December 17 - The Pacific Ocean

For the last two days the ocean has lived up to its name.  We’ve had calm seas, blue skies and warm (actually hot and humid) temperatures.  Since I last wrote we stopped in Puntarenas, Costa Rica and Puerto Chiapas, Mexico.  I didn’t get off the ship in either port.  I’m becoming like some of the passengers I’ve wondered about in the past who never get off the ship.  In my defense, in Puntarenas I’d been on all the tours offered on previous visits and the town itself is dirty and grubby with the most prominent thing being a Burger King.  Plus it was so hot that I’m surprised soles of shoes didn’t melt on the pavement.  Puerto Chiapas is one of those made-up ports Mexico has created.  Unlike Cancun and Ixtapa which were created to be resorts, Chiapas wasn’t, so it has a big palapa, some palm trees and a little fountain in the middle of a circle spelling out the name of the port.  It was also incredibly hot and humid again.  So I chose to stay on board and pretty much did nothing constructive.

This is Puerto Chiapas. Not much here.

There were some ladies dancing on the dock which was nice, but I wondered how they didn't suffer from heat attacks.

This afternoon I’m meeting the Cruise Director to have a talk with him about the music in the Club.  I’ve written often enough that’s the place I like to go in the evening to listen to live music and dance occasionally.  On this ship there seems to be the most bizarre scheduling of the live groups.  Several times my friends and I have gone down there and the music has ended between 11:15 and 11:30.  When we’ve asked we were told the next group would come at 12:30 AM.  How does that make sense?  A one-hour gap when there’s no music especially when there are two music groups on the ship.  It’s hard to explain if you’re not here, but it’s really bugging us and I hope to find out what’s going on because it’s unlike any other cruise I’ve been on in recent years.

Enough complaining.  Aside from that I’m having a lovely time.  My friends and I have discovered the joys of special ordering of food.  On sea days the restaurant is open for breakfast and lunch and we go there because it’s cooler and more peaceful than the other venues.  (Well, I don’t make it for breakfast because I get up too late.)  We’ve been ordering deviled eggs with caviar as a sort of lunch appetizer and I have to say they are delicious.  It’s very decadent but my excuse is I don’t eat breakfast and I’d never eat them at home.  We’ve had a couple of good guest entertainers including a marvelous Japanese pianist I’ve heard before.  I haven’t been back to art class because they were making something with beads and I have absolutely no interest in that.  I won’t say much about the trivia team because we haven’t been doing too well.  I mean really, the last two days the final questions, which really decided the winner, were yesterday how many US presidents did Queen Elizabeth meet and today how many British Prime Ministers were there during her reign.  We Americans were off by one (but that doesn’t count for anything) on the former but the Brits on our team weren’t able to answer the second question and obviously we had no clue.  After Puerta Vallarta when we have many sea days we’ll begin cumulative trivia again and our day will come.

Trivia update:  Today's trivia questions were all Christmas related and there was nearly a mutiny.  I must explain that the most basic rule of trivia is that the person with the microphone is always right.  Except this time he was absolutely wrong!!! The first controversial question was how many ghosts appear in A Christmas Carol  by Dickens.  The Cruise Director, who is British and should know better, said three.  Anyone who has read the book or seen a movie or tv version of it knows there are four - the ghost of Marley and ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come.  He finally conceded he was mistaken on that one.  The second controversy arose over how many and what were the names of the reindeer pulling Santa's sleigh in Twas the night before Christmas.  He said nine including Rudolph, which is absolutely wrong.  He hasn't conceded on that so we've added him to Santa's naughty list.  Aren't you glad to know all these trivial things we spend our time on here on the ship?

More Christmas decorations have appeared.  There are some really nice gingerbread villages popping up around the ship. This one outside the shop is my favorite.  I love the castle or whatever it is in the middle.

I’ve rambled on enough to prove I’m alive, so I’ll end this for now.  It’s hard to make a leisurely sea day exciting.

December 13 - En route to Puntarenas, Costa Rica

Since I last wrote we transited the Panama Canal, spent a day in Fuerte Amador, the port of Panama City, and are now sailing in the Pacific on our way to Costa Rica.  I’ve made several trips through the Canal now so I don’t feel compelled to stay out on deck to watch the whole passage (a good thing because the air was so hot and humid you could cut it with a knife).  It’s still a marvel to observe though.  I won’t write about the history of the Canal again,  but here are a few facts about it.  The Panama Canal is about 50 miles long.  On the Atlantic(Caribbean) side there are a series of three locks which raise a ship 87 feet to enter Gatun Lake. From the lake ships transit for a little over five miles through the Chagres River until they reach the Culebra Cut, which was the most challenging part of the construction.  The cut is a passage through a mountain ridge crossing the Continental Divide.  It’s nearly 8 miles long and required the excavation of nearly 100 million cubic yards of rock and soil. Approaching the Pacific Ocean ships transit through first the single chamber Pedro Miguel lock lowering the ship 31 feet.  Then traffic goes through the Miraflores locks lowering it a further 54 feet. Along the way ships travel under two bridges, the Centennial Bridge and the Bridge of the Americas. An interesting fact is that the Pacific ocean is approximately 8 inches higher than the Atlantic ocean at the Panama Canal.  Since water seeks its own level that seems illogical to me, but apparently it happens because of variations in ocean currents, the shape and depth of the ocean basins, and tidal conditions.

In the second Miraflores lock

One of the mules keeping the ship in the proper position in the lock

Bridge of the Americas

We stayed overnight at Fuerte Amador alongside a brand new and very large cruise terminal.  In the morning I took a cab to what is apparently the largest shopping mall in Central America.  It was huge and it was also air-conditioned!  I walked around and picked up a couple of things I needed.  The Christmas decorations were interesting.  Santa’s setup didn’t have a North Pole setting; instead he was ensconced by a replica of the Miraflores Lock building.  I’d arranged with my cab driver to pick me up at a designated time and he was promptly there for me.  I was ready to go back to the ship because according to my Apple watch I’d walked nearly five miles in the mall.

Santa's place at the Mall

Unfortunately I was getting cleaned up for dinner when we sailed away because friends told me it was quite pretty.  Panama City in the distance looks like the Miami skyline and it was all lit up.  Added to that we sailed past lots of freighters waiting for their turns to go through the canal. I guess I’ll have to go through again sometime and try to see it.

The Panama City skyline

Our sea day was overcast with a couple of big showers.  It was cooler than the last several days have been which I’m quite happy about.  I expected the temperature to be lower because I have always noticed that the Pacific coastal water is cooler than the Caribbean and Atlantic. I hope the temperatures stay this way for the next few days when we’re in Costa Rica and Mexico. 

We had a trivia game today (we didn’t win) and I listened to a talk about four great canals which have helped to shape history.  I also went to an art class where we did a watercolor painting of a cloud forest.  I can state categorically that any famous watercolorist doesn’t have to worry about competition from me.  Tonight a British friend arranged for seven of us to have dinner together.  We had a wonderful time and laughed a lot.  It was a thoroughly nice day

December 9 - Sweltering Cartagena de Indias, Colombia

We sailed from Willemstad around 10 PM and the town was lit up for Christmas.  My photos didn't come out too well but here are a couple.

After another calm sea day we arrived this morning in Cartagena.  Right now my iPhone is telling me it’s 83° and 79% humidity, but I don’t believe it because it feels like a taste of hell outside.  I’ve been here before, in fact the last time was just over a year ago, so my friend and I decided to take a cab and go into the old city and shop a little.  I’ve copied what I wrote about the history of this place last year mainly to refresh my memory.

The city was founded by the Spanish in 1533 and named after the Spanish city of Cartagena. A little interesting linguistic note is that the original Cartagena in southern Spain was named after Carthage in North Africa because it was founded around 227 BC by a Carthaginian general. The city lies on the Caribbean coast of the South American continent and close to the Isthmus of Panama.  Because of its location it was an important and strategic port for the importation of slaves and the exportation of silver, gold, and other products coming from the New World. The city was sacked and burned several times  by pirates, privateers and enemies of Spain, including Sir Francis Drake.  As a result of the attacks the King of Spain commissioned fortifications to be built and they were finally completed in the 1650’s.  At one time the city was protected by 29 stone forts and walls that were 16 miles long and in places 40 feet high and 50 feet wide. The principal fortress is the Castillo of San Felipe de Barajas which after its completion was the largest one constructed by Spain in the Americas.

This is the Castillo de San Felipe

The fortress system and city have a little interesting historical connection to Virginia.  In 1741 the English under the leadership of Edward Vernon laid siege to Cartagena.  The English had a large armada of ships and more than 25,000 troops, including 2000 American colonial infantry.  Among those was Lawrence Washington, George Washington’s half-brother.  When Lawrence inherited some family property in Virginia along the Potomac he named the house there after his commander, hence the name Mount Vernon.  George kept the name when he inherited the property.  The siege and attack were unsuccessful despite vastly outnumbering the Spanish.  The defender was Don Blas de Lezo whose statue is at the foot of the castle.  He is still considered a hero here.

To go into the city from the port the Colombians have built a little wildlife park attached to the cruise terminal.  The path to go out leads through this place and there are lots of brightly colored parrots and peacocks and other native animals in enclosures.  The birds are free and we wonder if their wings have been clipped or if it’s just that they are very well-fed.  There were lots of watermelons, papayas and mangos around in the various areas.

I couldn't get this peacock to turn so I could fully get his tail, but you can see a little of it.

This and the next two are of a mother and baby anteater.

Our taxicab experience was very strange.  As we exited the terminal area a man approached us wanting to give us a tour.  We told him we weren’t interested and just wanted a taxi to go to the old city to the emerald museum.  He told us it was $50 for a tour and if we just got a taxi it would be $20 each way.  We told him again that was fine; we just wanted a taxi.  He walked with us to where we got in what was supposedly our taxi and he jumped in the front passenger seat.  Okay, that was alright.  When we got into the old town to the museum and got out and paid the taxi driver, he got out too and said the driver would hang around waiting for us.  We told him that was unnecessary and went in the museum.  Of course it had a shop at the end of the tour, but we didn’t see anything of interest so we headed out and walked down some nearby streets where we found another interesting shop and went in.  We were only in there for a few minutes and who appeared but the man from the terminal and taxi.  While we shopped he sat in the store  and appeared to be waiting for us.  We didn’t like that and while we negotiated and then bought something we told the shop ladies we didn’t like him hanging around.  They eventually made him leave the store but I could see him hanging around outside. After we’d made our purchases we decided we didn’t want to wander around anymore with this guy trailing us so the shop people called us a car to take us back to the cruise terminal.  That ride cost us $8 plus a $2 tip.  The man was probably just getting commissions for getting people into inflated taxi rides, but it was a creepy feeling being shadowed, especially when we had no idea we were being followed.  Reading what I’ve written now doesn’t sound so weird, but it really did feel strange.

Some scenes in the old city

Anyway, we got back to the wonderful air-conditioning on the ship.  We had a  salad for lunch and then an afternoon Adult Milk Shake made with Mango sorbet (it was heavenly) and now we’re getting ready to sail.  The Herald, the daily news thing telling us about the day’s events says we’re sailing away from Bermuda;  the Entertainment Manager in charge of printing the thing is slightly confused.  It’s been a good day but the heat and humidity take a lot out of me.  I’m glad tomorrow is a sea day.  Hasta mañana or whenever I write again.

December 7 - Willemstad - 84th anniversary of the date which will live in infamy

This is a hodgepodge of things I’ve written in the last couple of days but didn’t get around to posting.

When there's nothing else to add just upload a sunset picture.

Kralendijk, Bonaire -  Happy St. Nicholas Day (December 6)

I had the best of intentions about writing in the last couple of days when we were at sea, but you know what they say about good intentions.  Anyway, we’re tied up here in Kralendijk (no idea how you say that) and our sister, the Seabourn Ovation is right behind us.  It has been great for the staff because many have friends on both ships and they have been able to visit back and forth.  So have we passengers but I have no idea if anyone I know is there so I haven’t.

It is exceedingly hot and humid here!  I know it’s the Caribbean but I had forgotten how hot it can be and as usual my clothes are not meant for this weather.  I don’t wear loose flowing things at home and that’s what works here.  I went ashore with my friend Colleen and we walked on the main street.  Both of us bought a couple of linen things that might be more comfortable in the days that come.

These are Kralendijk

The three sea days between here and Miami passed as sea days always do.  I played some games and listened to a couple of talks.  One speaker was pretty good; the other was as boring as a rock.  He worked for 8 presidents doing something to do with the Office of Management and Budget and I don’t think he was on the cutting edge of national or international affairs.  I had dinner at his table one night and he wasn’t a scintillating host there either.

Last night I had dinner with the two couples who went on the provision tour and we included the Provision Master Harry and the Executive Housekeeper Alvie.  It was a delightful evening. In fact we didn’t leave the restaurant until just past 11 PM.  The Solis Bar next to the restaurant had closed and the pianist there had ended his gig for the night.  

The passenger mix on this ship is very strange and I can’t say it’s my favorite.  As I think I mentioned there are lots of Belgians, Swiss and Germans.  Some of them speak English with varying levels of proficiency; others don’t.  I understand that they want to socialize with their compatriots but they do it very loudly and in packs.  A couple of times now I’ve been asked to move from where I’m sitting so that one of them can sit with the others in their group.  That would be okay if there was another bar stool nearby, but there hasn’t been, so I thought that was a little rude.  They are getting off in Panama in a few days and I’m looking forward to that.

Today we’re in Willemstad, Curaçao.  Once again it’s a place I’ve been to a couple of times.  There are two megaships here but despite that because it’s Sunday most things are closed. A friend and I had planned to go ashore but two of our other friends, two very nice fellows from New Zealand, told us that most everything except souvenir shops are closed and that it’s even hotter than yesterday in Bonaire.  We decided to stay onboard.

And this is Willemstad

A crazy person was rapeling down from a bridge behind where we're docked.  I don't know why one would do that.

Since I don’t have anything exciting to write about I’ll tell you a little about these two of the ABC islands we’ve been to in the last two days. Bonaire and Curaçao along with Aruba comprise the westernmost of the Leeward Antilles in the Caribbean. Curaçao is about 40 miles from Venezuela.  (A woman a few days ago told me she was worried that we were so close to Venezuela because Trump might blow us up.  I told her I didn’t think he had any intentions of blowing up a great big white cruise ship and she should calm herself.)  Aruba and Curaçao are self-governing autonomous parts of the Kingdom of the Netherlands while Bonaire is a special municipality part of the kingdom.  Despite being part of the EU the official currency is the US dollar.  The official languages are Dutch and English.

The supposed first European to explore the islands was one of Christopher Columbus’ captains in 1499.  By 1527 the Spanish had established control of the islands which they maintained until 1634 when the Netherlands and Spain fought over them and Holland gained control.  Spain briefly took them back but then abandoned them because it decided they were of little value to Spain.  The population of the three islands combined is about 300,000.  The ABC islands gained some importance after oil was discovered in Venezuela in the early part of the 20th century.  Oil refineries were built on them and these played an important role in WWII.  Now tourism is the primary source of income.  

Well, I haven’t got much else to write about at the moment and I really should post this to sort of get caught up.  Sorry if there’s not much exciting going on.  Until next time.

December 2 - Miami

We had two uneventful sea days after our departure from Bermuda.  Our British friends were happy because the sun finally came out and the temperature was warmer.  They love the sun and they were out around the pool in force.  We did the usual sea day things.  We played Name that Tune and lost badly (we need some people younger than 50- 0r maybe 60).  Our trivia team finished ten points behind the winners but we got prizes too. I had some nice dinners with friends, many of whom left today in Miami. It’s always sad to say goodbye, but hopefully we’ll meet again on another cruise.

Yesterday four of my friends and I had a special treat.  We were given a tour by the Provision Master of the ship’s stores, not places you shop but where everything consumed on the ship is kept.  This ship carries a maximum of 600 passengers and a crew of about 350.  The Provision Master is a very engaging half Bosnian, half German man who told us to call him Harry (his name is Har…. something). He’s also quite handsome.  We went down to Deck 3 and were shown around the various storage areas where everything from toilet paper to caviar consumed on the ship are stored.  The last opportunity to resupply was in Lisbon, eleven days before, but the produce including berries and lettuce looked like it left the store today.

Just a few rolls

Some spirits to keep our spirits up

I can’t remember all the statistics he told us but one did stick with me;  between Lisbon and Bermuda we used 27,000 rolls of toilet paper! What does that say about all of us here on the ship?  Seabourn includes all beverages except for some premium wines and liquors.  I’ve heard people complaining that the wines included are “rubbish” as a couple of the Brits here have said. Frankly, I’m not enough of a connoisseur to know; I just know if something tastes good or doesn’t to me.  There was a shortage of a wine I like and I offered to go buy some at a Costco in Miami if the ship would send me since I know they carry it. Harry assured me they would get some.

The Provision Master has a staff of 5 working with him.  He keeps a running inventory and sends orders in daily so that at various ports we can pick up needed goods. The refrigerated rooms are operated at different temperatures depending on the optimum temperature for storing the items.  One room had nothing but ingredients to make ice cream and sorbets.  All of those are made daily on the ship. One funny thing had to do with French fries.  Seabourn has a reputation for having fabulous French fries at its patio.  A while ago posts started appearing on Seabourn forums that they no longer had the delicious coated fries.  Harry explained that they get them from two places – one in the US and one in Europe.  For a time both suppliers were out of them.  When they became available again Harry bought 1000 kilos just to make sure he doesn’t run out.  There was one refrigerated case just for those.

Some citrus fruits

This was the frozen seafood locker

Just a few eggs

Christmas is coming and these are lebkuchen to be used for the gingerbread villages which appear around the ship

These potatoes are for every other potato dish, not for the wonderful fries

Harry and his crew

On the last evening before Miami I went up to the Observation Bar to say goodbye to some friends getting off.  Barry and Merle, the wonderful duo playing up there, played great dance music so some of us decided to dance up there instead of down in the club. I think we all had a lovely time!  

Pearl, one of mt favorite fellow dancers

November 30 - Bye, bye Bermuda! Miami here we come!

I’m out of my funk and feeling back to normal.  We sailed from Bermuda around 1:30 PM yesterday afternoon.  I didn’t go ashore there at all because the weather was never really good and we were a 40-minute bus ride or 20-minute ferry ride from Hamilton.

At lunchtime yesterday we had an ABBA sailaway party around the pool. Several friends and I ordered a couple of pizzas to share for lunch.  That’s one of many nice things about Seabourn – you can order a pizza with the toppings you like (and of course there’s no charge).  Our Cruise Director Ross is an absolute hoot and he was dancing around all over the pool deck and he eventually jumped into the pool fully clothed.  He’s leaving on the next leg and we’re all holding our breath because his replacement is going to be someone from HAL who has never sailed with Seabourn before.

Last night for dinner I went for fried chicken with five other members of my trivia team.  They are all very nice people and they are also very quick-witted so the conversation was very entertaining.  After dinner I went to one of the bars to get my favorite after dinner drink, a luscious concoction of liqueurs, coffee and chocolate.  Sitting next to me was a very interesting British man who retired from their Merchant Marine after spending more than 40 years at sea.  He was a Chief Engineer and his last posting was on the QM2. It was fascinating talking to him because, like most mariners, he began his career literally on banana boats taking bananas and other fruits from the Americas to Europe and the middle East.  I talked to him for so long that I missed going to the club.  The band and the servers down there must wonder if I jumped ship.

I think I should write something about Bermuda and its significance in the western Atlantic. The first settlers to come to Bermuda were actually on their way with people and supplies for the Jamestown Colony.  The flotilla they were sailing in was broken up by a storm and the flagship was driven aground on a reef, which resulted in all the passengers and supplies on that ship surviving.  Word reached those people about the privations occurring in Jamestown and they refused to continue on so they settled Bermuda.  Prior to 1609 Bermuda occupied an important position on the homeward leg of ships coming back from the New World to Europe. French privateers probably used it as a staging place to attack Spanish galleons returning to Spain with all manner of cargoes from its American colonies.  After the British settled the island they used it for the same purpose during their wars.  Shipyards were built on the island to build small, fast sloops with timber brought from the Americas.  I didn’t realize it but by the 17th and 18th centuries many European countries had clear-cut many of their forests and timber from the Americas was one of the most valuable commodities. 

After we gained our independence Bermuda played an important role to guard Britain against its two biggest threats, France during the Napoleonic Wars, and the newly created United States.  During the War of 1812 Bermuda played a significant role.  It was the base of the British fleet that blockaded US ports, and it was a squadron of Bermuda sloops that engaged in the campaign in the Chesapeake Bay which included the burning of Washington.  During the two world wars, Bermuda was used as a staging area for convoys crossing the Atlantic and ships based in Bermuda helped to seek out and destroy German raiders. The US had military installations in Bermuda until about 1995.

Now Bermuda is a self-governing British Overseas Territory with a population of around 64,000.  Its principal industry is tourism and it attracts a lot of wealthy people.  In fact the per capita income because of that is over $110,000.

So there you have more info than you ever wanted to know about Bermuda.

I did do something really interesting yesterday morning.  I was invited to go with a small group to tour the laundry here on the Encore. It’s down on Deck 2 where we passengers never go and where so many people work behind the scenes to make our cruise great. The laundry team consists of 13 crewmen, mainly Filipino, who wash, dry, iron and fold countless linens every day and additionally do the laundry of both staff people and we passengers who send it out to be cleaned.  My laundry comes back to me beautifully pressed and folded within two days of being sent out.  The laundry master Is a very nice man named Felix who has worked for Seabourn for 28 years!  He is here for 9 months at a time.  He and his staff are people who we never see but are such an important part of the cruising experience.  On the last evening of each segment of a cruise there is a Crew Appreciation event around the pool area where these unseen people have an opportunity to come out and be saluted and thanked by us.

Felix the Laundry Master

His team

Just a few sheets

Folding hundreds of napkins every day

Never-ending piles of ironing

That’s all for today.  We have today and one more sea day before we get to Miami on December 2 and many of my shipmates get off.  Tomorrow is our last trivia day with this team and I’m not sure where we stand.  Goodbye for now.

November 28 - Post-Thanksgiving ramblings from Soggy Bermuda.

Written over a couple of days and I don’t feel like revising it.

It’s Thanksgiving; it’s calm and the sun is out.  I’m on a beautiful ship where I’m being taken care of royally. But today I’m in what I call a “blue funk.” I’ve been asking myself “how can this be” and I’ve yet to figure it out.   I’m doing some introspection and if you don’t want to read that, stop now.  

The demographics on this cruise are different from any I’ve been on and perhaps that’s part of it.  I’m not xenophobic but we have large groups from a couple of countries which aren’t English speaking.  When I’ve met and spoken with some of them individually they are very nice.  In a group they take over the bar, the dance floor and anywhere else they are. Last night when I went to the Club one tromped on my foot on the dance floor and another pair doing a wild jive without paying attention to anybody else, bumped into me without even a tacit apology.  I didn’t fall, but that made me mad.

Yesterday (Thanksgiving Eve) I had dinner with some folks I’d met a few days ago and we planned to dine together.  They are all American like me, but during the course of dinner they told me they are embarrassed to be Americans.  One lady said we’re all lazy and obnoxious. She cited as proof of this that other people learn lots of languages and we don't and we're loud.  I asked her how many languages she speaks and she told me one – English.  I wondered if she dislikes herself.  It was a depressing meal.  I know we have rude Americans, but most of the ones I know are not and I think we are the most generous country in the world which has on the whole done lots of good.  Dining with people who felt the way these three did was a definite downer.

I had Thanksgiving dinner with a zany couple of transplanted Aussies who wanted to experience a traditional American Thanksgiving.  They raised my spirits with the fun we had at the table.  We played a game which is too complicated to explain here, but it involved cards, presents and stealing the latter from each other. We did an awful lot of laughing in between eating a really good turkey dinner.  I was happy that the day ended on that note.

Two views of our fun Thanksgiving group

We docked at midday today in Bermuda.  We were supposed to dock in downtown Hamilton, but the winds were too strong to maneuver the narrow channel so here we are at the Royal Dockyard at the tip of the island.  It has been raining off and on, and ashore there’s not much but “trash and trinket” stores as Al used to call them.  So I made an executive decision to stay on the ship.  I don’t want to be drenched looking at magnets and postcards.

Not very sunny Bermuda

We’re here overnight and sail tomorrow at one in the afternoon.  It’s a shame for the crew because on overnight stays many of them are able to go ashore late in the evening after they’ve finished their work. I talked to one of the young ladies who works in Guest Services and she told me she and her friends have found there’s a nearby pub called The Frog and the Onion and they are going to try going there, but they aren’t sure it will be open late.  I wished them luck.

I’ve had a couple of interesting conversations in the last couple of days with people who tried to convince me that the first Thanksgiving was held in Plymouth in 1621.  I’m sticking to my guns though and I’ve told them they are positively wrong – every good Virginian knows the first English Thanksgiving was held on December 4, 1619 (two years before!!!) at Berkeley Plantation. Fortunately that has not been a trivia question because despite the rule that the man with the microphone running the game is always right, I would have to dispute it if credit was given to the Pilgrims.

I guess I’ve rambled enough to let it be known I’m still alive and well.  I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving.  No Black Friday shopping here.  Bye for now.