BLACK FRIDAY

Surprise, surprise…..I am NOT a shopper! I knew that, but being cooped up here at my dad’s in San Ramon, I thought it sounded like a good idea to try the Black Friday thing just to get out. But not at 3 AM by any means….I don’t even like that when I’m off to somewhere fun and far away.

Once I was up, my dad was showered and the morning chores were done, I decided to head out to Kohl’s. I had a coupon for $10 off on a purchase of $20 or more good until 1 PM today. I took the first parking space I found and walked a loooonnng ways to the store. It was busy and people seemed fairly congenial.

They did have some excellent prices and great deals. I picked out a few pairs of pants to try on that would have been way cheap with my coupon. But as I was looking for the fitting room, I noticed that the line to check out was really long…and commented to myself on that fact. THEN as I saw what I thought was the end of the line, I realized that the customers had left a gap where the aisle was….I literally couldn’t see the end of the line! It stretched somewhere into the back of the store.  There must have been 50, 60 or more people in line!

At that point, I said to myself, “No way in hell! There aren’t any cheap pants worth standing in line this long for.” I hung them back up, smiled to myself and walked out empty handed. I’ve always known that I’m not a shopper, but that point was proven beyond a shadow of a doubt this morning. J Give me my Ross Stores with my 10% “senior” discount on Tuesdays!

DWTS

Okay, I admit it - I'm a hopeless fan of Dancing With The Stars. :-) There is just something addictive about that show. Tonight's finale ended as it should have....Jennifer Grey won! She is 50 years old and has been through numerous surgeries and other injuries, but she danced beautifully beating the 19 and 20 year olds hands down - how cool is that? You go, girl!!

PLANES, TRAINS & AUTOMOBILES

Our long weekend (left Friday morning and returned Monday evening) was dominated by all three modes of travel – airplane, locomotive and car.  Guess we covered the ship travel a few weeks ago. J

We were awakened by the alarm at the ungodly hour of 2:45 AM on Friday to catch our 6 AM flight to Omaha. Upon landing in Nebraska at 12:40 PM, we hit the ground running. The weather was looking ominous, not to mention cold and windy, so Omaha’s Joslyn Art Museum with its striking pink marble art deco exterior was a good first stop.

The exterior of the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha

A fountain in the indoor courtyard garden of the Joslyn

An interesting flower in the Joslyn courtyard

Union Pacific Railroad Museum - we went back on a rain free day for this photo.

I was enthralled by the works of a now deceased Omaha area artist named Kent Bellows. His paintings and pencil drawings captured expressions with amazing realism which looked more like photographs. Here is a link to some of his work: http://kentbellows.com/Site/Art%20Gallery.html

From there we headed to the Union Pacific Railroad Museum in Council Bluffs, Iowa, just across the Missouri River. The museum sponsored the Saturday train ride for its 50^th Anniversary which was our main purpose for this trip. Let me just clarify that although I had a son who was a total train buff growing up and now have a significant other who has turned into a midlife train buff, I’m just not that into trains. But it was an excuse to visit a new area of our country so I did my best to enjoy the tons of train related stuff.

After dinner at the Cracker Barrel, we headed to the Premier Suites to check in. It was now dark and rainy and really cold outside. On the way from Council Bluffs to Omaha, we noticed that it had started snowing! It was their first snowfall of the season and we Californians were out driving in it! We made it to the hotel where snow continued to fall much of the night. Just 11 days before we were lounging on the beach on Grand Turk in the balmy Caribbean.

The parking lot from our hotel window about 10 PM - that's our car in the left bottom

We were concerned about getting safely to the train station for our 7 AM train ride the next morning but it turned out to be no problem since the snow had stopped and all the main streets were plowed before we even woke up.

Our car was covered by several inches of snow. There are some REALLY good times to have a man around – like when there is a huge spider in the bathroom or your car is covered with snow. Men are fixers so my thought was this is a great time to just let him “fix”. I made my way out into the elements after the windows were clear and the car was all warmed up. As we started down the hotel driveway, Lou accelerated to about 20 mph and hit the brakes saying he wanted to make sure the car stopped without sliding. It stopped just fine, but all the snow on the roof flew down onto the windshield and hood! Just a bit more scraping.

We made our way to the train station where we slogged through half melted snow and mud to find our seats on the 1927 Columbine car. The historic train traveled to Bailey Yard, the country's largest classification yard, in North Platte, Nebraska - roundtrip of 572 miles. On the outbound trip we were pulled by the Union Pacific No. 844 steam engine and a diesel engine on the return.

It quickly became apparent that many of the passengers were what Lou calls “foamers” – people who “foam at the mouth” regarding anything to do with trains. It was fun and interesting but a bit too long for me – 14 plus hours on a train with no chance to get off and stretch was more than enough. Maybe they were giving us a real taste of train travel. We barely got a glimpse of the steam engine since we were many cars back. Thank goodness I brought a book – or two.

One of the historic dome cars on our train

Us on our 1927 Columbine passenger car

We passed the 844 after switching to our diesel engine

The control tower (or whatever it's called) at Bailey Yard in North Platte

Sunday was our sightseeing day. Being in the midwestern “Bible belt”, we discovered that literally nothing is open until 1 PM on Sunday – you are supposed to be in church, not gallivanting around doing fun things. We took this opportunity to drive to downtown Omaha where we could navigate the one way streets and explore the area without any traffic.

There is a six block area of downtown with bronze sculptures depicting the pioneers on wagon trains, a stampeding herd of bison and a flock of geese who were disturbed by the bison. The more than one hundred bronze creatures are everywhere! It was a great concept and we enjoyed it immensely.

One of 4 wagon train sculptures with a horseman in the background

A bison startling a flock of geese

From there we drove 50 miles to Lincoln for a tour (at 1 PM!) of the Nebraska State Capitol – an incredible art deco building that is different from most state capitols in that it is 14+ stories tall and looked like a cathedral inside. Our guide, a slim (probably gay) young man named Jaimeson, who was wearing a purple shirt and red tie, proceeded to give us one of the most informative and insightful tours we’ve had. His passion and enthusiasm for his state and his job was contagious. Nebraska is the only state in the U.S. to have a unicameral system - just one legislative branch instead of two.

The 14 story (plus dome) Nebraska Capitol Building in Lincoln

The unicameral legislative chamber

We headed back to Omaha in time to visit the Durham Museum before closing – yet another of the train themed museums on the area. This one is housed in an old art deco train station but it did have a lot of other exhibits in addition to the train cars.

The Durham Museum, a former art deco Union Pacfic Train Station

Inside the Durham train station lobby

Our “farewell dinner” was in the “Old Market” neighborhood of Omaha – an area of downtown with many restaurants, bars and shops. We have visited many cities – Denver, Oklahoma City, Omaha – that have a street (or several blocks) where locals and tourists alike go for food and lively entertainment. It makes me wonder why we don’t seem to have areas like that in Sacramento or the Bay Area.

Before our afternoon flight on Monday we drove to yet another railroad museum, Railswest, that was closed on Mondays but we were able to take a few photos of the engines and railroad cars on display. We knew the General Dodge House (he was a Union Pacific railroad baron) in Council Bluffs  was also closed on Mondays but drove by to take some exterior photos. While walking around the outside of the house, we peeked in the window on the front door. Several women were inside decorating it for Christmas – one woman came over, opened the door and invited us in to take a look at the downstairs rooms. We have concluded that the Midwestern people are extremely friendly and accommodating!

General Dodge House in Council Bluffs, Iowa

We ended our quick trip of planes, trains and automobiles with a stroll across the recently constructed Senator Bob Kerrey Footbridge over the Missouri River between Iowa and Nebraska.

The Bob Kerrey Footbridge across the Missouri River

A view of downtown Omaha from the Iowa side of the bridge

Our long weekend was a whirlwind tour of Omaha, Lincoln and Council Bluffs but we managed to see just about everything we had on our list and then some. As always, we needed to get home so we could rest!

Don't Worry, Be Happy

I just can’t seem to be on a cruise without thinking about Bobby Ferrin’s hit from the 80s, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy.” The brilliant shades of aqua, blue and turquoise waters that we experienced are simply breathtaking! We returned Wednesday evening from an 8 day Southern Caribbean cruise on the Carnival Miracle.

It was a wonderful cruise other than a few itinerary changes as we dodged Hurricane Tomas. And the cherry on top was our beloved San Francisco Giants winning the World Series Championship! See my previous post for all the baseball details. Click on any photo to see a larger version.

We flew into Fort Lauderdale a day early to avoid overnight flights and spent the night at the Comfort Inn before shuttling to the cruise port. Gorgeous beaches seemed to be a recurring theme of this vacation and Fort Lauderdale started us off right. I told Lou I'd like to live on a tropical island for six months or a year sometime to see if I'd really enjoy it full time. I'm thinking "yeah".



Fort Lauderdale beach as we sailed away



The Miracle is the largest ship that we’ve sailed on – capable of carrying almost 2600 passengers when completely full. They did an excellent job of getting us on and off the ship with no hassle and almost no lines. Our cabin was roomy by cruise ship standards and quite comfortable. The location was great – around the corner from the elevator, on the same deck as the smaller theater and one deck below the main showroom. It was literally about 50 feet and one flight of stairs (or less) to get to the lounges.



One of the three pools where we spent many sea days



The jogging track and putt-putt golf course (where I won by one stroke!)

The first night of the cruise we attended the welcome aboard show. We were seated in about the third row. Lou was next to a drunk girl that the cruise director, Malcolm, started interacting with – Malcolm came down into the audience and talked with her for a bit, then asked Lou a few questions and moved on to me. He asked what I planned to do on the cruise. I replied, “Relax and do nothing – and drink pina coladas!” Malcolm bought me a pina colada!  

After two days at sea we arrived in Saint Maarten, the Dutch side of the island. We took a taxi to the French side of the island, Sint Martin, where we spent a couple of hours at Orient Beach. Being from northern California it always amazes me when you can just walk into the ocean and it’s warm. Plus there aren't big waves to knock you down.

Orient Beach on St. Martin, the French Side



Some of that incredible turquoise water

We finished the day back on the Dutch side in Saint Maarten before heading back to the ship. Caribbean islands are extremely colorful and everyone is so laid back – guess the song is right, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”.

Old Street in St. Maarten, the Dutch Side

Our itinerary was two days at sea, then St. Maarten, St. Lucia and St. Kitts on consecutive days followed by two more sea days on the return to Fort Lauderdale. But our best laid plans were no match for Hurricane Tomas. The weather on St. Maarten was gorgeous so we were quite surprised that evening when the captain announced that we would be skipping St. Lucia (the southern most island on our route) and going straight to St. Kitts due to the developing hurricane. We were a bit disappointed but more than happy to avoid a Category Two storm.

They were substituting Nassau in the Bahamas on our last day. Lou and I had both been there about 30 years ago but neither of us remembered many details. We were out on deck for our arrival into St. Kitts the next morning when it became obvious that something was wrong. Normally, they just sail right in and dock these huge ships like they’re parking a Volkswagon.

After several attempts, our captain came on the loudspeaker with another announcement – due to winds and high seas, we wouldn’t be able to stop in St. Kitts either. BUT, they made some more phone calls and we were adding Grand Turk Island in the Turks & Caicos. Neither of us had been there and I’d heard it has incredible beaches – cool!

Our formal portrait - they make you look better than you really do!

We had two more sea days heading north before stopping at Grand Turk and Nassau our last two days. The crew scrambled to plan activities and put together some makeshift entertainment. Our comedians left at St. Maarten and we were supposed to pick up two more in St. Lucia but that didn't happen. Fortunately, our Giant’s games kept us more than entertained!

They had several late night “R” rated comedy shows and I have to share one joke from a woman comedian who was quite funny. What did one tampon say to the other tampon? Nothing – they were stuck up bitches. J

We arrived in Grand Turk at 7:00 AM to a beautiful sunrise. There is a great beach right next to the cruise ship dock where hundreds of lounge chairs are spread among the palm trees – and they are free of charge! We grabbed a couple and relaxed. Cruising is hard work, you know. Lou took one of the snorkeling and stingray petting tours. I passed since I can’t see anything if I snorkel anyway due to my terrible eyesight. Instead I headed to Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville right next to the beach for a – yep, you guessed it – margarita!

Arriving at Grand Turk just as the sun was rising

I'm not sure why, but I love this picture

The "Weather Station" - pretty much says it all

The view from our lounge chairs on the beach - yeah, this is the life

Both Grand Turk and Nassau had some of the most pristine and awe-inspiring scenery I’ve ever laid eyes upon. I’ve always been drawn to ocean seascapes and must have taken a hundred photos of various shoreline and beach scenes.

We walked around Nassau but there were five ships in port and it was really crowded, not to mention hot and humid. The Atlantis Resort on Paradise Island across from Nassau dominates the skyline. We headed there to explore some of the grounds and aquariums – and to have a cold beer before heading back to our ship for our last night onboard.

A lighthouse and incredible colors with the Atlantis Resort in the background

The Atlantis Resort on Paradise Island

Here's my house - can you imagine living here?

Some colorful condos in Nassau

At the Atlantis, Lou took a picture of me taking a picture of some fish. It looked like they were all curiously looking at me like we were looking at them.

The fish checking out the people aquarium

Several species of interesting sea life

I haven’t seen St. Lucia or St. Kitts yet, but I wasn’t the least bit disappointed after enjoying the spectacular scenery of Grand Turk and Nassau. It was a wonderful vacation that met all of our expectations and then some. The islands were gorgeous, the beaches incredible, our Giants are World Series Champions and we out ran Hurricane Tomas – all part of the adventure!!

WORLD SERIES ON THE HIGH SEAS!

Having never given a thought to the fact that our San Francisco Giants might be in the World Series, we planned a Caribbean cruise for the exact time that the first 5 games of the Series would be played. Wouldn't you know it, our timing was less than perfect but we made the most of it.

Our first formal night at sea was also Game One of the World Series. After dinner we collected our Rally Hair and Rally Rags before heading to the Sports Bar on the Carnival Miracle. Lou was still looking dapper in his tuxedo and I wasn't looking half bad in my Ross cocktail dress! We ordered a "Bucket of Beer" and proceeded to scream, cheer and wave our Rally Rags at every hit or great pitch for the first few innings. Unfortunately, the smoke was really getting to us (didn't most people STOP smoking years ago????) so we decided to head back to our cabin to watch the remainder of the game.

If only we had a camera with us......Lou was in his tux, wearing his Rally Hair, carrying the "Bucket of Beer" through the casino while I waved a Rally Rag and cheered. As you all know by now, the Giants are 2010 World Series Champs and we were able to watch every game! I was amazed at how easily they won it all......after a season of "torture", it almost seemed too easy. Sure, we missed a few mediocre song and dance shows on the cruise ships but it was so worth it to watch our Giants win it all!

My only regret is that I didn't just suck it up and pay the $50+ for some internet time on the ship (yes, they rip you off) and share emails with my friends and family while it was going on. In hindsight, it would have been a worthwhile investment to share thoughts and comments with everyone.

I have vivid memories of my dad taking me to Giants games at Candlestick Park back in the late 50s and early 60s. We would bundle up in all our cold weather clothes and still freeze our butts off. On rainy days, we would listen to the radio to see if the game was postponed in the hopes of saving the bridge tolls before we headed across the Bay. It's hard to believe that was 50 years ago.......and now, my Giants have FINALLY won it all!!!!!!! Shut your eyes and don't read this if you are easily offended.......this is FAN-FUCKING-TASTIC!!!

My cruise report will follow in a few days (and we did have some added adventure!), but I HAD to get something up about my Giants. We arrived back home in Sacramento about 8:30 PM. My sister said they were replaying the Giants Parade late tonight so I'm watching it as I type. I'm running on fumes, and even though it is approaching 4 AM Eastern Time (which is where we started the day), I feel energized and excited and thrilled to be back home and experiencing this incredible turn of events! Thank you Timmy, Matt, Madison, Aubry, Andres, Freddy, Brian, Buster, Pat and every single one of these 2010 Giants! I'll sleep tomorrow!

Yesterday morning on our ship, a woman came running up to us (we were still wearing our, by now, fairly rank Giants shirts!) and says, "I'm from Marin. Can we have a World Series moment?" And we all screamed!

Does it get any better than this?