We’ve left Puerto Rico and are headed for the Grand Turk. I’m only just now beginning to have more fun, feel more comfortable, and sleep better, though not as well as I’d like. I could still use 12 hours of uninterrupted sleep, but at least I’m not exhausted to the point of not being able to function.

Some lady is performing now. I can hear the concerts out here on our private little verandah where I am now, but not in the room. I don’t care for any of the music I’ve heard so far. It’s all just there to me. I’ve only heard it from afar, though, whereas Tom has actually been to a few of these concerts. I met Delbert once in the elevator, but Tom’s seen him several times around the ship. I guess he does this cruise every year.

We’re moving slower today for some reason, under partly cloudy skies. Today’s weather is perfect; not too hot/cold or too humid. It’s been averaging in the mid-70s to the lower 80s. It’s not overly windy out here either like it usually is. I guess that’s because we’re going slower. I love how I don’t have to worry about spiders and bees out here.

I see nothing around me but sky and sea. The seas are a bit choppy today. I can see whitecaps all the way out to the horizon.

I’ve wanted to cover the trip as each minute went by, but I also know it’ll be easier to do most of it on the computer afterward. Still, I don’t want to get that behind. Besides, I’ll be so busy trying to catch up on the sweeps when we get back.

I sort of wish I had a modern laptop with me, but that’d be a pain to pack and lug around. The two suitcases and carry-on that we have are enough.

Except for the casino, the ship is a cashless society. Each guest puts money on their key card which is also what’s used to scan when making purchases or leaving/entering the ship at each port of call.

It hasn’t been as hard to find my way around the ship as I thought it would be. Perhaps that’s because half of the floors are staterooms, as they call them rather than cabins, belonging to both guests and crew. There are really only 4 other floors we’ve been doing things on. We’re on deck 4. Deck 9 is the Lido deck. That’s where the free dining is, though they only serve food during certain hours. They have a small variety of things, and personally, Tom and I don’t think the food is that great, though it’s certainly good. It’s different than what we usually buy at the grocery store. There’s Italian, a bistro, the Wok, a deli, and a section for drinks and sweets. I’ve mostly been getting rice and diced watermelon from the Chinese section, though their sushi sucks! Juice and plain coffee are free, but the gourmet coffee and teas sold down on a lower deck get charged to our card, as does soda and alcohol, though we don’t drink so there are no charges for that. We haven’t had soda either.

They only had lobster once at the bistro, but it wasn’t a whole lobster. It was just a lobster tail. I could’ve had 5 of them!

Also on deck 9 are two pools at either end, one a family pool by the grill that serves cheeseburgers, veggie burgers and fries (the veggie burger sucked!), and another one for mainly adults. Each pool has whirlpools by them, but they were closed till now which sucks.

At the very top are the observation deck and a basketball court with a rope fence.

We had fun swimming in the adult pool earlier. It was so cool how the water sloshed around and made waves due to the ship’s movements.

Decks 2 and 3 are where the casinos are, along with a photo and art gallery, a shop that mostly sells jewelry, and the coffee shop I’ve been to a few times. The shop has a little drugstore and also sells clothing which is pretty expensive, and designer perfume as well. I like spraying various testers on myself. I even got Angel body spray for $24 which isn’t sold in the US. In the US they only have larger quantities for $60. It’s the second version of Angel I don’t care for as much, but still good, nonetheless. I’m amazed at how identical it smells to the incense!

If I remember the names of the decks, there’s the A deck, the lower promenade, promenade, upper promenade, lower verandah, verandah, upper verandah, Rotterdam, navigation, Lido, and the observation deck.

I lost the first jewelry raffle they had, but if I win today’s I’ll get $50 worth of chain/gems that are on spools and sold by the inch.

I’m not at all impressed with the casino. Not only do I gag on cigarette smoke there, but these machines are obviously rigged not to pay shit. I would at least hold my own for a while even when I didn’t win in Arizona and Vegas, but not here. Here I lose my money right away. Even their scratch tickets are a joke. We lost all 5 that he bought. Never do we get 5 losing tickets in a row elsewhere.

Later…

More sun is now hitting this verandah, but I thought I’d write a little more anyway. I took a break for lunch at The Wok. Sometimes Tom and I do things together, other times we’re off by ourselves. We’re going swimming again later when the sun’s not as strong. I love the waves the ship’s motion causes within the outer pool. There’s a wooden bench that runs along the outside, then the outer pool for the water to spill over into with walls that are 2 or 3 feet high. The water’s usually ankle-deep in this area. Neither of the pools are diving pools because they’re not very deep.

Later…

I didn’t win today’s jewelry raffle.

Tom’s catching Delbert now and soon we’ll go for another swim. For now, I’ll backtrack a bit.

Portland is different than Klamath Falls. It rarely snows there. Instead, they get a lot more rain. It rained the whole time we were there, which was less than 24 hours. We got to our amazingly quiet motel room at around 7 PM and an hour later we were both asleep. We got up at 4:00 and got to the airport a couple of hours later. It was then that I came to love people from Kansas. It’s getting a little warm out here, though, so I’ll get into it later.

Later…

It got a bit toasty and bright for a while there, but now it’s cloudy and nice. It’s even drizzling a bit, too. It poured while we were docked in Puerto Rico yesterday. It’s just so beautiful overall. I’d kill to live at sea on a boat, but no, Jodi can’t live where Jodi wants.

Okay, now I’ll explain why I dig people from Kansas. We got out of the cab at the Portland airport and the cabbie pulled our suitcases from the trunk. Then he called out to us, saying we dropped something. Well, that something was some lady’s purse. Her ID said she was from Kansas. Because I had gloves on, I didn’t want Tom to handle it much. His prints are on file too, from working at the bank and from being in the Air Force. So, feeling like a major criminal, I took the purse into the restroom before entering the concourse. The last thing I needed was to get caught with someone else’s driver’s license and credit cards. Therefore, I cleaned out the cash, which turned out to be a whopping $260, before leaving it in one of the stalls. What a bonus! I can’t help but feel bad for this lady, though, whoever she is. That’s quite a bit to lose. Let’s hope she’s rich or wins the lottery to make up for it.

Where it’s dark by 5:00 in Oregon, it doesn’t get dark till 6:30 here, so it’s just now getting pleasant on the verandah. Sometimes at night, especially when we’re going faster, it can get chilly and windy out here. I love how I can turn on the light without having to worry about bugs flocking to it.

Anyway, when we landed in Atlanta, we had a 4-hour layover. I was pretty tired, so it wasn’t very fun. We ate and I got coffee to help stay awake. I also got a little pillow that goes around the neck to make the rest of my flying time a bit more comfortable.

The trains were way roomier than the planes. I sort of wish we’d gotten a sleeper car but am more glad we didn’t cuz of the money we saved. While they gave free snacks on the plane, the food on the train was ridiculously expensive. They had a dining car and maybe 15 passenger cars in all. We were towards the back, so when the track veered off to the right, we could see the cars in front of us. It was funny to look through the window and see the car in front of us bobbing up and down along the tracks.