OK....I am finally back...I had to HAND WRITE my blog on paper for gosh sakes. It was almost as bad as if I had to chisel it out in stone, LOL!

Merry Christmas...I finally am able to type up my notes from the cruise...make sure you scroll down all the way to Dec 14th where the last entry was made before I became truly wireless....I will not get pictures uploaded until tonight and will post the addy when they are done.

Right now we are in Livingston Texas at Rainbow's End once again. We are not sure when we will head south to Westlaco. It is a beautiful day here in east Texas. The rain and cold are gone...

Enjoy and check back later for the rest of the story...

hugs

dee

Wed December 20, 2006

Belize City, Belize

We had breakfast with grandpa and another passenger Mark from LA about 9 a.m. After breakfast, grandpa said he wanted to go to his cabin and rest, and Paul and I decide to go into Belize City. I am taking my scooter this time…forget walking. I even called to make sure I could take the scooter on the tender…we are docked quite a ways out since the coral reefs here prevent ships from entering the port. I told Paul we could do a tour anyways…they can just put the scooter in the back of the van. That is if we go on a professional tour in a van and not a bus. On the tender going into the city, we are given some shore excursion info by one of the crew members. Paul and I decide that we would like to do the city tour and the Zoo tour. The guy promises us the scooter would not be a problem it would fit into the back of the van. Don’t worry…be happy. We arrive at the pier and follow our crew member through the market area. He has told me that we are the only two from the tender that want to go on a tour so it will be in a smaller vehicle…but that the scooter was still no problemo. OK. We follow this kid thru the mall, up the back alley and into the street. Me tooling in my scooter, Paulie bringing up the rear. We turn into another street and there is a little Datsun car and a driver. We are introduced to Yolanda, our tour operator. Yolanda is the tender crew member’s mother. OK, I get it…this guy is using the tour company name to get dumb ass foreigners like us to go on private tours with this mother! It seems ok, and she speaks good English. Several young men materialize out of nowhere and help to get the scooter into the trunk. OK. We get in the car and Yolanda takes us through the city. What a poor place this is. We get on a two lane highway supposedly to the Zoo first. It seems as if we are driving forever! I have no clue where the hell we are going, and Paul is merrily chatting with Yolanda. It is surreal.

The drive continues…finally I see a sign, Guatemala 100 KM. GUATEMALA! Crap. I have this overwhelming feeling that we are being kidnapped. I imagine us getting our throats cut and our bodies stripped of vital organs. Our organ-less, lifeless bodies will be dumped in the jungles of Guatemala only to be eaten by crocodiles and insects. Zack will never be able to collect the insurance money because there are no bodies and the local corrupt officials will not issue death certificates…no certificates, no benefits. This is how I think. Finally, a sign that says Zoo! We are there! We are not being kidnapped.

Once at the zoo, Paul puts my scooter together and off we go. We are in the only zoo in Belize. We have to pay 8 bucks per person to get in. Only Belize natives get in free. OK. We pay the money and see quite a few tourists. This must be a good zoo. Oh. My. It is a jungle. We see toucans, pumas, otters and even white tail deer. A beautiful ocelot paces in her cage. Parrots and parakeets are everywhere. Crocodiles and wild snapping turtles share a lagoon. As I tool around on my scooter I am amazed to think I am in Central America, touring a poor little zoo that was built by hand by the natives. Each rock along the path was placed by hand. The animal habitats made by natives. Nothing like what I had imagined…remember I am a Chicago girl...a zoo in my head is Brookfield, yanno? Suddenly, my legs are itching. I look down and I am covered in some type of gnat insect. When I brush them away, they leave a drop of blood. OH MY GOD! Blood suckers. The area they bite turns pink with a hot red center and itches like crazy. I am doomed. Deadly Tsi files... my dad told me all about them once. I won’t make it thru the night. Then my heart stops, I have been bitten by a mosquito! Damm the Tsi flies…this is serious! I could get all kinds of deadly diseases from a misquito bite! Remember bird flu? I tell Paul I am getting the hell outta this jungle paradise. I must have 150 bites on my legs. I look like I have pink pooka dot stockings on my legs. Oh gosh. We get a coke and a bag of popcorn at the little shop and once again we are heading down the highway, Yolanda putting the pedal to the medal. I can’t imagine blowing a tire. They will never find all our pieces. Hear that Yolanda?

We stopped at Old Belize City which is a neat tourist area with a beautiful beach, a great looking bar/restaurant and beautiful boats at anchor. We take a few pictures and then its back to Belize City for our city part of the tour. My gosh, I have never seen such poverty. This makes Cancun look like a model community. Such a pitiful place this is. Yolanda proceeds to take us past the US embassy, a private college, some Catholic schools, the Prime Ministers house, the court buildings and some huge banks. You know…the offshore Belize banks where millionaires stash their money so they don’t have to pay taxes? Finally we are back where we started. We weren’t murdered for our vital organs after all. Paul pays Yolanda and we are off to the dock to catch our tender back to the ship. We didn’t have any lunch (and I wouldn’t have eaten anything here anyways) so we went up to the pizza buffet. They had a meat sauce for pasta that was out of this world good. So much for dinner!

Later…

dee

Tuesday December 19, 2006

Cozumel, Mexico

Grandpa met us for breakfast in the Four Seasons. We decide to go into Cozumel and look for a tour like the one the boys took yesterday in Progresso. Both guys convince me I cannot do a tour on a bus and take my scooter. I guess I will not take my scooter into Cozumel. The walk from the ship to the end of the pier almost did me in. I hate that I cannot walk at all anymore. I am just too young for this. My hip is ok, but the knees are bothering me. I think once I am back home, I will go see Dr. Borowicki and have some X-rays done. I think my walking gait has changed since the hip and it is affecting my knees. This really sucks. I need pain meds, NOW. I will eventually run out of the stash of pain pills I have. I can’t take vicodin forever…We stop at a little shop that is selling soft drinks and water. After we get the water and I take the meds, we continue to walk to find a tour place. Paul thinks that he may have paid $21 for that bottle of water…he had two new twenties and thought he had given one to the clerk for the water…but now all he has is $19.00. Good grief. If I confessed that, I‘d never hear the end of it….from Paul or grandpa. He was so concerned about making both me and grandpa sit down to rest, he wasn’t paying attention to what he was doing. I know he means well and wants to look out for us, but sometimes his controlling goes over the top…but will he admit it? Oh pishaw.

We are approached by a guy selling vacation packages. Promises us free lunch and a tour of the Island for only 20 bucks for the three of us. Wow, a challenge for Paulie! He loves dicking with salesmen. Mexico is no exception right? OK. Off we go in a taxi to a beautiful new resort in Cozumel. The International something or other. We do the obligatory questions and answers, and tour the suites. Very nice. Very VERY nice. No lunch just yet. We go to the sales office where our rep, Margarita gives us level one sales pitch. Nope. Not interested. Tina arrives to give us sales pitch….level two. She is a cute little Brit and orders diet coke for me and a coke for Paul, with water for grandpa. Paul sips his drink and announces this is rum and coke. Ok. Grandpa grabs it and is happy. The waiter brings another drink. Same thing…rum and coke. Hmmmm. Something’s fishy here. Gosh, maybe they will slip us a roofie and we will buy the whole place? This time Tina instructs the waiter NO BOOZE! He brings Paul a plain coke.

After about 15 minutes of hard sell, Paulie says not interested. This brings on Jorge, pressure sales pitch level three. Hmmmm. They said no pressure. Sure. He only lasts five minutes with Paulie before he gets really peeved. They don’t know Paulie. He is a master at this sales game. They are pikers next to him. OK, here comes STEVE… the big gun from Las Vegas, the ultimate closer… you can tell by his air of bravado and swagger….he gives us the fourth level sales pitch…he’s got the best offer all afternoon. An offer I just can't understand how he can even make. Its plain stupid...or he thinks we are....Paul says….NOT INTERESTED and says this is the last time. The guy tries again…nada. He has met his match in this polish prince. The guy makes some crack about coming back to the resort for $3000 bucks per week the next time we are in Cozumel…I tell him nicely…”Not in THIS lifetime”. The original sales rep comes back to escort us back to the taxi area. Still no lunch. And we won’t be getting any lunch either…that’s for folks who have bought into this scheme….a 30 year commitment to vacation all over the world at certain luxury resorts, or cruise all over the world for a mere $75,000. Easy payments with only 11.99% interest. Yeah, right. We do however get our tour of the island. A very nice taxi guy gives us the costal tour, stopping at a few local spots for pictures. I am starving at this point and will be having the shakes soon if I don’t eat now. We stop at a little roadside cantina and Paulie and I split a club sandwich. We all have the local brew, Sol beer. Grandpa won’t eat…hmmmm. Two rum and cokes, now a beer? Ok.

We finally arrive back at the pier and make the long walk back to the ship. I am pooped so I go up to the cabin to take a nap. Later, we dressed and went to meet grandpa and Zack for the show. It was a country themed song and dance show, nicely done again. After the show, we went to the Terraces for dinner…Zack had other plans so he took off. We had the most wonderful prime rib with a delicious rosemary glaze. Oh my. After dinner, Paul and grandpa went off the casino and as my usual habit I went back to the cabin, took my meds and drifted off into never never land. That’s my life…one party after another.

Later

dee

Monday Dec 18th

…somewhere in the Yucatan…oh yeah, Progresso….

It is soooooo foggy you can’t see your hands in front of your face. We are up and out by 8 am…this time we get grandpa outta bed and make sure he has breakfast with us. Old fart. The party boy is passed out on his bed. Why am I not surprised? Grandpa seems to be ok after his bouts last night and no more worse for wear. We head down to the Four Seasons for breakfast off the menu. Yummmm, eggs benedict! Paul and grandpa got omelets while I scarfed down just one egg benedict…why waste food and why be sick? I also had fresh fruit which was really not in season and tasteless IMNSHO.

After breakfast we head back to wake up the party boy. He won another dance contest last night. The life of the party so I am told. Everyone knows his name as they see him on the TV all the time…the video of the previous evening’s activities is shown on the in-room TV’s. One of these nights I am going to have to stay up and catch his act, yanno?

We decide to go into Progresso. I am going to use my scooter. I have yet to use it for more than a few minutes or so and I still am not 100% in control of the thing. Of course, I have not one but THREE critics telling me how to drive the damm thing. Shut up everyone! It is 85 and hot in town. We proceed to go to the little shopping area. I was thinking it would be like Costa Maya with the beaches and shops all along the waterfront. Wrong. A couple of shops and a bar…not much to see or do. You hafta take a bus into town and I am on the scooter…not gonna work. So. I head back to the ship and the boys decide to check out Progresso. They wind up doing a city tour that was very entertaining and informative. They all had a great time. Of course, the cheapskates won’t buy lunch, they come back to the ship to eat lunch at 3:30.

The ship was deserted as everyone was ashore in Progresso. I go to the cabin, and put on my swimsuit and cover-up, thinking I will buy some sun screen and sit up on deck 12. I stopped off at the library to browse for a book. Up on the uppermost deck, I get myself settled into a deck chair and start the baking process. Oops, I forgot the sunblock. It is so hot, I don’t stay out there very long. I meander into the sports bar and get some fruit, again it was terrible. Just not ripe. I go to deck nine and check out tonight’s dinner menus. I stop at the coffee bar and get myself a Mexican coffee(Kahlua, express and cream). Oh. So. Good. After drinking this, I need to take a nap! I head back to the cabin to nap. Paul got back to the cabin about 3:30. I went with him and grandpa up to 11 so they could eat. Somewhere they had lost Zack when getting back on the ship. Prolly went to get a beer. The big Texas hold'em tournament is today at 4:30, once we sail out from Progresso. All three of the Ziaja’s will be playing in this…hey only 60 bucks each entry. And they all scolded me because they said I didn’t need that $2.00 hat in Progresso! Pffft!

While the guys played poker, I went to a shopping seminar about Cozumel. Diamonds International. I need say no more. After the seminar, I walked over to the casino and both Paul and Zack had been bounced from the tourney. Grandpa was still in. I tell Paul to let me know what’s going on so we can make plans for dinner. I headed up to the room to shower and take my afternoon siesta. It is about 5 p.m. I really didn’t sleep at all. By now it is 7 pm and I am getting just a little bit pissy. No one is around. I get dressed for dinner, leave a nasty note for Paul and go down to the coffee bar. It is formal night(if you care to participate this being a free style cruise) and all these folks have lined up for photos before they have dinner. Finally about 7:45 Paul shows up in the coffee bar. He is so very surprised I am not in a happy mood. But, But, But…grandpa came in THIRD in the Texas tournament! Like I know this!?! Did anyone call the room…did anyone come up and tell me this? NO. Paul had put our name in for dinner and Zack and grandpa appeared. Paul went up to change, and by the time he got back, two of Zack’s new friends, Paul and Cindy had arrived. They joined us for dinner. Steak was on the menu, so that’s what we all ordered, except for Cindy having chicken. I actually experimented with the appetizers. Lamb sausage with grilled peppers and feta cheese rolled up in spinach leaves was the appetizer. I followed up with a vinaigrette salad of pita, peppers, onions and cucumbers. Oh my goodness, it was soooooo good. I donated most of my steak to Zack who had not eaten all day or so he said.

After dinner, we parted…our guests to shower and get ready for the late night activities, which was a sock hop, me to the cabin to go to bed and only God knows where Paul and the old fart would be. I was kinda bummed out…I would have gone to the sock hop to see the dance contest, but I can only do so much.

Later…..

Sunday December 17, 2006

At Sea

Paul rolled in at 3 am. Foolish man. He just thinks he’s 21 again. Like Zack. We are awakened by the poor little steward at nine am. He stammers out that we need to put out the do not disturb sign. Poor kid. Paul goes out in the hall and puts the sign in Zack’s door. We figure that grandpa was out til 2 or 3 so he may need some sleep…who knows when Zack rolled in. Paul and I get dressed and head out to find some breakfast. This NCL cruise is called freestyle cruising…you don’t have set times to eat like for dinner the first seating is usually around 6 and second at 8. This means you get a reservation for when you want to eat. Also, there are two specialty places…one Italian and one French which has a $15 surcharge (can you guess which one I won’t be eating at?). On 11 there is the Trattoria which is the Italian place which has continental breakfast only. There is a waffle station and an omelet station out on deck 11, and in the pizza/pasta buffet they have fresh fruit, salad, cheese and stuff like oatmeal, eggs, grits, etc. The sports bar has a breakfast buffet also, and the Four Seasons has the traditional sit down off the menu breakfast. We settle into a table at the Trattoria with some fruit and juice. Paul goes off to find me some oatmeal and then he gets an omelet. After we finish, we start to explore the rest of the ship. At around 10:45 we head back to the cabin only to find a very upset grandpa. He is all pissed off cause “there was no breakfast anywhere, anywhere on this ship, I’ve been on every deck of this boat”. Baloney. If he had been on 9 he’d have seen the main dining room open. If he was on 11 he’d have seen the waffle guy and the omelet guy and the line into the Pizza buffet. If he had gone up to 12 he would have found the sports bar breakfast buffet. He claims he was looking all over the ship for us since 9:30 and he could not only not find us but he was terribly upset he didn’t get breakfast. Hmmmm….I think he is mixed up or has his times goofed up. Sometimes I wonder about his mental clarity. I should be so sharp at 90. But it’s not all the time…he has his moments where he looks totally confused. Like the proverbial deer caught in the headlights.

Zack joined us and we headed up to the deck 12. The sun was shinning, it was warm and everyone was out and about. They were setting up the lunch BBQ so Zack and grandpa could get some lunch soon. We found some lounge chairs, grabbing the last 4 on the entire deck. Soon we see folks carrying plates of food so Zack and the old man go searching for lunch. The Caribbean band is playing a jaunty tune and the sun was hot…there was a nice fresh breeze off the gulf which kept everyone nice and comfortable. Now THIS is a vacation. I doze off in my deck chair, like a big ‘ol dog laying in the sun…suddenly, some fool is kicking my chair. It is the only old fool I know, back with his food and for some reason he can’t sit down without kicking the shit outta my chair. I guess he just didn’t realize what he was doing(ok, so he’s now a doddering old fool, lol). He finally sits down and begins to eat. He doesn’t like this…the steak is too tough the ribs inedible…blah blah blah... Meanwhile Zack has scarfed down a huge plate and is heading back in line for more. Zack says his steak was perfect so I don’t know why grandpa’s is so tough. Maybe it’s the choppers. No, I think somebody has a HANGOVER! Yep,the old fart has one hell of a hangover. After about an hour, I can feel my skin starting to burn so I decide to go back to the cabin and put on my swim suit and get the sun block. I didn’t bring sun block. OK, so I won’t sit in the sun too long. On my way back to the deck, I stopped and got some French fries from the pizza bar. Oh they are so delish. Paul and I share a plate of fries for lunch. Some healthy stuff eh? After a while, the sun is getting to me, and my skin is starting to tingle…enough sun for moi. Just as I am readying to leave, they announce an ice sculpting demo so I wander over to where Paul and Zack are sitting at the pool bar…and we watch the demo. I don’t see the fish he carved but everyone clapped when he was done, so who am I to criticize? I get my stuff and go back to the room. I leave Paul and Zack to take care of ol’ cranky man.

Our dinner reservations are for 8 at the Italian place Trattoria. We plan on going to the 6:45 show which is a singing and dancing show. We all meet up in the show lounge. We are being entertained by a Canadian torch singer until showtime. It is a cabaret style show that showcases the singers, two guys, two gals (typical cruise ship entertainment) the dancers and this troupe features a couple from like Transylvania or Romania or some such place that do ballet. She is so thin you can almost see the veins in her body, ick. The show was ok, and both grandpa and Zack had to pop the eyes back into their heads.

After the show we went to dinner. It was excellent. Service was a bit slow, but the food was superb. Paul thought he was going to share my veal parm, he he he, I ate it all! Grandpa was still as cranky as all get out so he just left after the main course. Me and the boys had dessert. After dinner we sat in the lounge and listened to the duo from Russia perform in the piano bar. She had a nice voice. Finally, I went up to our cabin while Paul went to check on grandpa. He reports to me that grandpa is sick with the squirts and upchucking. Great. Paul puts him to bed and then heads out to find Zack the party boy. Once again I take my meds and hit the sack early. I can’t really “do” the nightlife anymore.

Later…

dee

Saturday December 16, 2006

The ship

Paul was up, showered and out to the free breakfast b7 7:30. Fool made so much noise he woke me up several times. He, grandpa and Zack ate breakfast buffet. I was just getting up when Paul came in with some breakfast for me…a cherry Danish, a sausage patty on toast and some coffee. I ate a little bit and then showered. By the time I got dressed it was only ten am and we still have time to kill before boarding time. We loaded the car and headed towards Kemel which is a little town on the gulf that has an old fashioned board walk with amusement rides, carnival games and a ton of neat shops and restaurants. We walked around for a while; saw some local school kids singing Christmas carols in reindeer hats. By the time we had walked the entire boardwalk, my legs were achy and I was getting just a bit cranky. Finally we loaded up the car once more and headed to the pier. It was literally jumping at the pier…buses, cars; taxi’s all trying to get folks unloaded at the entrance. We pulled up and unloaded the car and Paul set up the scooter for me. Thank goodness for my scooter. Paul takes the car to park it while we wait near the entry way. At the entrance to the parking lot, the Polish prince observes that it is gonna cost him 50 bucks to park the car for the week. He says to the attendant, that other cruise lines we have traveled with provided free parking for the handicapped. (I don’t have a clue WHAT those other lines are, yanno?) The gal sees the handicapped hanger in the window and says’ “Are you a veteran?” Paulie says yep, look at my plates….they are Purple Heart plates. She gives him a free pass ticket and Paulie just saves himself 50 bucks. Jeesh. Shister. We meet up and a NCL rep is there to meet us…we were allowed to move past the crowd and get special services to help us. We had our pictures taken for ID, then we went thru security quite quickly. It is nice to get ahead of the long lines, but I would much much rather be able to stand and walk and be in line than have to use a scooter because I CAN’T walk or I am in terrible pain. The cruise porter had given us some new tags for our luggage as we didn’t get any in the cruise packet. The ramp to the ship is huge, I guess for the ease of boarding the handicapped. The Norwegian Dream is the smallest ship I have been on. I think. We get to the room…right off the hall directly across from the elevators. Great. No hiking to the room. The rooms are small but clean and nicely decorated. We don’t have a fridge, darn. I wanted to keep some water in there for the evenings. We get rid of our bags and the four of us take a tour…we first go up to the 11th floor as it is the top floor this elevator goes to. We are on the pool deck where there is a buffet set up with Pizza, Pasta and burgers…nice salad bar too. We grab a bite to eat and then head back to the room. We pick up our flotation devices and head down to deck 7 for the 3:30 emergency drill. We are muster station M with a trillion other folks. We hear from the crew that we won’t start the damm drill until 4…grrrr…why do I havfta stand in this huge crowd of people with this stupid life jacket on for another half hour! The ship is supposed to SAIL at 4. Are they holding the boat for somebody? Nope. Waiting for fuel. Guess we can’t sail if we have no fuel. Finally the crew lines everyone up…we are seven deep from the front to the very back and guess where I am? Yep very back row, my butt plastered to the ship wall. I never was claustrophobic until this very moment. My face was in Zack’s armpit (I wonder if he put deodorant on, it didn’t seem that he did….). FINALLY drill is over and off we go to dump the floatation devices and head to the sail away party. Decks 11 and 12 were JAMMED. There are tons of kids…cripes if I wanted to be on a cruise with kids I would have gone Disney for heaven’s sakes. Ugh. Lots of kids and teens. Why aren’t these children in school for cripes sakes. There is a whole WEEK before Christmas…what ever happened to mid year exams and stuff like that? Do these kids MISS this stuff or are they out on vacation already. Who cares, all I know is there are too many freaking kids for ME. Of course, the congo line is starting and our little wallflower Zack jumps right in. The noise and the crowd is a bit much for me at this time of day, so I head back to our cabin to take a shower and do my nails. Paul gets back to the room around 6 and tells me Zack won the first dance contest with some girl who asked him to dance. Then he proceeds to tell me that they have been eating all afternoon as the sail away party was a BBQ. Great. No dinner for me I guess. I can wait until after the show. The show lounge is having a kinda preview of the entertainment. The show was very good, a very funny magician (and you all know how I hate magic acts) and a comedian I know I have seen before as he looks familiar. After the show Paul and I head up to 12 to the sports bar where there is a buffet. We had missed the main dinner which really honked me off. I love to have dinner on the cruise…the best meal of the day….appetizer, salad, soup, main entry, dessert and yes, an after dinner drink. Darn it anyways.
In the sports bar, there was a little gal making fresh Caesar salad. Wow. I took some halibut off the buffet. Ick it was as dry as cardboard. Not too impressed so far with the food from NCL. The hotdog I had earlier was only so so but the French fries were really good! The Caesar salad was WONDERFUL, best I have had in a long time (maybe since the last cruise?). I sure hope it gets better, but then again, this is ONLY a three star ship right, LOL!

Paul went to find Zack and grandpa. No one had seen the old man for a while. Not good…a missing grandpa. Our bags had arrived at the cabins so I unpacked while Paul went grandpa hunting. I decided that I would turn in for the night, but Paul said he was meeting Zack up on 12 in the disco. Have fun.

Later

dee

Friday, December 15, 2006

Off to Houston….We were up and around by 7 am. We completed all of our breaking camp tasks and packed up the stuff we would need on the cruise. Paul drove the rig to the storage area, with me and grandpa following up with the toad. We were out of the park around 9 am. We stopped at Randies Donuts for coffee and something to hold off the hunger pains. Next stop was the vet to drop off the fur kids. We were on Hwy 59 headed to Houston by 9:30. We rolled into town about 11 but it took forever to find the hotel in Baytown.

I gotta tell ‘ya, to me Houston is kinda dreary looking. Especially so when the sun is missing. Oil storage containers as far as the eye can see…refineries and chemical plants everywhere and the sky is totally filled with electrical towers and thousands of miles of electric lines. Pretty fugly if you ask me. Along the highway, the typical big box stores and restaurants as far as one can see. All the same everywhere you go…the same franchise places that have overtaken the country. We finally got to Baytown and promptly got lost again. A GPS in definitely in our immediate future. After finally finding the damm place, we got a room (it was too early for check in time after all…) we dumped some of our gear to make room in the car for Zack and his stuff. We got back in the car, pulled out the mapquest directions for Hobby airport and took off to pick up Zack. About ten minutes later, Zack is on the phone, his plane has landed on time and he is on his way to the baggage pickup. I instruct him to get his stuff and just step outside the lower level at arrivals and we would just pick him up there. We find him right away, and we get him and his stuff loaded. After a bit of discussion, we decide that we have a free afternoon so we decide to go to Galveston and have lunch on the waterfront. We find Hwy 45 and off we go the island. Just as we hit Galveston, the fog has rolled in again. We do find the beachfront, but all that is visible is a few whitecaps coming in. By this time we are all starving and start to look for a place to eat. We find a gourmet burger place right on the waterfront that looks like it is a kewl place and tromped on in. Paul and I split a burger, grandpa had sausage and shrimp gumbo and Zack had a huge cheeseburger. The hand made onion rings are superb, but even ½ of the hamburger is way too much for me. I sure hope this lasts on the ship…I hope I don’t eat too much.

After we had eaten and sat around and kinda rested, we drove along the waterfront hoping the fog would lift a bit. Unfortunately, it just got worse so we decided to head back to the mainland and the hotel. Like any tourist area there are a lot of places for rent. Too bad we couldn’t see the water and the beautiful resorts that are here…it looks like a great place to vacation. We needed to get some last minute stuff from WalMart so we stopped at the one right on the island. While Zack and I waited in the car, we witnessed the police bust two apparent shoplifters in the parking lot. I see white guys running past the car with GUNS…oh sh*t! They may have also been doing drugs because they started tearing into the couple’s van. Such excitement! We took route 146 back traveling along the gulf coast which was a lot better than the highway back towards Houston. Traffic heading out of town was horrible, but we had no real problems getting back to the hotel. Back at the hotel, we got the other room and settled in. Zack immediately feel asleep…he had been up since 5 getting to St. Louis for his flight. I read the paper, Paulie did a dry run to the cruise dock and did some pre-trip stuff with the car and the suitcases. It is amazing what we have to get into this little car…my scooter, all of our suitcases and carry on stuff plus the camera and video stuff. Hmmm…hope it all fits! Paul came back bearing pizza and beer so we had some and then we all decided to get to bed. We don’t have to board the ship until 1 so we have the whole morning to kill. I think the guys will go have breakfast here at the hotel as it is FREE but I don’t need to eat all that junk stuff. I will sleep in I hope.

later....
dee