NCL Pride Of Aloha Cruise Pictures Online

I'm hard at work uploading my vacation photos to....

http://picasaweb.google.com/TxGoodie

I ended up having to buy more space! Google is just too cool though. They don't want an arm and a leg for 40 gigs like you'd expect them to. I use and prefer my Picasa account even though I like SmugMug a lot. Picasa allows for the entire album to be downloaded with the original size and that's not only a great way to backup, it's a great way for my family and other interested parties to get the pictures they want.

SmugMug lets you change the theme of the albums and do other cool stuff, but you can only download full size photos from them one at a painful time.

If *I* was a webgod I'd have something called PiUg that would combine the best of both! Or CasaMug. Or SmugPic. Or...well.... it'd be great, honest!

I Need A Vacation After My Vacation!

I'm baaaaack. Did you miss me?

I've been cruisin'. My sister-in-law and I went on a 2 week vacation to HAWAII! I know, it's a thankless job but someone has to do it. We took it upon ourselves to try and help the economy in the islands. Lord knows there's a gift/souvenir shop every 6 yards every where we went and we hit 'em all and did a fair to partly cloudy job of helping to get Hawaii out of their financial slump!

We flew to Oahu first and stayed a couple of days with my cousin and her husband. They were the best host/hostess imaginable! As a rule I go out of my way to keep from "bothering" friends or family....I prefer to get a room so as not to impose. It was pointed out to me recently that sometimes people might really want to show you a good time and you should allow them to do so. I told them the day that we left that they might never get rid of me now they were so gracious!

Both my cousins (I have two cousins that make their home on Oahu) made sure we went everywhere on Oahu that we wanted to go. They also keep hydrating me so I wouldn't have a "Vegas" episode and end up in one of their hospitals.

We boarded the NCL's Pride Of Aloha on the 15th and sailed on the 16th until the 27th. More about the boat later. During that 11-day cruise we visited Honolulu, Hilo, Lahaina (Maui), Kona, Kahului (Maui) and Nawiliwili (Kauai). We had two day of cruising where we saw the islands of Molokai and Oahu's Napali coasts. We had an excursion to the island of Lanai. During the cruise days we were all onboard and fought for every available deck chair and crust of bread! More about THAT later too!

We had a wonderful time. We expected to have a wonderful time. We had some speedbumps along the way, but how could anyone be upset for long when you're in Hawaii!? We saw Kilauea's active lava flow at night from the deck of the ship and our own balcony. It was truly the highlight of the trip. All your school life you read about volcanoes and see pictures, but it's not the same as seeing it with your own eyes. Nature and Madame Pele showing off for the tourists... it just doesn't get any more exciting than that!

I'm in the process of 1) getting my laundry done, 2) getting 10 GIGS of pictures sorted, 3) trying to catch up with my e-mail and blog reading and 4) trying to get used to being back in my rut with the five hour difference in sleep and appetite. I managed to lose weight on the trip and that wasn't from not having an oppourtunity to eat non-stop for 24 hours a day....it was from walking and climbing every day and burning up those extra calories.

I'll be back with more on the cruise and provide the link to my photos.

For now, it's good to be home. I love to travel. I love the Hawaiian islands. I love my sister-in-law and my cousins, but I sure did miss my own bed and my kids and my little dog.

Hugs.....

Part 2 of My Weekend Peak Experiences

I got this in feedback....

jonxblaze has left a new comment on your post "My Weekend Peak Experiences!":

Those are great pictures, how was the weather? Wasn't it too hot for hiking?

- Jon @ Houston Website Design

And I just have to answer him here...

If you look at my picture you'll see I was dressed for Halloween as the female version of the Michelin man! Because it was sooooo cold on Mt. Rushmore the night before and the weather wizards said it would be in the 30's the day of our hike, we dressed warmly. I had on underpants, silk long john bottoms, a cotton plus pair of long john bottoms and my spanky new wind proof pants with tons of cool pockets! On top I had a sports bra, the matching cotton plus top, and a borrowed fleece shirt. Topping it all off was The Jacket that I'd bought to go to Alaska many years ago and it used to fit me! I also packed gloves and a muffler! I wore my Harris County Citizen Police Academy Alum. hat too. I wore mostly wool blend socks and my hiking boots would of withstood Arctic winds! I was ready for action!

I was overdressed! Gals in SHORTS passed me on the trail! I thought to myself 'ha! they'll freeze their little buns off when they get to the top and the wind hits them'...rong! Really rong! So rong it deserves a "w"! Make that WRONG, WRONG nearly had heat stroke wrong!

The later pictures had me slumped on a rock sans jacket and displaying the top set of long johns for all the world to see with nary a concern that I was showing what is in effect UNDERWEAR! By then it was who gives a hairy rat's ass what I look like, just get me home alive and I'll deal with the shame of it all later! The fleece shirt got tossed within the 1st mile up the 'hill'.

Being an old Girl Scout, (and I do mean OLD!), I like to be prepared for anything and the theory being you can always shuck the excess, but if you don't have the necessary you are up the creek without an oar!

NOW let me tell you about the plane ride home!

While waiting to board the plane I observed these little kids pretty much running amok among the other passengers. I KNEW they'd be near me on the plane. Call it a gift, call it a curse, I just KNEW. It's considered Goodwin's Law of Averages. I attract irritating little kids like a fireplace attracts soot!

Sure enough, they are in the row right ahead of me. On the left is Grandma, little boy of perhaps 3, aunt, probably sister to mom, then across the isle and right in front of me is mom, little girl of 2 or so and good old dad. Up the way a bit is another little girl who started screaming before we even taxied. Now I raised three critters of my own. I did a fair job of it too, but I apologize to them at least every 6 months for being too hard and too strict and bordering on abusive. It is to my everlasting shame that I hit first and sorted it out later.

But these new fangled parents are well meaning spineless idiots who are, I fear, raising herds of serial killers in training! WTF, who asks a 3 year old if they want to ride on the airplane? Well, we can't very well WALK, dear, so think real hard, don't you want to ride on the airplane? You do, good, now would you like to put on the seatbelt or just run up and down the isle? We don't need to use our outside voice in the plane. Use your nice hands when you touch your sister, please, remember we talked about that. EVERY time the kid(s) emitted a high pitched objection in the scream octave they got their way. EVERY TIME. I considered screaming and crying to see if it'd work for me!

Now the best part (I'm being so factitious here I'm ready to hurl!) was the presentation of The Presents. Auntie, in an effort to quiet the melee climbed up on the armrest of the seat her sister was sitting in, threw open the overhead and proceeded to dig around like a gerbil making a nest for its young until she unearthed two wrapped presents sans bows. That's smart I thought. These new fangled folks aren't as dumb as they look. Well she carefully helped the boy-tot open one end and he tore into the rest of it and pulled out the prize! It was a box of Phonetic flashcards!! I'm not kidding! For a toddler, on a plane, who's not a happy camper and spoiled rotten to boot! The flight attendant nearly tripped over my jaw that was resting somewhere near where they claim to keep the flotation devices!

Auntie had toted her Apple laptop on board and she tried vainly to access some pictures files and take her mind off the din. As a last resort she whipped out a DVD, slammed it into the Apple innards and handed the whole ball of wax over to Sis-Mom. I thought again 'cool, now that's the ticket'! Rong. The DVD was something like 'kids tour egypt' not spongeman or even dora does dixie! What's with all the educational crap? When did kids stop being entertained just for the joy of it? What's wrong with cartoons? Disney, anyone? By then I was resigned to our collective fates.

Thank God for earphones and wine! When the kids dialed it up a notch I'd do the same on my on board radio set to Country! I tried Classical, but it didn't drown them out like Big and Rich!

I guess I'm just getting old and cranky, but I'm not going to apologize to any that happen upon this bit-o-vent and take offense. Take a good hard look at yourself in the mirror and ask who is the parent? Kids need structure and boundaries. They need the security of knowing they have parent(s) that are smarter than them and capable of making decisions affecting their ultimate choices. Okay, big deal, ask a kid if he wants milk or water to drink, but don't allow him/her to decide on the big ticket items like ARE WE GETTING ON THE PLANE or DO YOU WANT TO PUT A SEATBELT ON NOW... geeusHchrist...

My Weekend Peak Experiences!

The Memorial Day weekend was fated to be just another holiday weekend, but then a friend stepped in and invited me to join the group hiking up Harney's Peak in South Dakota. I laughed and said something like "yeah, right", but he kept at me telling me it was easy, a hike rated "moderate" so that even little kids did it. The more I thought about it the more attractive it sounded. My possibly last chance to see areas of the country that I'd otherwise never get to see. We'd fly to Denver and then drive through Wyoming, Nebraska and South Dakota.

I said I wasn't in any kind of shape for trekking through the wilderness, but he kept saying the trail to Harney's Peak was "easy", a moderate climb, even little kids, blah, blah, blah. I finally said "okay", but don't expect much of me in the way of stamina. He sent me to SummitPost.org to read all about the climb. I was truly hooked when I saw the photos!

Sure enough, little kids were scampering around like mountain goats.

So I started accumulating gear. First I went to Sun and Ski Sports and got a good pair of hiking boots. Then I bought some stuff online like hiking poles - one for each hand! Ultimately I wandered into REI and fell in love with their clothes! Who wouldn't love pants with more pockets than you could ever fill up? I spent a couple of hundred bucks in there without breaking a sweat. I forced myself to get on my recumbent bike and peddle during Astro's ballgames. I used the "mountains" setting and never did climb one of those for very long, but I was feeling like I was doing something to make life easier on the trek.

Thursday, May 24th finally arrived. D-Day. Departure into the great unknown. Ready or not, here I come! The plane ride to Colorado was delayed an hour due to bad weather elsewhere so we arrived an hour later than planned. By the time we got the rental Jeep and started out for Cheyenne it was dark. I didn't get to see anything of Denver except the inside of this really cool diner. I don't recall the name of it, but it was straight out of Happy Days. It took awhile to get everyone fed, but there was so much to see on the walls that it was fun waiting.

We spent the first night at The Plains Hotel in Cheyenne, Wyoming, a town I fell in love with at first light. The hotel was comfortable enough except that the curtains didn't cover the windows, they just looked nice! I did the best I could, but the street light shined in all night long. Next crack of the whip the sun came crashing in at, I swear, 5-something! WTF! I'm positive I didn't sleep a wink. Not even one of those nights where you think you didn't but you actually caught the odd hour or so and woke up 90 times. Luckily a shower and coffee and the excitement of impending adventure kept me awake and kicking all through the very long day.

I've put my photos of the trip up at SmugMug so go and see them if you like.




The round trip up the mountain usually takes fit folk about 3 hours. "Ranger" Rick, the Pied Piper of Hikers, ran circles around me. He'd gallop off down the trail, next thing I'd know he was on top of some big outcropping wishing he was free to climb like the monkey he is! He urged me, but never nagged. He was bored with all the rest stops I HAD to take in order to catch my breath and regain some kind of normal heartbeat, but he never said....much. The rest of the group was not as patient, they were there to have fun, not nursemaid an old lady who's idea of exercise is right clicking on a mouse's back! I almost never saw them again!



Sure enough there were kids on the trail! But someone neglected to say that a LOT of those kids were being toted by their parental units! The ones that were Free To Be were hyper little turkeys that probably had sweetened cereal for breakfast and chocolate along the way. The kind of kid that never walks when he can hop. We were passed by folks who later passed us again on their way back down! They were all nice and must belong to the secret society that says "not much farther, just a little bit more" when they were lying like sumbitches!

At the first mile I thought I'm not dead, but I'm not enjoying this either. At the second mile I thought just kill me now and get it over with. By the time the view of the last remaining stairs before you get to the last possible stairs before you get to the killer stairs to the orgasmic culmination of the Peak experience became visible I thought they'll find my body on the stairs and bury me here. I told one couple that my services would be at 2 the next afternoon!

To add insult to injury people were riding HORSES up the trail. I offered one guy 100 bucks for a ride and he just laughed. I guess he thought I was joking. On the down side, bad enough was walking over the uneven ground and rocks, but add to that joy avoiding horse droppings that perfumed the air with their very freshness! We were picking up the odd bits of litter along the way but there was no way I was doing parade patrol behind the Calvary! Peeeuuuu.

I made it. 7 miles total. 8 hours and 20 minutes. Only one pee in the morning before I left my motel room! I am woman, hear my labored breathing! But you knew that or I wouldn't of been writing this long post! If you've stuck with it this long, God love you! Your name must be Betty because I can count on her to wade through my prattle! I'll probably write something on the rest of the trip as this is my online diary and it's good to record things like this so that once you're completely recovered you can look back and say "it wasn't so bad after all. I did it! I'm good! I might consider something like that again, but only after I get in better shape".....



I think maybe the bottom line is that if you want something badly enough you should die trying to attain it. No, oops, that's not right. Hmmm...where there's life there's always a chance? Move it or lose it? Just do it? Haste makes waste? Never invite old ladies on the trail? Oh, hell, I'm not sure what the bottom line is, but I'm so honored to have been along for the ride and I just hope they all know I didn't mean a thing I said in the heat of the ordeal. I have to run my mouth in order for my feet to work...honest...it's hereditary!

Stay tuned for more "peaks" and a few valleys!

My Life In The Fast Lane

I went to Canton's First Monday Trade Days Flea Market this past weekend and it was kewl! I'd heard about it for years, but had never been....a friend of mine mentioned she was going and I BEGGED to tag along. It is truly the largest flea market in the largest State in the Nation! Thanks to my first born daughter who went with me I was coerced into renting a scooter the 2nd day after walking my a** off the first day. Bad enough that my shoes were starting to rub on my right baby toe, but even losing weight has not made up for the fact that I'm just not up to hiking back and forth for hours and hours on end. The scooter was the ultimate save-my-life and money-well-spent to keep me in the game vehicle. It's NOT just for the old and infirmed either... lots of younger able-bodied young MEN were tooling around having a ball just like me. I'll admit it's a little tricky maneuvering it through the thundering herds of bargain hunters, but I found out early on that if I'd park it out of the way and TAKE THE KEY, I could walk around looking to my heart's content and climb back on when I needed to advance again.

In Canton, among other things, I bought a flagpole! I've wanted one for years and this one was just what the doctor ordered. I'm planning on getting the "installation sleeve" sunk in my backyard and have the flags visible above the roof of my house. A USA flag comes in the kit and I bought a Texas flag too. The best part is that since it's telescoping, I can take it down and store it in the garage when it suits me. It'd be nice to fly the flags every day, but I want to display them on important days that call for the honoring of our country, etc.

Last night I was one of 43,803 people who watched the Astros unfortunately get beat in their home opener by the Pittsburgh Pirates. It was a shame that we couldn't hold the lead no matter how slim it was. I blogged some comments on the SportsJustice blog voicing my disdain for Houston fans booing one of their own. IMHO it's just part and parcel for the way people have slipped more than one notch in their personal how-to-behave in public persona's. These are the same people, no doubt, that cut you off in traffic, yak too loudly on their cell phones, can't wait in line two minutes because they have no patience and even fewer manners and generally think ME FIRST is the natural order of the day. In my dictionary they are pictured under JERK. Still and all, I was happy to be there thanks to my good friends Paula and Larry for giving me the ticket and the ride for my birthday present.

My birthday. Gak. I'm now more than 50 and less than 80. Big whoop. The good part is I'm still alive. The bad part is I'm never going to get any younger. When I look back down that long winding road that was my life to this point I'd best be happy with the choices I made as the opportunities are less and less an option. For the most part I am happy with my life so far from my cradle to Depends....not that I'm into the whole pee-when-you-sneeze thing YET. I've got some great kids fathered by a wonderful man who loved me despite my various character flaws. I've been blessed with friends who love me for who and what I am and more than a few of them accept me the way I am and don't try to remake me into their image of what I should be. The one that does makes me laugh and that is valuable in its own right. Oh and I'm one lucky old broad too, that doesn't hurt a bit.

If This Is February, It Must Be Vegas!

I've been in Las Vegas for our annual Vegas-Birthday bash. My best friend Paula's birthday is the 5th and we couldn't go then because it was Super Bowl weekend and Vegas is even more of a traffic jam that weekend than usual, so we picked the weekend of the 9th instead. We left on the 8th and got back on the 12th. I'm still trying to recover.

I thought we'd never get off the airplane last night. We had to circle about 15-20 minutes out and then when we finally got the okay to land, in theory, we had to circle some more and then on the ground we had to TAXI while the plane that was at our assigned gate was still there. They ended up changing our gate to another and we were way late by then. Not that it mattered to us, but many on the flight were trying to get on connecting flights and they were seriously miffed to say the least. The funny part was when we left Vegas the pilot was bragging that we had clear skies and a good tail wind and would most likely be home 20 or 30 minutes BEFORE schedule. Don't you just love it when pilots drink and drive!!

While in Vegas I went to see the Bodies exhibition at the Tropicana! It was AWE-SUM! I'm not kidding! I love that stuff! Everyone who can should go and see it ...... or at least every kid in school! To see a human heart that is perfectly preserved and NOT just a model left me speechless. The way they "splay" something like the muscles and ligaments made it all so much more clear than looking at pictures in books. The blood vessel and veins displays are almost like works of art. In fact, the bodies themselves are ALL like artwork. Leonardo da Vinci would of had a ball!



Just look at that picture! That's a real human body! Can you imagine how being able to see inside the body they way they do would of meant to medical students and such for the past several hundred years? Would anyone EVER start smoking if they could see an actual "black lung"? Not just pictures, but the real deal.....amazing! 'Course that's just me, going off on what a swell exhibit it was ...... the folks I was with all said "euuuuu" and wouldn't of been caught dead there......every pun intended.

We stayed downtown again. I really like Freemont Street for accommodations. You can hit plenty of casinos and spend not one red cent on taxi fares. You can walk back and forth and still not put out as much energy or shoe leather that you would just to walk from the front door at the Flamingo to the front door at Cesar's Palace. The food is okay and the gambling was good because you can still find some of the older style slot machines downtown. I liked the newest ones too.....the giant Wheel Of Fortune that nine people can sit around and when you hit the SPIN the whole wheel in the center revolves. My newest favorite though was something called "Gold Fish". I was winning, or at least not losing badly, until Saturday....then I went nuts and started selecting my machines unwisely and not getting out when I hit something. Sigh. I had a good time though and I take what I can afford to lose and never, ever even think about writing checks or using the ATM machines.

Oh, I forgot to mention, we stayed in the North tower of the Four Queens and it was very nice. I'd love to stay at the Golden Nugget, but it's gotten too pricey since the Landry folks took over. They manage to do that with most of the stuff they touch.....they pretty much ruined Luby's cafeteria with their high prices and changing the way things were done. They don't give old folks a break anymore and they cook with even more grease than the last owners did. Their motto must be "Lots and Lots Of Grease And Salt" means you can sell more expensive iced tea!

I love going to Vegas and I love coming back home. It's a great vacation, but I don't see how anyone would want to live there full time. If you did live there you'd get used to the unrelenting glitz and then what would you do for fun?

On one final note - if it's February, it's also time to wish Happy Birthdays to my baby girl Elaine, my son-in-law Bert and my bud Don! Happy Birthday, y'all!