Steve and Cathy's Blog

This is our fifth day heading eastbound toward the United States.  Seas are the same.  Los Angeles cannot come soon enough.  We plan a busy day that includes packing, because tomorrow we will ship four suitcases to the Spanish Community of Wallingford.  Originally we would have had to wait until we disembarked in Miami, but Cathy has been developing a plan of attack that is much better.  She has learned that we can ship stuff from LA just as we could from Miami, which means that it will arrive in Wallingford way before we do, so we will have our stuff available when we arrive home on July 1^st.  It will also mean that our disembarkation process in Miami, when the entire 600+ passengers are all leaving, will be far, far simpler.

So today we will pack four suitcases.  The main thing we need to calculate is how much clothing to ship home while still having enough for the next two weeks.  Everything else moves out.  We begin this process after lunch around 3pm after a preparatory nap.  Surprisingly, we are all done forty-five minutes later. Naturally, Cathy has all the proper paperwork, luggage tags and so forth.  The biggest job of the day, the one we have certainly not been looking forward to, is done!

We saw Paul earlier in the day and he asked if we drink champagne.  He would like to share a bottle with us at Cigar Time.  What a generous offer, which we instantly accept. So around 4:00pm, up we head to Deck 9. The usual crowd is there.  Steve retrieves four champagne glasses from Horizons on Deck 10, we open the bottle of bubbly that Paul won in the Boat Building contest yesterday, and we enjoy the Cigar Time camaraderie of the afternoon. We end up contributing our bottle as well.

We must be on our best behavior, however, as we have dinner plans with our shipboard next door neighbors Deiter and Bethsabe Stadler.  Of course, diner with them is a pleasure, and we hope that we can maintain contact after this trip is over.  They are very fun people with a most interesting life history. She is from Colombia and he is from Switzerland, and they live in Miami.

We go back to the room, put out our four suitcases for collection, and crash.  We are so looking forward to seeing cousin Kristen Kittscher tomorrow!