My Trip to Central America- Part Cinco

Part Cinco- Costa Maya Mexico

Even though it cost us a little extra we had decided to see the countries we were porting at and did onshore excursions at all ports. Our first port was Tuesday March 31st in Costa Maya, Mexico. The ship docked at 7 am and it was already 90*!

Costa Maya was hit by a hurricane a couple of years ago and they are finally starting to rebuild. One thing that I thought was great was that all the construction sites had hammocks so the workers could take their afternoon siestas! It's a practice I think employers in the US should adopt!

Our excursion- Kohunlich Mayan Ruins left at 8am with a 2.25 hour bus ride from the boat. Most of the small "towns" that we went through would consist of a random speed bump in the middle of the highway and where there was a speed bump there was a vegetable/fruit stand and a few houses. We did go through 2 larger towns that had restaurants, convenience stores and churches and they were the size of Dunbar or Pembine!

Our tour guide was Luis and once at the ruins he would blow into a conche shell to round up our group! The ruins were so amazing and the stories/theories were even more so. Restoration on the Kohunlich ruins was started in 1969 and continues today.

Because Costa Maya is a small town and not yet overrun by tourists it makes it a very popular area for running drugs. There were Mexican Army troops with scent dogs posted at our ship to ensure no one was bringing drugs into Mexico or trying to bring drugs back on our ship. There were also random army checkpoints along the highway we took to and from the ruin sight. Infact, going back to our ship after the tour there was a car pulled over and the troops were going through the car.

Once back to Costa Maya we did a little shopping and walked along the beach in the water. The wind had really picked up and the waves were amazing. Little did we know that those waves would enable us from getting off of the dock that night and we would actually get stuck in Costa Maya for the night. Missy and I went to one of the fancier restaurants that night and had a nice bottle of wine and delicious Beef Wellington only to have the captain come on the speaker and announce that we were trying to get off the dock but the wind and waves were just crashing us back into the dock (yes, the boat was rocking terribly). We apparently got off the dock sometime around 4AM which was much to late to make it to our Wednesday port in Santo Tomas de Castilla, Guatamela. We would have an additional day at sea.

To view the slideshow below click on the arrow. Once the slide show starts click on the button in the lower right corner to maximize the screen. To end the slideshow click ESC.

My Trip to Central America- Part Cuatro

Part Cuatro- Our 1st Day at Sea

Our first day at sea we woke early and went down to Raffles Buffet to grab some breakfast. I was in awe of the amount of food and how good it was! We walked around the pool area for a bit and decided to fill our soda cups and go back to the room to get ready and hang out on the balcony for a while. We took our time getting ready and read our books on the balcony (in the robes from our room) for a couple hours then decided to get on our swim suits and hit the pool area. It was about 90* with 90% humidity and coming from freezing Wisconsin it was perfect. I lathered on some sun screen and took a nap on a lounge chair overlooking the ocean. Missy had made quick friends with a bunch of people in one of the hot tubs and we told life stories and ordered buckets of beer all afternoon! After spending all day in the hot sun, applying and reapplying sunscreen it was time for another shower and we ended up just drinking on our balcony in our robes! And once the bucket of beer was gone the only logical thing to do was wear it and take pictures!!! We never left our room the rest of the night-except to fill our soda cups. We ordered room service for dinner, listened to music and drank & chilled on our balcony! It was a perfect start to an even more perfect vacation!

I have also included some pictures of our "towel animals" and housekeepers. Each day our housekeepers-Wilfred & Rachel would make animals out of our towels and leave them. We had a bunny, a duck, elephant, monkey, and mouse. They were awesome and made our day, every day!

My Trip to Central America- Part Tres.2

Part Tres.2- Getting on the boat

After we finished our history tour we walked back to our hotel to grab our luggage and caught a cab to the cruise ship terminals. We ended up having a fabulous cab driver and unfortunately I didn't even get his name. He was 62 and full of life and love. He shared a quick story of his life and had children and left us with a great riddle.

There is a language that everyone in the world can speak and recognize- including
babies. What is it?

I immediately guessed "the language of love"- but I was wrong. It's MUSIC. I should have known since we were in the founding city of Jazz!

Once at the terminal we made our final phone calls and headed through security to the 45 minute line to check into the cruise ship and get our account cards. I was so excited walking up the gang-plank to the ship. Once on the ship we were greeted with a glass of champagne and set out to find our room and explore. I was in shock at how huge and how beautiful the ship was.

Our room, although very small, was perfect and since we had chosen to upgrade we had our own private balcony which Missy and I were excited to use. My boss had told me that we probably wouldn't use it that much but we did in fact get our money's worth! We sat out there and read our books, caught up on life and took some great pictures! We also slept with the patio doors open all night, every night and fell asleep to the sound of the crashing waves. Once home it was hard to fall asleep the first few days with none of that noise!

Once settled on the ship we had to partake in the emergency procedure class and had to line up on the deck of the boat with our life preservers on.

Since we had smuggled vodka on in water bottles we decided to purchase the $50 soda card for the week to have something to mix drinks with. We quickly mixed our drinks and set out to explore and catch some dinner. After dinner we retired back to our room and watched the sunset, drank and listened to music on our balcony all night long! It was a great start to a great vacation!

Stay tuned for Part Quatro- 1st day at Sea!


I have finally crossed over to the world of Flickr to share my photos in slideshow form. To view the pictures for this post click on the arrow. Once the slideshow starts click on the square in the lower right corner to maximize the show. To exit the slideshow click the escape button on your computer.

Addition- My Trip to Central America-Part Tres.1

I worked all night on uploading ALL of the pictures that Missy and I took on our trip. Although I stated in my earlier post that I would not bore you with all of the pictures I took while on the history tour our second day in New Orleans, after looking at all of the pictures again there are a few more that I want to share with you as well as some pictures that relate to the previous posting.

Our tour guide- Leon

Washing the streets of New Orleans

This building is drab and run down but strangely it's very appealing to me.

I love all of the flowers & plants that adorn all of the balconies. I could easily retire tomorrow with library of books and one of these balconies and be set for life!

My Trip to Central America- Part Tres.1

Day 2 of New Orleans started out beautiful and sunny as expected. We were allowed to board the boat at any time between 10am and 5pm. We opted to spend as much time in New Orleans as we could and wanted to actually see the city as opposed to just Bourbon St and the bars. We had gathered a ton of information on city tours the day before from our hotel Concierge and decided on the walking History tour. The tour departed at 10am, a block from our hotel so we got up early and had breakfast in the restaurant. We were able to see the morning routine for the City of New Orleans workers- which includes washing the streets with a huge spray truck. The solution smells like a mixture of bleach and toothpaste (and you all know to me that "clean and disinfected" smells like heaven to me) and foams up on the streets and sidewalks. They clean the streets like this every morning. The city looks- and smells- like a completely different place than the night before!

We reached our tour group and met our tour guide- Leon. He has been retired for 12 years and is an actually certified tour guide from the State of Louisiana. He was AMAZING. His knowledge on not only the State of Louisiana and the City of New Orleans but history in general and his funny jokes throughout the 2.5 hour tour made it fun and interesting all at the same time. He really new his stuff and Missy and I both agreed that we were happy we chose that tour. Below are a few pictures from our tour.

This was our hotel- The Inn on Bourbon. Once the Opera House that burnt down in the early 1900's.

Street Performer & The Cabildo- Site of the Louisiana Purchase transfer in 1803

The Moonwalk (not Michael Jackson's) along the Mississippi River and the corn fence

Private residence courtyard- that made me wish it was mine and I was retired!

The Ursuline Convent- the oldest building in New Orleans and still functioning.

I could go on for pages and pages with pictures that I took during the tour, but won't bore you. I was in a constant state of euphoria on this tour since I have such an obsession with architecture. I have LOTS of pictures of random New Orleans houses and buildings.

One place that we did stop along our tour that was absolutely amazing was the Art Studio of Craig Tracy. His canvas is actually the human body and you must see his work to believe and appreciate. View his website here.
Here is a sneak peek at some of his work.

My favorite piece is not on his website but if and when I ever become wealthy- I will own a piece of his work!

Stay tuned for My Trip to Central America- Part Tres.2- Getting on the boat

My trip to Central America: Part Dos

We left the Madison airport at 7 am on Saturday March 28th and landed in St. Louis at 8:10am. After a 3 hour layover, some food and way too many bloody mary's and Brutus beers we almost missed our connecting flight to New Orleans- but made it on just in time and a little tipsy!


We arrived in New Orleans to 65 degree weather at 1pm and grabbed a cab to our hotel- The Inn on Bourbon St. We quickly freshened up, changed our clothes and hit the streets grabbing a much popular Hurricane drink to go. I'm sure most of you know that drinking on the streets is permitted in New Orleans as long as you do not have glass. We did a lot of exploring... and shopping... and drinking! We watched a small parade on horses as well as a wedding parade dancing through the streets.

We hit Jackson Square which is a popular place for street vendors, psychic readers and street performers.

This was a watercolor painting that I feel in love with in Jackson Square. It's a picture of the corner of Bourbon St and Toulouse St with our hotel in the background. I would have loved to purchase it but being our first day of vacation I didn't want to shell out the $90 dollars!



We walked around the park in Jackson square and went to the St. Louis Cathedral- one of the oldest cathedrals still in service. The church was beginning to fill up for 5 o'clock mass.


I was absolutely amazed at how busy the town was since Mardi Gras was only 2 weeks prior to us being there. I can't even imagine what the town is like during Mardi Gras and actually don't think I'd like to be there for it!




We started to head back to our hotel around 5pm as we had made reservations at the popular and very fancy Comannders Palace Restaurant for an 8pm dinner. On the way we got sucked into a little jazz bar where the trumpet player fell in love with Missy!



We changed into our dinner dresses and grabbed a cab to the restaurant. Our dinner was amazing and the restaurant was really neat with some of the best service I've ever had. After dinner we hit a liquor store to buy vodka to put in our water bottles to smuggle onto the cruise boat, had a few more drinks (a few too many) and actually hit the hay before midnight!


I purchased a very appropriate t-shirt while we were shopping and the below picture pretty much sums it up. The t-shirt says " I got Bourbon faced on Shit Street"!

Stay tuned for Part Tres- Day 2 of New Orleans and getting on the boat!

My trip to Central America: Part Uno

The much anticipated trip started on Friday March 27th at 7:30pm when I arrived in Madison at Missy's brothers house. We were going to spend the night at Jim's house because he had agreed to drive us to the airport the next morning at 6am so that we wouldn't need to pay for parking for the 10 days we'd be gone.

After arriving, Missy and I had decided to meet some of her friends out for a few bon voyage drinks and I did something that I like to call my "mid-way to midlife crisis" or "grasping at my youth with both hands". You can call it what you want!

Yes, I pierced my eyebrow- again! And I'll leave it at that! That was day one of our trip!

Stay tuned for Part Dos- New Orleans!

I am alive!!!

Yes, I am alive... and well... and home now! Today is my first day back at work and honestly it is nice to be back. The vacation was absolutely amazing but both Missy and I were ready to come home. 10 days is a long time!
I will be posting pictures and stories of each day of our trip but may not get to this until later in the week or early next week. Being back to reality kind of sucks! There's unpacking & laundry to do, bills to pay, check book to balance, house to clean, etc!!!
Glad to be back though and it's probably going to take me weeks to catch up on everyone else's blogs!

I'm leavin on a jet plane... don't know when I'll be back again...

... no actually I'll be back in 10 days!

The suitcase is packed, passport is in the purse and sunglasses are on my head. I'm ready to go- well in 9 hours when I get done with work- but ready none the less!



I am off to sunshine, clear blue waters, 80 degree weather and lots and lots of umbrella drinks!

I know you all will miss me soooo much while I'm away- but be prepared for beautiful pictures and tons of stories when I return... in April!!!!!

Au revoir! Arrivederci! Adios! See Ya later!

Freestyling

I received a very exciting call a few days ago. My BFF, Missy, recently won "Sales Person of the Year" for her company and to reward her for all of her hard work they gave her a Carribean Cruise for 2. We've been friends for a long time and have been very limited in our travels together. When we did travel, though, it was a friggin blast! Anyways- she's invited me to partake in this adventure with her! After a lot of anxiety thinking I wouldn't be able to make it due to work, I asked and my boss replied "heck yeah, you can go, we'll work it out".


So we will begin our adventure Saturday March 28th when we fly from Chicago to New Orleans and spend the night. We set sail on our Norwegian Cruise Boat- Spirit- in the afternoon of the 29th and will be at sea Sunday and Monday. Our first destination is Cosa Maya, Mexico on Tuesday with Santo Tomas De Castilla, Guatemala following on Wednesday. The two that I am most pumped about are Belize City, Belize on Thursday and Cozumel,Mexico on Friday. Then back to sea on Saturday pulling into port back in New Orleans sometime on Sunday.


I excited to do the Zip Line and Cave Tubing in Belize and to explore the Tulum Mayan Ruins in Cozumel.


I have never been on a cruise and actually always wondered if I were the "cruise-type-person", only having so many hours at each place and being on a boat for so long. I was never a big fan of the dress up in your old prom dress and sit at a table with complete strangers either- but I won't have to experience that part as we are "freestyle" cruising. Eat when you want, with who you want, where you want and wearing what you want!

Also, visions of Titanic part II have always crossed my mind. I know there aren't any icebergs where we are going but hey you never know and I wonder in this day and age if women and children would still be let off first.


The ship we are on has 13 decks- 9 being public. 12 restaurants and 8 bars not to mention casinos, smoking lounges, a theater and much more.


I am super excited and only wish that J were coming with as well! I feel bad that we've been together 8 years and have never done any traveling together while I am off roaming the countryside! Also, these are just the perks that go along with having a BFF that isn't married yet!

I'm home

Well, Daisy and I have made it back safely from the Northpole-Grand Portage, MN- from a relaxing visit with Grandma J. Since I just returned last night at about 8 pm I have yet to upload or photoshop any pictures but didn't want to go without posting today.

Below you can enjoy some of the pictures I took on my Newfoundland hunting trip in September/October of 2007. I never have and never will claim to be good at photography but the land up there was just screaming to have it's picture taken and I'm sure my pictures would have turned out just as nice had I used a 110 film camera!!!

Enjoy!

This was taken while we were waiting for the float plane to arrive& fly us into camp. It was such a foggy, rainy day but I thought this was one of the most beautiful pictures I was able to get

I love the contrast of the monochromatic background with the bright yellow of the plane wing and the reflection of the sun on the lake (don't mind the dirt on the plane window)

This was taken the morning we were packing up and flying out of camp. It was also the nicest day of our entire trip (go figure). I love the contrast of the land and the soft, fluffyness of the sky

Busy Bee

After only working 4 days over the weeks of Christmas and New Year's, I am again taking a couple days off! My grandma Jamison (mom's mom) turned 80 on Monday and my parents, the dogs and I will be making the 9 hour (one way) drive to Grand Portage, MN early Friday morning and coming home on Monday. However, I have to leave Appleton tomorrow right after work to drive to Dunbar. With business pretty slow and not much going on at work I find it a little disturbing that I am sitting here blogging (and getting paid) when I could be at home preparing to leave tomorrow. I still have to:
1. Pack my suitcase and toiletry bag
2. Finish packing Daisy's bag
3. Balance the checkbook & pay bills
4. Don't forget to pack the camera, my passport (she only lives 5 miles from Canada), the portable DVD player & DVD's, my book (The Host by Stephanie Meyer), Grandma's Birthday card, my ipod, my pillow and a throw blanket, my mom's dishes from Christmas that were left here
5. Volleyball tonight at 8pm
6. Trim the dog's eyebrows and give her a brushing & a bath
7. Clean out the Blazer
8. Check with insurance as to when the Blazer can be taken in to get fixed.
9. Call Kristen to find out how I download music to my ipod now that she switched it to manual management so she could give me the Twilight soundtrack

So does anyone have some free time to stop at my house today and do these things for me?

Are you all ready?

J and I had a fabulous wedding on April 17th, 2004. I was concerned about having an April wedding because the weather in Wisconsin is so "iffy". But the day turned out absolutely beautiful- mid 70's and sunny all day.

We had purchased our house up north exactly 1 year prior and in buying the house and having wedding expenses we did not have the funds to go on a honeymoon. For a wedding present my parents gave us a 3 night stay in a hot tub suite at a casino/resort in the Upper Peninsula, so we were able to have a little get away time.

In the almost 5 years that we have been married we still have not been able to go on a real "honeymoon", mostly because from 2005 to 2007 I was saving to go on the hunting trip of a lifetime with my dad.

Now that the hunting trip is long done and over with, the house in Dunbar is sold and the majority of our debt is paid off we are ready to save and go on a vacation together.

HERE WE COME!

Just a long weekend- 4 days. But here is the really cool part- we are going April 15-18, 2010 with the 17th- our 6 year anniversary- being on Saturday. We have decided to renew our vows and J wants to have the ceremony performed by.....

We both feel that after nearly 5 years of marriage (and 8 years of being together) our relationship grows stronger every day and what better way to mark that than to get married all over again!


We also know that we always have a great time with friends and family and Vegas is the perfect place for that- SO HERE IS YOUR FORMAL INVITATION. Start saving your pennies because the more the merrier! Come and celebrate with us!

More details will follow at a later date!