Good morning from St. Augustine, FL. where we are visiting Michelle and her family for a few days.
On Friday morning we closed up our rig and drove up to Austin to catch a flight to Orlando, FL. Most of y’all know I hate flying these days but I have to say that this trip on Jet Blue was pretty darned good. Jet Blue touts they have the most leg room in coach class and that was true. Also, all of the employee’s we had contact with were outstanding and treated you like they really enjoyed helping you, especially the flight attendants. Some of the major carriers here in the US should send their employees to Jet Blue’s training academy where they might learn a thing or two about customer service.
Picking up our Budget rental car was very easy using their Fastbreak service. They gave us a fairly new Toyota Camry that got the job done nicely.
After some hassle getting over to I-4 out of Orlando we made our way up to I-95 arriving at Michelle’s house about 1 AM.
January 16, 2017
Today we all drove up to Jacksonville for a trip to Totally Wine which is very similar to BevMo’! stores on the left coast. They had some very good sales going on so we stocked up.
January 17, 2017
We took the kids up to the Museum of Sciences & History in Jacksonville. One of the highlights was the Anne Frank: Voices of Hope exhibit.
Abby and Skyler eating fried ice cream for the first time.
January 19, 2017
We got up very early yesterday morning for our drive from St. Augustine to Orlando. The drive down was relatively easy and getting the car turned in was painless.
Both of us had a TSA pre-check so clearing security should have been fairly easy. Well….not so much. One of the officers told us if you have two computers in a bag to remove one. Then here came the officer from hell who yells at us to put “everything in the bag”. Ok, we did that. Then Joyce and I had our boarding passes in our hands and Officer “Ratchett" says, “I SAID EVERYTHING IN THE BAG! WHAT PART OF THIS DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND?” She even grabbed my pass, opened my backpack and stuffed it in one of the pockets.
Then she says that Joyce had been randomly selected to go through the Xray machine. When Joyce got on the other side she asked another officer if that is normal procedures. He said no it wasn’t and that the other person just got a promotion and that she was just flexing her muscles. When we got to our gate Joyce called the TSA to complain.
It was really great to see Michelle, Harold, Abigail and Skyler again. We’ll do that again soon.
January 21, 2017
Yesterday Joyce, Dave, Jan and I went out to Lackland AFB to attend a Air Force Basic Training graduation ceremony. Dave and Jan had never seen a formal military parade and to say they were impressed was an understatement.
On Sunday Joyce and I along with Dave and Jan drove up to San Marcos to do some shopping at the Tanger Outlets. Joyce found a couple of things and I scored a new sport coat that was marked $200 for $63. After all of that shopping we went to the Cracker Barrel for lunch.
We also toured Kissing Tree, a new 55+ housing development being built near San Marcos, TX. This is going to be a beautiful place when it is finished.
January 28, 2017
Good Morning from Alvin (near Houston), Texas.
Yesterday we got up early, pack up our house and took it to Iron Horse RV in north-east San Antonio to have to roof work work done. There are several dents caused by who knows what and some fading of the clear coat that looks horrible that needed fixing.
After getting that done we jumped on I-10 and drove to Houston to a mall where Joyce picked up some pants that she ordered. The drive wasn't too bad until we got to near Katy where the traffic came to a stand-still. There was a really bad accident that was actually on the westbound side but with all the rubber-necking going on we came to a stand-still for some time. Read about it here: http://abc13.com/traffic/i-10-shut-down-in-both-directions-waller-co/1723889/
We are spending two nights here at the Holiday Inn Express and on Sunday we’ll get on the Liberty of the Seas for our cruise to the Western Caribbean. We have been to all of the ports on this one before so we’ll probably stay on the ship most of the time. We do have a trolly tour booked in Grand Cayman.
January 30, 2017
Good morning from somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico.
After having a leisurely breakfast at the hotel we left Alvin and drove down to Galveston. Parking was a piece of cake and what is really cool, it is free to disabled veterans. If you are taking a cruise out of there and qualify, here is the link to read more about it: http://www.portgalvestonparking.com/american-veterans.shtml
We got on the ship about 12:30 and started checking out the ship. Liberty is a Freedon-class ship and little larger than the Voyager-class and has more amenities.
Gotta go for now. More later.
Barry & Joyce
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