Swing With Me Wednesday

Sometimes some really odd thoughts come unbidden to mind. I was preparing this post about our canopy tour in Jamaica, riding the harness and lines through the treetops from platform to platform, when a thought occurred to me about life as it is nowadays.

A hundred years ago our ancestors probably would have considered living to their mid-fifties as reaching a ripe old age. Family history has it's stories of relatives who didn't make it past their twenties, due to the lack of medical care that we take for granted today. Certainly my own grandparents never traveled much if at all, and when they did it was very low key. Certainly not anything highly adventurous.

I certainly couldn't see my grandparents riding ziplines or even traveling so far in their mid-fifties. Yet nowadays we take it for granted. Joe and I are both fortunate to not have any health issues that preclude us from living a full life with a multitude of adventures that our grandparents and even perhaps our parents could not have imagined. I felt just like a kid swinging through the trees.

Even if my hair is gray and the old waistline disappeared quite a while ago. Hey, Tarzan, here comes Jane!

Sail With Me Wednesday

Can you imagine anything more "let's get away from January" than sailing in a Grand Cayman bay on a racing catamaran? Two weeks ago today this is where you could have found us, providing that we were amenable to being found.

The weather was absolutely perfect, and the brisk wind totally refreshing. Our sail took us out to Grand Cayman's Stingray City, where we swam with the stingrays. I wasn't too sure about doing this when Joe signed us up for this tour, but I found myself getting excited when we saw stingrays circling the catamaran. I couldn't wait to get into the water. The water temperature was rather cool, but such that you wouldn't notice it once you were in it.

The stingrays came along brushing up against us. It is incredible how large they are, and not a bit slimy or creepy. A bucket of squid was brought out so that we could feed them. I declined, but Joe had a grand time. At one point he had at least two dozen stingrays circling him, waiting for a treat. Most of the other folks on the tour didn't stay in the water very long, but I stayed in for quite a while and they practically had to drag Joe back into the boat. We were able to rinse off with fresh water and then the sails were raised for our trip back to the dock.

Guess who got drafted to sail the big catamaran back?

Not to worry, we used to sail years ago on the Detroit River and lakes.

Everyone on the tour was referring to Joe as "Captain Jack" (Sparrow). Perhaps he should have been sailing this ship instead!

WWMW - Tulum Maya

About an hour's drive from Cancun (no, we didn't go to Cancun) on the Yucatan Peninsula are the ruins of Tulum, the "walled city". These Mayan ruins are surrounded by a massive stone wall that has withstood countless hurricanes. Now they are protected and cannot be climbed on or entered.

The buildings were for ceremonies and also were aligned with the sun, marking the soltices and the equinoxes.

There is some evidence that the Mayans who lived here were in contact with the ancient Anasazi tribes in Arizona.

Tulum was also a major trading post.

We only had a short time here but there was certainly much to see and wonder about.

Walk With Me Wednesday

Let's go visit a sled dog camp!

On one of our excursions, our lunch stop was next to a sled dog camp. We were encouraged to walk over and see the dogs. The dogs lived in a large fenced in area. Each of them had his own doghouse and each was tethered on a long chain that gave them a fair amount of movement. Most of the dogs were hanging out on top of their doghouses.

The camp offered short rides on a wheeled wagon pulled by dog teams. We didn't have time to wait for a wagon ride, but we did get a kick out of watching the dogs haul the wagons.

We did visit the puppy pen. Several puppies were in the pen, and we were able to play with them as part of their training -- getting used to people and being handled. If we put a dollar in a coffee can, we could get a handful of doggy cookies to feed them.

Pumpkinknitter makes a new friend!

V is for...

Vancouver and Victoria, B.C.

The day before our cruise we flew from Tucson to Vancouver. We had decided that, due to the distance we had to travel, we would fly in the day ahead and stay in a hotel the night before. We did not want to have bad weather or a sudden unexpected flight delay mess up getting to the ship on time, a tip that I would suggest anyone planning a big cruise use.



We didn't get much of a chance to see downtown Vancouver. It reminded us a lot of New York, except it was quite a bit cleaner. It's been thirty some years since I've been to Canada, but I remember it being extremely clean then and it was the same this time. We did get to walk around some, but we really weren't interested in office buildings and the restaurants seemed to be mostly very expensive.

These first two pictures were taken from the hotel window. We did have a nice view. I had to wonder about all the thousands of windows that were lit up all night in these office buildings. Must be quite an electric bill. Royal Carribean put us up in a very posh hotel. I fell in love with the shower. Look at all that black marble! Pretty ritzy for a couple of Arizona hicks!

The next day we were bussed out to the ship, where we spent the afternoon in port while everyone embarked. It gave us a chance to unpack and explore the ship. Just as we sat down to dinner, the ship left port. We passed this lighthouse while we were enjoying our salads.

We saw numerous ferries like this one throughout our Alaska trip. Ferries are one of the major sources of transportation here.

The next morning we docked in Victoria, Vancouver Island, B.C. It was a gorgeous morning and we decided to walk rather than take a bus or taxi. We walked for a while along the shore, looking at the mountains in Washington State. We walked through some beautiful, nicely landscaped neighborhoods before coming to the downtown area.

This is the government building. Very beautiful and impressive.

Our first stop was to attend Mass at St. Andrew's Cathedral. There were quite a few people here for a Saturday morning Mass; the acoustics in this church were wonderful. After Mass we walked to the needlework and yarn shop, where I bought quite a few souvenirs!

We spent some time walking around the harbor area. There were flowers everywhere, in big planters and in huge baskets hanging from all the streetlamp posts.

The Empress Hotel was covered in ivy.

I would love to come back here anytime. I know that there was plenty to see that we simply didn't have time for.

Walking in the Silk Garden

The first of the Alaskan projects is finished. The Noro Striped Scarf by Jared Flood was my airplane knitting, as well as balcony knitting throughout the trip.

The scarf was finished on Sunday. I used a full four skeins of Noro Silk Garden.

255 and 258 were multicolor skeins. I picked two similar skeins to complement each other.

I used two skeins of 267, which were varying values of the same brown/gray color. This made an excellent base for the two multicolor skeins.

I did not find this in the least boring. I love the finished scarf and of course love the Noro. Nothing I've ever seen can compare to the way the Silk Garden slips so easily from one shade into the next. So much depth and uniqueness to these scarves!

I doubt that this will be the only one I knit.

Walk With Me Wednesday

We did get the opportunity to take a few beautiful walks while we were in Alaska. While in Juneau the fog lifted enough to allow us a picturesque walk in the woods.

The trees were changing colors and it was intoxicating for this high desert grrl to see the spectrum of greens, yellows, and the blues of the water.

Some of the trails were closed because of the salmon spawning and the prevalence of bears at stream-side. But soon we could see chunks of ice floating in the mirror-like water.

Beautiful Mendenhall Glacier!

And the perfect view from the trail.

WWMW by the River

From Sunday's hike:

There are only the tiniest bits of new green growth to be seen, but the river is still a beautiful sight.

WWMW - French Joe Canyon

On Sunday afternoon, the weather was just too perfect to stay home. The temperature was nearly 80 and there was a good breeze blowing about. In fact, had there been no wind, it would have been too warm to hike comfortably.

We took a hike we had not known of previously, but having seen it mentioned in the local paper piqued our hiker's curiosity. French Joe Canyon is in the Whetstone Mountains of southeast Arizona. If you do an advanced search on Google you can find several interesting sites with historical and natural information. Apparently this is quite a site for birdwatching.


We didn't want to drive the car all the way in on a poor road, so we parked by the highway and walked in. The sky was perfect and clear and wonderfully blue. It's been very dry here so it was pretty dusty. We weren't sure where we were going and there really weren't any signs to guide us. We wandered part way up a dry riverbed. The water has cut quite a gully into the earth and one can see how the ground under the few inches of soil is nothing but rocks. No wonder hardly any thing can be cultivated out here, at least not without a lot of excavating.

At the end of the first turn we took we came across several old corrals and a tumbledown stable or shelter of sorts. I wouldn't say that this site was abandoned; I can imagine it still being used for cattle or horses. This particular trail went no further than this, so we turned around and went back to the last intersection in the road. It seems that this turn was the one we should have taken in the first place; we found ourselves heading up into the main portion of the canyon. The wind was quite strong coming down the canyons and over the top of the mountain range. The cloud formations were really unusual.

About an hour later we finally found ourselves up on the trail itself. The trail was taking a gradual upward incline and we found ourselves up in the trees, a very pleasant shady route. There were several dry creekbeds that we crossed and we found a concrete trough used for collecting spring water. Containers like this one were often built to collect the spring water for the use of both man and beast.

Unfortunately it was starting to get too late in the day to go much further up the trail into the canyon. We had lost too much time on the wrong road. However, we did not regret the wrong turn. We enjoyed the exercise, the sun, the fresh air, and the serendipity of exploring the area. I'm sure we will soon return better prepared to explore further up the canyon.