Tag: Travel

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Blogging Nature Photography Scripture Travel

30 Years Of Cruisin’

#TravelThursday continues, and in this edition we visit the Western Caribbean via cruise ship. Exactly 30 years ago this morning – August 19TH 1991 – I awoke on a cruise ship at sea for the first time ever.

My Mom and Dad asked me if I wanted to go on a cruise with them and my little brother earlier in 1991, and (not knowing much about cruise ships at the time) – I said “YES !”.

They all flew down to Miami from the Washington D.C. area, and I drove up from 30 miles away. (I live in South Florida.) We embarked on the Norwegian Seaward – a fairly-new 3-year-old ship at the time. I believe there were 4 ports-of-call on the itinerary in the Bahamas, Grand Cayman Island, Ocho Rios Jamaica, and Cozumel Mexico (don’t remember the exact order). It was a 7-day cruise, and I pretty much fell in love with cruising during that week.

Ocho Rios stands out the most from that cruise. I remember doing a shore excursion with my family on a boat or a raft from the top of a hill, and we sailed slowly down a lazy river back to sea level as our host / guide sang to us. I always thought that it was Dunn’s River Falls, but you can only walk up and down those steeper falls – you can’t be on a boat or a raft on it. That trip down a river was likely part of a larger full-day coach tour of the island. Of course this was 30 years ago, so I don’t remember everything about it.

Ocho Rios also stands out in that I haven’t been back since on any other cruise or otherwise. I’ve been to the Bahamas, Grand Cayman Island, and Cozumel Mexico many times since that first cruise. I’ve been to Cozumel more than any other cruise ship port (by far).

My first 3 cruises were on Norwegian Cruise Line from 1991 to 1995. I then went on my first of 14 Carnival cruises in 1999. I’ve also been on Royal Caribbean and Disney.

I wrote about my 10TH Anniversary Carnival Imagination cruise in September 2009. Read it here.

I’ve got my 15TH Carnival cruise booked, and it’ll be my 23RD cruise overall. I’ll be visiting the “ABC Islands” – Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao.

I had two back-to-back poor cruising experiences on Norwegian in January 2013 and Carnival in May 2014. After those two cruises – I kind of decided that it would be the end of the cruising era of my life. They were my 19TH and 20TH cruises, and I thought that perhaps I’d “retire” after 20 and rediscover Florida and America rather than the Caribbean.

I actually lost my desire to cruise for a few years after that. But that didn’t last long. My brother and sister-in-law invited me to be a part of a short 4-day family cruise on Disney out of Miami, and I said “YES !”.

It was my first cruise in nearly 4 years, and my 21ST cruise overall. It was also a fantastic cruise that greatly exceeded my expectations for a Disney cruise. The food was outstanding, and the entertainment was a lot of fun. I also relived my youth (OK – 30s) out on the dancefloor on that cruise !

9 months later – I was on my 22ND cruise – back on Carnival. I booked it 2½ weeks after I returned home from that Disney cruise. Unlike my previous Carnival cruise nearly 5 years earlier this one was a fantastic one.

So now I have my 23RD cruise booked – also on Carnival. I actually booked it 11 months in advance about a month before COVID swept the world, and it was ultimately canceled, so I rebooked it. I’m so looking forward to visiting the “ABC Islands”. I’ve been to Aruba and Curaçao before (on a Carnival cruise in October 2012), but I’ve never been to Bonaire.

I still plan to continue to rediscover Florida and America in the years to come – particularly post-retirement, but I won’t rule-out cruising. I’d like to take another TransAtlantic cruise in the future. My cruise from Rome Italy to Miami Florida in 2007 (on Carnival) remains as the greatest of all of the cruises I’ve experienced.

Join me next #TravelThursday as we visit another location on the face of this earth.

They keep you safe on your way, and your feet will not stumble. You can go to bed without fear. You will lie down and sleep soundly. You need not be afraid of sudden disaster or the destruction that comes upon the wicked, for the LORD is your security. He will keep your foot from being caught in a trap. (Proverbs 3:23-26 NLT)

All rights reserved (c) 2021 Christopher M. Day, CountUp Ministries

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Blogging Driving Nature Photography Scripture Travel

Skyline Drive + Blue Ridge Parkway

#TravelThursday continues, and in this edition we visit 574 miles of scenic roadway up in the mountains of Virginia and North Carolina.

Several years ago I planned (via Excel spreadsheet) a road-trip that encompassed both Skyline Drive and the Blue Ridge Parkway. It was a very ambitious itinerary that – looking back upon it – is almost undoable. It had me flying-in to Washington Dulles International Airport and renting a car there. I’d get on the I-66 westbound, and I’d take that to Front Royal where I’d spend the night.

On the morning of Day 2 I’d begin my mountain adventure and embark on Skyline Drive – the 105½-mile slow and curvy road that runs near the top of the entire length of Shenandoah National Park in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. I’d visit Luray Caverns on this day. It’s 11 miles off Skyline Drive. I remember a long time ago – sometime in the mid-1970s – visiting this place as a little kid with my parents. I need to visit it again to enjoy it as an older adult. The area has grown-up a lot since then, and the caverns are surrounded by other museums and attractions.

I’d spend my 2ND night of this road-trip in Fishersville Virginia – located in-between the south-end of Skyline Drive and the north-end of the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Days 3, 4, and 5 were quite ambitious in that I would drive the entire length of the 469-mile Blue Ridge Parkway from Virginia into North Carolina (with various attraction and hotel stops along the way). At the end of the 5TH day I’d end-up in Gatlinburg Tennessee on the other side of the Great Smoky Mountains. I suppose I would’ve spent several days and nights in Gatlinburg exploring the area. After that I would’ve turned-in my rental car, and flown back home to sea level in Miami.

So while I extensively planned that road-trip – I never took it. I’ve not lost interest in taking that trip, and I probably will take it in the next several years – early-on in the next chapter of my life – post-retirement. I think I’d eliminate the Gatlinburg Tennessee portion of the future trip, as that’s worthy of its own trip by itself. Me and my little brother visited Gatlinburg for several hours back in August of 1992 – a few weeks after a horrible fire consumed a portion of the downtown attractions district. I remember that it still reeked of smoke some 3 weeks after the fire. I’d really like to spend about 4 days and 3 nights in and around Gatlinburg enjoying all that the area has to offer. I’d really like to visit Gatlinburg with my family (who live in North Texas), but I don’t think that it’s a destination that my brother, sister-in-law, and two nieces would find as much fun as me. They are not “mountain people”. They are “beach people”.

Now the Skyline Drive + Blue Ridge Parkway road-trip – that’s definitely a solo trip. Perhaps I’ll do it in reverse – from south to north – over the course of maybe 10 days instead of 5 – adding more stops for sightseeing, photography, attractions, and good mountain dining and lodging. Of course I’d drive my own car for the road-trip. It’s about 830 miles to drive from my current home in South Florida to the south-end of the Blue Ridge Parkway in western North Carolina. Once I hit Front Royal Virginia (at the north-end of the 574-mile parkway adventure) I’d take more traditional roads back southward, and the Andy Griffith Museum and the Billy Graham Library would be key stops along the way through the foothills of North Carolina.

I think it’s time to start redoing that itinerary (via Excel spreadsheet) so that it’s ready to implement in about 3 to 5 years. I’ll have over 2,500 miles to cover !

Join me next #TravelThursday as we visit another location on the face of this earth.

They keep you safe on your way, and your feet will not stumble. You can go to bed without fear. You will lie down and sleep soundly. You need not be afraid of sudden disaster or the destruction that comes upon the wicked, for the LORD is your security. He will keep your foot from being caught in a trap. (Proverbs 3:23-26 NLT)

All rights reserved (c) 2021 Christopher M. Day, CountUp Ministries

Categories
Blogging Nature Travel

Madeira

#TravelThursday continues, and in this edition we visit the small island of Madeira. It’s an autonomous region of Portugal located in the North Atlantic Ocean about 1,000 kilometers southwest of Portugal. It’s a difficult island to find on a map. It’s at 32.7° north latitude and 16.9° west longitude. It’s actually the top of a volcano that extends some 20,000 feet above the ocean floor along an underwater mountain range. The highest point of the island is just over 6,100 feet above sea level. The island itself is about 35 miles wide (west to east) and about 14 miles in length (north to south).

Back on November 03RD 2007 I visited Funchal – the capital and largest city of Madeira on its south coast. Over 110,000 people lived there in 2011, and that’s almost half of the population of the island. Funchal is a major cruise ship port – particularly for ships traveling between Europe and North America. That’s how I visited the island. I was on Day 7 of a 14-day Transatlantic cruise from Rome Italy to Miami Florida. That was our final port-of-call before crossing the Atlantic.

I took a shore excursion with hundreds of others from the cruise ship. It was basically a tour of the southern part of the island to include the port city as well as the mountains to the north. I forget which mountain peak we went to the top of, but it was cold up there at over a mile high.

That was a fun day on land. After that our cruise ship sailed down to about the 25° north latitude line, and then once we got there we straddled that parallel all the way westward to Miami Florida – arriving 8 days after our Madeira stop.

Join me next #TravelThursday as we visit another location on the face of this earth.

All rights reserved (c) 2021 Christopher M. Day, CountUp Ministries

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Blogging Driving Military Nature Travel

Iceland

Following a fun 7-part Thursday blog series on my recent 77-hour / (4-day / 3-night) / 472-mile road-trip to and from Florida’s Treasure Coast – I plan to continue these travel-themed Thursday blog posts indefinitely.

This week #TravelThursday leaves Florida and the United States to check-out the intriguing island nation of Iceland. We’re technically not leaving North America to visit Iceland, as the Mid-Atlantic Ridge which separates North America and Europe in this region runs right through the center of Iceland. Geologically speaking the north and west part of the island is part of the North American plate, and the south and east part of the island is part of the European plate. You can actually walk right along the narrow valley / rift that is in the middle of the ridge and look-up at both North America and Europe on either side.

The Mid-Atlantic Ridge is the longest continuous mountain range on earth – extending from the Arctic Ocean in the north to nearly Antarctica in the south. Most of it is submerged under water, but there are a few islands in the middle of the ocean that are part of the ridge – to include the biggest one – Iceland. There’s an excellent article on the Amusing Planet web site that explains the Mid-Atlantic Ridge in Iceland.

I’ve never been to Iceland; although, I once had the chance to do so when I lived in the United Kingdom for 2 years from 1985 to 1987. Back then Keflavik NAS (at the SW corner of the island) was a joint-use Icelandic / American military base, and the base that I was stationed at in England – which itself was a forward operating location for stateside KC-135 aircraft – sent some of those aircraft to Keflavik for a few months at a time to support the mission there.

One of my favorite Twitter accounts is @dorisig (Iceland Photos). The name of the guy who runs it is Halldor. He’s got over 5,100 followers. He lives in Iceland (Reykjavik), and he’s a tourist guide. Once or twice per day (usually during the work week only) he drives somewhere with his dashcam on, and he posts a 30 to 40 second video of his drive along with the time and temperature. He includes noteworthy comments with his tweets – some of them quite amusing. I love his tweets and videos. I look forward to my daily drive around town with Halldor. Some of his videos have been shown on TV worldwide – including here in the U.S. This is probably the best thing Iceland has going for it online right now. He’s promoting the beauty that is Iceland every day. My interest in visiting Iceland during a future summertime has increased immensely !

#TravelThursday continues next Thursday. Where shall I visit virtually next ?

All rights reserved (c) 2021 Christopher M. Day, CountUp Ministries