Journeying with Jan

 Paul and I left our kitties, Tinker and Belle, in the care of house sitter Laura on Saturday evening. We drove to the home of Peggy and  Bruce Hoppes in San Antonio to spend the night and catch an early ride to the airport in the morning. There is something weird going on at United Airlines.  We have not flown with them in over a decade. We could not understand their carry on policy from the website. It sounded like you could take your one “personal” item, but bringing a carry-on suitcase was sketchy.  So we very carefully planned the items we might need onboard with us for the  ten or so hours we’d be traveling, including overnight. When we were in the process of boarding they asked for volunteers to check their carry on bags for free. Naturally, we did not volunteer, because we had an international flight ahead of us.  We could have gotten along just fine if they were offering to check them to the next stop, which was Newark, but the only option was to ...

 Last stop before our return to Boston.  On one hand, it’s sad that our long cruise is quickly coming to an end.  On the other hand, it was a bit of an anticlimactic stop for me.  Another bus ride… grateful it wasn’t also a tender trip to shore!  Paul says this was his favorite of all the shore excursions. Maybe because it reminds him of northern Michigan.  I, on the other hand, am not a big fan of the landscape of northern Michigan. In 1749 Edward Cornwallis was sent to Halifax to build a garrison and settlement. He had 2600 settlers.  Today the capitol city was a population of 400,000.  All of Nova Scotia has 1 million. Halifax has seen and assisted in its share of disasters.  In 1912 the Titanic sank about 700 nautical miles from Halifax. About 700 got into lifeboats and were taken to New York. The dead were taken to Halifax. 209 bodies were brought here and interred in three cemeteries— the Roman Catholic, the nondenominational, and the J...

 St. John’s turned out to be more interesting than we expected, mainly due to the narrow harbor entrance and the very protected harbor. It was raining when we arrived and took our first foray into the town, although it was 60, so not terribly unpleasant. We came back to the ship for lunch and a brief rest before we reported for our excursion. By then the rain had more or less stopped, but at times it was foggy. St. John’s is a colorful town with a great mix of architectural styles.  The harbor itself is charming! The harbor through dirty windows! Funny thing happened at the lighthouse. As we were walking back down the path, we heard a fog horn out in the distance. As we approached a certain building, the horn blew again, louder this time — ah, must be getting closer. This happened a few more times. Then we came to a sign that said the sound may damage your ears, and just about that time, an ear piercing horn sounded from the building! It was the lighthouse horn! Cabot Tower an...

 As our ship was preparing to leave Qaqortoq we noticed a large fire on shore, but away from town. Someone did a google earth search and realized it was their tire dump on fire. No idea how it started, but it appears that the town itself is safe from the fire.  The winds picked up the black smoke and dispersed it. Before supper the ship had Block Parties in each of the hallways.  Folks came out of their rooms and socialized. There was plenty of wine and soda and snack plates. It was fun, but we all wished they had done it much earlier in the cruise.

 What a picturesque little town! There is no port here, only tenders. We went onshore at 10am with fellow Fredericksburgers, Tim and Rhonda Lange. It was quite foggy until about noon, so most of my pictures are not as colorful as the town really is. Our travel guide told us yesterday that he would give us a dollar for every tree we saw, and that if we didn’t see any, we would owe him a dollar. Well, I saw at least 8 trees in town today! We’ll see how good his word is! Scale at the fish market and a fresh catch of salmon  Fog greets us. Whales spouting atop fountain  Rock Art The Ungers and the Langes The Zuiderdam in the foggy harbor  Cat on a roof This is an adorable place!  Expand the pictures to see more detail.