Friday, April 6, 2010, Aboard the Star Princess At Sea, N21°24.7034 W107°18.1091

Another sea day before arriving at Puerto Vallarta. We woke up to a cloudy morning, much warmer than yesterday. After coffee and fruit in the room Gerri and Neva were off to an 80% off sale You know the prices were high when they can afford to take off that much.

We had lunch from the grill by the pool and an ice cream cone. Gerri and Neva sat in the sun while I read.

After dinner we went to a ventriloquist show in the Vista Lounge, Dan Horn.

Saturday, April 7, 2012, Aboard the Star Princess At Sea, N20°59.0633 W106°23.9221

We were up at 8 AM even after losing an hour last night. We had coffee in our room and arrived in Puerto Vallarta at about 10. It was getting warm by the time we got ashore. I looked for a cache near the cruse ship terminal without any luck. The last couple of cachers also didn't find it. I think is missing. We looked around few shops. Then we headed along the main street for awhile but we were getting hot. Gerri and Neva decided to go back to the ship. I walked a little further and hailed a taxi to take me to the El Faro, a cache less than a mile away as the crow flies but quite a distance as the road goes. I did find this cache after some searching. I then caught a taxi back to the ship.

When I first got off the ship there was another nearby cache, but somehow I had erased it. Back in the stateroom I went on line and looked it up. Even though it hadn't been found by the last two cachers, I went for it. No luck, there was a obvious place to hide it but no container was there.

By this time I was hot, tired and hungry, so I went back to the ship and got a hamburger. I took a turn around the ship taking pictures of the harbor from all angles. We also took more pictures as we sailed away. The sky looked as though there might be a good sunset. But sunset wasn't until after our dinner seating.

We regain an hour tonight on the way back north west to Cabo San Lucas.

Thursday, April 5, 2012, Aboard the Star Princess, At Sea, N25°53.0644 W113°45.1609

We slept very late this morning. The morning was almost gone. We had coffee in the room and then went to the Horizon Terrace for lunch. Gerri spotted a whale spouting in the distance, maybe a ½ mile. We all saw it a little later.

I sat outside near the stern and read while the ladies went to the atrium area shopping. It got quite chilly after awhile and I headed back to the room, Gerri and Neva came back just a little later. They hadn't bought enough to melt the credit card. Gerri picked up some daily Sudoku games from the library. We only had one pencil. I did my game in what I thought was pretty good time. Gerri solved hers in a shorter time. But, I didn't interrupt her a dozen times to ask, or state, “aren't you finished yet?”

This is a formal night and the Captain's Welcome Party. We were dressed in time to have pictures taken before the party and dinner.

We had an excellent dinner and after coffee and conversation we returned to our state room for the evening.

Wednesday, April, 4, 2012

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Wednesday April 4, 2011 Aboard the Star Princess At Sea N32°11.4622 W117°42.0096

Gerri turned the Wake Show on at 8:30. This broadcast isn't as funny as the one aboard the Sea Princes, informational but not funny.

The ride smoothed out during the night. This morning there were long swells and white caps but the ride was smooth.

Gerri's camera was sent back to Canon last week to repair a scratch on the lens. I brought my Nikon, but found I didn't have a mini USB cord to connect to a computer. The Nikon is an older on and uses a Compact Flash card. Neither of our computers has a slot for CF cards.

By 10 there was land visible from our stateroom. At 1050 we met a container ship headed roughly NE, we were 450 miles from Catalina.

We were at anchor off Avalon by 1:30. The sun was out and very little breeze, so it was quite comfortable. Pictures from the ship were hard because of the sun being over the island in our face.

Since we weren't going on any tours we ate lunch on board. We went up to the Skywalk lounge to se the

We went ashore and split up. I went caching and Gerri and Neva went downtown shopping. I found two caches. I tried another but was five feet away on the wrong side of a fence with the gate of the business closed.

If anyone remembers my blogs from Great Falls, MT., you may remember our hunt for painted buffalos. Well, two must have escaped and made their way to Santa Catalina, CA.

It was getting dark by the time we left Avalon, but the water front wasn't lit up enough for a good pictures, and we weren't south of the island in time to see the sunset.

After dinner we went to the Vista lounge and saw George Casey, an Irish comedian that we also saw on our last cruise.

Tonight we set the clocks forward for Mexican time. Gerri went to sleep right away. Neva and I read for awhile before lights were ou

Tuesday April 3, 2012

Tuesday April 3, 2012 Aboard the Star Princess At Sea. N37°47.6584' W122°24.5754

We got up about 8 AM and had coffee in the room. Since we didn't have to check out until noon and the bus was scheduled to pick us up at 12:45, we took our time getting ready to go.

I did go back down to the NW corner of the block to try again for the cache I didn't find yesterday. Same result today.

The bus was late in picking us up to go to the ship. We were told that because of spring break traffic was heavier than usual. We were on the Star Princess by about 2:30. After dropping some things in the room we went to the buffet in the Horizon Terrace.

We tried to stay out on deck for the sail away but it was much too cold. Neva and Gerri did go on deck when were went under the Golden Gate Bridge. I took pictures from our balcony.

Our luggage was delivered to our room one suitcase at a time. It was 6:30 before it was all there. Our dinner seating was 8:00. Our table was just inside the dinning room doors, very handy Our table party was us; Sue and her sister Caroline and her husband Michael; and Ann and Bob. Ann and Bob are from Saratoga, CA. Ann is from San Francisco and her sister and husband live in Redmond, OR. I think we lucked out again with table mates, conversation flowed well. The dinner was excellent. We lingered at the table after dinner over coffee and desert. We didn't make it to the showroom.

Incidentally our suite is D708, near the rear of the ship. Very handy to the dining room, only down 3 floors. However we are at the opposite end from the Princess Theater..

Leaving San Francisco was cold and until dinner the sea was rougher than we are used to, not really bad but we have been spoiled on our prior cruises. When I went out on the balcony for a position reading it was calmer and much warmer than earlier in the day.

Neva and Gerri at Muster Station

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San Francisco, 04/02/2012

April 2, 2012 San Francisco, CA The Mark Hopkins Intercontinental Hotel.

Gerri got most of our things packed by Sunday evening for our ten day Cruise down the west coast to Puerto Vallarta.

She set the alarm for 5:00 AM to make sure we had every thing ready before her mother, Neva, arrived at 7:30 AM. Our flight to San Francisco was scheduled for 10:25. Neva is going with us on the cruise. Gerri's sister Montyne, is staying at the house with my mother.

Montyne dropped us off at the airport at about 8:10. We arranged a wheel chair for Neva and the trip through security was pretty quick. Of course we had to go through barefooted without belts and with empty pockets and redress on the other side. Our flight departed on time and we arrived in San Francisco a little earlier than scheduled.

We picked up our luggage and looked around for a Princess Cruise Line Rep that was supposed to meet us and get us on the way to our hotel. Gerri was looking for a number for the Intercontinental when a Cruise Rep came by and saw Neva's name on her luggage. We were on her list as unknown mode of arrival. It seems Gerri didn't tell Princess how we we re getting to San Francisco. Of course the Rep worked it out and with some confusion about the taxi, we were on our way.

We checked into the hotel and got a recommendation of a restaurant on Pier 47. We took a taxi to the restaurant, Scoma's. The food was excellent with great service. We took some photos in the area. It was cold and breezy so we grabbed a taxi back to the hotel.

I went out to grab some caches. I found a virtual cache, a traditional cache and didn't find one. This is a hard area to cache in. You can only leave the Intercontinental in one direction without going down steep hills, of course the 3 downhill were where the caches were.

After some computer and TV time we called it a night.

Our bus is scheduled to take us to the ship tomorrow at noon. I may try for my DNF again in the morning.

Las Vegas, 3/1/2012

Neva fixed a great meal for brunch.
I got loaded all our luggage except two small bags and left for home at about 11:45.  It's a straight shot up I-15.
I stopped in Victorville for gas at Costco.  My AMEX card wouldn't authorize the purchase, it expired yesterday.  I had to pay more at a nearby Shell station.  From Victorville home I had a tailwind and light traffic, so I made good time.
I got to the house at about 5. Dana had brought Glenna home.  Dana had Vanessa with her and her mom got there about the same time I did.  We talked for awhile before they went home.  I got lots of hugs and kisses from Vanessa, what a darling.
Busy times start now.  I have some work to do for the Sheriff's Protective Association,  doctor appointments, some blood tests and have to get our taxes done before our cruise on April 2nd.
I went through the accumulated mail.  What a bunch of garbage we get.  It took me a couple of hours to wade through it all.
Oddly enough on my home computer Blog Spot works with Internet Explorer.

Escondido, CA 2/29/2012

Tuesday February 28, 2012

The morning was overcast but the day was mostly sunny. Montyne and I drove up US395 to CA76 and picked up burgers from Nessy's. It's just a small hamburger stand by a Park and Ride, excellent burgers. For some reason I bought three burgers, not thinking that there were four of us. It worked out because the burgers are huge.

In the afternoon I went caching using Gerri's Droid. I found four and didn't find two, one that I didn't find was one I didn't find four years ago when we were in the area.

We had BBQ Ribs, coleslaw and corn on the cob for supper.

We played two games of Quiddler. Montyne and I each won one.

Wednesday February 29, 2012

Today we met cousins Bill and Arlene for lunch at the Norte Mexican Restaurant in Carlsbad. Bill and Arlene live in Dana Point and we try to visit with them at least once while we are in the area.

On the way back to the Welk Resort we stopped at the Park and Ride lot where I was unable to find a cache hidden there. Montyne found it before I got Gerri's Droid ready to navigate. This cache eluded me four years ago and twice this week.

After supper we went to the recreation center to play BINGO, not to be confused with Loteria. There were twelve players. Gerri and I won a game each and Montyne and Neva won two each. Our table won half the games played.

After BINGO and back at the unit we played one game of Quiddler which Montyne won.

Ready to Play BINGO, Frank, Montyne, Gerri and Neva

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Our BINGO booty