We’re now aboard United heading from Fort Lauderdale to Houston, but like always, this laptop is very hard to type on. Plus we’re hitting turbulence. Looks like we just headed out over the Gulf.

They just gave us snacks. Popcorn for me, chips for Tom.

Nothing much to see now out the window. It looks like we’re flying over a huge fluffy bed of marshmallows. I see bits and pieces of the Gulf peeking through, though.

Anyway, I want so much to get caught up on writing about the trip, but I also want to wait till I’m home and on a keyboard I’m used to. I just wish I’d done a better and more organized job at keeping notes. Instead of throwing all my notes together, I should’ve separated them by dates. So I can’t say which day I had NYC steak vs. chicken, for example, but it was one of the days on the ship obviously.

Later…

Combed through my hundreds of emails hoping for a win notice I missed, but nope. I was only congratulated on other people’s wins and the fact that I was offered a discount on various things. rolls eyes

I’m a bit thirsty now, but I’d rather that than have to keep making Tom get up so I can go to the bathroom. We’re about halfway to Houston now anyway, so I’ll survive. We won’t have much of a layover. By the time we get off this plane, we’ll be boarding the one to Sacramento. Can’t wait to get home! These may not be the greatest rats we ever had but I do miss my babies!

Oh, to sleep in my own bed and catch some alone time. No matter how much you may love and get along with family and friends, everyone needs their solitude at times. Unless they’re having the anxiety from hell, of course, to bring on the artificial fear. Speaking of which, I’ve had no tummy butterflies at all on the trip. Just some impatience, exhaustion and disappointment, sprinkled with a few pissed-off moments.

Battery’s now at 85% so I’m just going to write now and then edit/proofread at home. It almost feels like the plane is descending, yet the flight path shows we’re a little over halfway there. We’re over 28K feet, but never got much over about 450 in speed. I’m guessing we’ll go closer to 600 on the way to Sacramento, and higher too, as that’s further away. This flight is just over 2 hours, but the jump from Houston to Sacramento is closer to 4. By the time our shuttle pulls up to our house, it will be dark. I just hope the house is ok! We were never able to access the camera due to firewall issues, but we could at least tell that the computer and other things are still there, including Alexa. If anyone had broken in, those would be the first things they’d have gone for.

We’re under central Louisiana now and I can see a few scattered boats in the Gulf below us.

Had to ask for a Diet Coke as I got too thirsty to wait. I drank half of it. The plane should be dropping soon, so I think I’ll just go ahead and shut down till we’re on our last leg of the trip.

Later…

Dropped out of the sky and into Houston and then hopped back into the air in no time at all. The sun is setting as we head to Sacramento. Really wish we could move to Florida, but see no way to do so before he retires. At least no safe way that isn’t risky. The wages are so much lower there, too. I’ve struggled before and I could do it again. BUT… money really does spoil you in some ways, even if our expenses suck a lot of it up.

Shrimp on a bed of rice will soon be served to me, and Tom will be having pasta.

Took lots of pics on the last day of the cruise, but I didn’t go rock climbing in the end because I was too tired and had enough sun exposure. I didn’t realize it was outside, but I should’ve figured it was on the top deck. That was also where the miniature golf was located and the Flow Rider. The Flow Rider was more fun to watch than to do, so we didn’t bother. All you do is lay or kneel on a surfboard against a very strong current that I’m not sure I would’ve liked dealing with since it would “flip” people up a steep incline when they’d fall off their boards.

There was a lighted “icy blue” bridge leading into one end of the Promenade, and across it was a glass bridge where a 3-piece band played one night. They were nothing special. Just loud.

They had a couple of interesting ice sculptures in the Windjammer, one of which changed colors.