News Update

Our ship came in! 

This week has taken us far from the shore of anywhere. We left the Atlantic shore of North America from Port Canaveral on Sunday; we sailed through the night to Freeport, The Bahamas. It was our first time on a cruise, and we both experienced some queasiness the first evening. We enjoyed our time aboard—there are quite a number of activities, and an endless supply of food! Throughout our time on the cruise we enjoyed great food. There was a putt-putt course; the gentle rocking of the boat and constant wind added complication to that game! We had a fully-equipped exercise area with lots of machines for exercise, weight-lifting and conditioning at our disposal—we didn’t make much use of them! After an overnight sail, the first day was spent in Freeport. The second day and night were spent at Nassau where we enjoyed more sightseeing and a lot of shopping in the Straw Market. The vendors were used to bargaining, and were eager for sales, but we’d been to the Vic Falls markets, and these people did not measure up to that earlier experience. Finally, we spent a day and night at sea cruising back to Cape Canaveral where we arrived on Thursday. We moved into a short term time share in Orlando for a couple of nights, and have now set up in another time share in Naples. As suspected, we were out of internet during our time at sea, although we could have bought a connection if we’d been willing to pay the price! We lucked out with a brief connection while we were in Nassau, but finally, we feel connected to reality once again. All in all, it was just okay to be on the cruise and get a feel for how the 1% live. It wasn’t really our style, lots of activity, but nothing to do, so beyond a long held wish to take a cruise up the BC coast to Alaska, I doubt that we’ll be seeking out many cruises in the future. We spent the day on Thursday driving over to Orlando by stopping at the JFK Space Centre. It was great, and we look forward to bringing the grandsons. We couldn’t see it all in the time we had, but we were impressed by what we saw. We went golfing on Friday. We had some difficulties getting everything started, but eventually it turned out very nicely. Wendy even skipped one across the water to a peninsula green! Then today, we moved down to Naples where we will complete our Florida vacation. The markets have been riding the European roller coaster all week with big swings up and down that ended up getting me nowhere. The year is running short, and I’m still short of the needed funds for next year. 

One of the retired shuttles

We’ve been able to catch up to Erin and Kristian via FaceTime. They’re doing fine, holding down the fort at home. Kristian has returned to speech therapy program with a formal assessment this week, so we’re glad of that. 

Trav, Joanna and the children are also doing well. Trav’s Penguins and Elks are continuing to thrive in hockey and work is going fine. He’s still looking to establish his office more completely in the new building, but nothing much is developing there yet. This weekend he’s in Wisconsin with his team at a hockey tournament. 

And that’s about it for this week.