Catch Up Day... Sort of....

Bill and I are both trying to adjust to the time change.....  but it's nice being back to the mainland...  menus and signs in English....  phone and internet that work...  that kind of thing.

Tomorrow around noon we head to the port here in Los Angeles....  we'll board the Crown Princess and head down Mexico way.  We've been to these ports before, both on ships or in our RV, so there probably won't be any surprises.

It was kinda funny....  we went out for a walk to find an ATM and run some other errands this afternoon and when we returned to the hotel we saw Brenda, a fellow passenger on the ship we just got off from.  She's from Indiana and is also a genealogy researcher and also uses both genealogy programs, as does Bill.

Bill always just amazes me.  No matter where we travel, he always figures out how to get around.  I have memories of being in Paris and taking the subway to various places...  Bill quietly tells me that we'll be taking the red line or something like that.  Today, we walked less than a block down to the Metro station...  

Used the fee kiosk to buy tickets.... waited for the right train to come along...   boarded...  rode 3 stops down the line and got off.....

We were headed for the REI store.....  great place to buy outdoor or travel gear.  But we felt like we hit the jackpot...  in the same shopping center there was a Barnes and Noble AND a Trader Joe's!  I mean, how lucky can a person get!!!!

First thing... REI  I bought a new strap for my Leica...

the old one is so worn that it leaves flakes of plastic on my neck all the time.  We bought a few other things but I'll wait and talk about those later.

From there it was to the Barnes and Noble...  okay... I prefer the little "Indy" bookstores, but they are becoming harder and harder to find, so I'll take what I get.  And, we do have our B&N card that gives us a discount, so it's okay.  We didn't buy much here....  not because there weren't interesting things to get but we still have to watch our baggage weight for our flights back to Texas.

And...  oh so nice!....  a stop in Trader Joe's.  We salivated over the fresh veggies and the glorious fruits.  I walked right past the ginger cookies.  We bought a bottle of cherry juice and a small tin of ginger-mint Altoids.  We saw "Two Buck Chuck" (Charles Shaw wine) for $2.49 a bottle and wished we had known we'd be here as early this morning we bought a couple bottle of wine at Ralph's (same as Krogers or Smiths) to take on the ship.  Oh well....  We saw the very same bottle of wine (Double Decker - pinot grigio) for $6.48 that we'd paid $32 a bottle on the cruise ship.  A person just can't dwell on this sort of thing when on vacation....)

Anyway.....  Bill went down to the hotel lobby a few minutes ago...  the Heritage Books, Inc. folks (sponsors of this genealogy workshop) have set up their welcoming table....  Bill picked up our info...  we'll be on the noon shuttle tomorrow and heading out.

One more week of cruising....  and, again, most likely no internet or phone....  But it sure is good to catch our breath and catch up with family and a few blogs during this brief interval.

And with that, I'll close and will catch up again later.

That's All For Today!