As everyone who reads this blog already knows, Wendy and I went on a cruise recently! Here are some of the highlights:
Tampa and Cheesecake
Our cruise departed Tampa on Sunday, so we flew in on Saturday, arriving just in time for dinner. We went out to eat at the Cheesecake Factory, which was near our hotel. The weather was warm and pleasant as we waited for a table:
For dessert, I opted for the banana creme cheesecake; Wendy had the mango-key-lime cheesecake. Since we were texting with Wendy's family throughout the day, I sent out a picture:
Abby replied: "I like your cake's hat, Randy. It's confident." This made us laugh out loud and greatly amused us for the next several days.
Sunsets
A while back I posted about the movie The Green Ray, which referred to the flash of green you can occasionally see during a sunset. That movie provided us with a fun side quest throughout the cruise: whenever skies were clear, we watched the sunset in hopes of seeing the green ray. We never did, but it was fun nonetheless, and we got some neat pictures:
The day after we got home, earthsky.org published an article about the green ray, which has some pictures and explanations of the phenomenon:
https://earthsky.org/earth/can-i-see-a-green-flash
Adagio
My favorite way to pass the time on the cruise ship was to listen to Adagio, a string quartet of musicians from Hungary that played classical music at various times throughout the day.
It was so relaxing to listen to them play while watching the ocean go by through the window.
Sudoku
Another of my favorite activities was to solve the daily sudoku. Each day the front desk had printouts of a crossword puzzle and a sudoku. Sometimes I would listen to Adagio while solving a sudoku, making my right brain and left brain happy.
Late Dinner
Dinner at the formal dining room was either at 5:45pm or 8pm. We were assigned to the 8pm group, and we quickly discovered that was just too late for dinner. Usually around 5pm I would start to get hungry, and there were still 3 hours to go! So at 5:30pm, when the buffet opened, we would go and get a fruit and cheese plate to tide us over. It helped a little, but by 8pm I was starving!
Key West
At our first stop, we got a trolley tour that included tickets to see the Ernest Hemingway house. We saw a bunch of cats that live there, and the room where Hemingway wrote almost all of his work:
I think my favorite part of Key West was just riding the trolley all around the island. Sitting in the sun, feeling the breeze, listening to the driver talk all about Key West's history. It was very relaxing.
Guatemala
This was, start to finish, my favorite stop. We took a bus deep into the jungle to visit the Quirigua ruins, where we saw incredible Mayan carvings. Our tour guide was fascinating, telling us all about the Mayans and the history of Guatemala.
A quick aside: I was really looking forward to this excursion because Ardy Sixkiller Clarke visited Quirigua in her book, Sky People. She interviewed locals who talked about how the founders of Quirigua claimed to have come from the stars (our tour guide said the founder was obsessed with Orion's belt), and Ardy was told that balls of light can even be seen during the day (cool!) but never when tourists are around (darn!). She was told workers at the ruins say they've seen the balls of light transform into humanoid forms near the Acropolis and chant the old chants of elders in nearby villages.
After our tour guide finished his talk we had about 45 minutes of free time, so we climbed all over the Acropolis. I kept a sharp eye out for UFOs/balls of light, but I didn't see anything other than hawks flying high overhead. Regardless, I greatly enjoyed exploring the ruins. Here's a picture of the Acropolis:
I also want to mention that as our cruise ship was heading to Guatemala, I was reading a UFO book that quoted Carl Jung talking about his friend who saw a UFO in Guatemala! That was a neat coincidence.
Dolphin Encounter
Our next stop was Roatan, an island off the coast of Honduras. We took a short bus ride and then hopped on a boat which took us to yet another island, where we had a dolphin encounter. This was easily the best half hour of the entire cruise.
We waded into waist deep water and got to pet a dolphin (her name was Gracie) and watch her and other dolphins perform tricks. Then we got our picture taken with Gracie! A "hug" photo, with Wendy and I on each side, and a "kiss" photo where the dolphin "kissed" our cheek. The kiss was surprisingly firm! We were only allowed to pet the females; the males were too aggressive. At one point several males swam over to see what was going on. The trainers told us not to touch them! However, one of them sideswiped my leg, nearly knocking me over!
While we were at Roatan, we also rode the "magical flying beach chair" which was basically a ski lift (beach lift?) that took us from the dock down to the beach and back. It was neat to ride, but I think it was a bit too much time in the sun. We were both fairly pink afterwards.
One other noteworthy thing we did was drink coconut water straight from a coconut.
Chacchoben
Our final stop was in Mexico, where we took a bus to see the Chacchoben Mayan ruins. I was looking forward to this excursion, because we could climb to the top of a temple. The temple turned out to be more of a short platform, with two other temples on top of it, which we couldn't climb. So that was a little disappointing. Still, though, it was fun to see the ruins.
I was really pleased with a souvenir I purchased at the gift shop there. It really caught my attention when I walked by, in a way no other souvenirs did. The clerk mentioned that it's made of limestone.
That was our trip! It was a lot of fun. Thanks for reading!