November 3, 2009

We have arrived home and I have a few minutes to attach some photos from our Panama Canal passage. These photos were taken from the http://www.pancanal.com/ website webcam by our good friend, Brenda Rekenthaler, a wood carver freind from the Iowa State Fair.

She sent almost 50 photos of our ship progressing thru the canal.

Remember, these are photos that were taken from her computer screen! Great job, Brenda!

We passed thru the Miraflores Locks first:

Our ship is on the left - coming into the photo.
There are two sets of locks. We are going thru one set while the ship on the right is going thru the other one. We are both going into the interior lake.

There is one way traffic going into the locks each morning as there is not enough room for 2 ships to pass in the cut. So ships from the Pacific are headed into the lake while ships from the Atlantic are headed into the lake. Then the ships going opposite directions pass while in the large lake that is between the two sets of locks.

And away we go! Headed to the lake and then the Gatun Locks.

Here we are headed thru the Gatun Locks.





And away we go into the Atlantic Ocean!

Sunday, November 1, 2009

We are in Tampa! Arrived this morning and were some of the first ones off the ship. We are currently sitting in the Tampa airport waiting for a flight to Atlanta then on to Moline. Should arrive in Washington early evening. Will be good to get home.

We will try to update the blog with our last cruise. Have to admit that we didn't keep a good journal of the stops we made! But we did have a great time! Was fun to be with Bob's family!

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

We are in Cozumel, Mexico today! I'm sitting on the pier where I found some free wireless internet! Sorry I don't have any info for the blog!

We had a great time yesterday in Grand Cayman. Bob and his parents, sisters, and husbands/friend when swimming with the Stingrays yesterday and loved it! I just walked around the town looking at stores and enjoying the day.

Today his sisters and their husbands/friends went ziplining! Will be fun to hear about their trip when they get back. Bob and I walked downtown which was 5 km!! They have a new pier which is much farther from downtown! We had several stops to enjoy shopping and the air conditioning!

Bob and I are excited about a tour that we will take on Saturday. They have a tour of the ship that only 16 people could sign up for....and Bob got there in time to sign us up! As he says...it is quite expensive....but we will love it! We will tour the gally, the crew quarters (Chris and Matt have been down there....but we never have!), the brig, the bridge, the crew mess hall, the engine room, and lots of other places like that where "guests" are not allowed! It will last over 3 hours! I'm hoping we can take pictures! Sounds like they will give us each a hat and other CArnival "items".

We also signed up for a tour with monkeys in Honduras! Looking forward to that, too.

I'm thinking we won't have any more entries on this until we get home where we can get all the stops updated and photos added.

We are having a great time and I'm looking forward to being home on Sunday!

See you soon!

Saturday, October 24, 2009

Sue headed to the fair without me! Katy and Ellie came and picked us up at 8:00 to take us to the airport. We had 2 – one hour flights. First one from Raleigh to Atlanta and then from Atlanta to Tampa.

We arrived in Tampa and met Bob’s sister, Jane, and her husband, Jim. We took a taxi together to the Howard Johnson’s and met up with the rest of Bob’s family – parents Joe & Janet, Vicky & Don, Judy & Jim. Plans are to head to a Sports Bar to watch the Iowa Hawkeyes football game. Then to bed to be ready to board the ship in the morning for our 7 day cruise.

Friday, October 23, 2009

Jesse, Mike, Vera, Katy and Ellie came to the fair! We have had great weather since it warmed up on Tuesday! I think it was in the high 70’s or low 80’s. Each night after our building closes we head to Katy’s to visit. Zoe has come to visit several times. We do miss seeing Carissa who is in New York City!

Ellie (daughter of Katy and Jason) She was always smiling!
Vera (daughter of Jesse and Mike) helping Grandma Sue sort the quarters!

Mom working hard on boxes!
Alex with Chocolate covered Cheesecake!

Thursday, October 22, 2009

We have enjoyed spending time with Katy, Jason and Ellie. Ellie has changed so much since Matt and Bethany’s wedding. She is a cutie! Tonight, Jesse, Mike and Vera arrived. So much fun to see Ellie and Vera together!

Sue and I ran to Walmart and I noticed the "YIELD" sign in the parking lot!

Opps! How long does it take paint to wear off asphalt??

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

We had a fun day at the fair! Mom, dad and Bob attended the fair for their first time! Nancy dropped Bob off at the fair after lunch. They spent the day exploring everything that I have never seen! (In all the years that I have attended the fair, I have yet to go out and actually “see” the fair! Sue and I spend the whole time in our “Village” working!)




The not so good photo of me in a dress!
Other Village vendors.


The big food item at this fair were “Pig Lickers” – chocolate covered bacon! And only $5! (Well, until Friday when it was reduced to $3!) Alex even come thru with chocolate covered cheesecake! They also have sweet corn – the husks are pulled down, put on a grill, and then dipped in butter! But there are no Pork Chops on a Stick like in Iowa!
The Pig Lickers!
These are apples covered in carmel and chocolate and other stuff!
Marshmallows dipped in chocolate and rolled in good stuff!


There is a large garden area with beautiful exhibits.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Another day at the State Fair for me and another relaxing day with the Stagner’s for Bob!

My parents flew in from Cedar Falls arriving at 11:00 pm! They will spend a week visiting in Raleigh.

Monday, October 19, 2009

Sue and I headed to the North Carolina State Fair (across Raleigh from their house) soon after 7:00 am. It was great for me to see all the friends that I have made at the Village of Yesteryear. Sue has an Origami business and we sit and fold origami and make mobiles, earrings, and necklaces from morning to 9:45 pm! I have to admit I do enjoy it and have fun helping Sue. It is really cool/cold in Raleigh! We are sitting near a large door at the “Village” and are trying fold with cold hands! (So different from the Iowa State Fair where it is usually way too hot!) Sue’s son, Alex, spent the day with us folding! We had a great time!

Bob enjoyed his time, too! He hung out with Nancy and enjoyed supper at Red Robin with Bill and Nancy.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

We were up and off the ship by 8:00 am! We chose the option to carry off our luggage. This was a great option as we didn’t have to have our bags outside our cabin door by midnight last night and it was fast! We were off the ship, thru immigration and into a taxi in very little time! There were other advantages, too – while sitting in the airport I was visiting with some others from the ship. One couple had stood in line for an hour to get off when their time slot was called and the other couple had “lost” their large suitcase as someone else must have claimed it before they could!

We sat in the airport for several hours waiting for our flight. We flew to Atlanta then on to Raleigh. Katy, my niece, picked us up. We took Bob to Bill and Nancy Stagner’s to spend a few days. (Bill and Nancy are high school classmates of Bob’s.) We headed to Sue and Tom’s and I was glad to get unpacked (so many dirty clothes as you might recall – there were no self serve laundry facilities on the ship!)

Saturday, October 17, 2009

We arrived at Half Moon Cay, Bahamas. This is an island that is owned by Holland America Cruise Line. It was a beautiful island….but oh, so HOT & HUMID! We headed off the ship to explore. We walked over to the opposite side of the island (about half a mile) and found where people were wading with stingrays. Then we continued on. BBQ lunch was served at 11:30 – hamburgers, hot dogs, ribs, chicken, fish with all the fixings – potato salad, cole slaw, corn on the cob, baked beans, etc. (Are you hungry??) Ate outside under a thatched roof with the local chickens – hens, roosters and chicks!

Back to the ship after lunch to cool off and watch Iowa beat Wisconsin on the TV! We packed our bags but didn’t have to put them outside the door by midnight as we chose to carry our luggage off in the morning.

We had our last supper in the dining room. I stopped to watch the big screen movie while bob headed back to the cabin to watch more football.






Curly tailed iguana - the tail is curled up and you can also see the shadow of it.

Chicken looking for food under our lunch tables.

Friday, October 16, 2009

Another/last Sea Day! More relaxing!

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Today we arrived in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. This is our first visit to this island. We took the City Highlights tour. The traffic was horrible! We spent a lot of time sitting on the bus! We visited the Botanical Gardens. We rode a small train around to see the different parts of the gardens. At one time the train was not able to make it up a hill so we all got off and walked up the hill!

Notice how skinny these palm trees are!



Japanese Garden

Not sure what this tree was called, but notice the roots.
The guy in the black shirt was sweeping the dirt with the handmade broom.


Our ship was “parked” right across the street from the old City Wall and fort. This was the first city in the Americas – first church, first paved street, first court, etc! The cannons from the fort were aimed at our ship – was that the ship security??

There was a bull and horse sculpture in this plaza.

First church in The Americas

Christopher Columbus' son's home.

Here are some of the views we had while we traveled on the bus around the city.

Lawn Mowing business??

Wiring overhead was very interesting!

Man painting the side of a house on a rope ladder.

Fruit stand

Could you imagine having to pick up the garbage at these locations?

After the tour we walked to the shopping plaza and enjoyed a walk thru the old town and looking at the house Christopher Columbus’ son lived in (built in 1503), and first paved street (1504). The school children dress in uniforms – the khaki pants/skirts with blue shirts belong to the public schools while the other uniforms are private schools.

First street in The Americas

These are the public school students. Notice the bride and groom that were having there photos taken at the old fort.

This was a huge statue at the port. I'm not sure who it was, but know it wasn't Columbus!

The police force everywhere we went was interesting!