Tag: Cruise

Stay Home or Go? We Went!
Italy · My Thoughts · Spain · Travel

Stay Home or Go? We Went!

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Stay home or go? graphic

Stay home or go on another cruise? We went! This will be short, because Lin and I arrived home on Thursday night, December 8, 2022, from our second cruise in six weeks with COVID but didn’t know it. On Friday morning, I received a text from a friend who had just found out she had COVID, so I asked her about her symptoms.

She said, “Yucky. . .sore throat, coughing, headache, laryngitis, can’t sleep.” I cringed, because I had had those same symptoms for several days since Barcelona, but I thought I had just caught an awful cold.

See, this whole cruise was cold! When we went six weeks ago, the weather was glorious! Yes, I researched the weather but convinced myself the 50s would be warm. So, we both had to buy coats to survive the cold.

Lin and I love Barcelona and had gladly expected another fun day in Barcelona, so we bundled up and added layers underneath our new coats, got on the Hop-On Hop-Off bus and sat upstairs outside for a couple hours in the cold morning hours. Finally, I said enough! And we went downstairs for the rest of the day, but the damage was done.

So that night, I started with a sore throat and felt like I had caught a cold. When I took the home test on Friday morning when we got home, immediately the two lines appeared and darkened over the 15-minute waiting period. Lin’s test turned out the same, so we came home with COVID.

Here’s where we went:
  • November 26—flew to Rome, Italy (day after Thanksgiving)
  • November 27—Florence, Italy (where I bought a coat)
  • November 28—Naples, Italy (where Lin bought a coat)
  • November 29—Messina, Italy
  • November 30—Palermo, Sicily, Italy
  • December 1—Cagliardi, Sardinia, Italy
  • December 2—Palma Majorca, Spain
  • December 3—Barcelona, Spain
  • December 4—At Sea
  • December 5—At Sea (We had a major itinerary change. Because of a strike by the port workers in Lisbon, Portugal, we had to skip our last two ports in Spain to arrive in Lisbon before the strike. At first, the disappointment overwhelmed me, but then I remembered, “I could be bitter or better—the choice was mine!” You know which one I chose.)
  • December 6 – Lisbon, Portugal
  • December 7 – Lisbon, Portugal
  • December 8—Flew home

I won’t be writing about this trip until after the new year, because I love writing about Christmas.

As you can see, we repeated four ports from our previous cruise, but we found different excursions to add to our knowledge and experience of those cities. More later.

Stay Home or Go?

Stay home or go? I always opt to go, and I don’t regret going on this second cruise. What do you do? Do you stay home? Or do you go?

News, News, News!

Coronavirus Reflections: Bitter or Better? meme

~My new book, Coronavirus Reflections: Bitter or Better? WON the 2022 New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards in the Body, Mind & Spirit Category. Have you bought your copy yet?

~Wish You Were Here: A Novel by Jodi Picoult, one of my favorite authors, deals with the COVID pandemic in fiction as opposed to my nonfiction book. Check it out! Interesting story!

~MY FIRST AUDIOBOOK IS AVAILABLE: Go to Audible to buy my first audiobook, Let Me Tell You a Story. I’m working on Coronavirus Reflections: Bitter or Better? but have gotten stalled with shingles.

~Do you listen to podcasts? Here are three podcasts with interviews about my new book & some Flippo stories:

Just Another Square Dance Caller: Authorized Biography of Marshall Flippo meme

~Have you bought a copy of Flippo’s biography yet? Believe it or not—it’s been two years. Go here for your hardback or paperback: https://www.laradasbooks.com or at Amazon.~For me, it’s Christmas all year long!

Here’s a variety of Christmas greetings from Flippo & Neeca, featuring his song, “When It’s Christmas Time in Texas”: https://youtu.be/mpJCUGffU3A

I Came, I Saw, I Walked!
My Thoughts · Spain · Travel

I Came, I Saw, I Walked!

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Tennis shoes walking. I walked
I walked!

I walked and walked and walked for a two-week total of 193,199 steps! Julius Caesar’s famous quote: “I came, I saw, I conquered” inspired me for today’s topic. Lin and I just got home last night from an eleven-day Mediterranean cruise with a two-day extension before in Barcelona, Spain and a two-day extension in Rome, Italy. On almost all of our excursions, we walked!

MY STEP COUNT FOR THE TRIP=193,199:
  • September 29–4594—Flight day to Barcelona, Spain
  • September 30–0—Barcelona—my FitBit wasn’t working!
  • October 1–272—Barcelona: we did lots of walking, so my FitBit must have not been charged!
  • October 2–10387—Left Barcelona on the ship
  • October 3–14047—Cannes, France
  • October 4–15176—Livorno, Italy port; visited Florence & Pisa
  • October 5–18517—Naples, Italy; visited Pompeii
  • October 6–7126—Messina, Italy
  • October 7–12070—Kotor, Montenegro
  • October 8–9241—Corfu, Greece
  • October 9–17067—Santorini Island, Greece
  • October 10–16003—Piraeus Italy; visited Athens
  • October 11–12227—Mykonos, Italy
  • October 12–10605—At Sea
  • October 13–12231—Rome, Italy
  • October 14–26323—Rome, Italy
  • October 15–7313—Flew Home

Some of these days’ totals don’t reflect that day’s activity because of the seven to nine-hour difference in time zones from ours in New Mexico, but they are close.

But we had to walk! How else could you see the ruins at Pompeii? Or the mind-blowing Acropolis in Athens? Or the massive colosseum in Rome?

I Walked the Most in Rome!

My largest walking day was in Rome, Italy, on October 14, where we followed suggestions given by the desk clerk at our hotel and wandered around from site to site. Lin’s amazing map reading skills made this possible. Then we had an excursion that evening where we moved from restaurant to restaurant sampling traditional Italian food. I walked 26323 steps in one day and ended up with busted blood vessels on my right leg from this action-packed day!

For the next few weeks of my blog posts, plan on traveling with me. We had such a fantastic time; I want to share this trip with you! I haven’t downloaded my pictures yet, so I shared none of mine today, but be ready for some great shots!

Finally,

As I walked where centuries ago many people walked, I felt in touch with those ancient ones. Are you a traveler? Have been to this part of the world? What was your experience?

News, News, News!

Coronavirus Reflections: Bitter or Better? meme. I walked!

~My new book, Coronavirus Reflections: Bitter or Better? WON the 2022 New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards in the Body, Mind & Spirit Category. I’M SO EXCITED!

~Wish You Were Here: A Novel by Jodi Picoult, one of my favorite authors, deals with the COVID pandemic in fiction as opposed to my nonfiction book. Check it out! Interesting story!

~MY FIRST AUDIOBOOK IS AVAILABLE: Go to Audible to buy my first audiobook, Let Me Tell You a Story. I’m working on Coronavirus Reflections: Bitter or Better? but have gotten stalled with shingles.

~Do you listen to podcasts? Here are three podcasts with interviews about my new book & some Flippo stories:

Just Another Square Dance Caller: Authorized Biography of Marshall Flippo meme. I walked!

~Have you bought a copy of Flippo’s biography yet? Believe it or not—it’s been two years. Go here for your hardback or paperback: https://www.laradasbooks.com or at Amazon.

~For me, it’s Christmas all year long! Here’s a variety of Christmas greetings from Flippo & Neeca, featuring his song, “When It’s Christmas Time in Texas”: https://youtu.be/mpJCUGffU3A

World Explorer—Why I do it!
Costa Rica · Ireland & England · My Thoughts · Scotland · Spain · Travel

World Explorer—Why I do it!

Featured Larada3 Comments
World traveler

World exploring and its wonders! Souvenirs, pictures, reminisces of fun-filled travels remind me daily of my experiences in this big beautiful world. Because of the pandemic, we canceled our travel plans for later in 2020 and have nothing planned for 2021. So today, I wondered why I love to travel so much. The packing and planning put many people off, but I enjoy every part of a trip.

I grew up in a small rural ranching community fifty miles from the nearest doctor and grocery store. I lived in a small town though, but the world out there seemed so big and unattainable, beyond the prairies and canyons of southeastern Colorado. Granddad Horner subscribed to the National Geographic magazine, and I thumbed through each issue, mesmerized by that world out there and its mysteries. I blushed at the foreign women’s bare chests, yet yearned to see that world.

Granddad and Grandma Horner took annual vacations touring the United States, and I relished their slide show of pictures from places I dreamed about in the United States—the Grand Canyon, Bullhead City and so much more.

My dad, a high school graduate and world thinker, read voraciously and kept educated about world matters so much so I gave him a globe for Christmas one year so he could find that faraway country he’d read about.

Little girl pointing at a world globe
Little girl holding index finger on Earth globe

So, I inherited a large worldview, bigger than Colorado, bigger than the United States. My first husband and I discovered Mexico: Mazatlán and the Yucatan peninsula in the 70s, when tourist hadn’t discovered both areas yet. When I saw my first Mayan Indian ruin, I felt captivated by the mystery, and I was hooked.

After we divorced, I traveled with a girlfriend back to the Yucatan peninsula to see many more Mayan Indian ruins and then on to Tikal in Guatemala, the Mecca of Mayan Indian ruins to me.

Then in 1999, Mom and I took our first European trip to do an Eastern Europe tour, basically to find her lost grandfather who had immigrated into the United States, but we had no record of his entrance here. That trip opened me up to a larger world—the wonders of eastern Europe with so many historical sites and cities.

In Berlin, we looked in a phone book for Mom’s granddad’s last name, Ulbig, and found several names listed. Neither of us spoke enough German to call any of our possible relatives. So, we tore that page out of the phone book, and that became Mom’s favorite souvenir of our trip. I cried during our tour of Auschwitz, the infamous concentration camp, a horrible example of man’s inhumanity against man. I will never forget that sight.

In 2001, my third husband and I drove the Can-American highway in our RV to Alaska. What an adventure that was! We saw Denali, Alaska’s tallest mountain, usually shrouded in clouds. We took a small airplane ride up to a glacier and walked around on it, surrounded by absolute white.

During our years together, we toured the United States in an RV, dancing and sightseeing all over the United States. We went up the west coast in 2003, promoting a national festival. We traveled to the Midwest and east—so many adventures.

In 2007, I joined the cruising world doing an inside passage tour to Alaska on a square dance cruise. I feel in love with cruising.

My present husband and I love to travel and see the world. We have taken several cruises—what a relaxing vacation they are. On one, we went through the Panama Canal and marveled at that amazing engineering feat.

In 2017, we traveled to England and Ireland. Lin drove in both countries and we had a delightful time. In Ireland, we saw the Cliffs of Moher, enjoyed dancing in Irish pubs and enjoyed staying in bed and breakfasts. While visiting England, we based ourselves in London, alternating between a tour one day and a free day the next. In London, we visited the British Museum, realizing we could have spend days there. We saw Stonehenge on a tour but were so rushed; I didn’t buy one souvenir there. We saw a Broadway play, Les Misérables, on the West End, and Lin vowed never to attend a play in the USA again since the production was so outstanding.

In January 2020, we went to Costa Rica with my husband, Lin’s ex-wife who is Costa Rican. The group was small, only twelve! She knew everyone in the group; we knew her, her husband and one other couple. Lin had told me repeatedly he wanted me to see Costa Rica. We had stopped at a Costa Rican port on one of our cruises, but his ex-wife shuddered when he told her where. She said it wasn’t a great example of Costa Rica. On our tour with her, we saw animals galore, ate delicious food and saw many gorgeous sites. I saw a quetzal bird in the jungle, a bird I had heard about thirty years before on the Yucatan peninsula.

At the end of February 2020, we went to Spain with twelve square dance friends and fell in love with Spain. We saw several major Spanish cities, starting in Barcelona and ending up in Madrid. We traveled through Don Quixote land, and I could see him mounted on his trusty stead, Rocinante, a long side his trusty companion, Sancho Panza.

So why do I enjoy traveling so much? I love seeing that world Granddad and Dad introduced me to so many years ago. When I stand at a site like Strafford-on-the Avon, Shakespeare’s home, I can’t believe this little country girl is there. The tour guide hugged me there as I cried. She remarked, “I wish all people responded like you.”

In my travels, the big world has shrunk, because I now know people in Scotland, Ireland and England. We sat and chatted, and I realized we have the same hopes and dreams—we’re really all the same.

In March of this year, Lin got a little cabin fever and had received several brochures promoting cruises next year. So, we signed up for two cruises in 2022 and one for 2023. The first one next year is a Transatlantic cruise going from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to Barcelona, Spain. Our next one goes through the Mediterranean. And in 2023, we travel to Japan.

In conclusion, I travel to discover what’s out there—my dad used to look at a side dirt road going up over a hill and out of view. He always commented, “I wonder where that goes!” Obviously, I inherited his wanderlust, but he never traveled outside the United States, so I do it for him.

Do you like to travel? What is your favorite travel memory? Why do you travel? (Scroll down below to make a comment!)

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~Here’s Christmas greetings from Flippo & Neeca, featuring his song, “When Its Christmas Time in Texas”: https://youtu.be/mpJCUGffU3A

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