Doing the visit the Starbucks thing

I've been running lately, which is a nice change from being stuck on the couch. The only problem is all I've been doing is running. Running in cold, wet, rain, deep-puddle November.

Today, it's cold but nice and sunny. To start my run off on the right foot I've gone to Starbucks. I'm sitting in a comfy chair, with a big, steaming, coffee. The atmosphere is cozy and congenial.

This could be a big mistake; starting off with cozy and then going off to run in the cold, but we'll see.

I actually don't feel like running at all today, so I'm forcing myself. Tuesday through Thursday I burn thousands of calories at Jiu-Jitsu. Today and tomorrow, I train in an unstructured way with nowhere near the intensity. Sunday and Monday there is no JJ at all.

I'm trying to slim down my boyish figure, and calorie burn is a huge part of it. Weight has been melting away at an astonishing rate and I'd like to keep up the momentum. Therefore, I must run.

Running and Pounds

All settled in again at home, and it's been a really great week.

Helen is back at music, and I at Jiu-Jitsu. She's had friends over several times, and we've even gone to a dance.

I shall list as two of my favourites this week to be related strictly to me.

The first is I have been on 3 runs. These are my first in a long time. I didn't do any when we were down in LA for the months of January and February, and my knee got hurt shortly after our return in March. I've been off of running ever since.

Now I'm back. I've stuck mostly to trails to limit repetitive heavy impact on the joints, and that is going really well. I started with 3.2km, and then have taken it up to the 8km range. The knee has had absolutely not issues. My quads have been a different story. They've totally forgotten that we do this kind of thing.

The other big, cool thing has been weight loss. I didn't weigh myself until we were home from vacation for a couple of days. When I did, it showed 190 pounds. That's up ten pounds. This would be bad enough, but my mass was already up five pounds above my ideal weight when the holiday started. That had me needing to strip off 15 bloody pounds.

Been controlling my diet severely, as well as running, and being back at Jiu-Jitsu full speed. I use an app to track my calorie and exercise balances, and then enter the results into a big spreadsheet on my laptop. I use a heart rate monitor when rolling or running to get an accurate picture of how much I burn.

Anyhow, started at 190, and ten days later weighed in at 182. Won't be long.

It's cool that the running is helping the weight loss, and that the weight loss also helps me to run. The danger to the run is the impact involved. The lighter I get, the lower the stress on my knee becomes. I've already reduce it by 4%, and will have brought it down by a total of 8% if I make my 175 pound goal.

Think of it this way. If I run up right now, at 182 pounds, each knee supports 91 pounds. A week ago that would have been 95 pounds. Less stress, but big deal. Pretty much any adult knee can handle 95 pounds, or 91.

I stand on one leg. That knee now supports 182 pounds instead of 190. That matters more, but standing still still isn't any kind of an issue at either weight. Now, what if I start jumping up and down on one leg....and landing mostly on my heal. That's what running is like. They say it magnifies the force on a knee by up to four times. If so, that's a pretty hefty impact. Any kind of force reduction, be it 4% or 8%, is a huge deal.

So anyhow, I'm getting lighter, and running, and home, and loving it all.

Cruise end

The cruise wrapped up, and we took a cab to our Fort Lauderdale hotel by the beach.

It was funky as the dickens. Helen and I had a room that was about ten feet from the bar. This made sleep potentially a problem.

We spent two days exploring the nearby beach and shops, and unwinding from all our unwinding. The night-noise problem wasn't anything. I slept right through it, like usual, and Helen had great success with her earplugs.

My favourite part was swimming in the surf. There were tons of jellyfish, but we same through unstung.

*

Fly-home day sucked.

When we got the machine to spit out our tickets, we got no seats assigned. The screen said that the flight was overbooked, and to see the agent. Lola and Bernie got seats.

We rushed through to our gate, but of course there were no agents there.

Several showed up for the flight before ours, but couldn't help us. Likely they could have, but they were swamped trying to care for their own passengers. They vanished immediately after their flight left.

I went online, and found that the issue was only with our Florida to Chicago leg, and that we actually had seats for Chicago to Vancouver. There were a few seats on Florida-to-Chicago available in the class called EconomyPlus. For $50 each, we could snatch a pair of them. I ran back out through security to try and find an agent. By the time I did, the seats were all gone. The agent did issue us corrected boarding passes showing our second flight seats.

Back through security again. The agents were there, and Helen was on them. I waged in, too. They tried to assure us that we would get on. I stood nearby and waited. They kept asking people to accept a later flight for a $300 reward. They seemed to need 9 seats. A few folks went for the money deal. A couple of folks missed a connection, and their seats went into the pile, too.

We eventually got seats, but not until everybody was already lined up for boarding. Not everybody did.

I hate the airline industry.

Parted with Lola and Bernie in Chicago, as they were flying home to Vernon through Seattle.

We ate while waiting. Our Vancouver flight left half an hour late, but somehow managed to make up the time and land almost on time.

Caught our train and rode for three stops, then walked a km to our hotel.

The next day we set out about 8am. We walked back to the train, and from there every connection went smooth as silk. It went train, walk, bus, ferry, bus, bus and walk. We were home by 2pm., and you can't do better than that.

And then we collapsed.

Self-inficted

Well, I did it to myself.

All cruise lines have loyalty programs that are tiered depending on how many times passengers have sailed with that line.

All four of us started together on this line as rookies this year. Our first Princess cruise was in September, and we had no status, and were issued Blue keycards. November first, we sailed again, were considered Gold Members, and got Gold keycards. We stayed on board on November sixth, and continued with Gold.

Princess mixed things up a bit by mistake as we continued on board on November tenth. Having sailed three times previously, we were now Ruby Members and should have received Red keycards. We were issued with Gold ones.

This all means nothing. Effectively, Gold and Ruby members are entitled to perks that do not relate to us at all. These are things like 10% off deposits on future cruises, and cruise collector stickers. The only thing that might effect our lives are invitations to repeat-cruiser events on board. We qualified for one of these on our November sixth cruise segment, but nobody wanted to go.

On our current leg, Helen got keen to attend. She thought it would be like one we had on another line that had yummy snacks and drinks. We all went along. It turned out to be more like a sales pitch, and had no snacks. They did give everybody present a drink coupon.

Well, there we were, with inaccurately coloured keycards, and none of us cared. I decided to get mine fixed, and to show up with a fancy schmancy Red card and pretend to be all superior and uppity. I visited the loyalty program desk on board and swapped Gold for Ruby, and then flaunted it before the others. We all laughed, but then Lola wanted one, too.

As a fine friend, I took her up to the loyalty desk where she straightened out her card. All fine so far, but she was also given an invitation to the Ruby-level loyalty event. Next thing I knew, we were all invited to the event, and everybody all excited about going.

We were assured that this, much fancier event, will have snacks.

The big drawing card is the snacks, and likely another drink coupon. This entire ship is a 112,000 ton pile of non-stop snacks. I would much rather lounge about someplace, or maybe eat, or swim, or go to the gym.

Even worse; unlike at the Gold event, I'm going to have to wear long pants.

Did it to myself.

*

So we went for afternoon tea. Keep in mind that three of us prematurely terminated our afternoon naps to do so, and were staggering around just a little.

We had tea. I greatly prefer coffee, but it was afternoon tea.

Around came the trays of tiny, over-mayonnaised, crust-trimmed-off, triangular sandwiches. Following this were several rounds of little, thickly-frosted cake particles.

About halfway through the nibbling, a piercing alarm sounded and the P.A. called for the "first-response" team to a location down on deck three. That's down in the crew area.

A while later the Captain announced that smoke had been discovered on decks three and nine, and that the cause was some welding repair work in the engine area.

So no free cruise, and chance to ride in a lifeboat.

The waiters all seemed very distracted for a while, which is very understandable.

Turns out Helen might have gotten food poisoned by the mayonnaise sandwiches. How can people eat that stuff?

Formal Night Not

Small glitch with our turnaround. As we had to change cabins we were supposed to receive new key cards. We didn't, nor any letter explaining the correct procedure for obtaining them, or how to do the next cruise stuff at all.

I questioned the desk when I got up at my usual, stupid-early time. They said go to the meeting place, and somebody would have the cards. Were first in line at the meeting place, and they said to sit, relax, and talk to their partner who would be there soon. The partner arrived, and said they would check.

Nothing happened, so I bugged her again. She said to have a seat, relax, and that she'd check. A bit later she announced on the room speaker that our party should disembark, and that we'd receive our cards on shore.

As we can't get back aboard without our cards it was seeming like a game of pass-them-off-on-the-next-person, and that they'd get stuck dealing with us. Meanwhile, we'd be off our lovely boat for an indeterminate amount of time.

Nope, once unloaded, she showed up with all our shiny, new cards. Huzzah, and back on board.

We moved our stuff to our new cabins without waiting for the staff to get around to it. All moved in, and happy, and it's almost lunchtime.

I like lunchtime.

The girls played cards a bit, and I went to the gym. My treadmill machine gave me a fitness test that cranked up to a 10% slope. I don't run up real hills that steep. I think the treadmill wanted to kill me.

A bit later, We all ended up together again, walked the deck and saw three manatees lumbering along. I got a pretty fair video of them. We keep trying to find shore-based free wifi, but so far nuttin'.

*

Twas a lovely, Bahamas beach day at Princess Cay. Helen and I snorkeled, ate, and did a camera safari. To round it off, Helen hit the water again while I flaked out in the shade.

The only downer was that it was a formal dinner night, and we didn't try and bring those kinda clothes on our tiny-packing trip. Most cruises let you in anyhow, as long as you have slacks and a button shirt, but not Princess. No problem; off to the buffet. It was closed.

They had a fancier buffet set up at the next eatery. I think Princess thought they were doing the non-formal folks a treat. The food was a notch up from the usual buffet, but the venue was not.

Princess doesn't seem to get 21st century, Vegas-style such as ALL the other cruise lines use for their buffets. Vegas style has lots of guest room, and stations for different types of foods. There is no expectation that guest go through the entire food line. In fact, there is no food line. It's wander and discover.

Princess had us at a buffet which was clearly designed to have everybody enter a food queue at one end, and remain in place until you squirt out the other end. I was having none of that, as our line was stalled at the custom-made-salad station. I skipped the salads altogether, but it was a squeeze to do so, and on a ship like this I count as a slender guy. I popped into holes in the queue and snagged my assorted entrees and was done in maybe three minutes. I was off to my table before the guy just ahead of "my queue spot" was even half way out of salad land.

This would be understandable if this ship were designed long ago, but it's actually a 21st-century-built vessel.

Ship Home

After eight days on board, we've hit the wall. Bernie skipped dinner altogether. Lola's entree was small, and neither Helen nor I finished ours. The wall.

This was reflected in our activities as well. Part of the day saw Helen and Lola playing cards in the Piazza. Bernie does what he calls his photo safaris. After the Zumba exercise class, I went running in the gym.

We are treating the ship like our home.

*

Today it's our ship's second return to Fort Lauderdale. We had to pack up this time as we couldn't get the same cabins. We move a few doors down. Actually, we just do the packing and the stuff gets moved for us.

We didn't receive any information like we did last time telling us how to do the turn around. With the room change things are a little weirder, as our key cards will have to be replaced. They are supposed to have our new key cards at the returning-passengers meeting place, but we'll see.

A good benefit to the turn around is that we got some room booze. None of us are willing to pay bar prices, but like the odd drink. At the start of every cruise it is permitted to bring aboard a bottle of wine per person as long as you keep it in your room. Ours is about used up.

They do sell bottled stuff on board for low, duty-free prices but they only let you have it at the end of the voyage. The final day of the trip is different. They keep selling bottles, but don't have time to do the last-day room delivery anymore, and just give it out over the counter. Bernie got some Grand Marnier, and I picked up a bottle of Sheridans.

It is always good to learn the system.

*

By the time our last leg is over, we should understand this boat pretty well. I think we'll be ready to move things ashore. Most people disembark looking pretty grim. They are looking forward to an immediate airport meat grinder, with a flight or two to get them home that same day.

I've never considered that the way to do things, even on our first cruise 20 years ago.

In five days, when it's finally our turn to leave the ship, we have a beach-front Fort Lauderdale hotel booked. Much less pressure that way. No worried rush off the boat. No deadlines that day.

Normally we'd fly home the following day, but Mister Internet could only find us pricey flights. Huge savings were to be found by delaying 24 hours. This we are doing, which more than pays for another day at the beach hotel. Another day at the beach free? Sign me up.

Flights are never perfect. There are no direct flights at all between Florida and Vancouver. The best trips involve a single stop over and plane change. This time we do so in Chicago.

Due to the magic of time zones, we leave at 11:30am, fly for 3 1/2 hours, spend 4 hours in Chicago airport, then fly for 4 more hours, and arrive in Vancouver at 8pm. My guts will think it's 11pm, but what do they know.

Getting in at the hour means we can't catch the ferry home. Therefore, we bunk down in Vancouver, and take it easy getting home the next day. This will include a walk, a train ride, another walk, a bus ride, a ferry ride, two more bus rides, and a final walk to our front door.

In a way, our trip home from the ship will take about 3 days. No need to rush these things.

Cozumel

I am really, really enjoying this cruise. We are on board for 15 days in total. It's a bit of a weird one, as it's actually three shorter cruises hobbled together.

Bernie and I are both freakishly early risers, and normally find one another and sit for coffee, and for what we call "first breakfast." After seven we return to our cabins, and by 8 all four of us meet up for our real breakfast. Then, it's ashore if we are docked someplace. If it's a ship day Helen and I go to Zumba, and then I go to the gym.

We all meet up for lunch. Afternoon is nap time, or sit-about time.

Then dinner at 5:30. We are all early diners. We get done in time for the early show. Post-show, Lola and Bernie head for bed while Helen and I go dancing.

Bedtime, then repeat.

Tomorrow will be especially good for me. We will be docked at Cozumel. Helen and I have booked a novel tour. It is a day at a snorkeling beach, but that's not all. The interesting part is our transportation back and forth. No bus, nor shuttle; we will be riding Segways. We've always wanted to try them and this seemed like an ideal opportunity.

We get a little lesson, then scoot to our beach through town and return the same way.

***

Last night we had to set out clocks back another hour as we've sailed that far west. My body is confused. We changed time three hours ahead by flying to Florida, and then an hour back last weekend for the end of daylight savings, and now this. It's currently only an hour off of where we started.

The problem is that my body has gotten used to both of the first two changes.

Tonight we sail away again, and our clocks go ahead to remove the adjustment for Cozumel. A week later we fly home and gain three hours. That will have been a total of five time changes in a single month.

This morning I was finished sleeping and got up at 4:30am, which feels like 5:30, and back home would be 2:30. Thank goodness for coffee.

Our Cozumel day was perfect. Our tour wasn't to meet up until 11:20am, so Helen and I went ashore as early as possible to do a walk about.

It was dang hot, but almost at once some cloud cover rolled in. It kept the temperature pleasant, and cut the risk of sunburn.

Half of the pier is a cruise-style shopping area set up as a gauntlet that the passengers have to bottleneck through. However, we were there so early that they were letting folks avoid this by using the crew express walkway.

Off of the pier there is a big shopping area geared to the cruise tourists. Lot's of tshirts, jewelry, and junk. There are a bunch of restaurants and bars. What kind of idiot leaves a cruise ship to go eat? Beyond that is the town.

In no time at all the entire cruise shopping area was packed. I suspect that 75% of those who go ashore never set foot beyond of this zone. To them, this is Mexico.

We checked out a couple of these tshirt shops on our way to the egress towards town. It's still tourist-land, but at least it is all Mexican controlled.

The little straw-market shops were just waking up. We slowed for a moment at one, and in no time the guy had us looking at silver jewelry. He was charming, and slick. He kept playing with his prices. It was so much fun that Helen bought a lovely little pendant for $20. Then we escaped.

Everybody was very nice, and perfectly polite. I don't know how many times we smiled and said, "no, thank you." At least a few hundred.

Helen also found some beadwork rings, and bought three for another $20. I picked up a couple of tshirts.

We headed back to make our 11:20 tour, but first we took our purchases back to the ship. This time we had to cram through the bottleneck. For me the worst part is the perfume stink area. Yuck. We got through, and put our stuff in our cabin, and re-ran the bottleneck to get ashore for the second time.

I had chosen our tour, with Helen's enthusiastic agreement. It could handle 12 people, but there were only 6 of us. Our guide lead us out of cruise/tourist land to a small, enclosed area. There were a bunch of traffic cones, and a bunch of lovely, Segway vehicles.

They gave us a lesson, with everything demonstrated, and then it was time to mount our trusty steads. They are controlled by a combination of leaning, and handlebar manipulation. We went around the course a few times, and then we were lead single-file out into the world.

We had a guide in front, and another in the rear. Behind that we were followed by a truck that was carrying all our stuff. We rolled about a kilometre, then stopped for a break.

They warned us our legs would tire fast, and they weren't kidding. At the stop, they walked us over to a lovely fish-filled sink hole. The guide chatted about the island a bit. This was a pleasant way to rest our ankles and such.

Back on the Segways, for the rest of the run to our real destination.

It was a nice, little spot for swimming, snorkeling, sunning, eating, and drinking. We had about an hour there. I've done better Caribbean snorkeling, but this was good.

Back onto our vehicles, and we rode back. Altogether, we did about 5 kilometres on the Segways, and did some lovely snorkeling

After our tour we wandered on a bit of a photo safari.

Finished the day with a splendid dining room meal as we pulled away from the dock; with a show; and with some dancing.

Cruising is hard work.

Ran onboard

We are docked in Fort Lauderdale. Our cruise is a weird merging of three baby cruises. Part one went to the Bahamas and Grand Turk. Part two is about to begin, and takes us to Cozumel Mexico and back. Part three heads is to two Bahamas stops. Each time we lose and gain a heap of fresh passengers.

No dining room was open for breakfast, so everybody was cramming into the top-deck buffet. Most were pulling their luggage with them, and no longer looking like cruise people. They have that stressed, airport kinda glaze on their eyes.

We waited until 10:45am and then gathered in one of the dining rooms. We were then lead ashore and run through US Customs. After that we were right back on board. This will happen again in a few days.

Lunch was especially yummy. Double deserts all around.

The boat kept filling up through the afternoon. Lots of sparkly-eyed newcomers.

Decadence. I went for an on-board barber shave. If I had loads of cash, I'd get one daily. It was old-school, with waves of hot towels, and two complete shaving passes. The only concession to being on a ship was the use of a modern razor instead of a straight edge. A naked blade on a moving vessel would be a recipe for bloodletting. They did try and get me to upgrade to the shave/facial/massage package, but I held firm.

***

My knee has been really good. It still has a slightly different "feel" than it used to, or that the other one has, but it's fine. I have some exercises to try and get it as strong as its partner, but they really aren't much of a workout.

Doing Jiu-Jitsu doesn't do much for leg muscle. Karate would, but the nature of the movements involved would undo all the progress I've made.

I need something physically demanding for my legs that won't go beyond what is wise. Bike riding is something along the right line. I've been doing that, and I am certain the effect has been positive. I'd like to take this up one more notch, as biking works the gross motor muscles, but not the finer, lateral ligaments that keep knee joints lined up.

When we get home I will try running again.

Both my doctor and physiotherapist said I could, but I wanted things really stable before starting up. Things are really stable. I've also recently read articles that state that runners who develop osteoarthritis in their knees not only CAN continue running, but that they SHOULD do so to counter the effects. The only issue seems to be avoidance of high-impact surfaces.

My usual runs are a mix of road and trail. There is no concrete, and most of the asphalt has gravel or dirt shoulders. Reducing speed on any unavoidable concrete will lessen impact, especially if I can consistently shift to a sliding/shuffling movement. I might zone out and forget.

In any case, I'll start by driving to the trails and only running dirt. If that works out, I'll try going all afoot.

***

Well, I've already scrapped my own running plan. Helen and I attended a Zumba class, and then I toddled off to the gym. The treadmills looked nice and bouncy, so I hopped on, set it for 30 minutes, and proceeded to run effortlessly for half an hour. Didn't go real fast, but made 2.69 miles. That's 4.3 k for us metric folk. My knee doesn't seem to mind that I ran on it at all, which was my wish. Wish granted.

Seems that I'm a runner again, after almost eleven months off.

Bouncy

I got up today at 5am. I know; crazy, right?

That's pretty normal for me. At home I toddle downstairs, make coffee, plunk into my lazy boy, and crank up the TV and internet.

On a cruise ship it's different. I got myself coffeed, and ensconced in a nice chair in the glorious Piazza area. No TV or internet. Wifi is available, but would soon add up to hundreds of dollars, so that isn't happening.

What do I do? Today I wrote a bit for my blog.

Also, I've never puzzled out how to manipulate or create new music playlists on my ipad, so I figured that all out. Not intuitive, but this morning there was time.

***

Had breakfast all together in the dining room, then pastries downstairs. Helen and I went to a Zumba exercise class, and it didn't hurt my knee at all. There was a tiny bit of jumping, but I didn't leave the ground.

This was followed by a $10 junk sale in one of the three dining rooms. I was considering an interesting watch until I noticed it had no glass over the face.. Helen found a pretty tshirt.

Today we're supposed to dock at the island of Grand Turk, in the Turks and Caicos. There's wind and rolling waves. We were almost in, and then circled out again. The place isn't really sheltered at all, so it might be too rough to dock. Be interesting to see how that works out. Will we go in regardless, or is the captain killing time to see if it settles down? Might just miss the stop altogether.

***

Well, we got into Grand Turk on the second try. The wind was blowing all day, so the ship had to have the thrusters going constantly to hold against the dock. No way the hawsers could have held her. They would have snapped like twine.

We snorkeled, and shopped a little, and lunched back on board. After that I napped and Helen went back ashore to beach walk and explore a bit.

It is now early morning, and the ship is rolling and heaving more than any I've ever experienced. We watched from the promenade deck as she plowed through the waves. Some of the splashing reached to maybe the fifth deck. The wind speed was 37 knots.

***

It's now considerably rougher. Far fewer guests walking about. The promenade deck is closed off, as are sections of the top deck. The water in the pools seems determined to jump free. Our deck-five window is regularly underwater. The seas are now officially rated as "rough". Almost breakfast time.

***

Nothing seems to be cancelled, and most of the decks opened up later. A spectacular day. Just finished a Zumba class and am now waiting for a cooking demo and galley tour. Ships used to do several tours in days gone by, but sometimes you can still get a look at the kitchens. For Helen these are always a highlight.

First Day on Board

I was quite astounded at how well we compressed all our stuff for our Fort Lauderdale cruise-ship embarkation. Somehow, it all went in, and my bags also accepted 4 cans of ginger ale, one bottle of Dr. Pepper, and one of Coke. I'd like to claim that I managed to cram in our two bottles of wine as well, but I carried them in a separate bag. That would be cheating.

Our rooms are on the fifth deck, which is the lowest and cheapest that houses passengers. We did splurge for a window.

The layout is really clever. Our bedroom has the window, and our bathroom is next to the passageway door. In between is our walk-in closet. Helen says it was the first time she's ever enjoyed unpacking.

As we sailed out of Fort Lauderdale we were preceded by the Holland American ship Westerdam. Also in harbour were (in increasing order of size) a Royal Caribbean vessel, a Carnival boat, and The Oasis of the Seas.

The Oasis is owned by Royal Caribbean, and is the largest cruise ship in the world. To give you some idea, she is twice the size of our ship, and ours was the second largest in port. Everybody knows how huge the Titanic was, and our ship is twice as big as that famous vessel. The Oasis is four Titanics.

I woke up on our first morning on board with a stupid headache. That's my big complaint. Took a handful of pills, had a light breakfast and then we headed ashore.

This included riding tenders back and forth. Our ship anchored at a private beach area. Private, that is, considering there were two or three thousand of us swimming and sunning.

Helen and I snorkeled and were later joined by our co-travellers. Still don't know how they found us. It must be their super power. We had the ship-provided lunch on shore.

Funny, we've been on a zillion cruises together and Lola and Bernie had somehow never gotten into the production shows. Helen doesn't always go either, but I never miss the singing and dancing. It's just great.

Our last cruise in September was only three days long, but suddenly everybody fell in love with the shows. They couldn't stop raving about them. In my opinion, they were OK, but as cruise singing and dancing goes certainly nothing special. No matter, now all of us are going to every show.

Works for me.

Miami twice

Well into our trip now. We've been fully immersed in Disneyworld, and only have one day left. This will be followed by 6 days of holidaying about Florida, then by 15 days on a cruiseship.

So with all that fun ahead, I get an email from the travel agent that booked the cruise part of our trip demanding we print out some document, sign it, and fax it back. Fax? What is this; the 1990s? I wrote back saying we will NOT be using vacation time on this nonsense.

She wrote back first thing next day, apologized, and said don't worry as all is well.

***

Today it's our first full day at Miami Beach. This phase of the trip is all about relaxing; a vacation from our vacation, if you will.

The clock says it's noonish, but who cares. Helen is bobbing in the waves, and I'm baking in the sun. I was in the water, but can't do it forever like you-know-who. We are doing a city tour tomorrow, but today has been keeping it beach bummie.

Our hotel up by Disneyworld was pretty shabby and we called it the Bates Motel. Can't expect much for $26 a night. Our beachfront resort here is a bargain at about three times the price. The toilet flushes and everything. Our co-traveller, Lola, says she's glad we went from shabby to nice, and not the other way around. I concur.

***

It was three nights at Miami Beach, then two at Key West, and now we are back for one more at Miami Beach. Tomorrow we turn in the car, and climb aboard the Caribbean Princess for two weeks of cruising the Bahamas and Caribbean Sea. It's all been about perfect so far.

We have been picking up stuff as we go. There wasn't much leeway in our bags at the start, so now we also haul about a collection of boxes and shopping bags. This won't really matter until our flight home, but today we board the boat. They have no restrictions on crap, but we can only handle a certain amount of junk physically. If we get it all stowed right the boarding will be perfectly pleasant. If not, then it won't.

I've bought sunglasses, two pairs of shorts, two shirts, two tshirts, and a pair of sandals. That's actually quite a bit in itself, and Helen has purchased at least as much, and collected an impressive sack of seashells.

Trip East

I got dumped to the roadside at quarter to four. Not even the slightest hint of dawn was present. The sky was black as coal.

So I waited next to our carry on bags as Helen drove the car home, and then walked the one kilometre back to my dark bus stop. The bus picked us up a little after five.

We were pretty much alone for the ride. I guess bus people like to get up after sunrise, or at least closer to it.

Next came the ferry ride across Howe Sound, and onto a Vancouver-side bus. Still black downtown as we headed underground to catch the inappropriately named Skytrain. For almost all of the airport run it's actually a subway.

Unlike most urban trains, the Skytrain has no turnstile system. It is quite possible to ride without having paid. I think our bus driver undercharged us, and so our transfer might not have had enough money on it to cover the airport train run. No matter, we just blundered on. Still dark as we unloaded at the airport.

Got checked in, and headed for our gate. Tons of sitting time ahead in a funny, windowless zone. It was then that Helen noticed neither of us had a window seat for the flight. She was ticked.

Used the washroom a couple of times, had a coffee, texted with Bernie, and saw the Dalai Lama.

A party of orange-robed monks, business-suited people, and a Mountie all decked out in his scarlet uniform and ranger hat, showed up. Clearly the were meeting some dignitary. Who shuffled in from his flight but the Dalai Lama?

We got a few photos through the glass, and he was gone.

Barely had that excitement faded when they called us for boarding. With seats near the back of the plane, we were amongst the first aboard. No trouble finding room for our stuff in the overhead bins.

The plane had rows seven seats across. Two on either side, then the aisles, and three in the middle. My seat was dead centre, and Helen was to my left. The other seat on my right sat empty. Turns out that, unlike what they told us, the plane was NOT full.

To Helen's left were a pair of seats with a window which were also unoccupied. As soon as this was certain, she scooted over to claim them. I waited behind to hold onto our own seats.

So that's how we flew the four-and-a-half-hour trip to Toronto. Helen was all spread out over her pair of seats by the window, while I positively wallowed all over my three centre seats like Jabba the Hut.

Funny that we were earlier drooling over all the room they get up in business class. They got nothing on us.

We are just about over top of Sault Sainte Marie, and so have about an hour left in the air. I just changed my devices to the timezone we will be living in for the next month. Instantly three hours vanish, to be recaptured when we head home.

Helen has conked out over in her pair of seats. I've been re-fighting the First World War on my iPad. I managed to end the conflict in under two years.

One very nice thing about having three seats is that I've got all my seat-back screens displaying different maps. That's how I know exactly where we are.

I'll be very ready to land and walk about a bit.

***

Well, I have a new, least-favourite airport.

We disembarked in Toronto and scurried off to find one of those big screens that match the flights up with their gates. About half had no gate number, just the letter F. Off we went to find F.

Over hill and dale we scurried. The path made little sense, and lead to a remarkably small and plain doorway. Inside we self-served ourselves at US customs passport registration, then had to go to step 2, which had dozens of people staring at a screen waiting for their names to appear. Ours were there instantly, so we pushed through to step 3. This was effectively just a double check that we were on the screen then into a line to get talked to by a border agent. Stamp stamp stamp.

Now into our second security check. They were also checking the size of carry on luggage, but didn't check ours. They waved us through. Then the stuff went into the xray machine and us through the metal detector. Shoes-off this time. In Vancouver earlier it was shoes-stay-on. Then down an escalator to the area F gates.

F65 was ours, but it wasn't far. Interestingly, there were no seats at the gate at all. The airport's expectation is that we would all retire to the neighbouring area that served food and beverages to await the boarding announcements This is what Helen and I did.

Everybody else hung around the gate; many sitting on the floor. The concourse got pretty choked off with all the seat-less bodies. We went back when they called pre-boarding. We found all the passengers cranky, and clogging the entry area. Who thought this all out?

Anyhow, got to our seats, which were stupid cramped. Did I mention that they put Helen 3 rows away from me? A perfect situation.

I'm no lanky-legged giant, but even so the seat in front of me put constant pressure against my knees, including the injured one.

Survived all that to find that the car rental place was all out of the teensy sized car category we'd booked. When this happens, they let you have a bigger vehicle and act like it's a good deal. They actually had only one auto left, so I've been driving a Dodge van. Pity we're not a family of six.