The Travel Begins...MSP to SAN

 January 28, 2024

Although most of the time I wish our three sons lived closer to us, having all of them near Minneapolis comes in very handy when we schedule flights out of MSP. Just as most of our travels begin, we drove the three hours the day before our flight and spent the night at our youngest son's home.

After a good night's sleep, I awoke before 6:00 am before the alarm went off. Our two grandsons were already up, cuddled together under a blanket watching TV in the living room. Our daughter-in-law uses an old fashioned electric percolator which is set up in the kitchen on a timer so the coffee was ready when I got downstairs. I checked my email and flight status while enjoying a cup of the hot coffee. Fortunately there were no unexpected changes to our flight other than a gate change.

After getting dressed, Bob and I made ourselves at home and fixed our usual breakfasts...oatmeal for him and eggs for me. The only difference was that my eggs were compliments of our son's chickens and had just been layed the previous day. I chose one brown egg and one blue egg.

After a recent cold snap, the last few days had brought warmer temps and dense fog advisories every morning. Visibility wasn't the worst I had seen, but I was concerned that the roads might be slick. The drive to MSP was about an hour from our son's house and he took a slight detour to show us the office building where he works.

Lines at MSP were not very long and it didn't take too long to get our bags checked and through security. The good news was that my bag was NOT overweight...close…but under 50 pounds. Bob made sure to tell the gal taking the bags that even though my bag was heavy I still had even more stuff in his bag. 

The flight was totally full, but I didn't hear any coughers sitting around us. I had a mask in my bag but hated the thought of putting it on. I had brought along a couple of slices of left over pizza (I love cold pizza!) which was my lunch during the flight. Bob had planned to pick up something at the airport to take on the plane but most of the food places were only serving breakfast and he was too cheap to pay $12 for a small premade sandwich. 

The flight went by quickly. The free WiFi (thanks T-Mobile!) was strong enough to watch YouTube videos and I also played some Spider Solitaire and caught up with Cruise Critic posts from our roll call. Bob loves movies so he was quite happy with the large selection provided by Delta. He had time to watch one complete movie and got part way through another before we landed.

Once we collected our bags, I checked pricing for both Uber and Lyft and Uber was slightly cheaper. Our hotel, the Best Western Yacht Harbor, was only about a mile from the airport but it cost almost $22 for the quick ride.

The "we are on vacation" selfie!

Signs made it easy to know where to stand for Uber pickup.

I was pleasantly surprised that our room was ready when we checked into the hotel at 12:45 pm. The room was small, but fine for the two nights we would be spending there. I liked the location of the Hampton Inn where we stayed in 2023, but we did NOT miss the noise from the trains running next to that hotel.

Best Western Yacht Harbor Hotel in San Diego

With Google's help, we found a Subway restaurant a little over a half mile away for a late lunch. Bob ordered a foot-long sub but asked the guy to cut it into 9" and 3" sections. 😄 Since I had eaten the pizza on the flight, the small portion was plenty for me. The weather was absolutely perfect so we ate outside. In just the short time since we arrived my mind was already trying to trick me into believing that it was summer time and not really January!

Our al fresco lunch

I was intrigued with the bird of paradise blooms

In my pre-trip research, I had found that the USS Recruit was near our hotel. I could see the "ship" from the restaurant so we walked over to check it out when we finished eating. The Recruit had been built in the late 1940's as a landlocked training ship. The 2/3 scale of a destroyer escort had been decommissioned and sat empty for over 20 years before being opened as a museum last year in 2023. I use the word "museum" loosely because it was really just a single room with photos on display.

U.S. Recruit...a landlocked training ship from the 1940's.

Nearby was a foot bridge crossing over the harbor. We wandered over and looked across the water just in time to see two guys jump from the north harbor bridge doing a back flip into the water below. Once they were out of the water, they came up on the foot bridge and announced they were going to jump one more time from there...and they did. Only this time as they hit the water a large police boat arrived with lights flashing. With a loud speaker they were instructed to "GET IN THE BOAT!" The boat sailed off with the officers writing what appeared to be a citation for the two daredevils. 

Jump #1

Jump #2

In Bob's words...."those guys are in deep doo-doo".

Later, by the time we were ready for dinner, I was more tired than hungry. A nearby Denny's seemed the easiest and quickest. Certainly not the best food in San Diego but a pleasant meal overall with a very friendly server. Unfortunately as we were walking the couple of blocks to the restaurant something "popped" in my left knee and I was left hobbling. Ouch!

The two hour time difference and long travel day caught up with us so after eating we went back to the hotel (a painful walk for me...) and settled in for the night. 

A Cruise Evolution

 Saturday, January 13, 2024

This is the story of our 2024 winter travels and this one photo explains WHY we were planning the trip. Below is what we were experiencing in SW Minnesota on January 13, 2024. Understand now why I felt the need to go SOMEWHERE warm?

But first lets back up. Almost a year ago today I posted about our plans for a 2023 winter getaway. The idea was to leave cold and snowy Minnesota and head someplace warm. And that is what we did. Unfortunately winter didn't get the memo that it was time to end when we returned home and the cold and snow carried on, and on, and on. I knew then that a mid-winter break for 2024 was a MUST if I was to maintain my sanity.

When Holland America started filling my email inbox with "special private fare" offers one in particular caught my eye...a round trip 35-day cruise to the South Pacific from San Diego. Leaving in mid-February, this cruise would be the perfect escape for the worst part of winter. It didn't take much to convince Bob that we should go, and I booked it.

Koningsdam 35-Day Hawaii/South Pacific Cruise

However within a few weeks, life started happening and the thought of being at sea in such a remote part of the world away from our family just didn't sound like such a good plan. The uneasy feeling just wouldn't go away and I was convinced that God was sending me a message...so we cancelled.

But I didn't want to give up on going SOMEPLACE warm so I came up with the idea of spending a month in the beautiful city of Antigua, Guatemala. Known as the city of "eternal spring" the weather would be perfect. Even better, we have missionary friends that live there that we could spend time with and have as a resource to navigate the language and cultural differences we would encounter.

We visited the beautiful colonial city of Antigua in 2018 and again on our Panama Canal cruise in 2023.

Bob had even started training to do the strenuous overnight hike up Volcan de Fuego (Fire Volcano)

An Air BnB apartment was reserved and flights were booked. BUT THEN...our friends had a change of plans and were going to be in the U.S. for the entire time we had planned to be in Antigua. AND THEN...the airlines changed our flight times so that our connection in Atlanta would be pretty much impossible and there weren't any great alternatives. All of a sudden the month in Antigua wasn't sounding so appealing. And the idea of shopping in the local market and cooking our own meals for a month that previously had seemed fun and adventurous now felt like it was going to be hard work. At this point I had quit anticipating the trip and was wishing we were going on a cruise instead.

So why not cruise?? A little researching found that the cruise on the Holland America Koningsdam just before the 35-day South Pacific itinerary had some really good pricing. Also round trip out of San Diego, the 18-day cruise would visit several of the islands in Hawaii. Once I got the idea, the plan came together pretty quickly. The airline e-credits from our cancelled Guatemala trip would easily pay for the flights to San Diego (and also flights for another upcoming cruise...stay tuned!) The apartment could be cancelled with no penalties and our trip insurance could be transferred to the new trip. So in late November of 2023 we did a complete turn-about and booked an 18-day cruise to Hawaii!!

Koningsdam 18-Day Hawaii Cruise

Normally we don't book cruises so close to the sailing date, but I dove into the planning and felt confident that we had made the right choice. 

Come sail along with us as I begin sharing my daily blog posts from the trip. 

Beautiful Spearfish Canyon

 Sunday, October 1, 2023

Hello October! Our last full day of the trip. It was hard to get moving...definitely a two cup of coffee kind of morning. I packed up the cooler with our picnic supplies. It is handy to know we don't have to find a place to eat when we are out exploring. Today our plan was to drive the Spearfish Canyon Road and finding a restaurant to eat at the time we wanted to eat could be difficult.

On the way, Bob decided to make a stop at Cheyenne Crossing, the restaurant/gift shop where we had dinner on Friday night. When we were there he had purchased a "peacock ore" rock for one of our grandsons who is really into rock collecting. Last night another grandson had called and was excited to show us a rock he had just gotten and asked Bob if he would take him out rock hunting sometime. That was all it took...Bob had to stop and buy another piece of peacock ore for him!

From Lead (where we are staying) we drove north on the canyon road. The weather was a 10 out of 10 and the scenery along the route was even better than the weather. The road is nestled between the tall canyon walls and twists and turns along Spearfish Creek the entire route. I couldn't help but noticing the interesting names that some of the small roads branching off of the canyon road have...Woodchuck Lane, Raspberry Gulch, Ice Box Lane, Coyote Lane, Calamity Gulch, Smugglers Lane, etc.

We pulled into a small parking lot at the Old Spearfish Creek Dam. Several people were fishing in the quieter pool before the water spilled over the dam. The water was crystal clear and we could see many good sized fish.

When we reached the town of Savoy, we parked at the Latchstring Restaurant and walked the trail to Spearfish Falls. The trail is fairly steep at the beginning but it is only about 3/4 mile round trip. The water flowing over the falls was impressive...especially for this time of year. 

Trail to Spearfish Falls

Spearfish Falls

Many, many people were out enjoying the beautiful Sunday weather and the traffic on the canyon road was heavy...I mean REALLY heavy. Most of the pull outs along the road were full which made stopping difficult. I'm sure many of the people were locals just enjoying the weekend and a chance to see the fall colors.

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Bob wanted to hike the Community Caves Trail. I knew there was no way I could handle that so I waited in the car while he hiked. He moves quickly and even though the trail is very vertical, he did the .6 mile route in about 45 minutes.

Approaching the pullout for the Community Caves trailhead.

The town of Spearfish is at the end of the canyon road and the location of the DC Booth Fish Hatchery, our next planned stop. The city park was adjacent to the hatchery grounds and the perfect place for our picnic lunch. It was chilly at our table in the shade, but with jackets very pleasant. The Spearfish Creek flowed between the park and the hatchery.

Our lunchtime view.

We had visited the hatchery in 2021 but it was late in the day and nothing was open. This time we got lucky and were there on the last day of the season. The hatchery grounds are so beautiful and even if nothing was open it would be worth a stop on a nice day just to wander through.

The gift shop sells fish food, but we had clipped a coupon from a travel booklet to get a free container of fish food. We each took turns tossing the food into the water and watching as the very large trout went crazy!

At the end of the road was the stately home built in 1905 for the Booth family (D.C. Booth was the first superintendent of the hatchery.) The home was open for tours and the employee sitting on the front porch seemed eager to show us around. She took us through every little nook and cranny of the house and told us stories of the family, especially Mrs. Booth who had considerable input on the design and construction of the home. For its time, the home was quite modern with indoor plumbing and electricity.

A beautifully restored replica of a railroad fish car is also on display at the hatchery. For over six decades railway cars were used to transport fish to lakes and rivers around the country.

At the northern end of the canyon, the town of Spearfish was our "turn around point." Rather than making a loop, Bob wanted to retrace our route back through the canyon. As we were driving we spotted some cars stopped alongside the road (always a good sign!) and stopped to watch several mountain goats. I kept my distance so as to not scare them, but I needn't have worried...one wandered over quite close to where I was standing.

Bridal Veil Falls is a little underwhelming compared to the other falls in Spearfish Canyon, but Bob wanted to stop anyway. The falls are right next to the highway but he went the "extra mile" and climbed down the embankment to get a closer look.

Bridal Veil Falls...barely more than a trickle.

Two-legged mountain goat. 😄

Our last planned stop was to see Roughlock Falls. The falls can be reached by either a two-mile round trip trail or by driving to the falls and taking a short (but steep) paved path. We skipped doing the longer route because Bob wanted to hike the 76 Trail. Knowing that the trail was nearly vertical, I again chose to stay back while he hiked. I didn't feel like I was missing out too much when the view from the car was so beautiful.

My view while Bob was hiking the 76 Trail.

Bob took this photo from the top of the 76 Trail. I was waiting in the parking lot below.

From top of 76 Trail.

By the time Bob returned, the sun was dipping behind the cliffs putting much of the canyon in shadows as we walked to Roughlock Falls. The falls were still spectacular but just not the greatest conditions for photos. Even at the end of the day, the falls were quite crowded with everyone (us included) trying to enjoy every last minute of a stellar day.

Walkway to Roughlock Falls.

Boardwalk leading to lower falls.

Upper Roughlock Falls

We debated about returning to Cheyenne Crossing for dinner, but decided we were tired and would rather just relax back at the condo. Dinner wasn't anything special, just something easy from a can. Later in the evening I went out on the balcony and instead of seeing the nearly full moon, I heard rumbles of thunder and saw flashes of lightning. Checking the weather radar we could see a storm was headed our way. Both of us LOVE storms so we wrapped up in blankets and sat on the balcony enjoying a light show better than any firework display! A great ending for a great trip!