Atlanta Baltimore Dallas Memphis Gatorland and St Augustine

Atlanta

            The World of Coca-Cola Museum had just been refurbished when we visited Atlanta.  The best display, the all you can drink soda fountains with Coke products from around the world, was still there but the old Flying Coke display, where Coke was shot out of a spigot that you had to catch in your glass, was not.  It probably made too much of a mess to keep as a permanent display.  The best new attraction was the Coke Polar Bear.  The people who produced The Muppets designed this life-size animatronics bear; it could move its eyelids, shift its neck in many different directions, and walk like you would suppose a real bear would walk.  Inside of the bear was a computer, a camera, a television monitor, and a fan to keep the puppeteer cool. It was an engineering marvel and it was the highlight of our visit to Atlanta because we weren't expecting it.  When we walked into the auditorium the Coke Bear was seated off to the side and we thought that it was a statue because it was sitting so still.  The bear snuck up on us while we were paying attention to a presentation, so my girls didn't realize that he was right behind us, and they squealed with delight when they realized that the seven-foot polar bear had come to life.  Of course, we took many pictures, and I framed the best of them we got back home, where they remain proudly displayed. 

            After the Coke Museum, we went to the Georgia Aquarium.  There were all sorts of fish and tunnels made of glass so you could see the fish from above and below the surface, and from all sides.  There were small pools where you could reach out and touch a starfish, stingray, shark, and shrimp.  The aquarium had four major sections but my favorite was watching the Beluga whales.  The whales were the size of a small house and yet the pool that was built for them was so large that it gave the whales more than enough freedom to roam.  If the kids weren't asking me to take them to get something to eat, I think that I could have stayed all day at the floor to ceiling glass enclosed viewing area of the whales

Baltimore

On our way to Baltimore we stopped at Monticello, in Charlottesville, to see Thomas Jefferson's estate.  The kids were only mildly interested in the main house but they did like the clock in the foyer, the dumb waiter in the kitchen, and the automatic doors.  We took a tour of the grounds but Virginia became bored and started to dig up the dirt in the back yard where the slave quarters used to be.  She was only eleven at the time and said that there weren't any slave cabins so we were looking at where everything used to be but there was nothing there now, so she played in the dirt.  The working farm and the beauty of the mountaintop location did not impress her.  We were supposed to be at Monticello for the better part of the day but we stayed for less than two hours.

            As we continued our journey north we decided to see the Smithsonian Air and Space Annex which is located near the Dulles International Airport.  The Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the atomic bomb, was of particular interest to me because I teach my U.S. history and world history students about how WWII ended in the Pacific every school year.  My kids, however, weren't interested so we left after only an hour and a half.  I thought that all the exhibits on flight and the space missions would take but since nothing stuck to them the better part of valor would be to move on.

            On the second day of our trip we drove to Fort McHenry and learned about the War of 1812.  They had a great video on the war and some artifacts, including the star spangles flag display. 

            The balance of the day was spent at Baltimore's Inner Harbor where there were enough shops and museums to make even my hard to please children happy.  The highlight of the day was the Duck Tour, where the vehicle drove us through the streets of Baltimore and then our guide drove it into the water to navigate the inner harbor.  We were given quackers, or duck call whistles, when we got on the boat and the tour guide encouraged us to use them as loudly and as often as possible.  I told the girls, "As soon as we get off this duck I am taking away your quackers," and then I had to stop and check myself because I couldn't believe that sentence came out of my mouth.  Grant quickly became tired of the girls doing duck calls and he coped by walking twenty feet in front of us and pretended that he didn't know us.  A fellow obnoxious tourist loudly said to Grant, "Hey aren't you with them?  Isn't that your family?"  Grant walked even further from us because now he was truly embarrassed while the girls, being egged on by the obnoxious tourist, began to blow on their duck calls even louder.

            The Inner Harbor had other attractions and we shared a ride in a paddle boat.  However, all three kids were arguing with each other over about the direction and speed that they were going.  All three got out of the boat, after a half hour ride, and were complaining bitterly.  I tried to distract them by moving onto the next thing and asked them, "What do you want to do next?"  Virginia replied, "Let's do the paddle boats again!"  Lillian responded with, "Yeah, because that worked out so well the first time."  Her voice was dripping with sarcasm and, following her lead, we decided that maybe we should stay off of the water for a while.  Instead, we ate lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe, visited an authentic lighthouse and a WWII submarine, and rounded out the day with a tour of the USS Constellation.

            Our final stopover was the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis.  I wanted to introduce my three children to the military services and we had a great tour of the Academy.  It was much bigger than I expected it to be and our tour guide told us that the Naval Academy had its own vocabulary: we were not on a campus but must refer to it as the yard.  The floor is referred to as the deck.  The newly arrived freshmen were not cadets, as they would be called at West Point, but were plebes and everyone else was called Midshipmen.  We saw the freshmen dorms and a twenty-one-foot monument that was greased up by the upperclassmen and then made the plebes climb up as part of their indoctrination to the Naval Academy.  We couldn't take a ride in the sailboats but the underclass men were encouraged to take out a boat any time that they wanted because they needed to strengthen their sailing skills.  Finally, what made the strongest impression was the pool that they used for training because it was the best indoor pool that I had ever seen.  It was an Olympic size pool with a 30-foot diving platform and it was all inside.  I had never seen anything like it and, as an avid swimmer, the pool alone made me want to attend the Naval Academy.

Dallas

            We only spent one day in Fort Worth and we went to the old stockyards that had been turned into a Cow Town tourist attraction.  For the most part, the stockyards had been converted into a shopping mall but it did have some interesting things for us to see.  There was a cattle maze for the kids to run through, a mechanical bull for the kids to ride until they were thrown off, and we got to watch a cattle drive that went ride through the middle of the street.  It was fun because we had never done anything like this before and I am sure that the kids will brag to their friends about their trip to Cow Town.

            While in Dallas we went to the Sixth Floor Museum and looked out of the same window that Lee Harvey Oswald used to shoot President Kennedy.  They had all sorts of exhibits but the most disturbing thing that we saw was the video on the assassination.  It showed Kennedy's head exploding in graphic detail and there was a large picture of Jackie Kennedy with her husband's blood all over her dress.  Usually that part of the picture is cropped out and Virginia, especially, became distressed watching the video and seeing the picture.

            On the second day in Dallas we went to the Heritage Village where the city had relocated a bunch of historical buildings from the surrounding area and put them all into one place.  My daughters liked it because they could play inside the school, hotel, and train station without being restricted by barrier ropes or over bearing tour guides.  We were given full access with our paid admission and, because it was during the work week, we had the place virtually to ourselves

            The highlight to our day in Little Rock was visiting the Clinton Presidential Library, which was a lot bigger than I thought and full of exhibits.  They had a timeline of Clinton's two terms in office and it included pictures, text, and videos throughout the display.  Many of the unusual and expensive gifts that Clinton received while in office were on display and there was a reproduction of Clinton's Oval Office and his cabinet room.

Memphis

            Our first stop in Memphis was Graceland and we knew that Elvis' mansion would be a tourist trap but we liked it any way.  His residence was much bigger than I expected and the curators kept it exactly as Elvis had left it when he died in 1977.  My children would say that their favorite room was the Jungle Room because there was a ceramic tiger and carpet on the ceiling.  Outside of the mansion were Elvis' airplanes, his cars, and a pasture where he kept his horses.  In the back yard was his grave site and it seemed a little out of place since we were celebrating Elvis’ life and would prefer to forget about the way that he died.

            One major problem for us at the estate was that we were handed iPads to take a self-guided tour.  It was nice that they had an auditory guide but there was no raised lettering on the devices.  We have been to other museums where that gave us a hand held player with raised lettering, but the iPad is smooth so my blind wife couldn’t work it.  I did my best to describe the mansion as we walked through it but Tracey quickly grew irritated with the sound of my voice and, on top of the lack of accommodations for the handicapped, we thought it best if we made a mostly silent walk through Elvis Presley’s house.

            On Friday night we went out to eat at “Rendezvous,” which we were told is the best place for ribs in Memphis.  It was an old time restaurant with pictures of famous people who had eaten there strategically placed throughout the building.  The decor was a throwback to the 1950s.  It felt like we had transported ourselves back in time; the waiters wore white shirts and black ties, the ribs were prepared from a time-honored recipe, and the whole meal was exactly how we thought ribs in Memphis should be like.

            We stayed at a hotel located about a half block away from Beale Street so that Tracey and the kids had easy access to the party district.  Since it was Labor Day Weekend, there was a free concert in the park and I enjoyed leaning against the W.C. Handy statue, my face getting full sun on an unseasonably warm late summer day, and listened to the jazz and blues.  When the kids got bored, we took a tour of the Gibson Guitar Factory and the Rock and Soul Museum, and then walked down to the Mississippi River to see the new park that the city had just completed.

            Tracey and I turned in early but the kids saw the drunken night life on Beale.  As the evening progressed the crowds became too much for them because it became difficult to move, even in the middle of the street.  Virginia was offered a free puppy if she would agree to go down a dark alley so that a sketchy photographer could take her picture.  Fortunately, Virginia knows enough not to stray off the main path while visiting a strange city, so she moved away from the photographer quickly.  A little later Grant and Virginia became stuck behind a couple of drunk girls on Beale.  The drunks could barely talk, much less walk in a straight line, and one of the girls turned to her friend and slurred, “Sarah, look at me.  Sarah, you are embarrassing yourself.  Sarah!”  She repeated this over and over again for some time, apparently not realizing that they were equally drunk and both were embarrassing themselves with public intoxication.  This isn’t unusual on Beale Street, but it is still unseemly.

Gatorland, Disneyworld, St. Augustine

Virginia and I drove 2,100 over the Thanksgiving weekend to spend some time with Lillian and Tanner.  We drove through the night and arrived in Orlando in time to spend two hours at Gatorland.  For me, travel is all about experiencing something new and we were able to take in a gator wrestling show, something that I have never seen before, and we were enthralled as a trainer flipped an alligator onto its back and then we watched to gator pass out.  Then the trainer put the gator back on its stomach and tickled it until the gator woke back up.  Cracking jokes throughout the whole presentation, the trainer put his head into the gator's mouth, and then finished the day by putting on a show called Gator Jump-A-Roo where the gators jumped out of the water to snatch some dead chickens which were strung out on a wire.

            On Thanksgiving Day we went to Disneyworld's Animal Kingdom and we had a wonderful time.  The forecast was for an 80 percent chance of rain but we never saw a drop but the crowds were thin because the locals stayed away because of the predicted bad weather.  Virginia and I started our day at the old section and we had parts of the place virtually to ourselves.  There was no line at Mount Everest and Kali River so we did those rides twice in rapid succession.  The Tiger Trail was empty and when we made our way to the viewing room, where there were no tourists, there was a massive Bengal tiger staring at us through the window.  Once he saw us walk in it was almost as he had said to himself, "Well hello!  I have been waiting for you.  Now that you're here I guess that I should go and start doing my tiger stuff."  We watched him get into his tiger pool and prance around the huge cage.  It was the highlight of my day.

            After having our Thanksgiving dinner at the Rain Forest Cafe, we went on the Mount Kilimanjaro truck drive through the animal preserve.  Rhinos nudged right up to the side of the truck and we saw a baby elephant, covered in dirt, jumping and playing with her sister.  While on the truck we had an up close view of lions and giraffes and cheetahs and it was wonderful.  When the tour was finally finished in the middle of the afternoon we decided to go to the new Pandora section and do the Flight of Passage ride.  Unfortunately, we got stuck next to an old couple did nothing but complain about the length of the wait time and, since one of the rides broke down, we had to listen to the complaints for three hours.  The Flight of Passage was a cool 3D ride but it wasn't worth hearing the old couple trash talk Disney for wasting their valuable time for a couple of hours.

            On the way to visit my eldest daughter, Lillian, in Jacksonville, my youngest daughter and I decided to go to the Kennedy Space Center on Black Friday.  We took a bus front the visitor's center and drove to the launch pad where the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo rockets took off.  They had a huge hanger that displayed an actual Saturn V rocket and Virginia was surprised at the enormity of it.  The rocket dwarfed us as we stood next to it.  Back at the visitor's center, we saw the Hall of Heroes which celebrated the early space program pioneers like Glenn, Schirra, and Yeager.

            Saturday was dedicated to St. Augustine where we visited the Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum.  I thought that it was nothing but kitsch but the kids liked it and we ended up spending almost the whole morning there.  St. George Street is the main tourist thoroughfare in the old section and we strolled through it, enjoying the morning sun, and stopping for home made ice cream before we got back into the car.  We then drove to The Wild Reserve, a private sanctuary, to see the rescue tigers and lions.  The most memorable part of our afternoon in the reserve was when the volunteers provoked the lions and tigers into roaring and jumping.  The tigers stood on their back legs, using their front legs to press against the wire fence, and opening their mouths so wide that we could clearly see their canine teeth pointing out, trying to attack the volunteer.  One tiger drew a bead on the little children, looking at them like they were chicken nuggets and wanting nothing more than to eat them.  Another tiger was fed but wouldn't eat his lunch until he had roared to warn us away so that he could give his meal his full attention and not worry about the tourists interrupting him.  The Wild Reserve also featured rescued hyenas, a bear, and a bobcat but it was the lions and tigers who made the deepest impression.  The volunteers treated the lions like big pet cats, and the lions ran up to the volunteers to be petted and stroked.

Minneapolis

On Monday we went to the Science Museum of Minnesota

            On Tuesday we went to the Waterpark of America is the largest indoor waterpark in the world. 

            On Wednesday we went to Camp Snoopy, or, as it is now called, The Park at the Mall of America.  It is an amusement park inside of the largest mall in the world.  It held two roller coasters and a log flume.

The Biltmore

            We spent the morning

Kansas, Chicago, Boston, New York, Pittsburgh, Las Vegas

                   Kansas April 2008
   On our very last car trip together as a family, I decided to drive to Kansas because it is an easy drive.  The kids had decided before we left that this wasn't going to be a good trip so there was continuous complaining throughout our vacation.  They wouldn't tell any of their friends where they were going for spring break and the constant joke was that I was trying to convince them that their friends, who may be going to Florida or Cancun, would be jealous of our trip to Kansas.  As much as I tried to sell it, the kids kept asking me why we were going to Kansas for spring break.  The question turned into a running joke, so much so that when we returned from our trip we saw a license plate from Kansas and Lillian said, "I'll bet all of their friends are asking them why they went to Kentucky for spring break!"
   Our first stop was at The Old Cowtown Museum but, since it hadn't opened for the season, I had to arrange a special tour with the staff.  We had made plans to visit Kansas for spring break, not realizing how cold Kansas was in April, and our tour guide suffered through freezing temperatures to give us a private tour.  The Cowtown was a collection of old historical buildings that the state had paid to move to one spot.  We were only there for an hour before the rain set in but the kids did get to play a yard bowling game and we took a few selfies before getting back into the car to warm up.
   A short drive from Wichita to Hutchinson to visit The Cosmosphere.  It seems unlikely that a museum on the plains of Kansas would have enough artifacts for an exhibit, much less a full museum, but they started their collection early and had obtained quite a few artifacts.  They had pieces from all of America's space missions and a collection from Russia as well.  The highlight of our trip to The Cosmosphere was a demonstration at Dr. Goddard's Lab where a staff member blew things up to the delight of the kids in the audience.
   From Hutchinson we moved on to Abilene to see the Eisenhower Presidential Museum, which was a treat because all of the presidential museums are done so well.  They had many displays at the museum but my favorite was the one that had all of the gifts that were given to Eisenhower; there was a mosaic desk from the Shah of Iran, an elegantly carved elephant tusk from NGO Diem of Vietnam, and a vase which named all of Britain's colonies from Queen Elizabeth II.
   We were supposed to see "The Wizard of Oz" museum next but we arrived too early and it wasn't open yet.  The museum looked more like a shop than anything else and, since it was cold and we would have to wait an hour for it to open, I decided to push on.  The problem was that this museum was to be the highlight for my youngest daughter, Virginia.  She loves the movie so, before I told her we were leaving, I took a really good selfie with her.  Then I packed her into the car and told her that we weren't stopping until we got to Kansas City.  Of course she was upset and wouldn't talk to me for the rest of the day.
   Finally, all of the preliminary excursions were over, and we made it to the main event.  The World War I Museum in Kansas City is the only national memorial dedicated exclusively to the Great War and I couldn't wait to see it because my grandfather fought in the war and I wanted to learn more about the biggest conflict in European history aside from WWII.  The problem was that at this point in the trip the kids were almost ready to openly rebel.  Nothing was going to make them happy.  I showed them the interactive table where you could use a laser pointer to manipulate and change the display.  They were uninterested.  We stepped into the booths where WWI music was playing and you could choose any song of that era that you wanted to hear.  Still, no enthusiasm from my three.  The recruiting posters, uniforms, and faux battlefield didn''t do it for them and all they wanted was to go out to lunch..   If I could pinpoint the exact moment when I decided never to do a car trip again with my children it would be as we were leaving the wonderful World War I Museum, that had everything in the world to offer to impressionable young minds, and my three turned their noses up at it in favor of lunch.
   Lunch it was and we settled on a place called Fritz's.  The kids liked the restaurant better than any museum that we went to because they had a phone at every table and you just called in your order and an electric train brought your food to you.  Sure,, it was gimmicky, but the kids loved it and that is all that mattered.  Maybe we should have started out at Fritz's and then went to the World War I Museum when they were full and happy.

   Our last excursion on our trip was to see the Truman Presidential Library in Independence, Missouri.  It was unique because there were a lot of video clips attached to the displays and there were a couple of small theaters where they ran video quizzes of th major presidential decisions of Truman.  Our visit began with a 45 minute video and then I set the kids free to explore the museum on their own..  They came back in about ten minutes and claimed that they had seen everything that was of interest to them and, of course,, when I asked them for details they couldn't provide any to me.  I had to take them by the hand and drag them through the museum and only the promise of lunch kept them in check.  Kansas City is known for its barbecue so we drove back downtown to a really nice ribs place called Jack Stack where I had one of the best meals of my life.  As we walked back to the car we all shared nerd moment when we began to sing the WWI songs of "Tipperary" and "Over There."  It was uncharacteristic of my kids to sing out loud and together but I think that we were all so grateful that the Kansas trip was over that a group song was in order

Chicago, June 2013

            Chicago comes from an old Indian word that means swamp of smelly onions, as we learned from our trip to the Windy City.  While waiting for the "Architectural Tour" to begin we walked the "Magnificent Mile," which is the heart of Chicago and it holds many hotels and the main shopping district.  There was a sign painted onto the sidewalk that said there are 3,000 pedestrian deaths in Chicago every year and I believe it because I felt like we were taking our lives in our hands every time that we crossed the street.  More than a few drivers ran the red lights.  After we reached the Water Tower, we walked back down to Michigan Avenue to the Navy Pier where our boat ride was launched.
            Jeff was our tour guide and he showed us the most famous buildings on the Chicago River: the Trump Plaza, the Corn Cobb building, the triangle buildings, the massive post office, which was huge because of the mail order business, and the Sears Tower (renamed the Willis Tower).  After the tour we took a water taxi back to Michigan Avenue then walked to Giordano’s for the best pizza that Chicago has to offer.
            Frederick was our guide for the Grand Tour.  The first half of the tour was the north side of Chicago which included The Loop (the business section), Lake Shore Drive, Millennium Park, Wrigley Field, and the Lincoln Park Zoo.  The second half of the tour was the south side and it included the University of Chicago, the White Sox stadium, Chinatown, Little Italy, the Museum Campus, and President Obama's house.  We ended the tour at the John Hancock Tower to view the city from 100 stories high and then ate pizza at Pisano’s.  To end our day, we went to Water Tower Place to see the seven floors of Macy's and to visit Legoland


Boston and New York (April 2010)
            We began our trip to Boston on Easter Sunday and there were tour groups in the breakfast room of our hotel.  Everyone in the room looked and talked differently, like the United Nations of the hotel’s common rooms, but I saw Koreans, French, Persians, and people from India.  The cacophony of different voices in different languages was an experience in itself.  One Asian lady was determined to hold her seat, and two other chairs with her many suit cases on them, so she guarded them closely and refused to give up the chairs even though the hotel lobby was packed, and a lot of people were looking to take a load off of their feet.  I am sure that the women didn't mean to be insensitive but because her luggage had seats, she had deprived a lot of other travelers the chance to sit down.
            The weather was perfect on this beautiful spring day, so we decided to walk the Freedom Trail and we saw the site of the Boston Massacre, two graveyards, and the Boston Commons.  We were determined to see all of the historical sites, so we walked from Faneuil Hall, to the Quincy Market, to the USS Constitution and finally to Bunker Hill.  It was all a little too ambitious, especially since Lillian had worn high heeled shoes and she refused to take them off in favor of her more sensible shoes.  Finally, in the middle of the long slog back to the hotel, Lillian changed into her flats and said to me crossly, "Don't you say anything!"  Ordinarily I would become angry at such disrespect, but it had been a long day and you learn to let some things go, so I didn't say anything.  It wouldn't have mattered anyway, as Lillian was the one who had to live with the blisters.
            On the second day of our trip we drove up to Salem to see the "Witch Museum."  It was a disappointment in that the museum was set up to be provocative because it defended wiccans, or modern-day witches, and I found that a little silly.  Our afternoon activity was to drive the Battle Road to see Lexington and Concord.  We got out of the car and, on foot, we crossed the Old North Bridge, where the British and the rebels exchanged fire.  The visitors center had a really good video that explained the importance of the battle.  My daughters, and even my wife, seemed to be bored with the whole experience so I tried to sell them on the idea that our side trip to Boston was just a warm up for our trip to New York.
            It took us about five hours to drive from Boston to Manhattan and, because I had been warned by several friends not to drive downtown, we stayed in a hotel in Newark, N.J.  My wife and I like the oldies and were singing Bachman Turner Overdrive’s “Takin’ Care of Business” to ourselves as we sung “we took the 8:15 into the city” and other parts of the famous song as we rode the train to Penn Station and walked to Times Square.  Luck was on our side because, even though it was early April, the weather was unusually warm, and New York City was experiencing record high temperatures.  We took a tour of the downtown loop with stops at the Empire State Building, Ground Zero, and the United Nations building.  After hopping on and off the tour buses we found our way back to Times Square.  The girls wanted to see the M and M’s store, the Hersey store, and the world's largest Toys R. Us store.  It was funny that that the girls want so badly to be grownups and yet it was the toy store where they showed the most enthusiasm for our vacation, and the souvenir that they picked out for themselves was a Geoffrey Giraffe from Toys R Us.
            The constant crowds and the heavy traffic in Manhattan were stifling to me.  It can be withering and invigorating at the same time to be in a city whose population is almost nine million people and that is in commotion 24/7/365.  Our tour guide said that he would be bored in any other place besides New York because in the other cities that he had lived in the only fun thing to do was to go shopping at Walmart.  After having to mow the grass for twenty years, he said that he was over having a house with a lawn.  The only way for him to be able to afford an apartment in the city was to share it with five other guys because the cost of living was so high.  As he talked, I couldn’t help but think that we were visiting a foreign country because the way of life for New Yorkers was so strange to me.
            You never know what is going to make an impression on you when you take long road trips.  An example of this is when we took the train out of Manhattan and back to Newark to our hotel room.  Our mistake was to linger at Times Square for too long, and that made us late for our return trip, and it was when the sky was turning dark and the crazy people came out.  We stopped at a McDonalds to grab a quick bite and, as we were sitting at our booth and minding our own business, we saw a parade pf unusual people pass us by.  There was a group of drag queens, two mean biker chicks spoiling for a fight, a man verbally abusing his young son in front of his friends, who were cussing loudly, and beggars were looking for a handout.  We have seen beggars before but one of the beggars in this group grabbed our trash right out of the garbage can after we had thrown away what was left on our trays.  As near as I could tell, the lady beggar wanted our cups so that she could go back to the counter for a free refill.  I absent-mindedly apologized to her when she spoke angrily to her about throwing away our trash instead of leaving it on the table for them to use.  We were all thrown by our visit to the McDonald’s from hell, so we decide to take a taxi back to the hotel.  The girls grabbed onto my arms and held on tightly as we waited for the cab to arrive.  It felt good to be the hero for my daughters, but the big thing for me was that we arrived back at the hotel safely.
            On the way back home, we drove to the ferry to see Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty.  I think that the girls enjoyed the ferry ride more than the history.



Pittsburgh (December 2009)
            Pittsburgh is surrounded by mountains and we had to drive through the Fort Pitt Tunnel to get to the city.  It was dramatic to see all of the buildings unfold around us as we came out of the tunnel.  One of the things that make Pittsburgh unique is the many bridges that are built around it and through it.  The city is surrounded by mountains, so the major metropolitan area is compacted into a relatively small area.
            The first major attraction that we saw was the Incline.  It is a railroad car that goes up a 45-degree angle straight up a mountain that borders Pittsburgh to the south.  The Incline gives you a great view of the city, but the windows had fogged up and it was difficult to see well.  Turning a lemon into lemonade, I started to take pictures of my three kids.  If you didn’t know the setting, then you would think that they were taking the railroad to heaven because the whole car glowed as the morning sun reflected off of the window.
            After a quick trip to the Block House and the Fort Pitt Museum at the Point State Park, we drove to the National Aviary.  I had never been to an aviary before and was looking forward to trying something new.  The highlight was the big room where the birds were allowed to fly around freely.  During feeding time, the tourists were allowed to put worms on their hand and the birds would land on them and feed.  Virginia had a bird land on her hand and the look on her face was pure joy as the bird ate out of her palm.  There were plenty of other rooms and some shows to see but watching my daughter’s sparkle with fun as she fed the bird had made my day.
            Grant had said that he was skeptical that the aviary would be any fun, while I was equally skeptical that the Carnegie Science Museum would be any good for my three children because they were teenagers when we went to Pittsburgh.  However, there was a section for older kids at the museum and the kids liked the trampoline because it they were strapped in by huge bands that enabled them to do flips.  They also liked the two-seater ride that that tossed the passengers side to side and then flipped them upside down.  I tired of the rides quickly, but the kids liked them so much that we ended up staying at The Carnegie for over five hours.
            At the hotel that night we had two double beds.  It would make sense for the girls to share one bed and the boys to share the other bed.  And yet Virginia and I share the same disease of ADHD and the hyperactivity part of it doesn’t end at night.  I have a tendency to spin a lot while sleeping and Virginia is also in constant motion.  Rather than keep Grant and Lillian up with our nightly movements, Virginia and I slept together.  As it turned out, my disease has given me an even worse affliction than what Virginia suffers through.  I remember waking up in the middle of the nigh and staring down at me angrily because my spinning had kept her awake and I had stolen all of the pillows.  It is an image that still haunts me; an angry daughter looking down at me, clearly frustrated, and revenge was in her eyes.  I didn’t sleep well after that.  


    Las Vegas: the First Trip
          We must be the only couple who ever went to Vegas and did not drink, gamble, or see any shows.  What we did do, to celebrate 25 years of being married, is to take a lot of tours.
          The length of the Grand Canyon is over 2,000 miles if you count all of the juts as you walk around it.  At its narrowest, it is 600 feet, while at its widest the Grand Canyon is 18 miles across.  We took a ten-hour round trip bus ride to see the South Rim, or over 585 miles, but it was worth it.  Our guide tried to describe the canyon to my wife, who is blind, but it is so beautiful that words cannot do it justice, so his was a labor lost.
We took a tour of the Hoover Dam and went inside of the diversion tunnel, which was fifty-six feet across, and stood beside the intake tubes, which were 30 feet wide and their water provides the force to turn the turbines for the generators.  Our guide tried to express the difficulty in building the dam, saying that the workers built eight cubic feet of the dam every 78 seconds for two years.  There were two shifts working seven days a week.  There is enough concrete in the dam to provide a two-way highway from San Francisco to New York City.  I cannot, in words, describe how awesome the Hoover Dam was.
          Lake Meade was built because of the Hoover Dam.  The Colorado River was diverted into the basin and it took seven years to fill up the lake.  We took a paddlewheel boat ride across the lake after our tour of the dam was completed.  On the way back to Las Vegas we drove through Boulder City and saw big horned sheep, the official animal of Nevada, come down from the hills to eat grass in a public park.  Right across the street from the park was a development of condominiums and we saw a woman trying to shoo the sheep off her back yard.  She was not very effective because she would not leave the safety of her living room and was yelling at the sheep from behind the glass door.
Our guides were great and provided us with a lot of entertainment.  Walter was our driver on the Grand Canyon trip and he was a slick operator who was always angling for a tip.  Carmen took us to the Hoover Dam and he loved to play on the word "dam."  For example, he said that we are taking the dam sidewalk to the dam gift shop but don't annoy the dam police because they will give you a dam ticket.  And so it went.
We took a tour of Las Vegas on the Big Bus and Blake, our guide, said that he had to be covered from head to toe in the Nevada sun because he turned from Casper white to lobster red within sixty seconds if he didn't cover up.  Our next Big Bus guide was Suzanne and she said that she was half Irish and half Native American; the Irish part of her always wanted a drink but once the Native part of her tasted the firewater she became angry and wanted her damn land back.  Jessica was from Texas she said that she once went to a party where the high-fashioned models were drinking and after a few drinks, they were stumbling around like Bambi trying to walk for the first time. We had heard that Freemont Street was a place that a tourist had to visit at night so we decided to take a cab to one end and walk slowly to the other end.  We started at the Container Park, which got its name from where the studios and bar were made from old storage containers from the railroad.  They were stacked two stories high, placed in a large U-shape so that there could be a children's playground in the middle.  There is a statue at the entrance that looks like a huge praying mantis and it shot fireworks out of its antennae when the day turned to night.  The mantis was originally a Burning Man attraction.
          As we moved to the midsection of Freemont Street, we saw people dressed up as the rock group, "Kiss," the male strip show "Chippendales," and showgirls wearing next to nothing.  These posers charged five dollars to have your picture taken with them.  There were several performers doing their acts on the street and they included a Michael Jackson knockoff, a Dixieland Band, a string quartet, and a puppeteer.  At the far end of Freemont Street, and right before it suddenly ends, there is a stage for exotic dancers; it is flanked by two strip bars in case a tourist wanted to get out of the warm night air to cool off by watching some hot bodies.
          My problem with Freemont Street is that, like Las Vegas, it can't decide if it is a family friendly destination or purely adult entertainment.  For example, I saw a guy dressed up as Superman, but he was not in shape and was so thin and unhealthy looking (I suspect that he had a drug problem) that he looked like he came from Bizarro World.  Next to Superman, there was a band playing classic rock, and overhead there was a zip line carrying passengers over the middle of the street.  A man wearing nothing but a Speedo thong was looking for tips in front of a Cycle Pub.  Above the mayhem was the world’s largest video screen.  It is 1500 feet long, covered Freemont Street for blocks, and flashed bright images such as lightning strikes.  All the while, there are speakers everywhere and they played rock and roll music loudly whenever the light show was playing.  I took some time to people watch and it seemed to me that there was no rhyme or reason to the pattern of the pedestrians who were standing around to watch the show.  There were couples pushing strollers, militant gay women, army veterans, bros having a night out, pensioners, British toughs looking for a fight, and a beggar in a wheelchair hoping that someone would put some change into his bucket.  It was if all of the reality TV stars over the past decade had been thrown together and released on the street and it became overwhelming.
          The casinos in Las Vegas do not have any clocks and the exit signs are difficult to locate.  There are no windows so you don’t know what time of day it is and there isn’t any place to sit and relax except in front of the slot machines.  The idea is to lure gamblers in and keep them there by making it difficult to leave.  Each casino has its own theme to make it unique; New York New York has the Manhattan skyline for the façade of its building and a roller coaster going through and around it.  The MGM Grand had a huge lion’s head for its entrance but they had to tear it down because the Asians view the act of walking into the mouth on an animal as unlucky.  Circus Circus has a high wire act and a full amusement park under its dome.  The Bellagio has a huge fountain that sprays water in sync with popular music like “In the Mood.”  Paris has a mockup of the Eifel Tower, which is about half the size of the real article, and there is a mockup of the Seine River as well.  The Cosmopolitan has a huge bar at its center; sheers and light fixtures that are meant to resemble champagne bubbles surround it.  Caesar’s Palace has moving statues, one of which has fire coming out of its sword, and in the forum, there is a ceiling that resembles a real sky and it displays the 24 hour daily cycle in an hour.  The Aria has pieces of modern art and The Wynn has tropical flowers.  The Golden Nugget has a shark tank and the world’s largest nugget of gold.  The Stratosphere has a 20-story tower that you can jump out of for about $150.00.  Since Las Vegas is constantly reinventing itself, Treasure Island changed its name to TI because it no long has a pirate show and there is a brand-new casino with a Chinese theme and there will be a replica of the Great Wall, Terra Cotta soldiers, and a live panda included with it.
          Other stories from the casinos are not so nice.  For example, the Frontier, Sands, Dunes, and the Stardust have all been torn down to make room for new hotels; only the Riviera remains of the old hotels.  The Sahara was levelled to make room for the SLS but since it never opened, no one knows what SLS stands for.  The original owners of The Echelon stopped construction because they ran out of money and the skeleton of the building is being torn down.  The metal will be sold for scrap.
     Connecting all of the hotels together is a series of pedways that include bridges over the strip and it cost 8.3 billion to create.
          Beggars in the streets holding up signs like, “I am not going to lie to you!  I need the money for a Coke.”
          Prostitutes at The Bellagio wearing nothing but tiny bikinis and security guard yelling at them, “You know you can’t be in here” and they were showing off their wares.
          Haints, or drunken shadows of people, wandering the streets
          The Pakistanis who were sitting behind us on our ten hour round trip to the Grand Canyon burped loudly and incessantly.  Sitting next to them was a man who was talking loudly into his phone, so everyone could hear about how a great businessman he is.  Thoughts of homicide crossed my mind,
       
  Las Vegas: The Second Trip
            Tracey and I had been to Las Vegas four years ago to celebrate our 25th anniversary.  She was disappointed because we didn't get out to experience the nightlife so this time she had Grant and Virginia to take her out all three nights that we were in the city.  On Thursday, they went to a bar called "Fat Tuesday" where they played Jenga with giant block of wood.  On Friday, they went to "Rock and Reilly's" and stayed for five hours because they bought the all you can drink package.  Tracey enjoyed sharing the experience with them and I have the sleeping habits of a toddler so I was happy to go to bed early.  A funny story from the evening was when the drunken woman who was sitting next to them and she suddenly blurted out, "I am going to sleep right here!" Then she put her head down and passed out on the bar.  On Saturday night, Tracey and Virginia went to play the penny slots at the Excalibur.  The ante was a dollar and after playing for an hour, Virginia walked away with four dollars and fifty cents.
            I am a slave to my daily schedule so I was showered and out the door by 4:30 am, which was just in time to watch the sun come up.  It is amazing what you can see at that time of the morning.  For example, there were prostitutes who looked me up and down and were trying to decide if they could fit in one more trick before their evening's work was finished.  Mostly, though, the people who passed me by did not bother to look at me.  Because I am older, and because I was by myself and seemingly harmless, the late night partiers tended to ignore me so I could hang back and observe.  A pair of newlyweds started making out on the pedway bridge between New York New York and the MGM Grand; they had love in their eyes and brand new rings on their fingers.  One woman, who clearly had just experienced a tryst judging by her messed up hair and disheveled dress, said goodnight to her partner for the evening in front of our hotel, and then sent him away in a cab.  Only after he was out of sight did the woman call a cab for herself.  We stayed at the Tropicana but I walked across the street to the MGM where I saw a bachelorette party winding down.  The girls were twerking with absolute strangers, who didn't seem to mind, as they made their way into the hotel bar for one last drink.  This was about 6:00 am and having just one last drink was clearly a mistake.  At New York New York, there were a bunch of fraternity brothers who were egging each other on by yelling, "Do you want to go to bed or do you want to go to see some strippers?"  The answer was so obvious that no one bothered to reply as they made their way to the front door.
            After two hours of watching how the other half lives, I made my way back to the Tropicana to wake up my wife and children to get ready for The Big Bus tour of Las Vegas.  Our first guide became a little too familiar with us by bragging about eating pizza in bed after making love to his wife and how he would divorce his wife if my daughter would agree to marry him.  We got off the bus as quickly as possible to get away from this driver.  Our first stop was at Freemont Street where Grant and Virginia did the zip line over the crowd and under the canopy.  Then we got back on The Big Bus and drove to New York New York so that the kids could ride the roller coaster, which wrapped around the hotel and flung the passengers over the main thoroughfare of Las Vegas.  The coaster and the zip line were a unique experience because they took place over streets and people, adding an additional element of danger, and that was the highlight of the trip for the kids.
            On the second day in Vegas were decided to do a walk about where we saw young women dressed up as showgirls, wearing next to nothing, posing with tourists who would give them a couple of dollars to include them in selfies.  There were others who were dressed up in costumes, but they put little effort into their costumes and were just glorified panhandlers.  Actors in Dead Pool and Black Panther costumes sweated fiercely in the one hundred and ten degree heat.  Wannabe rock stars tried to press homemade CDs into our hands as they asked for five dollars for the cost of production.  On the pedestrian bridge and in the shade of the wall was an old Elvis, sitting in a wheelchair while sporting a bejeweled jumpsuit, shaking a tin cup for tips.  Lastly, there were Buddhist monks who wanted five dollars for a beaded bracelet and an accompanying prayer.  We found out later that they weren’t even real monks and Grant, disappointed that anyone would falsely pose as a religious man, said, “Everything here is fake.”  I replied, “The beauty and tragedy of Las Vegas is that everything is fake.  
   

Cabo San Lucas, Mazatlan and Puerto Vallarta

                Mexico June 2016

 

Cabo San Lucas June 20 2016

            Cabo San Lucas, or the Cape of Saint Luke, is a tourist city at the end of the Baja Peninsula.  It is a gringo town, located in a bay, and is ringed by hotels.  A second concentrical ring surrounds the first hotel ring, and it is made up of the homes of the Mexicans who work for the tourist industry.  It is intersected with the more prosaic businesses that are needed for everyday life, like Home Depot and Costco.  The further that you drive away from the bay the less tourists are present.  The first real Mexican city, San Jose, lies about thirty miles to the north.  But ling the Pacific coast are resorts, time shares, and condos; some of these are owned by American expatriates who are looking for a cheap way to spend their retirement.  Fourteen gold courses are sprinkled around these developments, all of which had green grass that needed a lot of water, in what was otherwise a desert region.

            Armando was the name of our tour guide.  We climbed into his minibus for what turned out to be our own private tour since no one else wanted to go with us.  The kids were supposed to go parasailing, but the winds were so strong that their excursion was cancelled.  They ended up at Senior Frogs for a Margarita drinking contest and first place prize was a shot of tequila for everyone in the bar, so the winner was always popular with the other patrons.  As we were leaving Senior Frogs, a waiter made balloon hats for us and our selfie was immediately put on Facebook.  While they drank away the afternoon, Tracey and I listened to Armando tell his stories for the ninety-minute tour.  He was working hard for the tips that made up a large part of his income.  At the end of the day we all met for dinner and compared our stories about drinking and touring, everyone satisfied with the way our individual days had panned out.

            

Mazatlán June 2016

            Mazatlán looked to me like an industrial and transportation hub for western Mexico and it held little charm for me.  Also, it is the city where El Chapo, the drug cartel leader, was captured and we assumed that meant there was a lot of crime in the area.  We decided to take a seven-hour bus trip into the Sierra Madre mountains to see some of the native villages.  Our ultimate destination was Copala but to kill some time we visited a jewelry store in Mazatlán, a bread store in Malpica, and finally we drove to a furniture and pottery shop.  If I did not know any better, I would think that the travel company was taking kick backs from these stores so that our bus would stop there to buy their wares.

Our tour really began in Concordia.  We were given enough time to walk around the old town square before making our way to the Church of San Sebastian.  I have been a Catholic for my entire life but the story of Sebastian somehow escaped me, so I was shocked when I saw the statue of the saint hanging above the altar.  Sebastian had an arrow piercing his heart.  I learned that Sebastian was an early Christian who had hidden his faith from the emperor whom he was serving.  When the emperor learned of Sebastian’s practice of the new and illegal religion, Emperor Diocletian ordered him killed with a firing squad filled with archers.  Miraculously, Sebastian survived the attempt to murder him, and he became a saint.  In the middle of this church was another statue and it was entitled “The Jesus of the Good Death.”  Jesus was lying prone and under glass in what looked like a coffin in the middle of the church.  As the story goes, the statue went down with a trade ship and had miraculously washed ashore.  The locals thought that this was a sign of God so they gave the statue a name and put it in a place of honor.  It could not stand on its own so the churchgoers laid him down and surrounded him with glass.  The prone Jesus and the pierced Sebastian were enough to put the fear of God into anyone who entered the church building.

Our guide for our seven-hour bus ride from Mazatlán to Copala was Milton, a local who was very proud of the fact that at the age of 65, he had been married for 50 years.  He had a bunch of children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren.
Copala was a gold mining town but it had become idle.  The major structure of interest was a 16th century stone church and, on the side of the church, was a bust of a devil's face.  Milton threw a rock at the devil because, as the story goes, the more rocks that hit the face the more the image of the devil disappears, and with him goes the last vestiges of the plague that had swept through so much of the world in the 1500s.
             The whole time that we were in Copala there was a bunch of little boys who following us and trying to sell us wooden trinkets.  The cottage industry in the small town was carving miniature cows and pigs from wood and selling them to the tourists.  The streets are made of cobblestone and are so narrow that our bus could not get through, so we had to walk.  The little boys had no trouble keeping up with us and pestering us to buy their wares.  Meanwhile, chickens and pigs wandered through the streets, unconcerned with being hit by cars and trucks because no vehicles were seen anywhere. 
              Copala was a version of heaven.  Even though most of Mexico was blazing hot during the summer months, this small hamlet remained cool because it is located so high up in the Sierra Madres.  Steeped in the crisp mountain air, it is where the authentic Mexico remained pure, untouched, and innocent.  There is a pavilion with a concrete floor, attached to the only school in town, where the kids were free to play even if it rained.  Time seemed to stand still.  Probably you could come back to Copala in 20 or 100 years and the place would not have changed.   

Puerto Vallarta, June 20 2016

Puerto Vallarta and the Sea Lion Adventure.  We got into the pool where the sea lions were trained to give the tourists a hug and kiss us, to smile and act ashamed, and to stick out their tongues and sing.  It was wonderful.  Shanna was the gentlest sea lion and it allowed Tracey to feel her face.  The sea lion stuck out its whiskers while Tracey touched her nose and mouth; the expression on Tracey's face was pure joy.  Not to be out done, I leaned in to kiss the sea lion when it was my turn to come in close.  After our lips touched I looked over to Tracey and said "there's no difference between Shanna and my wife."  To end this part of the show, Shanna swam up to us and held onto us as the trainer talked.  The trainer said that Shanna sometimes gets lazy and holds onto the tourists so that she doesn't have to swim any more.  Shanna waved goodbye to us as we moved to the second pool where Cassandra, another sea lion, was trained to jump over us.  She did it one at a time and, when she was done, she jumped out of the pool to the concourse.  It was time for Cassandra and Shanna to rest and we were instructed not to touch them on the way out.  The two sea lions looked up at us just like a lap dog would, as they waited for the next group of tourists to enter the pool area.
            We rode high-powered speed boats to and from the Sea Lion adventure and I heard Lillian laughing in delight as the captain opened up the engines.  We were going so fast, and bumped over the wake of other boats, that even I became a little nervous.  Once we landed we met up with Grant, who had done the ATV Adventure, but he didn't want to go to visit Puerto Vallarta because he had some tequila on the excursion

 

Carnival Ship Miracle 2016

            This was our sixth cruise together and we keep going back because they bring us together as a family.  Our vacations are the only time that the kids are forced to spend time together for any length of time and they usually enjoy themselves.  This was our most expensive, and logistically challenging cruise but it was worth to share quality time together.  Also, it had been exactly 27 years since my wife and I took this exact same cruise for our honeymoon and so western Mexico held some extra meaning for us.

            I am proud of the fact that I ran and lifted weights every day while on the cruise ship.  I ran in the morning and watched the sun come up as I did laps around the upper deck.  The growing daylight, reaching through the clouds, looked like an impressionist painting from Monet, Gaugin, or Cezanne.  I gave myself permission to be myself  and to not feel guilty about going to bed so early and for working out and reading so much.  

            The look of pure joy on Tracey’s face as the sea lion kissed her face and then rolled on its back to allow her to scratch its belly.

            Or more simply, it felt good to shake Rolando’s hand and look him in the eye and say thank you.  Rolando was our cabin steward and he worked like a dog all week and I wanted to show him some respect, which I am sure that he appreciated.

            The only snag in the whole week was the return trip.  We flew on American Airlines on the way out of LAX and we departed an hour late because they took so long to load our luggage onto the plane.  When we arrived in Dallas we late and we literally ran to the next gate to make our connecting flight.  The attendant had already closed the door to the plane and, even though the plane was still connected to the terminal with the passenger tunnel, and even though the plane wouldn’t leave for another hour after we had reached the gate: we were not allowed to get on the plane.

            We were not the first passengers to arrive at the gate right after they closed the door on us.  The people in front of us were also denied entry onto the plane but the difference was that while we were deferential, these people made quite a fuss.  The airline was obligated to give us a hotel room so the complaining couple were given a room at the Hotel 8 while our family, who were nothing but respectful, were given a room at the Marriott.  I like to think that we got better accommodations because we’re nice people.

            We had an early flight so we were only at the hotel for a few hours.  American Airlines gave us a food voucher so we ate in a nice hotel restaurant and then had breakfast at a Dunkin Doughnuts at the airport.  I ate my feelings of anxiety because were coming home a day late so I had three cream filled eclairs.  I told the waitress to wait for ten minutes and then call an ambulance and make sure that they had insulin.  

            When we took off from LAX our plane ran into some turbulence but it was the head stewardess, and not the passengers, who panicked.  With fear in her voice, she ordered everyone back to their seats and to buckle themselves in.  If we weren’t concerned before, we certainly were now worried

Key West, Bahamas, Miami

    

                                       Key West, the Bahamas, and Miami 

 

The Norwegian Cruise Line Ship “Sky” (December 2018)

            We decided a long time ago that the best vacation for our family is a cruise.  Tracey and Virginia can soak up the sun by the pool.  Lillian hates the sun because she burns so easily and she like Karaoke so she has something to do.  Grant likes the comedy shows and the trivia games so he is happy.  Everyone has constant access to the buffet.  I like sharing the excursions together and having family time at breakfast and dinner.  

            Second only to enjoying long meals with my family, I like to get up early and go to the gym to work out when it opens.  I'll wait outside the door, standing alongside the other die-hard gym rats, and stretch until the gym opens up.  The weight room is hardly used at that hour, so I start with resistance training and then go to the yoga class.  After limbering up, I go for a run and then meet my wife for breakfast.  No one has to abide by my schedule, and I am sure that they would not follow it no matter what coaxing I did, so I am free to do as I like.  In the afternoon, I feel the need to retreat and I find an out of the way nook to hide in and read for a while.  Before I know it, it is time to line up for dinner and I will meet the rest of the family in the main dining room.  Everyone is in a good mood and eager to share their day with the rest of the group.

            The purpose of the trip was to spend some time together, so I only ordered two rooms on the cruise ship and there were three people in each cabin.  I was expecting for the third person in our small room to get a bunk bed but instead there was a pull out sofa for the third bed and it blocked the door every time we opened it up.  The result was that when I left the cabin early in the morning I had to climb over Tanner.  It was like a comedy sketch from Saturday Night Live because any time we moved around the cabin we were tripping over each other.  When I remarked that Tanner had been a good Joe about it, Lillian responded with, “Well Virginia has not been a good Joe about it” because she complained whenever someone climbed over her bed.

            To fill in some of the down time on the ship the cruise director held games like Pool Olympics, Majority Rules, and The Perfect Couple.  The competition that stuck with me more than the others was the “Mr Sky” contest where volunteers were called up on stage and encouraged to perform sexually suggestive dances.  The volunteers included a man with Downs Syndrome, a Dad with a huge paunch, and a couple of truly buff guys.  Watching this parade of dancers in the front row were three little girls, a couple of mothers, and a grandmother who used a walker to get to her seat.  I thought that the parents of the three little girls would have a lot of explaining to do some day and probably the little girls would not thanks their parents for taking them to the show.  Instead, they will have to spend some mental energy trying to erase the memories of the dancers from their consciousness.  

 

Key West, Florida (December 2018)

            Our first port of call was Key West and I felt like standing in the middle of Duvall Street and yelling, "We Made It!"  That is because my wife and I had been to Key West twenty-five years ago and it was not a good experience.  In retrospect, what we should have done was to talk about our expectations before the trip because Tracey was unhappy that I was not able to lighten up and have more fun.  I was not happy because I became sun burned on the first day and could not do much outside.  Tracey spent a lot of time around the pool while I spent my time in the hotel brooding.  The only highlight of the trip for me was to drive the rental car around the island.  Relations cooled between us during the flight home and that is why, after thirty years of marriage, I wanted to yell on Duvall Street.

            We disembarked next to the Sunset Pier and then walked the length of Key West all the way down to the concrete buoy that marks the southernmost point of the continental United States.  Duvall Street has become just one shop after another and they are all aimed at the tourists coming in off of the cruise ships.  I found this disappointing and my jeremiad is that the island has lost its charm as an old world place to visit.  We saw the Hemingway House, Captain Tony's bar from the famous Jimmy Buffett song, and the Truman Little Whitehouse where the president vacationed.  It was a real treat to play Corn Hole right next to where Truman used to grill his steak.  The lady in charge of the house said that Truman was forced to use silver tongs to grill with because that was all the Little White House had but he thought that they were too fussy.  She also said that Truman would have loved the fact that people were still playing Corn Hole in his back yard seventy years after he lived there. 

            “Wherever you go, you take yourself with you” is one of my favorite sayings and it applies to Key West because on the way back to the ship I could feel myself becoming tired and cranky.  After all, we had been fighting the crowd for about three hours and no one seemed to notice Tracey’s cane.  She said that this might be a “lower your head and avoid eye contact” type of situation.  I responded with “I am in more of a lock eyeballs and give them a ‘don’t mess with me’ mood.”  Eventually I was able to settle down and practice my Zen mantra of “breathe in, breathe out, and move on.”  Everything went like clockwork because we were willing to set aside all our expectations and just let the experience happen; to keep it light and loose and to go with the flow.  This attitude served us well through the long and hectic days.  

 

Bahamas (December 2018)

            Our second port of call was Nassau in the Bahamas and when we disembarked, I was looking for something unique to do.  We had previously done a cultural tour and I didn’t want to do that again.  When I asked our cab driver if there was anything unique to do in Nassau, he said that the only thing that he could think of was an excursion to swim with pigs.  I said that “if I wanted to hang around with a bunch of pigs then I would go to Senior Frogs.”  The only outstanding activity left for us to do in Nassau was water sports but everyone had already ridden Jet Skis at the lake, so I bent my own little rule about doing something new, and I am glad that I did.  We could hear Lillian laughing and squealing in delights and she sped past us on the water.  When it was Grant’s turn to steer he said, “I tried to throw Lillian off but she hung in there like a champ.”  The fun for me was watching my children having a good time and I took many pictures.  Virginia especially looked good on the Jet Skis because her jaw line looked cut as she was concentrating on the water ride.  The day was a complete success because we made many great memories together and there was no fighting or sniping at each other.

            

Miami, Florida (Miami 2018)

            I bought a deluxe bus tour package included a boat tour of the bay of Miami.  Unfortunately, there were three ten-year old boys who were not being chaperoned and who were given free reign of the inside of the boat.  After they dove under our seats while playing “Hide and Go Seek,” I decided that I should avoid the hellions and go outside to settle myself down.  My choice was to either stay in the cabin and let the children and their screaming get to me or change venues.  Standing at the front of the boat, I closed my eyes and felt the sun on my face and the wind blowing through my hair as the boat rocked me up and down and from side to side.  It turned out to be a relaxing experience and I was only half way paying attention as our tour guide rattled off all of the names of the celebrities who owned homes on the bay.

            We disembarked from our boat tour and only had time to make one stop on our tour bus on the first day in Miami, so we stopped at Coconut Grove.  We were all feeling a little sea sick and car sick and needed a break from constantly moving.  It just so happened that Coconut Grove was holding the “King Mango Strut” parade and, going along with our philosophy or being flexible and open to new things, we decided to stick around to see what it was all about.  The parade featured a parody of the red tide that had been plaguing South Florida for so long.  Also, several people were dressed as Ruth Bader Ginsberg, the Supreme Court justice who had become popular because of her "RBG" and "On the Basis of Sex" movies.  There were a lot of environmentalists and liberals in Coconut Grove and they used the parade to vent their political views.  After the parade we boarded the bus and made our way back to South Beach but the traffic across the Bay Bridge was backed up bumper to bumper.  Our bus driver, clearly frustrated, said "traffic ain't playing' today!"  It was nice to let someone else do the driving while I stayed on top of the double decker bus to sit in the sun and enjoy the spectacular view of Miami that the Bay Bridge gave me.

            On the second day of our bus tour we rode to the Wynwood Walls and the Little Havana neighborhood.  Wynwood is a Miami neighborhood where artists are encouraged to spray paint their works onto the walls on the garages and storage buildings that make up the neighborhood.  We saw some original and thought-provoking works and, since my future son in law is an artist, we took our time drifting from one piece of work to another; there were several pieces in a fenced in compound that was reserved for some seasoned artists.  We boarded the bus for our last destination which was Little Havana.  For a couple of blocks in either direction from our drop off point, we felt like we were in a different country.  All the signs in the local shops were in Spanish and the locals spoke in their native language; many of them were Cubans who had come to America to escape the Castro regime.  At the main intersection of Little Havana was a town square where anyone could play dominoes, chess, or checkers for free.  The chess and checkers players were sitting quietly while they Dominoes players were yelling and screaming, but I think that they were putting on a show for the tourists who were watching on the sidelines. 

 

South Beach, Florida (December 2018)

We celebrated New Years Eve on South Beach, Miami.  Tracey and the kids stayed awake for the fireworks as to bring in the new year in style.  Lillian and Tanner snuck into the party that the hotel was having and took a lot of selfies on the beach with the fireworks exploding in the background.  Tracey and Grant sat on the front porch of the hotel and people watched as the drunken tourists paraded in front of their stoop.

Just as a tiger cannot change his stripes, I cannot deviate from my schedule, even on New Year’s Eve.  I went to bed early so that I could get up to work out before the others had stirred.  After lifting weights for an hour, I went for a long run which encompassed the full length of South Beach.  At first there were no other runners on the boardwalk but, as I made my way back from the ten-mile loop, I began to pass more and more walkers and runners.  As I ran passed the muscle beach, which was full of buff men and women who were having on early morning workout on the first day of the new year, I decided to join them and did a few pull ups and dips on the equipment that the city had installed on the beach.  Walking back to the boardwalk, I looked around to see who on earth would be awake at such an early hour on January 1.  There were young families pushing strollers to the beach to watch the sun come up.  One young man was still in his tuxedo and he was holding hands with his girlfriend and I had the feeling that he was a waiter who had just got off from work.  Incongruently, there was a Hasidic Jew reading the Bible on a park bench.  And, of course, there were many partiers who had not been able to make it off the beach after the fireworks and had only half way slept off their drunken night.  Their walk of shame had just begun as, with stooped shoulders and down cast eyes, they left the beach.

            If I could freeze one moment in time from our Miami trip it would be when we went out for dinner at Cantina 27.  We were all tired after a long day of walking, and yet there was no sniping at each other and no other drama.  After a satisfying, but heavy, Italian dinner, I raised my glass for a toast.  “To the Norwegian ‘Sky,’ and Miami, and the Baltic Sea.”  The last part of the toast was a nod to the next big adventure that we will share together.  Our vacation went so well that I couldn’t wait to do it again, so we are planning a cruise to Berlin, St. Petersburg, Helsinki, Copenhagen, and Oslo.