Home again. Home again, jiggity jig.

Home again. Home again, jiggity jig.

A few odds and ends to catch up on.

Tendering out to Coco Cay

Wednesday we tendered ashore to RCI’s private island, Coco Cay, where we had lunch of bar-b-qued ribs, corn on the cob, and other stuff.  Following a very brief stroll through the Straw Market, we came back on board to find our toilet wasn’t working.  A call to maintenance revealed a section-wide problem, and were assured, “We’re working on it.”  And they were.

I did my last two talks – “Flight 19 and the Legend of the Bermuda Triangle” and “The Pirates of New Jersey” – to nearly full house crowds.

The ship docked about an hour late, so we were an hour late getting off.  We found a shuttle which took us to the Ramada Inn and the Red Hot Chili Pepper, arriving at our car about noon.  The shuttle drove

The actual control room for Apollo 8

past the Ramada to get flyers to the airport, and we circled it 3 times while getting everyone off.  My traveling companion was not pleased, and we could indeed have gotten off first – would have taken 10 minutes.  Oh well.  We got our parking ticket validated and headed for Georgia. 

The plan was to drive all the way through, arriving at 233 around 1:30 a.m.  But as Robert Burns said, “The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley.”  At 10:30 p.m., and three hours from home, an interstate warning sign told drivers of a wreck and said traffic was being detoured at Exit 19 (I-95 South, near Lumberton, NC).  When we got to Exit 20, the traffic was backed up to within a couple hundred yards of the exit, so we got off, checked into the local Days Inn, and went to bed.  We got

The Apollo 14 Command Module

an early start Sunday morning, and arrived at Macedonia at 9:30 a.m.  After church and lunch with Tony and Stacey we finally got home, unloaded the car and started the first of five loads of laundry – three weeks of dirty clothes!  But the next time, we won’t have to hurry home, because I will be retired!

Before you look at a few more pictures, you’re going to laugh.  I called Sony to tell them the touch pad on my new Vaio had quit working, and I wanted to get warranty service.  The short version of the story is, when the first technician tried to hook it up to the ship’s projector, he accidently turned the touch pad off.  There was nothing wrong with it, or the computer, that a call to India could not solve.

In front of the Maha

And I will say TTFN until the next cruise (Explorer of the Seas sailing on October 9).

At the 16 Steps -- in honor of Queen Victoria