In Miami, Florida

Upon arrival in Ft. Lauderdale, our cruise ship was met by at least two ambulances picking up passengers. Wonder if they had to go through immigration before being wheeled into the ambulances?

While on the cruise Jim discovered that it wasn’t Laura that hit the side of the garage shortly after we moved into our condo in 2001. One day Laura came into the condo and told Jim that she had hit the side of the garage. When Jim went to look, he saw the molding around the door had been hit, and assumed that this was what Laura had hit. So, he repaired and repainted the damage. It wasn’t until this cruise that Laura told him that she had only hit something in the garage, not the actual side of the garage.

When we wheeled our luggage off the cruise ship, Jim did so proudly, with his new Canadian baggage tag proudly displayed on his suitcase. At our dining table there was another American, us, and two Canadian couples. On the last night, the Canadian couples gave Jim the Canadian baggage tag, making us honorary Canadians. They probably did this because one night Jim mentioned that Canadians were better thought of in other parts of the world than Americans.

We took a shuttle from Fort Lauderdale to our hotel in Miami. We booked the shuttle after we got off the ship. Jim knew there had to be a way to get from the cruise terminal to Miami, and there was.

While in Miami we discovered that the Miami Book Fair International began on Sunday. So, on Sunday we went to two events. The first was “Marriage Equality: Managing the Dream”, which featured one of the lead attorneys, Theodore B. Olson, his wife, Lady Booth Olson (a former tax attorney) and two of the plaintiffs, Kris Perry and Sandy Stier. There was a wonderful discussion of their U.S. Supreme Court case that overturned California’s Proposition 8, and reinstated the freedom to marry for gays and lesbians in California. The two lead attorneys for the plaintiffs in the Proposition 8 case were the lead attorneys on opposing sides in Bush v. Gore, which decided the presidential election. Theodore Olson quoted the need for an independent judiciary to protect the rights of minorities by saying “The majority rules against the minority”. What we didn’t know was that Florida had not yet recognized gay marriage. So, Kansas is ahead of Florida in gay rights, much to the chagrin of conservative Kansas politicians. In the audience were two of the Florida plaintiffs who have been together for 54 years. From right to left, this is a photo of Lady Booth Olson, two of the California plaintiffs, and Theodore Olson.

The second event we attended was “An Evening With Alexander McCall Smith”. He is the author of more than one hundred books, including the bestselling No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series, which takes place in Botswana. He was a hilarious speaker, and gave us one of the best author lectures we have ever attended. Although Scottish, he delivered the lecture in understandable English, while wearing a full dress kilt.

The Cuban food in Miami was wonderful, and is something we do not get in Topeka. Maybe we will try ordering fried plantains sometime in Topeka.

Laura took an architectural tour of Miami. This city has amazing buildings, this is just one of them, the Dade County Courthouse.

This is the Gesu Catholic Church in downtown Miami. It was built in 1896 and is the oldest Catholic Church in Miami.

And, here's an artsy picture of one of the building reflected on the back window of a car, with an Ilam bumper sticker.

And, here is the downtown Olympic theater.

And,finally, the Miami Tower designed by I. M. Pei, which was featured in the opening sequence of the television show Miami Vice.

 

Miami has a downtown program of using old parking meters to collect money for the homeless.The meters were designed by Romero Britto, a Miami artist, who work is often sold on cruise ships by Park West Galleries.

We bought a painting from this street artist. When we saw him, he was painting. We bought a painting, then went into a store, and when we came out he was gone.

Naturally, we went to an art museum. This time it was the Perez Art Museum. We took a free people mover shuttle to the art museum. The museum had 20^th century art almost exclusively. The building was new, light and airy. The art stood out well against the concrete walls. They have modern masters such as Cindy Sherman, Frank Stella and Andy Warhol, as well as some of the Vogel collection from New York that had been donated.

Here's Laura in front of one of the artworks, Western Sun, by Mark Handforth.

Monday morning we were not ready to leave to Miami, but we did so anyway. From our hotel the shuttle was $6 per person and a taxi was $9, plus tip. So, we ignored the throng of people in the lobby and walked out to the big hotel next door where we caught a taxi to the port. From there we got on the Norwegian Star and sailed off for Los Angeles, via the Panama Canal.

Our twelve day cruise

We started this cruise in the cold weather of Quebec. When we left the temperature was in the high 30s and the skies were overcast. The ship’s swimming pools had been drained due to the high winds. We were soon off on our Royal Caribbean 12 day cruise aboard the Legend of the Seas to from Quebec City to Fort Lauderdale.

CHARLOTTETOWN, PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND, CANADA

Our first port was Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada. This was a charming small town of 38,000 people. The town was being kept open until the cruise ship left, then all the snowbirds would head south. We noticed signs in different shops saying that the shop would remain open through November 6, which is the day we were there. So, we closed their tourist season. We walked around the town, enjoying the sights and the old, historic buildings.

The city had put these mice statues around town for the tourists to look for and find for some reward from the tourist office.

HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA, CANADA

This port we missed due to high winds. The winds the night before were 75 miles per hour and they had not calmed down much by morning so the captain called off this port.

BOSTON, MASS.

This was our first time ever in Boston, Mass. From the ship we took the Subway Silver Line, which is a bus, running both on the street and in a subway tunnel. It was also a combination diesel and electric bus, part of the area having overhead electric lines and part being regular city streets. Anyway, we took this bus to South Station, where we caught the real subway to the Museum of Fine Arts where they were having a special exhibition on the Spanish painter, Goya. 

Laura went to the exhibit while Jim walked around the city for a couple of hours. She even found a painting by Joohn Steuart Curry, the man who painted the murals in the Kansas Capital. 

Then we walked around downtown Boston, enjoying the many historical sites. Finally we took the subway back to our ship.

The Boston subways need some upgrade on their rolling stock. The cars were old and very well used. 

The Silver line looked like Boston started a new subway line and ran out of money, or something. First time we ever rode in a bus in a subway tunnel.

The Museum of Fine Arts was near Northeastern University so it was fun to walk around their campus. This was a wall near the university.

After leaving Boston we finally hit warm weather. On day eight of our cruise people began to go to lounge around the outside pool area. Before that the pool deck looked empty like this.

BERMUDA

We docked in a different part of Bermuda than we had on our two previous cruises here. This time were docked at King’s Wharf, across from Port Hamilton where we had docked before. To get to Port Hamilton was either a one hour bus ride or a twenty minute ferry ride for four dollars. We decided to stay in the new port and check out the area and then go to the Museum of Bermuda the following day. We saw the damage that the last two hurricanes in October had caused the island. The port area shops and docks were mostly repaired but there was still storm damage visible.

Jim liked this bird, but has no idea what it is.

Jim also like this white Bird of Paradise.

  The second day we were in Bermuda we spent at the old British Colonial fort.

Some of the inhabitants of the fort were very pregnant.

As we left the fort, Bermuda was getting ready for Christmas.

From Bermuda it was a two day cruise to Fort Lauderdale. During this cruise we lost electricity in our section of the ship for about half an hour. Was interesting seeing the emergency lighting along the floor. Now we know where the emergency lighting is, if the ship is ever sinking.

Today we are going on a twelve day cruise down the St. Lawrence Seaway and the east coast to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. We will not be blogging much because of the high price of the internet on cruise ships. We really enjoyed out short stay in Quebec City. Would be a really beautiful city a little earlier in the year while the leaves are still on the trees.

And, to end, here's one of Laura's bicycle photographs from here. She will be having a show of her bicycle photographs in Topeka next summer.

We are in Quebec City, Canada. This is the only walled city in North America.

To get here we took U.S. Air flights from Kansas City to Philadelphia and then another from Philadelphia to here. Even though the planes said "U.S. Air", the first flight was operated by Republic Airlines and the second flight by Air Wisconsin. Both flight were on jets, with the first plane being an Embraer 175, the second a smaller Bombardier CRJ 200. We arrived on a cloudy, overcast day, when Quebec City is expecting it's first snow of the year overnight. Our hotel is in the Quartier Saint-Roch.

After arriving we went walking around the area. While wandering through a local grocery store, which one of Jim's favorite activities when we travel, we discovered a gluten free beer, brewed in Montreal, called Glutenberg. Glutenberg makes five different varieties of gluten free beer, and only makes gluten free beer. We bought the Red and took it back to our room to try it. It was very good. It's made from water, buckwheat, millet, molasses, chestnut, candi syrup, quinoa, hops and yeast. It turned out to be so good that we then tried the India Pale Ale, which is made from water, millet, buckwheat, corn, black rice, candi syrup, corn maltodextrin, hops and yeast. Only three more varieties to go. The Quartier Saint-Roch is undergoing urban revitalization with a lot of trendy restaurants, bars and boutiques, and still some older buildings. It is in Lower Town Quebec. Our first meal in Canada was Thai.

We spent our first whole day here wandering around the old walled city part of Quebec. Our first stop though was for breakfast at Chez Aston. Which is, as Wiki describes it:

"Chez Ashton is a popular fast food restaurant in Quebec, Canada famous for its poutine. Chez Ashton's origins can be traced to a traveling snack cart started by Ashton Leblond in 1969. It was not until 1972, however, that poutine was first offered. Ashton hooked his customers by initially giving free samples of his poutine. The enterprise grew in popularity until Leblond was able to open a restaurant with a dining room open year round in 1976. Today, the franchise has grown to include 25 restaurants in the Quebec City region."

The breakfast was pretty good. You order then take your tray and stand, waiting for the food to be cooked to order, then you take your breakfast and sit down to eat. They also have newspapers for you to rent. If you want to read the newspaper you leave a deposit, which you get back when you return the newspaper. They also proudly serve egs without hormones or antibiotics. Their menu was only in French, but we have already learned a few words in French such as: hot-dog, hamburger, cheeseburger, BBQ, bacon, and sandwich. 

After breakfast it was off to the old town and the most photographed hotel in North America, the Fairmont Le Chateau Frontenac.

Quebec City really celebrates Halloween.

And, here's the train station.

Getting Ready

Welcome to our blog. We are Jim Harris and Laura Dalrymple, retired seniors who love to travel. We decided to start our blog today, shortly after our 69th birthdays. This year, on November 1,2014, we plan to fly to Quebec City, Quebec for a cruise on the St. Lawrence River; then on to Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island; Halifax, Nova Scotia; Boston, Massachusetts; Kings Wharf, Bermuda; and finally, Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Then we spend two nights in Miami and catch another cruise through the Panama Canal to Los Angeles. From Los Angeles we head to San Diego to spend Christmas with Jim's daughter, Sherrie, and then on to Bangkok Thailand. We will return to the U.S. by May 23, 2015, the date of Laura's grandson, Jake's, graduation from high school in Colorado. Between our arriving in Bangkok and our returning to the U.S. we are not sure where we will be, but wherever, it is, we are looking forward to our travels.