Category: vacation

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Hurry Up and Wait

I am beginning to suspect that the word for 2022 may be “patience.” As the year began, I was awaiting an appointment with a radiation specialist to talk about and schedule the radiation therapy for my prostate cancer. The appointment was scheduled for the Monday after we were to return from a trip out West to celebrate our youngest grandson’s first birthday.

Our flight was scheduled to leave on a Friday morning. Early that day, I received a notification that the first leg of the trip was cancelled. The airline had no flights for us to take Saturday, but they graciously scheduled us to go out Saturday on another airline. So, we’ll be able to get home just one day later. No problem. Right? Wrong! The second airline cancelled the second leg of the trip with them due to the winter storm that was to hit the east coast that weekend. They rescheduled us on yet another flight that left Sunday morning, had four legs, and put us back to our home airport Monday morning. Needless to say, that wasn’t going to work.

Saturday morning I went to the airport to see if the second airline would transfer me back to the original airline for a flight that went Sunday and put us back home Sunday night. After being informed that they could not do that, I cancelled the flight with them, walked down to the original airline’s counter and purchased a one way flight for Sunday. Even though I spent more money, ate least we were going to be home, and I was still going to be able to get to my appointment, which had been changed to virtual, due to the expected weather issues.

After a bit of a delay, we left Fresno Sunday morning and flew into Phoenix for a short layover, before landing in Charlotte Sunday night. Oh, did I mention that we planned to take an Uber home? That becomes important. When we left the plane and walked into the airport, we were greeted with an eerie silence. The airport was almost completely empty. Every flight out had been cancelled because of the storm. After we picked up our luggage, we went outside to procure our Uber ride.

Well, that didn’t go as expected. In fact, it didn’t go at all. Evidently no drivers wanted to drive the thirty or so miles on icy, hazardous roads. Who knew? No taxi drivers were willing either. I can’t really say that I blame them. After a while I got us a room at a hotel near the airport. We took a taxi there and had a night’s rest. In the morning, we dressed, packed, checked out, and walked into the hotel’s business center, where I had my virtual appointment with the doctor. We caught an Uber and finally arrived home a little after noon.

That’s not the end of the story concerning learning patience, but I’ll give you a rest and continue later.

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St. Augustine Trip – Final Day

The last night in the inn had passed. It was now time to say goodbye to St. Augustine and begin the trek back to South Carolina. But first, there were things to do and places to see. After one more delicious breakfast we hopped on the trolley and rode it around town again, stopping at Memorial Presbyterian Church, built by Henry Flagler as a memorial to his only daughter.


From there we walked to Flagler College, which occupies the old Ponce de Leon Hotel built by Henry Flagler. It’s a beautiful campus.
From there, we walked around the Spanish Quarter some more, going into buildings and shops that were closed in the evenings the other days.

After finishing our explorations, we had one final stop – the St. Augustine Lighthouse. The lighthouse reportedly is also haunted, although we didn’t see anything out of the ordinary there either.

What can be see though, are great views of the ocean and the city.After leaving the lighthouse, we said farewell to the oldest continuously inhabited city in the United States. We left behind a few dollars, but we took with us fond memories of good times together, as well as some pictures. We arrived home later that night, tired and happy. It was a wonderful trip.

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St. Augustine Trip – Day 3

After another wonderful breakfast at the St. Francis Inn, Jan and I went on a cruise around Matanzas Bay. The cruise gave us a look at the city from a different perspective.
After the hour and a half cruise (thankfully no one named Gilligan was on board), we walked back to the inn to get our car and drove to the beach. The inn provided us with a place to change, towels and chairs, so we didn’t have to take anything with us. While the weather was extremely hot back in South Carolina, it was very pleasant at St. Augustine Beach.
We ate dinner at a small beach restaurant named Mango, Mangos, and then went back and walked around the old city some more before going back to the inn for dessert. After a relaxing evening, we called it a night as we had some driving to do the next day.

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St. Augustine Trip – Day 2

After a good night’s sleep, we awoke to a beautiful north coastal Florida day. We went downstairs to the dining roomand filled our plates with a delicious breakfast, which we ate outside in the courtyard.

After breakfast, we hopped the trolley to travel around the city, picking out places that we hadn’t seen in our previous visits so we could go back to them later. We ate lunch at the Santa Maria Restaurant, where diners can feed bread to the fish in the bay through small trapdoors in the window sills.
After lunch, we walked around the old Spanish Quarter, looking at buildings that, in some cases, predated Jamestown and Plymouth. Of course, we also shopped. After we had tromped around for a couple hours, we went back to the inn for hors d’oeuvres and drinks. We then walked back to the old city gates for a ghost walk. The only problem was that I had bought the tickets on-line and for some reason we weren’t on the list for the time I had reserved. So, we had to wait for a bit. We walked to the Spanish fort and sat on a bench and just relaxed, watching people and the boats on the bay. After about an hour or so, we went on the walk. We heard some interesting stories of paranormal encounters, but we didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. There were a couple of folks in our group who took pictures that showed things that weren’t visible to the eye, so…

After the tour was over, we walked back to the inn and rested up for the next day.

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St. Augustine Trip – Day 1

We traveled to St. Augustine on Monday from Summerville, SC, having spent the night with my sister and her family. Since Jan shares my enjoyment of traveling off the interstate, we rolled down Highway 17 to I-95 South. We took 95 through South Carolina and Georgia to just north of Jacksonville, FL. There we exited and got on A1A, which winds down the coast through the beach towns and vacation homes of north Florida. On the way we found that traveling on this particular road includes a trip on a ferry.

After a 15-20 minute trip, we were back on the road. We continued south until we made it to St. Augustine and the St. Francis Inn. The inn is a bed and breakfast in a house that dates back to 1791.After checking in and resting for a bit, we had an anniversary dinner at an excellent Italian restaurant, and chilled out for the rest of the evening, resting up for some busy days ahead.

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I’m Baaaaack!

…and there was great rejoicing. 🙂 Saturday we returned from our trip to the Los Angeles area. We had a wonderful time with Jennie and Josh.

The Saturday before, we flew out of Charlotte at 11:20 AM. We landed in Dallas, where we had lunch and changed planes for the flight to LA. We arrived at LAX and were picked up by Jennnie and Josh. We went to Jennie’s place in Santa Monica where we freshened up from the trip. That evening we went to the area of Santa Monica that’s beachfront. We ate at a place called Barney’s Beanery. The menu looked like a newspaper and had just about every type of food you could imagine. After dinner we went to the famous Santa Monica Pier, where a one man band serenaded Jan and me. It was actually chilly that night, as it was every night the entire week. Sunday morning we went and fellowshipped with a community called Kairos in Santa Monica. Hopefully Jennie will get involved there. That afternoon we had a cook-out and met Jennie’s boyfriend, Chris. In the evening we went and watched Jennie direct a short film for a friend who had entered a contest connected to a local film festival.

Monday, Josh took us into downtown LA, where we saw the Disney Concert Hall, the Grand Central Market, Chinatown, and the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. Tuesday, we went to the Skirball Cultural Center and the Getty Center. We had lunch at In and Out Burger. That night Jennie and Josh took us out to dinner for an early Fathers’ Day. We ate at a very nice Asian restaurant overlooking Hollywood. The food was delicious and the view was beautiful. After dinner we walked around Hollywood and saw the Walk of Stars, Grauman’s Chinese Theater, and the Kodak Theater. On Wednesday, Josh and I went to an English pub to have lunch and watch England play Andorra in a World Cup soccer qualifier, while Jan and Jennie went to lunch at a French restaurant in Pasadena. After lunch, Josh, Jan, and I walked around old-town Pasedana and then met Jennie at the visual effects studio where she works. Chris gave us a tour and then treated us to a very nice dinner at an Italian restaurant. Jennie’s friend Rachel flew in late Wednesday night.

Thursday, we went up the coast to Malibu, where we walked down a cliff to a fairly secluded beach. We spent a couple of hours there, and then had lunch at a fish place in Malibu. The restaurant was where some of the TV show “Privileged” was filmed when Jennie was an extra. That night, Jan and I moved to a hotel in Venice, where we had a nice room with a great view of the coast. Friday morning, Jan and I had breakfast next to the hotel, and then walked around for a bit and saw some of the interesting people of Venice Beach. The kids picked us up and we went to Rodeo Drive. We walked around for a while, looking at all the stores with stuff we could never afford. We did get delicious cupcakes from Sprinkles. They weren’t too expensive.

We drove around Beverly Hills, and then drove up Mulholland Drive. The views were spectacular and some of the houses were unbelievable. We went to a park with 360 views of the entire area. Then we drove to a park just down the hill from the famous Hollywood sign. After that we went to Griffith Park and drove around it a bit. We went to the Griffith Park Observatory, and spent some time there. We went to another In and Out for dinner, and then drove around Hollywood and some other areas.

We flew out of LA at 8:20 AM Saturday, had lunch in Dallas again, and arrived back in Charlotte Saturday evening, exhausted but very satisfied. The only regret is that LA is so far away.

I have put pictures here.

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Family Trip: Epilogue

Looking back on our cruise, there were a couple of things that struck me. The first was the unbelievable privilege of being a father. I hadn’t really thought about it at the time, but I scheduled the trip for the week after Father’s Day. So, as it turned out, I had a whole week of Father’s Day. It was really nice being able to spend a week with my wife and adult children. The relationship is different than it was when they were growing up. Now, it’s more of a friend to friend thing, not quite peers, but not quite parent/child either. God has blessed Jan and me with two great kids and it was fun to spend a week traveling together. It may well have been the last trip as a family for a long time. Jennie is moving to Los Angeles on Monday, and Josh will be studying overseas next summer and will probably move elsewhere in the country after he graduates.

The other thing that I thought about was the incredible diversity of God’s creation. I like to people watch, and there was ample opportunity to enjoy that on the trip. There was an amazing variety of individual persons, all made in the image of the Creator. Seeing them gave me a greater appreciation of the fact that we really are not all that different. Each of us is a creation of the Sovereign God and we each are in need of God’s grace. None of us has any reason to think we are any better than anyone else.

We also saw a wide array of plants and animals that showed God’s creativity and love of beauty. One of the ways I relate to the Father is through nature, so I thoroughly enjoyed being out in Creation.

Not only was the trip a nice getaway, but it also drew me closer to my Father. Imagine that.

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Family Trip: Part IV

After the day in Cozumel, we set sail on Thursday for Miami. We spent a good bit of the day at an on board art auction. We didn’t buy anything because it was all too expensive for our budget. There were etchings from Picasso, Rembrandt, and Dali, as well as a lot of other art. Jennie did win a painting that’s probably worth a couple hundred dollars, so the time wasn’t totally wasted. We spent the late afternoon lying in the sun.

We did some final shopping, hung out some more, and then had our last dinner on board. The next morning we left the ship and drove north to America’s oldest city, St. Augustine. I had heard that you could drive on the beach at Daytona, so we detoured a bit to see if we could. As it turns out you can drive on the beach!
When we arrived in St. Augustine, we went out to dinner and then just chilled for the rest of the day. On Saturday we went into the city. We went to the Spanish fort and spent the day touring old St. Augustine.
After an exhausting day, we went back to the motel to rest up for the next day. We woke up and went visit the fabled Fountain of Youth. Ponce de Leon really did find something that, he thought at least, was a fountain of eternal youth. We also saw the location of the first Spanish Mission in North America.Ponce de Leon’s cross that he put down signifying Spain’s claim to Florida.

The Fountain of Youth. Originally it was a spring. The bricks and such were added much later.

Cross at the site of the first Spanish mission in North America.

We left St. Augustine Sunday afternoon and made the long drive back to Rock Hill. Our little adventure came to an end.

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Family Trip: Part III

Wednesday morning, we pulled up the dock in Cozumel, Mexico. We were scheduled to go on a trip on a combination glass bottom boat/submarine where you sit four feet below the surface and watch the fish, coral, etc. Unfortunately a thunderstorm came up and most of the shore excursions were cancelled. I found out about a public beach where we could swim, snorkel, kayak, and just have fun in the sun. So after the storm passed, we spent a few hours at Paradise Beach (I thought about having a cheeseburger, but decide to pass).

We then took a taxi into the downtown area, where we had lunch and did some shopping. You can get some really good deals on such items as silver jewelry and Cuban cigars. We did discover though that you can also get ripped off if you’re not careful.
We got back on the ship around 9:30, and said Adios to Mexico.

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Family Trip: Part II

After our first night aboard, we landed in the Conch Republic, Key West. We caught a shuttle to the other side of the island, where we spent the next couple of hours kayaking in and out of groves of salt water mangrove trees. From time to time the guides would stop and show us such things as sponges, sea cucumbers, jellyfish. We saw a nurse shark and paddled down narrow creeks and through thick tunnels form by mangrove branches.

After kayaking, we ate lunch at Hemingway’s old hangout, Sloppy Joe’s.

After lunch we walked up and down Duvall Street, going in and out of the different shops and just enjoying the beautiful day.

We went back on board about 1:30 and bade a fond farewell to Key West. That night we dressed up for the Captain’s Dinner. The food was fantastic, as it was the entire voyage.

Next stop: Cozumel.