. The temperature was in the 90's today, which is a big change from the overcast day at sea and the tornado watches in Houston (not kidding).

The pier @ Progreso is 6 miles long. It was built this way such that large ships could dock without having to damage the limestone shelf that surrounds the port. Progreso usually has a population of around 35K. During Spring Breaks and other key holidays, this population balloons to greater than 300K.

Tomorrow we will be in Cozumel/Playa del Carmen & are planning to see some Mayan ruins.

Good News/Bad News

This is a brief post. The good news/bad news is explained below.

Good News: Things have been truly wonderful so far. There is a great Houston-to-the-ship story which will come later. We also met "Bob" the Cabdriver from India's cousin.

Bad News: Our Macbook stopped booting up earlier today, so there likely won't be elaborate postings (meaning ones with pictures) until after we have returned. There may be a well-traveled Macbook up for grabs sometime soon...

We spend tomorrow in Progreso, Mexico.

Skagit River Eagle Rafting Trip

Over the weekend, we drove up to the tiny town of Rockport and went down the Skagit River in rafts to see lots of Eagles. Click on the link below to view some pics of this experience.

Skagit River Raft Eagle Watching

Valparaiso, Chile – The Podcast

powered by ODEO

Valparaiso, Chile – The Podcast

powered by ODEO

Upcoming Spring Break Trip to Mexico & Beyond

Trip time is coming up again. Of course, this is purely an educational visit to help Megan ace her HS Spanish class!