SLC Pre-tour and Day 1 of BCEC Collectors Tour

 

Pre-tour Pics

June's Pizza will be selling pork pizza for quite a while

Le Merdien Hotel: Suite mit bathtub, and only lukewarm water

Is this the Book of Mormon or the DVD of Book of Mormon

Great dinner with AR and RR at Pago's, we close the place at 9+pm, last diners to leave

Day one of the Tour

Rooftop bathroom tiles driving THB crazy

Two other guys working out, THB sees both in the hotel dining area about an later

tell me again, which button does TH push to go back to floor 3

Everywhere THB goes, EVERYWHERE (even at Peets) the coffee machine needs repairing. SLC is no exception

THB has hot cakes with lemon curd and side of Greek (!) yogurt, do they have Greek yogurt in Greece? Stay tuned...

Room 310 is quadruple protected...do all four go off at same time?

Do you think DJT will "encourage" Le Meridien to get new signage?

Trimpin is back!! This guy makes musical instruments of the oddest things, here it clogs

AMBER ALERT - AMBER ALERT - AMBER ALERT

the cameo to the computer to the blog software has failed again, this time with a brand new error message

Blogging will continue (fingers crossed) when THB arrives home on Thursday. 

Greece and Turkey will most likely be the same, 3+ weeks of travel and no updates until back the last week of April 

NCECA (Ceramics show) in SLC and more random pics, news, etc.

 Annals of Finance: at the end of  our Caribbean cruise, DB submitted an overview to WindStar of our Wind Surf experience. That resulted in a refund of $570 for one  of our doomed snorkel excursions and $400 of credits to be used on our next WindStar cruise - 8 days in April, starting in Athens and ending in Istanbul. 

Art Pic of Q1 2025 (THB has no idea of where, when, what or even how this was taken)

runner-up: sorry mate, it is a do over, the bin liners go on the inside!!

Dinner at the Meatery in Seaside: 4 soups, recipes for 6; with wine pairing, $110/pp, 8 soup lovers taking the class  

Pre-game: fried pigs ears

Chef/owner of The Meatery: Father / Daughter team. 

Chef is very entertaining and had some good tips

soup #1 Red Lentil 

Chef wielding a mixer: either he's not tall enough or the counter is way too high

Soup #2 Potato Leek

Cava, Chardonnay first two pairings

Pinot Noir (Chef's son is the wine "curator")

Soup #3 Gumbo

Soup #4 White Bean, house-made Chorizo, and Clams

Random Pics

Home Depot does a building project one Saturday a month: inability to read small print or wield a screwdriver or hammer safely eliminates THB and he heads off for pastries and cookies for the crew,  just a shot walk away

Sunrise in February

Pic taken by LB; it is raining and sunny on the Salinas Valley side 

2025 Caribbean Cruise: Observations

 2025 Caribbean Cruise Observations

OVERALL WE HAD A VERY GOOD TIME, AND REALLY ENJOYED CRUISING WITH OUR COMPANIONS MB AND RF

THB AND RF ARE CELEBRATING B'DAY #76 IN FEBRUARY...WE COULDD BE TWINS EXCEPT RF ALREADY HAS A TWIN...TRIPLETS?

THB lost a backup pair of glasses and DB found his missing red trunks

The Caribbean 

1. The water around every island and every beach was this gorgeous  turquoise and very clear. 
2. Snorkeling was site specific, generally rocky coastline was best. Don't expect pretty coral or much fish. THB is going to Maui in June and will report on the snorkeling there. 
3. The islands changed  after 2017 when Hurricane Irma wiped out  much of their infrastructure. There are very few birds, blown elsewhere. A number of houses have been denuded, leaving just concrete walls.
4. The last two years of increases in the water temperature have hastened the loss of hard coral. There aren't many fish  in the best spots, very few species. However the water is very,  very clear, with visibility down to 20+ feet, and thus you can see fish in deep water.
5. THB and DB hardly visited the small towns where the Wind Surf anchored. Small to dinky, monotonous small shops. THB had no interest in touring on land. 
6. The Ocean Bay Beach Resort in St. Maarents was just okay, nothing special. Better than the all-inclusive in Baja where we spent 3 days watching Canadians drink themselves silly.
7. Almost no one smoked...on the ship, off the ship
8. COVID masks were seen, more in airports (5%?) than elsewhere

Wind Surf (the Ship)

1. The suite was very nice, shower terrific, plenty of closet space 
2. One of two thermostats had its wires crossed and warm setting = cold air. We told maintenance not to open the  ceiling to fix the problem until after we departed.
3. Our cruise mates' TV never worked.
4. One of two broken tenders never worked, one was repaired mid-cruise; this helped get excursioners off-loaded once one was operational. 
5. There is on US outlet and one European outlet per room (not enough for the typical cruiser nowadays)
6. Overall the staff was extremely friendly.
7. The sailing was at night and we never got a good look at the sails.
8. The intercom in the cabin was turned off, so the door had t be open if THB or DB needed to hear general announcements. Three should have had been a switch in the cabin so cruisers had the option to turn on or off (most of other ships have this capability)
9. Food in general was very good, though as the week went on basics started disappearing.
10. The Marina (where water equipment could be checked out) was suppose to be open from 10-4: well what does "daily" mean? what does 10am mean?
11. Consensus among other cruisers: Wind Surf service levels have continue to drop over time. 

WindStar (the cruise line)

1. UH OH!!!! CODE RED!!!!! 

COMMUNICATION FAILURES ABOUNDED: Almost too many to itemize

• Not easy to get hold of the Miami customer service center
• Wind Surf excursion staff was left out to sea when Miami excursion information was out to sea (lost data sets?)
• Credits showed up on our AMEX statement before our departure with no explanation
• 5 of 6 excursions listed on Day 1 were unavailable when we got on board and the excursion desk was left out of the loop. After talking to the staff and management, THB felt like the truthiness was of epidemic proportions.
• Dinner reservations were available starting on Day 1 at 4pm aboard ship; nobody told us 
• etc.
• etc.
• Consensus among other cruisers: WindStar service levels may have continued to drop over time and they keep signing up, over and over again (19 times was the highest we heard, 4 or 6 was common)

OVERALL WE HAD A VERY GOOD TIME, AND REALLY ENJOYED CRUISING WITH OUR COMPANIONS MB AND RF

Book Review

The Devil At His Elbow, Alex Murdaugh and the Fall of a Southern Dynasty, Valerie Bauerlein (read by Maggi-Med Reed): How many generations of lawyers does it take for a family tradition to end in disgrace? Not that many given the right set of conditions: strong sense of entitlement, concentration of power, opioid abuse, inbreeding in a small community, and the ability to bully and cow the local citizens into submission. Highly Recommended (THB will watch the Netflixx series soon)

Virgin Gorda to Saint Barthelemy and then back to St. Maarten: Post 1,000

THB's 1,000,000,000 POST

 SAINT BARTHELEMY 

is a French-speaking Caribbean island commonly known as St. Barts, and is an overseas collectivity of France (say what? collectivity????)

Daily Update

• Weather: Sunny and warm
• THB feels like crap this morning: too much fun  in the sun? The beer at lunch yesterday? Too much  time on the travel PC? Good news: THB recovers to  go on a catamaran ride to a great snorkeling spot. HURRAY
• St BART is known as the home of the ultra rich, and we tour Gustavia. THB and DB enter exactly one shop...HAH! some of you are mind readers, yep it is La Boulangerie Choisy
• Time to pack up, the crew picks up the bags tomorrow at 6:30am for an excision prior to our flight to Dulles (fingers crossed)

Big ships in the St Bart harbor

The catamaran taking the snorkelers for a ride. THB thought the cat very dangerous: slippery when wet and not much flat walking space 

another excellent snorkeling spot. One person in the group was late to the pre-meeting, late to getting on the tender,  late to getting on the catamaran, and it took two different boat guys to tow here aboard....she almost ended up lost at sea. 

the equivalent of a spotter on a safari truck?

three pastries, two loaves, ice coffee, and THB and KB did not visit this boulangerie when we were in Paris last summer. Total somewhere around $20-25

Gustavia harbor at sunset

SAINT MAATEN 

(back to where we started the cruise)

Daily Update: 

• Weather: Same as it ever was
• Up early to put the bags outside our cabin at 6:30am
• Take a very short ride to another part of the marina to be shuttled to either one of  two 1987 America's cup yachts for a short race between Canada and USA
• THB ends up a mid-boat  grinder and DB is timekeeper and bartender. The ride is thrilling (about 45 minutes long), and THB ends up with lower back pain

RF is one of two team captains, picking their crew...schoolyard stuff!

Canadian boat

USS Greenland boat (or is Iceland) is now a USA Collectivity

half of the primary grinders

other half

Morgan is our skipper

the rear grinder (one grind on left and one on right), with MB on right winding rope as needed

Off to D.C., and the Dulles airport Marriott...DB and HB and 15 others are frozen solid after waiting over 15 minutes for the hotel van to show up HOW COLD WAS IT: 20 degrees Fahrenheit. One part of our room is over bright

Book Review - The Road, Cormac McCarthy (read by Tom Stechschute, pub’d 2006): Another of THB’s favorite authors tells an apocalyptic tale of a father and son (nameless) trying to outrun the death (cause unnamed) of the planet. Only a few things are left alive. Highly Recommended (for adults only)