Getting My Land Legs!

There was a couple of "Fun Days at Sea" that we had. We played BINGO, went to a show, watched some karoke & other 'cruise' activites. Everyday when we came back to our room for bed, we had a new little animal made out of our towels, here is one of my favorites!
Of course one of the favorite activities on the boat is to eat. Here is the result of our table getting lobster to eat. Yes that is a lobster flower...thanks to Kathryn's artistic side!
Here is one of the YUMMY desserts that we had every night ... okay sometimes 2!When we were officially done with the cruise we got to spend a few more hours in New York! The bus dropped us off at 51st & Broadway! It was so cool to walk down into Times Square!
Me & Kathryn walked down about 5 city blocks of an open air market! We had a blast! The market ended right at Central Park. Well if you are in New York, you HAVE to go to Central Park!
We only had about an hour before we had to be back on the bus that was probably a good 6-7 blocks away. So here we were at Central Park with only about 45 minutes. Kathryn had a great idea to take a rickshaw ride around the park to see the high points. What a great idea, it was the perfect way to end the trip!

Nova Scotia

When we stopped in Nova Scotia it was FREEZING! Luck us, that was the day we planned to go on a Tall Ship ride. So we layered up & went on a boat ride!
After that we went on a downtown Nova Scotia tour & we went to a cemetary that has victims from the Titanic buried there. It was really amazing to see the rows of head stones, they way they are laid out it curves like the bow of a ship.
It was wierd to see so many headstones with the same death date of April 15, 1912. Some of them had names & some didn't. They all had numbers on them that indicates the number that their body was pulled from the water. I thought this was one of the coolest places that we had gone to.

St. John's Bay

Oh Canada! Our next stop was St. John's Bay in Canada. While we were here we went on a trip up the coast to New Brunswick.
We went to Hopewell Rocks to see these cool rock formations. The tide here comes in & out every 6 hours & 50 minutes. The cool thing is when it's high tide it is over 30 feet, & low tide it recedes out about a mile.
When we were there it was low tide so we got the chance to walk on the ocean floor. If you look below at the picture of me & Kathryn the water comes up & almost covers the hole in that rock formation. It was a really amazing place!

Maine

The next stop was Maine. Now talk about breathtaking scenery. The weather was really nice that day, the sun was out, a little windy, but all in all a fun day. We went on a lighthouse tour. One of the lighthouse's we saw was called "Buglight".

Across the water at Buglight you could see the town of Portland. It reminded me of the town from "Murder She Wrote" :)
The next lighthouse was cool because it had all of these flat rocks that you had to walk/hop across to get to the lighthouse. Me & Kathryn went all the way out to the lighthouse, I definately had to choose my path wisely... Kathryn's legs are a little longer!
At the end of the tour we went on our own adventures in the town of Portland. We found a couple of fun shops, spotted a tiny UPS truck, meet some interesting locals & found this chowder shack that had the BEST chowder ever! Sad thing is I don't think I can enjoy clam chowder after having it there, everything else will just be disappointing!

Boston

After some much needed sleep, our first port was Boston. It is a very historical town with interesting stuff everywhere you turn. We went to the church where the lantern's were hung under the direction of Paul Revere ... 'one if by land or two if by sea'.
We were just walking up the street & here was this little house, just stuck between two big brick apartment buildings! Wild!
Then we got back in the bus & noticed that it was pretty hot in there, wouldn't you know, the a/c on the bus broke, like not working at all, I'm not kidding it was so hot that the windows were getting fogged up! After almost losing consciousness in the bus, we FINALLY were able to get out at Harvard University. This is a statue of John Harvard, well not really, no serious, it's not him, they just liked the way that guy looked & put him above John Harvard's name! So the deal is you're suppose to rub his foot to get good luck...had to try! :)
At this point you couldn't pay us to get back on that bus, so we ditched the tour & caught a taxi to Fenway Park, can't go to Boston & not stop by Fenway Park!
We got back to the port & to our surprise there was a 2 hour line of hungry, cranky, old...did I mention hungry? people waiting to get back on the ship. For some reason they only had one plank open & after about an hour & a half they decided to open another....NICE! But we made good use of our time & made a new friend. Officer "Bob" was on duty at our port, after talking to him we found out that he had actually applied for the CHP like 15 years ago, he thought it was pretty funny that my husband was a CHP officer...small world!

New York

Last month I went on a vacation....a REAL vacation! I kissed the kids & Todd goodbye & set sail for a 7 day cruise. We flew the red eye to JFK & then went straight to Rockefeller Plaza. We had a couple of hours to play before we had to set sail, so off we went.
We started at the Rainbow Room Observation Deck at NBC studios, then off to the Top of the Rock!It was a breath taking view from the top. You could see everything, Central Park, the Empire State Building & we tried to figure out where the Twin Towers stood. Once we had our feet back on the ground we were off & running. While down in the NBC Plaza we found some authentic NY food, found an NYPD car & walked around 5th Ave.
We were the last ones to get on the bus to head over to the cruise ship. We sailed on the Carnival Victory. Kind of looked like the Little Mermaid threw up all over the boat, but I was kind of expecting that!
Once aboard, it was to the life jacket drill...we mapped out where all the little boats were & figured out how many people we could take out if the boat were to sink! :)
When we left port we sailed right past Lady Liberty herself. It was so awesome to actually see it with my own eyes. It was windy, but so worth it to stay out on deck & watch her come & go!