The conundrum of blogging is that if your life is exciting enough to blog about, you have no time to blog. If you have time to blog, there really isn't much to say. And so it has gone during these last days of summer. I was shocked to see that it had been almost two months since I posted, yet pleased that my cousin Margaret emailed me to say that she missed my blog. So I promised her that I would bring things up to date.
This summer has seemed way busier than usual, but until this past month, not with anything earth shaking – just the usual doting on granddaughters, gardening, sewing, running and so forth. However, on September 21st, things got a lot more exciting! Bill and I celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary with a 17 day cruise through the Panama Canal. We've never cruised before and this was a bit of a gamble taking such a long cruise for our first, but we figured, "What's not to like?" And we were right!
Here we are toasting as we arrived onboard the Celebrity Infinity:
Don't we look happy? Our second night out was the first formal night. I had rack of lamb for the first time. This really set the stage for food that was definitely four star!
Our first stop was San Francisco. The first day was dreadfully cold and foggy/rainy and we had a less than memorable trip out to the Golden Gate Bridge. The second day was better and we had a fun time exploring Chinatown and visiting the hilarious sea lions at Pier 39:
Next up was a stop in Cabo San Lucas. I was not at all impressed! It was mostly filled with cheesey tourist trap souvenir shops, bars and aggressive vendors. We did hit the tail of of a tropical storm and a torrential downpour that made things very exciting!
Puerta Vallarta was a little better with more historical offerings. Of course, a visit to a tequila factory was mandatory and I think Bill enjoyed it a little too much (it didn't help that I kept dumping mine into his glass)!
Even more rain here! Our wonderful guide offered to take us to this stunning cathedral even when it meant wading through ankle deep water running through the streets:
Sorry for the sideways photo – Typepad is being ornery. From there it was on to Costa Rica. We visited a nature preserve and took a tram up into the rain forest canopy, a walking tour and a boat tour. I loved the little caution signs so that we wouldn't step on the leaf cutter ants. We also got up close and personal with lots and lots of crocodiles. We did see a lot of wildlife, but they were a little camera shy, so not too many good photos.
Another formal night and a chance to wear one of my beaded shawls:
And beautiful sunsets almost every night:
And knitting was accomplished – not quite as much as I had expected, but I did get a few rows here and there on Evenstar:
I'll give you a little break here and check back in the next day or so with the rest of the trip. I wish I could share more photos – we took almost 1,000!!! But I'm beginning to see a few eyes glazing over!
missouristar 