A Few Vacation Photos

We have returned home, safe and sound. The dogs are seemingly very happy to see us and have yet to leave my side. The mail has been opened, the phone messages have been listened to, the laundry is in the wash and the wife is already washing the floors. It was a long, long, long day of travel but that does not keep me from blogging. I am dedicated to you, oh great blog reader and thus I must mortify the flesh and get some photos posted. Why, here is a photo of a storm we had to fly "around" today on the way home. As we were over 30, 000 feet at this point, you can only imagine how big that storm cloud really was. It left us with some fabulous turbulence but nothing too scary. My crabbiness was much more scary than any storm cloud.






........So, how 'bout a few photos to go with those blog entries from Mexico? In an effort to save you some time opening this page, I made some collages to illustrate the trip. I have 164 additional photos if these aren't enough for you, but I will spare you on the blog. (You can click on the photos to make them "Bigger" if you can't see enough on these little collages.)
















Collage #1: Ship Shape. A few views of the boat, both inside and out. The view of the mini putt was taken with San Diego in the background. The food is the wife's lobster dinner, which she found quite yummy. And yes, that is a bug. There were these black bug beetle things on board. I'm sure the cruise line would prefer I not post photos of bugs on their ships but how could I pass up a good bug on vacation? It's not like I found them in the kitchen. They were wandering around the deck as we were leaving port. Actually, there were three of them running around but I only photographed one. As for the two twin boats (lower left), one of the boats is ours and another is a twin that just happened to be in port when we got there. Twins!
















Collage #2: Cabo (better known as "the only day that wasn't 60 degrees and cloudy"). Well, the air wasn't 60 degrees but the water was only 62 degrees, so that makes up for the warmer air. Can I just say that 62 degree water takes your breath away? I was so expecting Carribean Ocean bathwater temps. Cabo by water is very pretty. I'm sure there are delightful things to do on land, also but we certainly didn't find them or do them. We were too tired from trying to survive the freezy weather. We didn't see Sammy Hagger, so that was a bummer.


















Collage #3: Ensenada (which I also referred to as Encinito, Encidido, Enchilada, etc) . Cloudy, cold and busy. Think of Tijuana, only a bit more upscale. I loved all the "Day of the Dead" stuff. It was cold, at least by Mexico standards. Thankfully, we stayed on land and the rain stayed just far enough away that we only got spit on a few times. About that flag of Mexico--it was HUGE. You can't tell that from the photo, but trust me when I say it was like the size of Rhode Island.



















Collage #4: Towel Creatures. Every night, we'd return to our cabin, only to find our beds turned down, the next day's schedule placed next to chocolates on the pillows, and....towel creatures! They were awesome, and if you really wanted to, you could attend a class to teach you how to make these little guys. I loved the way they hung the monkey from the TV!


















Finally, Collage #5: Ice Cream. I tried to take a photo of every time I ate ice cream (15 times on the cruise for those who are counting) but it got to be a bit much to do this, so here are a few of the times we got the gluttony on film. Eating ice cream fifteen time in five days is not a good idea for the weak of heart. By the end, I wanted to poke my eyes out. Of course, this didn't stop me from eating a giant bowl of Ben and Jerry's "Chocolate Therapy" ice cream at the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport today.......