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The RV adventures of Sparky and (the late) Jett |
We had a day in Colon, Panama, before we entered the Panama Canal. It has a reputation as being dangerous so we didn’t leave the port area. But what a port area! Cheap stores galore. Marlene was in heaven She got a basket full of sundries for $8. And a bottle of nice perfume for $1.50. Amazing.
After dinner we listened to Rockaway Duo for a bit, then hit the casino. I won a bit, but not much.
I had been impressed with the speed of the Jade. For the first two days at sea we had been clipping along at a very fast rate – probably around 24 knots. But when we rose for breakfast we had slowed to a crawl. I had also noticed, from a look at the cruise map, that we had turned from southeast to due south. That puzzled me. But not for long. At breakfast the captain made an announcement that the ship was experiencing engine problems that were preventing it from maintaining the speed needed to keep to the itinerary. And so, he declared, it was necessary to skip Cartagena and head straight to Colon, Panama, where repairs could be made.
Ah, shades of our Carnival Vista (CV2) cruise which also skipped ports due to engine problems. This itinerary change was relatively minor as the only reason I had for visiting Colombia was to be able to claim that I had set foot in South America. A disappointment, but not a major one. But I am concerned what will happen if the engine problem is not fixed in Panama.
We started the day, as usual, by chatting with fellow passengers at breakfast in the buffet. One of the unexpected pleasures so far is the breakfast singing coffee trio. They serve coffee while singing coffee-themed songs, such as “Coffee Queen” (to the tune of “Dancing Queen”). Fun.
Breakfast continued right into a light lunch. We then attended – along with about half the passengers on the ship – a talk about the history of the Panama Canal. Interesting. And sad that so many people – over 30,000 – died in the various attempts to create a canal across Panama.
We had dinner in the second main restaurant – the one at the rear of the ship. We got a table very near the back and had a nice view of the ocean. This dining room is just a bit fancier than the other, partly due to the presence of the ocean. But the ceilings are also higher which gives it a grander feel.
After dinner we found the lounge where the Rockaway Duo was playing. It is a husband/wife due where she sings while he accompanies her on the keyboard. They are pretty good and play some nice dance tunes. We danced.
Our initial impression that this cruise will be very sedate compared to Carnival was confirmed on Day 2. The passengers are mostly older – even older than we are – and seem to be content drinking in the bars, reading and playing cards. But everyone is friendly. We met a couple from California at lunch and a couple from Las Vegas at dinner. I did a lot of reading and we napped a bit.
The food so far is like the ship – good, but not flashy. I won’t starve but I probably won’t ask for their recipes, either.
One thing that has surprised us: the Jade has a very nice pub where the food is free. Have to pay for the beer, of course, and they aren’t cheap (about $10). But I can have a very nice pub meal with a beer for about $10. Haven’t used it yet, but we will.
We ended the day in the casino. We didn’t do well, but we had our choice of machines. The casino on the Jade is not crowded. We need to pace ourselves for 25 days so we won’t have to take out second mortgages to settle our bills.
As usual, we left the packing to the last minute, completing it early Thursday morning, just before we were driven to Tampa by our friend Paul. We were scheduled to board the Norwegian Jade between 12:30 and 1 pm and left, we thought, so that we would arrive by noon. But traffic was heavier than expected, with an accident on I-75, and the last half-mile was a crawl. So we arrived at 12:40. Not late, but not early, either.
The embarkation was surprisingly slow considering the relatively small size of the ship – about 2,200 passengers. The wait was made a bit more exciting by one of the cans of cola that I was carrying letting loose, drenching my back and making a mess in the terminal. We were allowed to bring 24 cans of soda aboard and I was carrying 16 in my backpack. So we boarded with 23 cans of cola.
We got on the ship just as the rooms were ready. We went to our cabin (interior, Deck 5), dropped off our bags then found our way to Deck 12 for some food.
Our initial impression of the Jade… small, tastefully decorated but not flashy at all. The buffet, while very clean and efficiently arranged, lacked character.
We wandered about the ship a bit, figuring out where things were. Took a look at the (closed) casino. Found one solo artist who entertained us as the ship set sail. We were in the (still closed) casino when it passed under the Sunshine Skyway Bridge and headed out to sea. The start of our 25-night cruise to Anchorage.
We had dinner in the buffet and then explored a bit more. The pool looks very nice, but it seems that there will be little in the way of music or shows compared to our Carnival experiences. And the smart phone app that I downloaded appears to be nearly useless.
Not very impressed with the ship or the cruise line so far. But it should still be a terrific itinerary.
The trip actually started Friday when we drove both cars to Coral Springs. We are leaving one car and one dog with Marlene’s brother for the month (sorry, Becky!). We will fly from Anchorage to Miami at the end of the cruise, pick up the car and the dog and return home. Hopefully with many good memories.
Copyright 2013 by Columbus Rose Ltd. Published by Grand Central Publishing, New York.
This is #2 in the series of Baldacci books that feature Will Robie, CIA assassin. In this one Will is tasked with tracking down and killing another CIA assassin who has “gone rogue” and killed her boss and a handler. Yes, “she” – the rogue assassin is a female, Jessica Reel, a woman every bit as lethal as Will and one that he has worked with in the past. Will takes the assignment, knowing full well that Jessica will be gunning for him, just as he is gunning for her. Who will survive?
Will tracks her to a cabin on Maryland’s eastern shore. But the cabin is booby-trapped and Will barely escapes with his life, getting his arm badly burned in the process. He gets the arm treated by a CIA doctor and gets some insights into Jessica’s character and past from the new head of the CIA assassins, a woman who trained Jessica. But he also learns that strange things are happening inside the CIA. Will begins questioning his assignment, especially when he and this woman are attacked and they escape only with the assistance of a sniper who Will suspects is Jessica Reel.
Is Jessica good or bad? And what is going on in the CIA? Will returns the favor for Jessica by saving her life and they soon team up to solve the mystery of the strange happenings in the CIA. It involves a plot that has global implications.
Implausible, but a pretty good read.
6 out of 10.
The 2024 OurWanderYears blog booklet is now available here. It is 102 pages – not huge, but not small either. Be patient if you have a slow connection.
I have not seen Ooma, communicated with her or even thought about her – except briefly when passing by her street on my way to softball, or during my few clandestine visits to the Buckingham Blues Bar (where I am still banned, thanks to her) – in over a year. I have not mentioned her in this blog since January 12, 2024. So imagine my surprise when I found the following comment on that blog entry yesterday (edited slightly to soften the threats):
For two years, a friend has told me that Sparky continues to malign my name on his blog. This is a warning to Sparky to leave me off his blog and not post anymore about me. Far too many of my friends know his nickname for me which is Ooma. The next time my friend tells me that my name has been mentioned on this blog, I will post on this site again and I will post the reason that I ended my relationship with him. I choose not to post it here now because I’m a better person than he is and I will give him a third chance to leave me alone. I will not be lied about any longer in any fashion. So Sparky here is your third warning to leave me alone.
Quite an attack considering I have not mentioned Ooma in more than a year. Indeed, I was leaving her alone. So why message me now? Like the rest of my brief relationship with her, this message baffles me. I have no idea what is running through her strange brain.
She obviously doesn’t know me very well if she thinks I would respond positively to this kind of threat. So, Ooma, here it is – your nickname in my blog once again. Do your worst. Prove what I already know – I am a better person than you. How will I respond if you attack me? I don’t know. Do you want to find out?
I must correct one error in this message: she did NOT end our relationship unilaterally. It ended in July, 2022, in MA, by mutual agreement. Neither of us wanted to continue a relationship that had become toxic. We finished the trip back from New England on good terms, I thought (see my TS8 summary), visiting some nice places along the way and even seeing her sister in Alabama. She even sent me a thank-you note that called it “the road trip of a lifetime.”
My many reasons for ending our relationship were documented in a blog post in March, 2023.
She tried to rekindle our relationship in November, 2022, but when I rejected that attempt, she turned hostile and absurdly tried to obtain a restraining order for stalking based on a single chance encounter we had in downtown Ft Myers in October 2022 – a month before she tried to get me back! Yes, she tried to rekindle a relationship with a guy that she later said had been stalking her! Does that make any kind of sense? It didn’t to me. I resolved to never see her again, never talk to her again. I have moved on; apparently, she is unable to do the same.
By posting a comment like this on my blog she reinforces my opinion that she is the most despicable person I have ever known. Ooma: please go away and stop harassing me.
I was on a Norwegian Cruise Line ship many years ago, with Jett and her son. It went from Boston to Bermuda and back again. A short trip, if I recall – probably 5 days. Not very exciting and not a great ship – very old. But many people speak highly of Norwegian and when Marlene and I saw the 25-night trip from Tampa to Anchorage, we jumped at it. It would knock two big items off of both our bucket lists – the Panama Canal and Alaska. And the many other ports were very attractive as well. So we dug deep and paid for what was, for Marlene, her most expensive cruise ever. And for me, the most expensive cruise since Jett and I took the ill-fated TC1 which ended in Spain rather than in Venice, as it was supposed to.
That first Norwegian cruise predated the start of this blog, so I can’t reference it. But because this will be my second Norwegian cruise I will designate the trip as NCL2.
NCL2 will start in Tampa FL and will end in Anchorage AK. It will have 14 ports of call, only 3 of which are in the continental US (LA, San Francisco and Astoria OR). There is one port in South America (Cartagena Colombia), 4 in Central America (Colon Panama, Puntarenas Costa Rica, San Juan del Sur Nicaragua, Puerto Quetzal Guatemala) plus the Panama Canal transit, 2 in Mexico (Cabo San Lucas and Acapulco) and 3 in Alaska (Ketchikan, Juneau and Skagway) plus a transit of the Hubbard Glacier. That is 13 ports and 2 very interesting transits. We will also spend a few days in Anchorage before flying home. The entire trip, start to finish, will take exactly one month: April 3 to May 3.
It will be epic. Not as epic as the one to come later in 2025, but our most epic yet.
I go back and forth… Is Harlan Coben my favorite author? Or is it John Grisham? They are both terrific writers. They always keep me interested. Grisham, of course, writes about the legal profession while Coben is more of a mainstream mystery writer. How to choose, how to choose.
Why choose? Why not enjoy both?
This Grisham offering is about the rise and fall of Clay Carter, a lowly DC public defender who stumbles into a series of seemingly random murders committed by people with no prior history of violence. He is pondering the odd cases when he is approached by Max Pace, a self-described “fixer” employed by a large pharmaceutical company that has realized that a drug being tested using the city’s poor as guinea pigs, causes this unprovoked violence. The drug has been withdrawn but Pace, representing the unnamed company, wants to nip any nasty lawsuits in the bud. He offers Carter a lucrative deal to sign the parents of the young murderers to contracts that give them $5 million each to forfeit their right to sue.. They all take the deal – why wouldn’t they? – and Carter gets a hefty multi-million dollar payment and financing to start his own firm. He also gets the inside track on another bad drug, Dyloft, which is causing bladder tumors. He launches a class-action lawsuit against the manufacturer and is soon neck-deep in the cutthroat world of mass torts. He is spectacularly successful and collects $100 million in legal fees. From legal defender to the King of Torts in just 6 months! It was a spectacular rise. And, of course, it leads to a spectacular fall.
How it all falls apart is fascinating. The plot is helped along by a interesting group of employees and romantic interests. And it gave me an opportunity to imagine, for a few hours, what life would be like if I became spectacularly wealthy.
It will never happen but it was fun to imagine.
8 out of 10.