At 7:30 this morning, Santiago and one of his older sons
showed up with their truck and trailer ready to cut the sod in front of our
place, remove it and put in the forms so that cement could be poured
tomorrow. Luckily we had put our car
down at Mavis’s place so we could get out easily as we were in the final stages
of packing our stuff in the car to head out for LazyDays to meet the rest of
the Rally group and take the bus to the Tampa Port. It was time for our cruise to begin.
We arrived there shortly after 10:00 in the morning and
within about half an hour we were totally checked in and on the Brilliance of
the Seas – a 2500 passenger Royal Caribbean ship. Our rooms would not be ready till 1:00 so
everyone set off to find a spot to “park” with their carry on luggage. Ken and I chose to be on the back deck on the
11th deck behind the buffet area.
It was amazing the number of people already on the ship and grabbing
food as if they’d never seen it before.
We just enjoyed watching all of the activity, then reading for a bit
before finally deciding to have a bite to eat just before our room would be
ready.
And what a beautiful room it was.
Our balcony sits on the back of the
ship so that we can see directly behind and thus side to side as well.
And the deck is big enough to hold
2 chaises, 2 chairs and a table with a big enough overhang that we will always
have some shade. The weather was perfect
for being able to enjoy that spot and simply continue to watch all the activity
in the port.
After a safety drill on the 5th deck, we spent a
bit of time just wondering a couple of the floors checking out all the
gathering spots before heading back to our room to watch our departure. Gosh but Tampa has a lot of shoreline.
It took over two hours before we passed under the bridge
near St. Petersburg and really started to get away from land. By that time we were down in the dining room
and placing our orders with the waiter. Our group has two tables of ten right
in a row and then two tables for six a couple of tables over. That means each night we’ll be able to see
each other but who knows if we’ll see
any of them the rest of the time since everyone makes different choices of
things to do.
The sun was streaming through the windows behind us so the pictures aren't great but here we are
We are sitting with Marvin and Anna Mae Engstrom, Bob and
Ginny Olliff, Gary and Dianne Metcalfe and Stan and Barbie Sheaffer. The Engstrom’s have traveled with us before
so we are enjoying getting reacquainted.
This will be our chance to get to know the other three couples a bit
better. The Engstrom’s are from South
Dakota while the Sheaffers are full timers who will be doing an Adventure
Caravan following Route 66 all the way to California this fall. We’ve yet to learn any more about the other
two.
Unfortunately we weren’t done with dinner till close to 8:00
so missed the entertainment that started at 7:45 but we were both pretty tired
anyway so decided to just walk around a bit to check out the rest of the ship
and then head back to our room to read and then settle down for the night. Whatever it was that I had last week (sinus
drainage, sore throat etc only lasted a couple of days but woke me up in the
middle of the night last night and I ended up trying to sleep upright in a
chair for the remainder of the night.
Needless to say I didn’t get much rest thus the early exhaustion.
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