[November 12-19, 2011 - Miami - St. Martin - St. Thomas - Bahamas]
Okay, went on another SinglesCruise.com cruise. This time I hit all the islands (St. Martin, St. Thomas and The Bahamas) that I have not yet been to, so that was a bonus. I think this was the biggest singles group I was with, something like 120 or so cruisers.
In addition, the NCL Epic has a “studio lounge” section where solo travelers can get a room by themselves and not pay the double-occupancy rate. There is an accompanying solo lounge and we also have our own ship’s solo cruisers gathering every night at 5:30 for an hour or two. We get our own cruise director, Natalie and our own bartender, Joyce. So that was an awesome setup. Skip the massive hoards of people on deck. (And the lounge turns into a breakfast area with Yvette in the morning so again, a nice quite private area in the morning.)
So between the SinglesCruise.com activities, Solo Lounge Activities, and my own island exploration, it was a hopping cruise. Here are the pictures from the cruise. I shot about 900 pictures and edited the list down to 453. (That’s a record number of pictures I took in a week). Even with 900, I still ha non-duplicated fuzzy pictures so I loaded those on the slide show too. Have fun!
[July 29-31-2011 - Cayman Islands - British West Indies (UK)]
First the bad:
Okay, I splurged this weekend. Cayman Islands aren’t cheap any way you cut it. I think it’s the most expensive place to go in the Caribbean and the Gulf, bar none. I thought Bermuda was expensive. I was sadly mistaken… All of the hotels there are a major vampire on your credit cards. The Westin where I stayed at was “old”. They charged all kinds of fees and I didn’t get anything in return for it. “Resort fee” for what? Absolutely zippo. And, the other fees they tack onto your “room charge” would make the airlines cry for the inventiveness of the vamping… I dis-recommend the Westin.
And, the Cayman dollar is more expensive than the US Dollar (US$1.00 get you 80 cents Cayman). In fact, if you want to go to the Caymans, don’t even go there directly – hop on a cruise ship instead! A day stay in Cayman will pay for about 33% of your 7 day cruise (assuming double occupancy). No, I don’t work for the cruise industry.
Next the good:
Okay, my rant is over. Otherwise the island sky and water is amazingly crisp, clean and just gorgeous. Went to the restaurant at the end of the island at Rum Point via catamaran onn Friday. The restaurant looked like a typical island joint but the food was amazingly excellent. The tab includes tip, so make sure you don’t double tip.
On Saturday, went snorkeling right off the beach to Governor’s Reef and the fish just swam around you. Totally awesome. I bought a cheapie underwater camera. But it’s film, so I’ll post those pictures later – after I get them back from the processor.
Then of course Sunday rolled around and flew off the island. Here are the pics:
[July 07 - July 10, 2011 - Tampa - St. Petersburg, FL, US]
Decided to try the Gulf side of my state of residence… First time in Tampa. Rained most of the day on Friday. Saturday, it cleared up. Risteen Gates, his wife Melanie and baby Jahzara was visiting from Illinois. Risteen was visiting his dad. Again, a coincidence that we were in the same spot at the same time. I post my next trip out on Facebook and he caught it so we met up. FB is really handy. We all went to the Dali Museum. No pictures inside the museum, so sorry, no Dali for you! So it was fun. I see my college friends more away from home (well, my previous home state of Illinois). Here are some pics:
Monument Fire Arizona – Bizarre effect. Focused on the sun. Try staring at this picture for 30 seconds and look away. It will feel like you were looking directly at the sun as if you were there.
This is a picture of the sun looking through the atmosphere saturated with the smoke and soot from the Monument fire, southeast Arizona in the Sierra Vista area looking from Oracle, AZ. This picture was taken on June 17, 2011 at 7:22 pm, looking directly at the Sun. No filter was used. The camera used is a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ28.The The saturated air traveled well over 100 miles to create the picture, totally blocking out the sight of the four ranges of mountains that can usually see on a clear day. These ranges are from 15 to 110 miles the west end of Oracle. This was taken by my father Robert R. Roszko and is copyrighted. You may use the photo for personal use; however, any publication, re-publication on any medium (including websites, whether free or for pay) requires written permission.
[Mar 31 - Apr 03, 2011 - Miami, FL, US] I had another random encounter with history. I was at the bar at the Miami Airport Marriott in Florida and guess who decides to have a few drinks at the bar? The members of America and Lovin’ Spoonful!!!
That was amazing. As I was posting picture to FaceBook at that moment, Mark Hennings commented on my photo and asked me to ask them the meaning of “…Seasons crying no despair Alligator lizards in the air, in the air…”, so I did. I asked Willie Leacox of America and got the answer! But not tellin’. Okay, I’ll give you part of the answer – it’s the imagery. It’s all about the imagery…
Oh and then more history with the Lovin’ Spoonful… On of the tidbits I learned was that Joe Butler has an apartment in New York City – he lent the apartment to John Lennon and Yoko Ono way back when.
[Feb 17-21, 2011 - London, Paddington, UK] I flew to London Heathrow and took the Heathrow Express to Paddington. The Hilton was built into the station, so that was convenient. Of course I went around the front so I can take a picture of the hotel…
Since my comic book series Dreadnought: Invasion Six, DreadnoughtSeries.com, is being turned into a game, I decided to go visit the game company in UK. We spent one whole day going over details so it was time well worth spent.
Anne mentioned the Paddington Bear, PaddingtonBear.com, on Facebook, so when I ran into the Paddington Bear (see my pictures), I bought two of them. One for Anne – she has it safely in her home now and one for my buddies at the AA Admiral’s Club in DCA (Washington DC Reagan National Airport). Cood beans.
I didn’t do much this time around but I did go to the oldest Indian Restaurant in the UK, the Veeraswamy, Veeraswamy.com. So if you do the math, this restaurant was in Great Britain when India was still a colony… The food and service was extremely good.
[Jan 26-30 2011 - Key West, FL US] Liked the first annual food and wine fest last year, so I went to the “Second Annual Key West Food and Wine Festival”. It was great. The Friday wine tasting event at “The Little Whiten House” was cool. The event was only three hours though, last year I think it went for five hours… I talked to the event organizer and he said the idea was to do the tasting, then to hit the resturants while it’s still early in the night. OIC…
The “Duvall Street Uncorked” event on Saturday was great. Merchants on Duvall Street that participate in the festival serve food and/or wine. The idea is that fest goers visit the stores and look at their wares and hopefully buy something; or come back later to shop there. Well, it was fun visiting all the stores (and a bunch were different from last year so it was interesting).
[Nov 11-14, 2010 - Liberia, Costa Rica] First time in Central America! And of course first time in Costa Rica. Flew into LIB (Liberia, Costa Rica) airport, then went to the all-inclusive Hilton Papagayo Resort and Spa. It was great fun. Did zip-lining at the “Congo Trail Canopy Tour”. (TRAVEL NOTE: Most Central and South American countries charge either an entry tax or an exit tax, so make sure you have cash!!! Why? This is because the US started charging people from Central and South America.)
Went to the “Congo Trail Canopy Tour” where you zip line through the forest. Here is a video of me going down the longest line of the series of zip lines:
[Nov 6, 2010 - Indianapolis, IN, US] Okay, I flew in for Charissa and Kevin’s wedding. Took over 300 pictures and “narrowed” it down to 100-ish of the best shots. Even with the best of the bunch, some turned out to be fuzzy and had no other shots, so I loaded the best of the fuzzy ones. The reception was fun, and I briefly went to the post-reception at the hotel and then I zonked out early But at least I got a few pictures there too…
[Oct 14-17, 2010 - Deerfield Beach, FL, US] Okay, so I had Yohi reunion withdrawals so I contacted Pati in Boca Raton, FL. I found her on Facebook a while back and we friended each other and had FaceBook posts and but that was about it for a while now. (She couldn’t make it to the reunion due to her surgery on her arm. I knew from band Freshman year at YoHi. I remember her from Sullivan’s Middle School too.) Anyway, long story short, I said I wanted to visit and she said sure, so we had lunch on Saturday at the Embassy Suites in Deerfield Beach. We talked for three hours. Wow, that was a ton of catching up to do.
But at least I got a few pictures there too… 
