Monday, September 30, 2019

The Cruise: Maine's Portland and lighthouses

Portland, Maine: Casco Bay

Day 4 found us in Portland, Maine, quickly chasing the rainy, humid and rushed tourist hell of Boston (almost) out of mind.

Maine is supposed to be part of New England, too, but except for the peculiarity denizens of the region have for screwing up the "R" sound (it's a pronounced, "Ahr," and they know it's odd: even saw street signs outside bars and diners boasting of "Clam Chowdah" and "Lobstah Rolls"), I'm not getting the comparison to Britannia. Maybe there's a dialect there in the U.K. somewhere similar? Dunno.

For sure, though, the courtesy and approach to life (slower, friendlier and even in the urban settings cleaner, far less crowded) of the Pine Tree State is to Boston what a bottle of Perrier is to Flint, Michigan's tap water.

Barbara and I opted for a three-hour tour by bus and walking, leaving the ship's gangway about 8:30 a.m. The theme: lighthouses, structures than have long enchanted Barbara, and eventually made me a convert as well. Three representative lighthouses were on the agenda: the so-called "Bug Light," the "Spring Point Ledge Lighthouse," and the "Portland Head Light." 

Careful: A rocky walk to Bug Lighthouse
Even had a "lobstah roll" for lunch. *Thing about lobster, that big spider of the sea, is that unless it is slathered with butter, lemon and garlic, or in this case all those ingredients AND about quarter cup of mayonnaise on a toasted, split-top bun. . . it's pretty much tasteless by itself.

But that said, and with the savory, albeit unhealthy additions, it was tasty. And personally, anything that involves flash-boiling ocean-bottom crawling arachnids? That really doesn't bother me much. (Too big to step on or spray with Raid? Boiling is just fine!)

Back to the lighthouses. Their history of keeping sailors safe from wrecks, and the engineering involved, make them noteworthy enough.

But throw in the breathtaking scenery of ocean waves, rocky beaches, the feeling of salt spray on your face, and the scent of brine and kelp carried by fresh air . . . well, that's a sensory experience rivaling a doggone epiphany.

Spring Point Ledge Lighthouse

Our tour also included the Liberty Ship Memorial. The shipyards at South Portland built nearly 300 of these WWII cargo and troop ships. The fleet of these mass-produced, no frills ships (about 2,700 in all) were launched on a British design by American industry, likely saving our British and Soviet allies while supplying and ferrying our G.I.s fighting the Japanese.

(Next up: Bar Harbor (a.k.a. "Bah Hahbah," Maine).


Saturday, September 28, 2019

The Cruise: Boston,the tour bus from hell, still a history buff's delight



Boston Massacre marker
On our entire 10-day cruise and touring at ports of call, Boston Harbor will forever be an experience both interesting (my degree, after all, is in History) . . . and abysmal.

The came down the gangway to a bus, and . . . waited. Oh, our octogenarian (?) tour guide was FULL of information and (extremely) trivial comments for the next five hours -- once he allowed us to get rolling, about 45 minutes after our departure time.

The late start -- due largely in part to the guide's inability to keep the right luncheon count for "SCROD" (stands for "Special Catch Right of the Dock," and is generally one of many white fish species).

So, he took the count, of the 27 people on-board, FIVE times. Two people wanted chicken instead, if it matters . . . and apparently, it did.

The first stop was supposed to be the Old North Church, where Paul Revere and assorted rebels lit lanterns in 17575 to warn the Minutemen the British were coming to Lexington and Concord. But, remember, we were late . . . so that got moved to the last of the day's itinerary.

Lexington Green
Other stops became looking through windows of the bus as we crept by, mostly architecture. Every now and then, we'd exit for 10 minutes, snap pictures like a bunch of aged sheep (like a spot of pavement where a marker noted the Boston Massacre took place), and then here hustled back on board. Lexington and Concord came and went, with a brief stop on the Lexington Green (site of the fabled "shot heard 'round the world) . . . snap, snap, look at a monument, back on the bus.

Lunch was better, at the historic Union Oyster House in downtown Boston. We crammed into a small dining room up two flights of stairs. The Scrod was good, by the way. The bus was AWOL, however, when we were herded back onto the streets, leading to a meander through a market area until we were reunited.

Trinity Church, reflected in skyscraper glass
Harvard was next. HARVARD? Really? A HOUR there, stuck mostly on the "old" Harvard Yard (there is a "new" Harvard Yard nearby).

The guide talked about the yard's history, and then walked us over to the massive Widener Memorial  Library, an impressive structure to be sure, with its 3.5 million volumes, 57 miles of shelves on 10 levels . . . none of which we got to see, since our tour did not include access.


Finally, the Old North Church! 

But again, it turned out the tour did not include admission to the site itself, so we had to be content with taking photos from the sidewalk, trying to peer into the interior.
Old North Church. Revere, lanterns, etc.


It's too bad, really. I wanted much more from Boston's historic offerings, having crossed a continent to see them.
The Scrod was good...

One bad experience does not a cruise make, though. And it was the only bad experience we were to have. So, there's that.

. . . and did I mention, the Scrod was good? Even the coleslaw was tasty . . .



Friday, September 27, 2019

The Cruise: Casting off, a first day at sea

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."
                                            H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
 
And, so we did. Well, not setting sails in the true sense, and hardly the wooden ship buffeted by the winds Brown likely had in mind. 
 
View from the top
A mall . . . at sea
After all, the massive, diesel-electric powered Anthem of the Seas is 15 stories high, draws nearly 30 feet of ocean, comes in at just under 1,140 feet long, and is more than 160 feet at the beam.
 
In other words, with 5,000 souls on board, it was a city afloat, and it would take the fringe waves of a tropical storm late in the cruise for us to even be aware of the Atlantic's motions. But it was still adventure for us, 21st century seniors' style. 
It was our first day "at sea," having left NYC en route to Boston Harbor. Barbara and I determined to start at the bottom deck, and work out way up through several levels of restaurants, shops, esplanades,and theaters to the top, 15th level. At the top was where a quarter-mile plus walking/running path wound around the railings and deck chairs (and bars, pools, a climbing wall, skydiving simulator, and the North Star -- a 300-foot-above-sea-level elevated, glass-enclosed observation platform) were features.
 
 In other words, we easily topped our "steps" goal that day, roughly 4 miles worth. Indeed, between roaming this sea-going world and our tours at our ports of call, we did well with the exercise . . . and good thing, too, since it helped burn off the steak, lobster, and (once, never again) escargot, and associated culinary decadence cruise ships are (in)famous for.

Barb, feeling her Norwegian Cheerio-Os
It was all overwhelming, at first, and fascinating. 
 
The crew hailed from no less than 65 countries; our waitress was a Ukrainian woman -- who spotted my Orthodox Christian prayer rope bracelet and greeted us with a smile and friendliness (it seemed a bit more than the expected to me, but who knows). 
 
We would learn she and her husband worked on the ship, entrusting their two young children to her mother back in Odessa during their shifts.
Sunrise, from the 13th deck
 
Impressive as all this was, for me one of the best features was our cabin on the 13th deck, with a small balcony. 
 
From there, watching sunrises and sunsets, or just letting the sounds and sites and salt air of the ocean waves soothe mind and spirit, were priceless.

The Sun now rose upon the right:
Out of the sea came he,
Still hid in mist, and on the left
Went down into the sea.
                 Samuel Taylor Coleridge


 
 

Thursday, September 26, 2019

The Cruise: A bumpy flight, a New Jersey bus, and a ferry to Liberty Island


It's a four-and-a-half hour flight, Delta says, from Salt Lake City to JFK International Airport. Add on early check-in on our departure date (9/11) for heightened security, several luggage and body scans, and time on the tarmacs and it was more like nine hours.

That's air travel in the U.S.A. 18 years after Islamic jihadists killed more than 4,000 Americans by turning three airliners into terrorist bombs that blasted New York City, Washington, D.C., and a Pennsylvania field.

But this is not a complaint. It is the new normal for us, and Barbara and I, along with 25 other Utahns signed up for a 10-day cruise along the northeastern coast of the United States and Canada, accepted all this as part of what likely will be a once-in-a-lifetime vacation.

Lady Liberty
We had saved for years with this in mind. The idea had been to celebrate our 45th anniversary with the cruise, but the failing health of my parents, so evident as 2018 drew to a close, convinced us to hold off. When we buried my mother and father within five months of each other, we decided it was time.

Time to leave mourning for life, to mark our 46 years together. While we could. Because when you get into those so-called "golden years," they can be few, as well as many. Health can be fleeting; there are no guarantees that what one can do today, one can do a year later.

So, our luggage loaded onto a bus that waited for us while we took a ferry destined to Liberty Island; we churned to Ellis Island on the way, a brief stop for photos and exploring where Barbara's forebearers from Norway first landed en route to North Dakota. (Mine had arrived earlier at Jamestown, Virginia, indentured Welsh farm labor in the hold of a 1658 British landowner's ship).

Ellis Island train terminal
We saw the massive immigrant sorting halls, dormitories, and now-abandoned train lines from where those cleared by doctors rode off in cattle cars (we were told) to their American Dream.

Ellis Island
Liberty Island was next. Lady Liberty looked small against the New York City skyline, until we landed and walked beneath her 300-foot shadow. Barbara and I settled for the view from the monument's pedestal, roughly 140 feet up -- still impressive.

I wondered, even as I registered awe at the monument's architectural immensity, if Lady Liberty truly stirs the hearts of newcomers to our nation as it must have done for Barbara's ancestors? Or, have we become too complacent, jaded even, about the freedoms so many Americans shed their blood to protect?

I let the internal debate fade, as Barbara took my hand, and we walked down the steps to our ferry back to the New Jersey shore and our hotel room.

The next morning would be an early one, another bus ride to the Port of Bayonne and our home for the next 10 days: Royal Caribbean's Anthem of the Seas.
(To be continued)
A 9/11 World Trade Center girder


Monday, September 23, 2019

The Cruise: On countering a year of loss, with celebration of life


Death and loss had become an unwelcome companion in 2019. First my father, then three months later, my mother.

Never mind that for both -- one afflicted with severe arthritis and dementia at 96, the other with Alzheimer's and in a near vegetative status at 91 -- the end of life on this planet was a blessing.

It was still . . . death. It was emptiness, where once resided the breath of parents who had loved unconditionally for 66 of my years on Earth.

While I firmly believe we will be reunited in God's light and love, But until then,  I must live in the here and now. And now, they are gone.

So, having saved up for several years, Barbara and I booked a 10-day cruise along the Northeast Coast, from New York City to Boston, Portland and Bar Harbor, Maine, and Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, in Canada.

We chose to break the cycle of mourning with celebration of life, of seeing places and people we had never seen before.

New Jersey, New York and Boston were fascinating for all the usual reasons -- their mere size, density, skyscrapers, and historicity. And, they were confirmation that we would never want to live there . . . and underscored our appreciation for less crowded, more amiable and beautiful for raw outdoor variety of mountains, forests, rivers and deserts of the West.

I'm going to take my time recounting our cruise and excursions over the coming several blogs.

It is a time of life, and set of experiences, worth tasting in full.

Stay tuned.


Monday, September 2, 2019

Kicking social media: There's a real, scary and rewarding life of actual humanity out there




Earlier this year I finally, after a furtive earlier attempt, ended my personal account on Facebook.

Social media can be an addiction. For me, it was certainly a distraction from doing meaningful things -- reading good books, actually talking with human beings and nurturing friendships, and picking opportunities to give back to my community of faith, and community at large.

I chose a sort of nicotine gum approach to this breaking of the Facebook habit: Twitter.

Big mistake. Kind of like leaving Oxycodone for heroin.

So, I suggest this: Best way to leave social media's artificial "social" community -- and the cesspool of extremism left and right politics, and self-righteous, only-we-are-right types (and if you disagree, you are a homophobe, Nazi, "mansplaining," anti-woman for being anti-abortion, hater of whatever new gender identity fad has come along, etc) -- is cold turkey.

On Twitter, I found the same idiocy and anti-intellectual, intolerance-couched-in-"progressive" politics mindsets on Twitter, albeit within a (now 280) character limit.

Fewer words just makes the whole thing more crass. And, the temptation to call out bigots, both right wing and those digital Antifa and the self-defined "woke," is still just too much to resist for a journalist.

And, it is a killer for the humility for which Eastern Orthodox Christian folk are urged to struggle.

Here's the key point: you never, ever convince anyone to consider another viewpoint by arguing with them on social media. This is the realm of the echo chamber, of stating fictional facts to back up morally and intellectually bankrupt declarations.

For someone familiar with logical fallacies, social media is the place where reasonable people risk schizophrenic breaks.

So, today, deactivated my Twitter account.

While I will still have sources on Facebook and Linked In I occasionally need to contact for my freelance editing and writing work, that's rare and all business. The personal involvement is over.

Blinking into the light of reality, I wonder, what awaits.
:)