Miami and home

Sunday morning found us tied up to the dock in Miami. After some delays at immigration, we went to the curb. After some confusion, our limo driver picked us up and took us to the Fort Lauderdale airport. We had a long wait at the airport, and surprisingly good middle eastern food for lunch. The airport was full of Christmas travelers.

Our flight home was uneventful, chasing the sunset. Dora and Bruce's daughter Sophia picked us up at the airport. Marianne was Sophia's 6th grade teacher! We stopped at their house for a few minutes, and watched Sophia's boy dance the Nutcracker. Bruce drove us home, where our new kittens did not seem too interested in us.

A good trip.

Cartegena de los Indios, Colombia

We took a taxi into the old town with Bruce and Dora for $20. The driver offered a tour, but we did not bite.

Our first stop within the walled city was the church and museum of Saint Peter Claver, the "slave of the slaves", who was a missionary to the slaves in Cartegena. His body is displayed under the altar. We felt like we were in a special place.

We visited a small emerald museum and shop. We visited a good gold and artifact museum at a bank, pretty amazing work for 500 AD.

We had beers at El Bistro, and then took a taxi to "Las Bovedas" for shopping. Las Bovedas was disappointing, mostly tourist junk. We walked up onto the wall around the city, and saw some of the fortifications.

We all liked Cartegena, clean, pretty, and interesting.

Friday was a sea day. We had breakfast with Bruce and Dora, and played bridge with Bob and Carol in the morning, very nice. This was also our last formal night.

Saturday was another sea day, watching western Cuba from the port side. Richard spoke to a man who was at Guantanamo during the Cuban Missle Crisis in 1962. We played bridge in the morning, Bruce won. We watched the excellent string quartet from Ukraine before dinner. We said goodbye to all at dinner.

Panama Canal

We got up at 7 AM for the entrance to the canal. We stayed on deck 4, lower down and not as crowded. Richard spoke to a Canadian canal pilot, he was the third pilot, watching the back of the ship, and commanding the rear "mules", locomotives, to keep the ship centered in the lock. There are only a couple of feet on each side of the ship!



After lunch, we waited one hour for our tour, a nature walk. The tour was down a trashy dirt road, we saw a two toed sloth, and a three toed sloth, but only a few birds, disappointing. We did see a "Common black hawk", a new bird for us. Our guide was Gustavo Schultz, OK, but handicapped by the location and the group. We saw some of the old Canal zone buildings, some abandoned, some in use. We ended up going through Colon city in rush hour, chaotic.

At the dock, there were many shops, and indians selling their wares. We saw some heavily tatooed indians, including bare-breasted women. We bought a small "Mola", a piece of fabric art, for $10, which was all Richard had in his wallet.

Wednesday was a sea day. Richard attended a lecture on Sir Francis Drake, who was variously a pirate and an English admiral, and was the first Englishman to sail around the world. Drake sacked the city of Cartegena, our next stop.

Puntarenas Costa Rica

Richard and Marianne got up a little earlier, and hired Freddy the taxi driver to take us to the Taracoles River, famous for crocodiles and birding. We took a boat tour, saw many new birds, and watched the boat captain feed the crocodiles. We had lunch at a local open air restaurant, where we ate "Casados", a local dish of rice and beans. Freddy talked us out of a visit to the Carara park, said that we would see no birds at noon.

We went back to town, had a beer, and then went to a nice 4 PM mass in town. The town of Puntarenas and the beach were pretty dirty, lots of trash, although the people that we met were nice. We strolled back to the ship, and bought a hat from a vendor. A long day.

Monday was a sea day. Richard went to talks on maps and the Panama Canal construction. R and M played scrabble, M won. We all played bridge in the afternoon.

Huatulco

After breakfast, we took a taxi to town. Huatulco is a new planned resort, about 25 years old, clean and tidy. Richard discovered that he had lost his ATM card, and that his camera memory card was inexplicably full, so he spent a lot of the time there taking care of these issues. We sat on the beach and drank expensive beers. Richard and Bruce swam out to the Mexican navy boat guarding the ship.

One of the amusing things was the lady from TV Azteca recording the acapella group singing. Richard went to the Helicopter pad, with the captain's club members, to watch the ship leave Huatulco.

Saturday was a sea day. Richard went to mass, which was a renewal of vows for a couple married for 50 years. We went to another map talk, Richard went to a Costa Rica history talk. Dinner was our second formal night.

Los Cabos and Acapulco

Tuesday found us in Los Cabos, taking a tender (smaller boat) into the marina. Dora and Richard got their internet fix, and we eventually walked all the way around the marina to the beach. We sat under an umbrella drinking beer and listening to a movie trivia contest. We eventually made the long walk back to the boat.

At dinner we met another of our tablemates, John, a retired Methodist minister from Dallas, with an eyepatch, who works with sex addicts.

Wednesday was another sea day, we played Bridge with Bruce and Dora. At dinner we met John's friend Jay, with all ten people around our table.

Thursday we had breakfast with Bruce and Dora, and walked to the San Diego fort in Acapulco. This was a very interesting museum, with bilingual signs, giving the history of the Spanish galleons to the Phillipines. We strolled to the central plaza, visited the church, and had a beer. The plaza was dirty and smelly, a disappointment. Bruce and Dora went back to the ship. Richard and Marianne went on a boat tour of the bay, including a smaller version of the Acapulco cliff divers. Lots of jokes in the narration, with a young captain and younger divers. Richard and Marianne walked back to the boat, and Richard went back out to get a haircut and a shave for $8, as well as take some photos and get some internet time.


As it was close to the feast day of our Lady of Guadalupe, we saw a small parade in her honor.

At dinner, Dora told us Greek and Turkish history, from the perspective of her family, who were expelled by the Turks.

Panama Canal Cruise - Boulder to the Ship

We started our trip with our friend Mike B. giving us a ride to the airport bus. We met our friends Bruce and Dora at the Denver airport, where we took a Southwest flight to San Diego.

In San Diego, we waited a long time for a shuttle to the airport, only to find it packed. We squeezed on, with Dora in Bruce's lap! The Hampton Inn Airport/Sea World is OK, but in an industrial neighborhood.

Sunday morning, we all walked to Old Town San Diego to go to church. The Old Town is an historic park, a tourist attraction, which also contains the historic Immaculate Conception church. It was a nice mass, with a warm atmosphere, and the priest told jokes. On the walk back, Richard received a shocking phone call; he was told that his friend Mike G. had died suddenly.

We called a limo/taxi to take us to the ship, where we found long lines, but ultimately got on. We discovered that we were assigned to a different dinner table than Bruce and Dora, so we requested a change. Dinner was disorganized, with long lines. There was no room at the table that we were assigned to, so we finally sat by ourselves at a table for two.

We had a beautiful view of the San Diego harbor with Christmas lights.

Monday was a sea day. We went to the brunch, and played Bridge afterwards. We met our new tablemates, Bob, Carol, Ken, and Sally, another two couples who had gone on a cruise together. This was formal night, it was fun to see everyone dressed up.

Louisville

My trip to Louisville was busy, although Mater and I were able to get out to eat every day. The photo was taken at Captain's quarters on the river, a favorite restaurant of my parents.

My focus on this trip was the needed repair work on Mater's house, and finding Mater a place to stay while the construction was going on. I met with a couple of contractors, and selected one. I went to see a couple of assisted living places, and selected one, largely on the strength of a room with a view. Both assisted living places were like nice hotels full of old people. ;-)

A pretty successful trip, in that I was able to accomplish what I needed to accomplish.

On my drive to the Indianapolis airport, I was able to stop by the Indiana State museum. One curiosity item was the iron lung, a part of the bad old days of polio.

My flight home was uneventful. Glad to be home.

Sunday - Adrian to Louisville

I went to mass in the morning with Rosemary. I spoke to the two artists who created the tapestry, Barbara Chenicek and Rita Schiltz. It is 7 foot by 17 feet, with 4500 pieces. This was a huge project that took them about three years.

After mass, Rosemary and I said goodbye, and I started the drive south on I75. I decided to stop in Dayton Ohio at the Air Force museum. This is a very large museum, with several hangars, containing aircraft and artifacts from the early days of aviation up to the current day. There was a hangar showing ballistic missles, an interesting exhibit on the Berlin airlift, and even a section devoted to the Holocaust, with emphasis on allied airmen who were put into the camps, along with the Jews. I was able to walk quickly through the entire museum, but walked by most of the information panels without attempting to read them; I could imagine a real airplane or history buff spending days looking at aircraft and exhibits.

In some ways, the most interesting exhibit was the "Bockscar" B29 and the "Fat Boy" nuclear bomb which was dropped on Nagasaki Japan. The side panel explained that "The Japanese army retained sufficient strength to make an invasion extremely costly. Military advisors to president Truman estimated that an invasion of Japan would result in 250,000 to one million American casualties, and an equal number of the enemy. Fortunately for the people of all the nations involved, this inestimable carnage was not necessary. On July 26, 1945, the Allies issued the Potsdam declaration calling for Japan's surrender. Two days later, the Japanese Premier announced to the Japanese press that his government would ignore the ultimatum. Based on this apparent rejection of peace efforts, and the desire to avoid invading Japan, President Truman gave the order to employ a new weapon of mass destruction the atomic bomb." I have read that the exhibit at the Smithsonian does not attempt to explain the rationale or why the US made the decision to drop the bombs on Japan; I have not seen that exhibit.

I arrived in Louisville after dark, and chatted with Mater for a while, mostly discussing the upcoming repairs needed to the house.

Adrian

The Adrian campus is a calm and beautiful place, where everyone is very nice. I just like it here. Rosemary and I met for mass in the morning in their modern chapel. There is a huge tapestry of St. Catherine setting out into the world, made by a couple of nuns, 4500 pieces. I later was able to see a slide show of how it was made, a huge amount of work.

Rosemary and I had lunch, and chatted for a couple of hours. We took a rest break, and then met for dinner, and chatted a couple more hours, on a wide range of topics. She was very upset about the Vatican visitation, which amount to a kind of Papal Investigation of the American nuns. Her order, like most orders, has shrunk dramatically, with the average age in the 70s, and most of the nuns now retired. The Adrian Dominicans are on the liberal end of spectrum, as far as I can tell. Rosemary is not concerned about the number of nuns, thinking that the Holy Spirit is at work, and that organizations have a life cycle.


Rosemary says that she is always glad to see me, that I bring with me a little piece of my father, Eddie, who she was very fond of.

Chicago to Adrian

I checked into the La Quinta hotel in Matteson Thursday night. It was adequate, but I did not sleep too well, as I was wound up from the trip. I got up, ate their continental breakfast, and got on the road.

I had forgotten that the major roads in this area were generally toll roads, and I ended up paying tolls across Indiana and into Ohio.

I made my first stop at the Notre Dame campus, mostly to see the art museum. I had trouble figuring out where I should go, so I finally stopped and asked a young man for directions. He took out his iPhone and pulled up a satellite photo of the campus, and got me oriented.

A beautiful day in South Bend, so a nice walk across campus. The young people seemed cleaner cut than those on the CU campus in Boulder.

The Snite Museum of Art was modest in size, but their collection of Mesoamerican artifacts was quite excellent, including the patterned rollers used to seal documents. Beautiful stuff. The rest of the museum was also good, although I limited myself to the modern art areas.

After a bite in one of the campus fast food restaurants, I got back on the road.

My next stop was the RV museum in South Bend. It was pretty interesting to see the various forms that RVs have taken over the decades, ranging from little tent trailers up to large motor homes. The Shasta trailer in the museum was similar to the one that my grandparents lived in for many years after they retired.

I arrived around dinnertime, so Sister Rosemary and I went to Red Lobster, and then I hit the sack, tired from traveling.

Boulder to Chicago

Marianne dropped me off at the bus stop, and I took the bus to the airport. I arrived in plenty of time, so got my exercise power walking in the Denver airport. On the flight, I sat next to a young man who was in a family business of buying and selling semi-truck tractors. I asked him lots of questions, and learned a lot.

In Indianapolis, I went through their new airport terminal for the first time. Very modern, kind of like the Denver airport, with high ceilings in the main terminal, art hanging down. The Enterprise rent a car people offered to upgrade my car, but it was a little more than I wanted to pay, and then they lowered the amount, so I took the upgrade. The car is a Hundai Sonata, pretty nice, almost full sized. I enjoyed the XM Satellite radio as I drove up to Chicago.

I arrived at Ann and Rosemary's townhouse around 7 PM. Rosemary had just started a new job, and was so happy to be out of her previous situation. Ann seemed shorter and more bent over than I remembered, but looked pretty good for 94 years old! We talked on a range of issues, especially related to the church. I left after Ann started to nod off a bit. They were very happy to see me, and I them. It had been a few years.

Puerto Vallarta and home

We slept in on Friday, then Richard went to the beach and went kayaking, while Marianne and Eileen went shopping, partly to use up a credit from the previous shopping trip.

After lunch, Richard and Eileen headed for the old part of Puerto Vallarta, including the Rio Cuale. Eileen bought some day of the dead skeleton monks as gifts.

Our last dinner in Puerto Vallarta was at Victors, where everyone greeted our return, and the same musicians performed a couple of songs for us. A nice way to finish the trip.

Saturday morning we ate breakfast, packed, and headed for the airport to turn in the rental car. We said goodby to Eileen at the airport, and flew to Houston. After going through immigrations and customs, we caught a flight back to Denver. There was some snow around the car in the airport parking lot, but we had missed the huge snowstorm that occurred in Colorado while we were gone.

Rest day and visit to Talpa

Wedneday we all agreed to take a rest day in and around the condo, with Thursday the long trip to Talpa.

Eileen and Marianne went to the nearby shopping center, Eileen had her hair cut, Marianne bought a dress.

In the evening, we went to the membership party for the condo association, and then we went back to Arrayans for another good meal.

Thursday we got up early and hit the road around 7AM. It took a while to get out of the outskirts of Puerto Vallarta, but we eventually got out into the country. The road through the mountains was very twisty. We stopped at Mascota in the market for breakfast. Mascota is a sleepy valley town with cobblestone streets, perhaps best known for being the birthplace of St. Jose Maria Robles Hurtado. St. Hurtado was a priest executed during the Christero wars; he was canonized recently along with several other Mexican saints from the same era. The exvoto below is someone giving thanks to St. Hurtado for returning safely to his family, probably from the USA.

We pressed on to Talpa, going over a short but steep mountain pass. Talpa is another sleepy town with cobblestone streets. On the road into town there were statues of various apparations of the virgin, including Lourdes and Fatima. The church was not as remarkable as we had hoped; there were few exvotos in view.

We then went up to the house of Jenny and Howard M. Richard knew Jenny through her writings. She used to be a consular agent in Puerto Vallarta. She knew all about Fernando, the developer of the condo we are staying at. They were very hospitable, and we chatted for quite some time. Their home overlooks the town.

Back in the car, over the short pass outside Talpa, through the valley, and then back over the long and twisty mountain pass. We were keeping an eye on the clock, as we wanted to be back to Puerto Vallarta before dark. We decided to make a dinner stop in San Sebastian, a very pretty old mining town. Our dinner at El Fortin was not that great.

We headed back, and arrived on the edge of Puerto Vallarta around dark. It took a long time to get through rush hour traffic to our condo. A very long day, we were all tired.

Yelapa

On Tuesday, we drove south of Puerto Vallarta to Bocas de Tomitlan, a little beach town right before the road leaves the beach. We went there to take a water taxi to Yelapa. Yelapa is a town with no roads going to it, has been a well known end of the world spot for many years, if you really want to get away from it all.

We had a beer while we were waiting for the water taxi, and then got on for the 30 minute ride to Yelapa. We spoke to a gringa on the taxi who retired to Yelapa from the US forest service, she loves it there, told us to get off at the village, not the beach. We started walking up towards the famous waterfall, stopping for beer and bathroom stop at Mimi`s cafe.

The water fall is pretty nice, with perhaps a 40 foot drop into a large pool, where some people were swimming. There we met a couple of ladies from New Orleans who had been taking photos of butterflies and flowers. They were there for ten days, seemed like a long time for a small place. We saw a very large all white butterfly, nothing any of us had seen before. They toured us around a bit, and then we headed back to Mimi`s to wait for the water taxi. We got chatting with Mimi, who told us her life story, with her parents divorcing when she was very young, living a few years in California, then returning to Mexico. She had been in Yelapa for 22 years, has four kids, youngest 15 years old.

We headed for the dock, where Richard panicked because he could not find the taxi ticket. He headed back to Mimi`s, but she was already walking down with the ticket, which had fallen out of his pocket. We rode back on the taxi with a nice couple from Denver, Ian and Clarisa?. We gave them a ride back to town. We headed back to our condo, where a Mexican fiesta was in progress, including a good Mariachi band.

We drove over to Los Arbolitos restaurant, up to the third floor overlooking the Cuale River. The service and ambience was good, but the food was forgettable.

We were all pretty tired by the time we got back to the condo, and agreed to defer a decision about our trip to Talpa for the morning, to see how we felt.

Puerto Vallarta

We arrived in Puerto Vallarta on Saturday, no problem, met Eileen at the airport, and picked up a rental car. We checked in at Eileen`s timeshare, and went to the supermarket. Saturday evening, we went out to Victor`s restaurant, kind of a family feel, a trio of musicians singing. Fun.

Sunday AM we went to the bilingual mass at the cathedral. We wandered around town shopping for a while. Eileen`s credit card company had shut off her card because she did not tell them she was going to Mexico, but we found a phone booth and fixed that. We all then took a nap. We had dinner at Arrayan`s restaurant, kind of a gourmet Mexican restaurant, Richard had his favorite, Chile en Nogada, which is not often available.

Monday we drove north up to Punta Mita, and stopped along the way to drink beer in two outdoor restaurants. Nice to get away from busy Puerto Vallarta, hang out on white beaches with few people, but you can`t get away from the time share salemen/promoters.

We had dinner at a tiny family restaurant specializing in tamales, Maria Candalaria, where dinner for three cost us 5 dollars US! Good tamales, wrapped in banana leaves or corn husks.

Driving Home

We woke up to beautiful blue skies, great driving weather.

The colors of the ground cover were beautiful; the snapshot from inside the car barely does them justice.

We saw a little snow on the side of the road in the mountain passes, but the drive was uneventful.

Snow started in Boulder a few hours after we got home, so our timing was very good. We had planned our drive home between two weather fronts.

Winery and Museum

We had a little rain in the morning, but it cleared up later.

After breakfast, we headed for the Two Rivers Winery. The winery has a Bed and Breakfast and an events center for weddings, etc. They have a small field with grapes, and buy some of their grapes. We tasted their Tulip, Riesling, Chardonnay, and Cabernet Sauvignon, and bought a bottle of Riesling, and a bottle of Cabernet.

We drove into Grand Junction and went to the Museum of the West, focused on the history of the Grand Valley area. Some of the exhibits were related to Alfred Packer, the famous cannibal, including a beautiful horsehair bridle that he made while he was in prison. There was an exhibit of handguns owned by the sheriffs of Mesa County. Interestingly, they were all revolvers except for two sheriffs in the early 1900s, and the two most recent sheriffs, who carried semi-automatic pistols. Richard went to the top of their observation tower, from which he saw the Grand Mesa, and an overview of the town.

Marianne spotted a blacksmithing book in the museum bookstore, and Richard bought two books, Beautiful Iron, written and signed by Francis Whitaker, and My Life as an Artist Blacksmith, by Francis Whitaker as told to Gary Mansheld, signed by Mansheld. Francis Whitaker is a famous local blacksmith, who lived and worked in Aspen and Carbondale Colorado, as well as Carmel California. Richard thought that these books were quite a find, although he never met Francis.

In the evening, Richard walked over to the lake at the campground to go fishing. He later went over to the river, but did not attract the interest of any of the fish.

We closed out the evening with a game of Skipbow, which Marianne won.

Grand Junction

Since our propane was low, and we were concerned if our batteries would last another cold night, we left Saddlehorn campground in the Monument. Richard was less nervous about the tunnels this time, especially since the campground host said that he had seen 40 foot bus type RVs in the campground. We moved to the State Park in Fruita, which was full when we stopped by Monday. This time they had room in the inn, so we happily plugged in at the modern campground. The weather was cold in the morning, but shirtsleeve weather in the afternoon.

After lunch, we decided to head down the road on the south side of the Colorado River towards Grand Junction. We passed many beautiful homes outside the monument. In Grand Junction, we headed for the downtown, where there were many public sculptures and a pedestrian mall on Main Street. We especially liked the buffalo made of cut up car bumpers. The downtown is apparently a low rent area, although most of the storefronts contained businesses, with many shops with antiques, furniture, and clothing. There was even a used bookstore with boxes of books in every aisle, suitably funky. We stopped in an antique shop, an upscale thrift store, and had a bagel at the bagel place.

On the drive home, we checked the nearby Two Rivers winery, which is open til 6 PM most days.

Richard walked along the river in the campground, which includes a boat ramp. We hope to bird there on Thursday.

Colorado National Monument

We got up in our beautiful campground, and went to the visitor center for a guided hike on the Alcove nature trail. We chatted some with a family from the Netherlands.

After lunch, we headed out to tour the monument. We stopped at various overlooks that took our fancy.

Richard had it in his mind that he wanted to see if there was a way to Saddlehorn campground without going through the tunnels. It turns out that there is, through the Glade Park area. Unfortunately, it was a bumpy, twisty road that connects back to the east Monument entrance road near Broadway in Grand Junction, involving "D" road, Rosedale road, and Little Park road. We gassed up in Grand Junction, and then headed back into the park via the East Entrance, which has one tunnel. We stopped to walk a little of the Serpents Trail, but were disconcerted to see the sign indicating that Mountain Lions had been seen in the area, so we did not go far from the car.

We did take a walk to the end of Otto's trail, with beautiful views of the canyons.

Marianne cooked a good pork dinner.

After dark, Richard went out alone to get some moonlight photographs. Unfortunately, his camera did not do well with just moonlight. Richard kept looking over his shoulder to see if there were any mountain lions about, especially since there was no one around, and mountain lions are nocturnal.

Boulder to Fruita

After carefully considering our options, and focusing on the weather forecast, we decided to go to the warmest reasonable choice, the Grand Junction area. We had some concerns about driving over the mountains, which were reinforced by I-70 being closed due to an accident, and we were considering other options. However, we called again right before we left, and the road report was more favorable, so we stuck to plan A.

We left Boulder Monday around 10 AM, and headed into the mountains. As we got closer to the continental divide, the rain turned to snow, but the roads remained wet. We pressed on through the Eisenhauer tunnel, down the other side, and then over Vail pass. Once we got to Vail, the weather improved, and we settled into the rest of the drive. Glenwood Canyon was beautiful, as usual. We stopped at the New Castle diner for a decent lunch, nice folks.

We drove through Grand Junction, headed for the state park in Fruita Colorado. However, we were surprised to find the campground full, on a Monday night in October! We decided to head up into Colorado National Monument. Richard had looked at the map, and concluded that we would not need to go through the low tunnels to get to the campground. Unfortunately, Richard was mistaken, so we drove slowly and nervously down the middle of the road through two low tunnels. The tunnels were marked as 10.5 feet high, and our rig is 12 feet, but with the arched roof, the center of the tunnel is higher than the edges, so we got away with it.

Saddlehorn campground overlooks the grand valley. The campground was not full, and we found a pretty good site, only required more leveling than usual. The weather here is nicer than it was in Boulder, temperature around 50F at sunset.

Tomorrow we will look at our camper battery voltage, and decide if we will spend another night here, or retreat to an electric outlet.