#77 April 23, 2022 Nomad Diary. Weekend in San Francisco. Cruise With Us. Saying Goodbye to Vancouver, WA and Grandson Quinn.
Saturday Activities: Flight from Portland, Oregon to San Francisco, California. For breakfast we walked from our hotel to another about half a mile in clear 50 degree weather. At 9am, the shuttle bus took us to the airport. Our check-in is under 30 minutes all the way through security.
I bought a pesto chicken sandwich at an airport coffeehouse to eat on our 90 minute flight. We also have a small avocado, a few blackberries and hazelnuts and a half of a pear. We ate all of our food on the flight as well as the little bags of pretzels served.
We arrived at our boutique hotel near the pier by 3pm, and I'm hungry and a bit tired.
On the train from SFO to downtown. I struggled a few extra minutes to get my electronic ticket, and we made it to this train just as it was closing the doors.
Week Highlights
Sunday: Tualatin, Oregon for worship. Rosie's Mexican for lunch. Mini egg hunt for Quinn. Clear view of Mt St.Helens and Mt . Quinn is so adorable as he is loving on us. He likes to get tickled as one of his games, and he gives us goodnight kisses now. It's so sweet!
Monday: Sleep in till 6:30! Daily DDP Yoga. Darrell's pancakes and sausage at our airbnb. First time for me to use our new insurance HSA bank to pay a doctor bill!! Doing laundry, washing dishes. Darrell working on our upcoming cruise, excursions and calendar listings. Rainy for days!
Tuesday: Morning walk through the rain. Quinn got to see his favorite trucks and construction site with big dirt movers. Lunch for us at Planet Thai.
Garlicky brocolli, onions, and mushrooms with chicken in a lunch size portion.
Darrell studied how to ride the metro in San Francisco, and contacted friends of ours who live and preach there. We plan to meet up with them at church on Sunday. We downloaded our bus ticket app. Andrea is making a vegetarian chili for dinner.
Foods I enjoy in this region are the abundance of sourdough breads and hazelnuts are common.
Wednesday: Morning play with Quinn. A walk in cold rain with Andrea and Quinn. I push the stroller. Quinn walks the entire 1.4 miles in 50 minutes! He relishes every truck and bus! Peering through the bridge over the highway and getting elated with each passing truck.
Quinn stopping to watch trucks on the highway below.
Thursday: Darrell makes french toast, sausage, and dark coffee. We top the sourdough toast with toasted hazelnuts, fresh fruit and maple syrup. A morning walk with Quinn and Andrea in 50ish weather and partly sunny, not as cold as the previous day, and no stroller to push. Darrell stayed in with his light cold that's getting better. He's sneezing much less and blowing his nose less. We get lunch and a few items at Fred Meyer, a big store similar to Kroger with more than just groceries, like a super Walmart. I have lunch with Darrell at our airbnb and dinner with the kids. The evening is for packing my suitcase and planning what I will wear for the next couple of days.
Friday: Breakfast today is pancakes with hazelnuts, fresh blackberries, maple syrup and dark coffee. Car rental return after lunch, borrow Jeremy and Andrea's car, check in to our airport hotel, get takeout for dinner back with the kids!
Nomad Notes:
Our Routines:
Being here and visiting our kids for 16 days feels so generous, relaxing, comfortable, and luxurious. Darrell isn't having to work around working now that we are fully retired together. We aren't rushed to complete a checklist of "must see's". We take naps, we eat out, we do laundry, we play cards and cook. It's our life on the road, and it suits us very well.
Each morning for years, we do a DDP yoga routine to help wake up and keep fit. In addition to this, we each pray, study the Bible and worship God as our spiritual practice to grow in Christ and to reflect him. My daily prayers include gratitude, healing in Christ for myself and for others to grow and reflect God's love.
My suitcase and packing: It is too heavy at 49 pounds. I'm rethinking what I can lighten and minimize once we are back to Ft. Lauderdale and on the way to Iceland, Norway, the Arctic and England.
Our luggage at our Portland, Oregon Airport Hotel
About cruises:
Our three 2022 itenteraries for cruising are all on Princess Cruise Lines. If you are considering meeting up with us on any of these cruises, we would so enjoy your company and having dinner together each evening as we catch up with our days activities. A few of our single friends mentioned that they might like to meet up with us, but didn't have a roomie to share the cost of a cabin.
Well, Darrell looked up some of the cruise ticket prices, since being effected by the pandemic, and singles are getting a great deal with sharply discounted room rates! In one case, he found that the 2.5 week Iceland part of our 34 day cruise was selling singles rooms for just $100-$200 more for a one-person cabin!! Check with either booking through Princess.com or vacationstogo.com. We also find that the airline tickets and cruise insurace through the cruise line has been a comparative and good deal.
When asked what we like about this cruise line, here is my list:
Many of Princess Ships have a covered Promenade for walking outside on deck 7 that circles the ship. On the Island Princess, the Promenade is a horseshoe shaped. Deck plans for each ship, passenger capacity and itenterary is easy to view on vacationstogo.com
The beds are super comfortable as the line invested in a special design and implemented the upgrade a few years ago.
We enjoy the International Cafe on Deck 5 with fresh soups, salads and pastries included at no extra charge. There is a specialty coffee and tea shop here that is an extra cost, and we often purchase the 'coffee card' to get these drinks at a discount for our cruise.
There are professionals that give daily lectures on sea days. We have enjoyed a Peruvian Professor from the US, the first female Iditerod winner, an ocean biologist, port historians, authors, etc. All had 30 plus years of experience in their professions.
A daily choice of activities on board ship where you can't go to everything. We have enjoyed trivia, chorus, crafts, painting, camera, photography, music and language lessons.
A daily choice of entertainment all PG13 or lower, including: game shows, comedians, singers, improvs, magicians, live classical music and other genres. We don't usually go to the big dance show because we don't enjoy it as much and often the auditorium speakers are too loud and we have to wear earplugs to stand it.
Live classical music daily in the atrium.
People are encouraged to be sociable by seating together with strangers if you like in the dining room at mealtime. At least this is how it was pre-pandemic. We also like the buffet and compare the foods, quality and variety at both. We don't go to the specialty restaurants that charge more onboard, although we have gotten a couple of coupons to try a couple out and we did that.
Princess ships don't tend to have people onboard who are partiers. We have found the crowd to be mostly over age 50 and on the ship for longer iteneraries of 2 weeks to 1 month or more.
There is a chapel room for use with a designated morning Bible Study on the daily calender. We have sometimes really enjoyed this time together with other passengers, and sometimes not. Also, this company will fix our Sunday communion for us at no charge, if we give them a reasonable request with notice.
The ships have self-serve laundry mats. We also know that once we reach a certain level of days with this line, then they will do our laundry as a perk! We are almost there.
We have sailed single cruises also with: MSC, Carnival (I have done 3 with my sisters), Norwegian, and Holland America. The negatives that I find on all of these 'box' ships is the upsales, the casinos and any smoking lounges that I avoid.
Our 2022 Princess Cruise Dates:
April 26 San Francisco to Ft Lauderdale 18 days
May 26 Ft Lauderdale to Iceland, England, Norway, England, (and more) 34 days
November 6 Barcelona to Ft Lauderdale (Western Mediterranean, trans Atlantic) 26 days
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