Random Ramblings Through the Years: 2014

1-1-14 Happy New Year's day at MOBOT

1-2-14 snow

1-2-14 snow at Tim and Faith's

1-5-14 more snow!

1-5-14 yuck

1-14-14 new couch

2014 Kauai -- trip # 12: Kauai Coast Resort; KBV; biking; Smith's garden; Allerton Garden; Na Aina Kai; Bali Hai

2014 Kauai---This was our 12th vacation to Kauai! I know a lot of people don't like to keep going back to the same place, but I love it. We've really gotten to feel comfortable here. Too bad it's so far away!!!

1-19-14 my NaHoku treat this year

1-20-14 sunset at Kealia beach on the East side

1-21-14 walk along the beach in Kapaa when we stayed at Kauai Coast Resort at the Beachboy

1-22-14 Hanalei pier

1-22-14 super high surf on the North shore

1-23-14 Saltpond sunset

1-26-14 oragami given to us when we met up with another tripadvisor Kauai traveler in Princeville.

1-27-14 Allerton Gardens---first time going there

1-27-14 Allerton gardens

1-28-14 celebrating Ken's birthday with a bike ride on the Kapaa biking path

1-28-14 Happy 63rd birthday Ken!!!!

1-?-14 snorkeling Lawai

1-29-14 cool trash cans in Hanalei

1-29-14 Na'Aina Kai garden---reciprocal garden to our MOBOT, otherwise a $35 fee for the 1 1/2 hour walking tour.

1-30-14 snorkeling Lawai and Poipu

1-30-14 snorkeling south side

2-1-14 Nene

2-2-14 white eye vireo

2-3-14 Princeville sunset

2-4-14 Ken at Kealia Beach

With the repeated high surf, we didn't get a lot of snorkeling this year. But we still had a great time!

Back in St. Louis:

3-8-14 Eagles In Alton

3-8-14 Migratory white pelicans in Alton

3-9-14 to MOBOT for the orchid exhibit

April 11-22 Maasdam Southern Caribbean Cruise: Barbados; St. Maarten; St. Vincent; St. Kitt's; St. Croix; Martinique; Half Moon Cay

Hard to believe it was 1 1/2 years since our last cruise.

4-11-14 embarkation day

the sunsets from our cruises have seldom disappointed!

4-15-14 St. Kitt's - a new snorkel spot for us.

a little libation from our beach in St. Kitt's

4-15-14 St Maarten

4-16-14 St. Vincent - another new island for us. The smaller ship can get into these smaller ports.

4-17-14 Barbados one of our favorite ports! Easy to get around on and we feel safe here.

4-17-14 along Folkstone on Bardados. Hardly anyone is ever here and we love to go here. Snorkeling is decent, too.

4-18-14 Martinique. Not one of our favorite ports. Expensive, no where to snorkel near the port, not much English spoken here. But this island bus tour was nice.

4-21-14 Half Moon Cay---another favorite port!

We had never been on a ship as small and the Maasdam and were a bit worried that lines would be long and spaces would be crowded, but it turned out to be really nice----5 minutes to walk anywhere on the ship, ran across people we met at dinner many times throughout the cruise, liked that there were fewer people, and this ship had the best food and entertainment of any ship we had been on before! Instead of 2000 passengers like on the last 3 HAL cruises we took, there were only 1265. Instead of 86,700 tonnage, it was 55,800. The only thing missing on this ship was the extra cabins for more people.

Back to Florida and visiting with the Hickses---including the St. Louis ones.

having a private painting party

we broke up the long drive to/from Stl / S Florida by staying in the Wyndham Villa Rica. Little did we know that in about 5 years we would be living very close to here!

Back in Missouri:

6-3-2014 Twilight Tuesday: Dogs of Society-A Tribute to Elton John on the lawn at the History Museum in Forest Park ----- EXCELLENT!!!

6-8-14 Cyrstal City underground---interesting underground mining caves with a lake in it and barge rides.

6-25-14 Wed. night concert in the park at MOBOT with the Schneiderjans

Back to S. Florida from 6-27 until 7-15: I went every chance I could get. Didn't take me long to fall in love with S. Florida! Who knew we'd be moving there for a year next June !

typical afternoon drenching

typical S. Florida beach!

another beautiful day ending in Florida

By Warner Robins on our drive back to St. Louis (who knew we would live a couple miles from here for a year in the not too distant future, too!!!)

typical barn skeleton in the midwest countryside

7-19-14 About 14 miles into my bike ride on the Kati trail

7-25-14 Senior Volleyball nationals in Cleveland, oh

2014 August Southern Utah vacation: Bryce, Zion, Grand Canyon, Snow Canyon

For a very long time I've been wanting to go to Southern Utah and check out some of our National Parks around there. So in the winter of 2013, when we were talking about where to go in the summer of 2014 and I saw that an RCI exchange into the St. George Worldmark resort was available for the last week of August, we decided to book it. Shortly after booking it, some friends asked if we were still going to show them around Oregon in 2014. So, our Southern Utah trip turned out to be the beginning of a fantastic 3 week long trip, with a night in Las Vegas and 2 weeks in Oregon to follow our 6 nights in Utah.

8-23-14 White Domes in Valley of Fire on our drive from the Las Vegas airport to our Worldmark resort in St. George

8-24-14 entering Bryce Canyon

8-26-14 walking a trail in Zion Canyon


8-26-14 Zion

8-26-14 more Zion

8-27-14 wandering around St. George

8-27-2014 When we bought more WM points at St. George, Utah

8-28-14 North Rim of the Grand Canyon

8-28-14 Grand Canyon North Rim

After our busy, but wonderful week in Utah, we were off to Oregon for another 2 weeks. This was a trip to show some friends as much of Oregon as we could in the 10 days they were with us. Although day 1 for them was a travel day to Las Vegas where they met up with us. Having lived in Oregon as a kid and vacationed there for over 40 years as an adult, I put together a pretty intensive itinerary for them: Kennedy School Restaurant; Voodoo doughnuts; Columbia River Gorge; Mt. Hood; Cascade Lakes byway; Crater Lake; row boating on Clear Lake; Silver Falls; Oregon Gardens; Frank Loyd Wright's Gordon House; Ugo's in Dallas (my nephew's pizza place); 2 days on the coast (lots of whales!); Garibaldi scenic train ride; Tillamook Cheese Factory; Rogue Brewery; Portland Rose Garden; Portland Japanese Garden---then our company went home and we spent 5 more nights on the coast in Lincoln City.

8-31-14 Latourell Falls along the Columbia River Gorge

8-31-14 Bridal Falls along the gorge

8-31-14 Horsetail Falls in the gorge

8-31-14 Mt. Hood

8-31-14 heading to Bend

9-1-14 Cascade Lakes Byway

9-1-14 cascade lakes byway

beer tasting in Bend

9-2-14 Crater Lake

9-3-14 Sahalie Falls near Clear Lake

9-3-14 Clear Lake

9-4-14 Silver Falls

9-4-14 one of the many falls at Silver Falls

9-4-14 walking to another falls

9-5-14 Yaquina lighthouse

9-5-14 Seal Beach S of Depoe Bay

9-5-14 pier by Mo's in Lincoln City

9-6-14 heading north along 101

9-6-14 Garibaldi Train ride along the coast

9-6-14 picnicing on the coast

9-8-14 Schniederjans went home, but we continued the picnicing on the coast.

9-8-14 Canon Beach on our way to Seaside for a night

9-11-14 South past Newport

9-11-14 s. coast of Oregon

9-11-14 in the West Shelter

Unfortunately, shortly after making our plans, I started having pulled and torn calf muscles. After about 5 months and about 50 torn calf muscles, I finally went for physical therapy (something I've never done before). It seemed to help, for awhile. Didn't pull or tear any calf muscles for about 2 months, but then noticed some pretty severe knee pain. Went to the Dr. and was told I needed surgery to remove some torn cartilage, but by then it was too close to our trip, so surgery was scheduled for the week I got back. So, although I had a great 3 week trip!, I also suffered a lot while walking. Ken was probably happy, though, since I didn't insist on many of the hikes in the canyon. The torn calf muscles (in both legs) occurred again, as well as the knee pain, so I hobbled a lot. Really felt like an old lady!!!!

About a week after returning home, I had out-patient knee surgery. I was warned it wouldn't make my knee as good as new, I just hoped it would make it better and maybe helped keep my calves from tearing anymore. Don't know if it was instrumental in helping cure my calves problem, but my knee did hurt for quite awhile. A few months after we moved to Florida in June of 2015, I started taking 800mg of Ibuprofen almost daily for a few months. I know long term use of Ibuprofen is hard on the kidneys, but the pain in my knee was hard, too. That really helped ease the pain. And eventually the knee did get considerably better. I was beginning to wonder if I should have had the surgery.

10-15-2014 weekend at LOTO

Back to touring the Midwest:

10-27-14 day trip train ride to Springfield, Illinois

10-27-14 Capital of Springfield

10-27-14 our Amtrak train---great way to travel.

10-27-14 wandering around Springfield

trip to LOTO

10---2014 fishing at the LOTO

the big catch

10--- enjoying the hottub at the Worldmark, LOTO

HOme again:

11-16-14 snow, again

11-26-14 Ferguson unrest cont. following Michael Brown's death and a grand jury declining to charge the officer with murder. The shooting happened Aug. 8 and riots went on for weeks. Buildings in Ferguson were burned and looted. The verdict of the grand jury not to charge the officer set off the riots again. Time to get out of this place!!!

11-27-14 Thanksgiving with the Florida kids in town

2014 Dec. 6 night Carnival Freedom cruise: Key West; Grand Cayman; Cozumel

Out of the blue one day, my sister-in-law, Jane, told me that my brother said she could go on a cruise with me. He pretty much had to say that since he was going to Vegas with "the guys". So I didn't hesitate to start checking on cruises. I looked for the best deal I could find with the most interesting itinerary leaving out of Ft. Lauderdale. So after some searching, I came up with this 6 night cruise on Carnival Freedom going to Key West, Grand Cayman, and Cozumel. It wasn't too long before my sister heard about our cruise and wanted to join us. So I asked Angie to come, too, and she and I shared a room while Jane and Carolyn share a room.

We had planned to all stay with Angie and JOsh for a day or 2 before the cruise, but Josh got really sick. So we ended up getting a Wyndham room at Palm Aire and rode with Angie to the port on embarkation day.