Cabin Crafted

Tag: vacation

  • Bucket Lists

    At times, most everyone says, “that is on my bucket list.” Well, one on my list was finally fulfilled last week. We haven’t vacationed in 7 years, a couple of short trips to visit one son and family, but not a vacation to far away places. On Saturday, May 10, we left the Virginia Mountains for Seattle, Washington to board an Alaskan bound cruise ship on Sunday, May 11. The boarding was chaos with two large cruise ships from two different companies boarding simultaneously through the same terminal. We embarked through the inner passage, with 4 ports plus a cruise up another fjord to a glacier.

    What a glorious majestic place is Alaska!

    Most of the inner passage follows fjords between tall rugged peaks, many snow covered. The weather was mostly kind with the rainiest days on at sea days. That did make for rougher travel, but the in port days occasionally had short bursts of light drizzle, but mostly mild temperatures and broken clouds. The second photo is near the top of White Pass on the train. This is the path the miners in the Klondike gold rush traveled.

    There was fun on the ship as well with comedians, large musical production shows, games, karaoke (not our thing), and photo fun such as this moose who was in a different place on the ship nearly every day.

    Though we didn’t participate, if you found it, took a photo and posted it on social media, you were entered in a prize drawing. We enjoyed stumbling across it as we moved about the ship.

    And cruises are never ending food! The International Market is themed buffet styled aisles open from 6 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. included in your cruise fare. If that wasn’t enough, there were 3 “fancy” restaurants, a pizza restaurant, a sushi restaurant, and an Irish pub, 3 fancy coffee bars, 1 gelato bar, and numerous alcohol bars all at extra cost.

    There were bands, singers, and other musicians that performed in the various bars around the Piazza, a three story center portion of the ship.

    Yesterday, we were up very early and off the ship to an excursion in Seattle by 7:30 a.m. We got to go up the Space Needle, then over to Pike Place Market where we left the tour as they were then going to the airport by noon and our flight wasn’t until midnight. On our own, we spent many hours walking the waterfront, exploring the area and taking a ferry to Bremerton Island and back, then finally using their great light rail system to travel across the city to the airport for only a few dollars each. After a night and early morning of flights, we arrived home around lunch time, tired, still trying to still the wobbles from the ship and flying, but excited and happy about our adventure.

    Now the grass needs mowing, the house cleaned, the laundry done, and back in the routine. It is worth it after all the fun.

  • Vacation

    On July 27th, we packed the pups off to doggie camp, loaded the car with suitcases, guitar and amp, bike, ball gloves and a cooler and headed south.  Grandson and I in the car, Jim on his motorcycle for his first major road trip.  We headed off for a weeklong visit with our daughter and her family.  We haven’t seen them since last Christmas and grandson hasn’t seen his cousins since last August.  We had booked a hotel room about halfway there, a bit over 400 miles.  It took us longer to make those miles than when it is just the two of us in the car as we stopped every 110-120 miles to reconnect with each other and for Jim to have a chance to get a drink and walk around for a bit to give his sore parts a rest.  Once at the hotel, the guys took a dip in the pool, we found a Mexican restaurant catering to the Mexican population and had a good dinner, then back to let grandson ride his bike around the parking lot to let off some steam.

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    As the temperature reached 100ºf that day, I’m not sure if he was letting off steam or making steam.

    Visiting was active for the three grands, with biking, Lego building, Light saber battles, reading, soccer and baseball, a beach visit, a day at Busch Gardens in Tampa.  The Busch Gardens day was hot and humid, but everyone from the 2 1/2 year old to the 70 somethings found rides to ride, shows to see, snacks to eat.

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    Riding a camel on the carousel.  We rode it about 5 times and she never would get on a horse that went up and down.

    Sunday we started our return journey home, leaving early to try to miss the afternoon rain showers.  Again stopping every couple of hours to reconnect and spending a night in a hotel a bit more than half way home.  The afternoon arrival was greeted with a delightfully cool house that had been closed up with no A/C on, temps in the upper 70’s, a deliciously chilly night in our own bed.

    My stop at the neighbor who chicken sits for us, revealed that she didn’t get a single egg, I’m glad I took her two dozen on our way out and brought her a pound of Orange Blossom honey from Florida.  My visit to the coop, I found a still broody hen on one fragile egg that she broke when she puffed up and tried to prevent me from moving her off the nest.

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    This morning, she got a surprise as I removed her from the nest and put re-freezable ice packs in her nest and the next one over.  She is nearing 22 days of broodiness on an empty nest.

    Later this week, a delivery of 15 Rainbow Ranger meat chicks will be delivered and we will begin raising them for 11 weeks.

    The heavy straw mulch on the garden has kept the weeds down.  There were a few over developed squash and cucumbers that got fed to the chickens, more harvested for us.  Lots of peppers that I need to process today.  Basil that needs to be pulled and dried. Yellow wax beans pulled and dumped in the chicken pen.  Bunnies or deer got in the garden and ate most of the new green beans down.  I will cover them today and see if there is any recovery.  There are three beds that need some fall crops planted before it is too late.

    This morning, grandson and I went to pick up the pups.  They seem to be glad to be home.

    We have one more week and a half with grandson and I will return him home.  The weeks have gone by so quickly, but it has been a delight having him with us.