Travelogue

A few shots from our mini-cruise adventure last week...


The little trolley that runs down San Pedro's Harbor Blvd, from the cruise dock to the marina.


The elevator in the Grand Atrium at the center of the ship.


The view from our cabin when we embarked (12/21). The drydocked Queen Mary is on the right; the dome on the left used to be the home of Howard Hughes' Spruce Goose. It's now used as Carnival's cruise terminal.


Our perfectly lovely and comfortable cabin (Main deck, midships). Not pictured: The screeching 10-year-old boys in the room across the hall who stayed up past midnight on the last night (which is the night before you have to vacate your room by 7:30 the following morning).


You're in Mexico. Any questions? (Is that not the biggest honkin' flag you've ever seen?)


Proof (sort of) we were in Mexico. It says "Ensenada Cruiseport Village" on the dock.


Dawn breaks over the Queen the morning we debark (12/24).

It was a lovely trip. A note to Erin: You were right... the "day at sea" was the ship going in circles just south of the Channel Islands. It's such a short distance from Long Beach to Ensenada, where the hell were we going to go? Still, at day at sea, even sailing in circles just far enough off shore to keep the shopping and the casino open, is a lovely way to spend a day.

Lump of Coal

So... what's worse on Christmas than finding a lump of coal from Santa? How about a box full of dreaded Homespun and Red Heart? ::shudder:: I thought I had been a pretty good girl in 2009, but apparently I was about as wrong as I could be. I need to have a talk with Santa to find out what yardstick he's using to measure!

(Another Santa was very nice to me, though - the nice one gave me a Magellan GPS and a beautiful diamond heart necklace.)

Merry Christmas!

One Down, Two to Go!

A 3-night cruise to Ensenada is a lovely appetizer of a vacation. Long Beach to Ensenada, a day at sea, then back to Long Beach. Weather was cold and dreary, overcast, and raining off and on while we were in Mexico. But... still better than the best day working!

The ship is 'cute' by modern standards, with just over 2,000 cruisers when it's full (which it was). The 9th floor was the "Promenade" deck, with most of the bars and indoor public areas. Despite being full, we were always able to find a quiet spot to sit and read or sit and knit, and an adult beverage was never more than a wave away.

The main pools were on the Lido deck and even though the temperature never got above 70 degrees, there was always someone in them. The food was good, the room was comfortable, and we had a good time. Lovely, simply lovely.

Oops!

So here we are... at a lovely hotel in San Pedro, California, two blocks away from the Cruise Ship Terminal of the Port of Los Angeles. We were having a drink at the bar (Mojito for him, Sweet Ginger for me) and working out the timing of our morning. Sleep in, have a late breakfast, then head downstairs to catch the shuttle to the ship around noon, maybe 12:30. Check-in isn't until 1:30, so we'd be there early, no problem.

DH smartly decides to read the hotel's information sheet on cruise shuttle information. Blah, blah, blah, "The shuttle to the Carnival pier leaves only at 10:00, 11:00, and 12:00." Huh? "It takes approximately 20 minutes to get to the pier." Huh huh?

Turns out our hotel "right across the street" from the pier is right across the street from the pier... from the wrong pier. On the other side of the inlet from where we are. It's no real problem; we just had to rearrange our car parking arrangements (we had been planning to leave the car here at the hotel, now we'll drive to the Carnival pier ourselves and park at their parking structure).

Take note - The Port of Los Angeles has a cruise terminal pier at San Pedro AND Long Beach... If you're cruising on Carnival, go to Long Beach! (Yeah, we're still having fun!)

Postal Apologies

Oops. My sincere apologies to anyone who got a holiday card from DH and I and had to pay postage due to get our card out of hock... I wasn't paying any attention to the weight of the envelopes and two days after we mailed them, a stack of 6 showed up in our mailbox. Two needed 28 cents more postage; four needed 78 cents (!!!) more. We thought that was the end of it... until Thursday.

Thursday night we had dinner with KM and MM to celebrate DH's birthday, and also did a Christmas gift swap. KM gave me a lovely velvet pouch - that had a single quarter in it. Apparently, he got a slip from his mail person for 25 cents postage due, and after much banter back and forth from his mail delivery person, eventually gave him the money and got our Christmas card. KM was contributing 25 cents to our postal fund because we apparently didn't have enough money to pay all the postage! Hee hee!

Big apology for anyone else who got stuck having to pay ransom to get our Christmas card this year. Sorry! (On the plus side, the cards were really, really pretty. Weren't they?)

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like... Birthdays!

There are SO many holiday babies in my gang of friends! November 24, December 3, December 17, December 19, December 23, January 4... We play a birthday version of 3-card monte at knit night with posse 1, 2, 3, and 4 signing a card for posse 5, then posse 2, 3, 4, and 5 signing a card for posse 1... while we try to talk about what to get posse 3 for her birthday! It's all great fun because, let's face it, yarn will be involved in some way!

One of the holiday babies is my DH, whose birthday is tomorrow. He just told me that tomorrow, I will be officially married to an old man. Nah. Never happen. Old men have big bushy eyebrows, nose and ear hair you can braid, and wear their waistbands up over their bellybuttons. That's not my guy. He's in far better shape than I am. Tomorrow he's 61, but I feel more like that age some times. Happy birthday, my love. (And just over 4 more days to cruise #1!)

Almost the entire gaggle of knitting gals will be at the house on Saturday; ChickenKnittle and CelticKnittingGal won't be able to make it. Won't be the same without them - but maybe the mulled wine and from-scratch pumpkin pie will help ease the pain...

December knitting projects: Missed deadlines for 3 things. Not too bad, considering I was making something like 18 or 20 things this year. Sorry; 3 of you are getting IOUs!

It's That Time Again...

Track Santa with NORAD!

(Oh, and 6 more days!)

Still Counting Days...

Thirteen of them to be exact!

It was a little treacherous walking this AM - in some places, the frost was in sheets. We almost went head over keester a couple of times. But we walked!

Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!

Eighteen more days!