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| Sunset at Boca Raton, Florida at Pond Next to Our Hotel |
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| Our Ft Lauderdale, Florida Church Friends. (Next to me is Janice who has known me all my life! Penny. Steve and Teresa are celebrating their 50th anniversary this year. I met them when I was 10 and they were newlyweds! James is Janice's grandson who I have known all his life! Darrell) |
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| Screenshot With Granddaughter Esther (1yr+3mos) in Alabama |
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| Grandson Owen (3yrs+2mos)in Alabama |
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| Another Beautiful Boca Raton, Florida Sunset Next to Our Hotel |
Saturday. 9. Nice morning at our Dunnellon, Florida airbnb: exercise, breakfast, a load of laundry, pack, clean up and check out. We get on the road headed for Boca Raton on the east coast and just north of Ft. Lauderdale. We have a four night Marriott stay booked that is a room with a kitchen. We get to our hotel earlier than the 4pm check in time. They give us our room. We go to our room. The complex is built like small apartment buildings with 8 apartments per building. The stairs to the 2nd floor units are on the outside of the building. We unload our truck cab of our suitcases, backpacks and coolers. We get into our room on the 2nd floor. I have a snack, unpack the cooler into the fridge. Darrell brews a cup of tea and discovers that we don’t have good wifi. He calls the front desk and they send their tech man. He discovers that this room doesn’t have a router. He goes and gets a new room in the next building. We decide to move and it is on the ground floor which is a benefit. Darrell carries the suitcases down the stairs and rolls them to the newly assigned room. I’m repacking the coolers and then making sure that we have cleaned out all of our belongings. We arrived at our room. We make sure that we have the internet. We look around and this room is a handicapped room. It isn’t as clean as the other room. The bed has a strange looking seam I observe and I pull back the sheets. The washable mattress pad isn’t the correct size for the bed. It’s too narrow and looks like sleeping on the seams would be very uncomfortable. I go across the street to the office with a photo of my problem. They tell me that they don’t have another pad for me. I tell them the room that they just switched me from has linens on that bed and I’m okay with getting it myself and making my bed properly. This is a MARRIOTT we are at!! Really? You can’t make the bed properly or fix it? Well, the two ladies at the desk say that they will send the head of housekeeping over to look at my problem. A couple of hours later, no housekeeping person has come. I go back to the desk to let them know that I still have my problem but I’m going out for dinner now. Now they are willing to come see this problem. The woman looking at it is non-emotive as I say this is unacceptable. She says I’ll send the Evelyn over with a different one to try. Evelyn comes about 10 minutes later carrying two. She sees my problem and together we take off the small one and make the bed with the larger one that fits properly. We get to the top comforter and discover that it is too small for this bed. Evelyn leaves. I go back to the supervisor and tell her the new pad fits as it should but the comforter is too small for the bed and I’d like one that fits. She says with no emotion, we don’t have another one. I say do you have a blanket for my bed? No is her reply. We go to dinner. I’m tired. I’m trying to relax a bit. We had a nice dinner and ate outside on a cool patio. My mood is better. We get back to our room and I get the blanket out of our closet and it fits our bed. I relax, pray, breathe and I slept great!
Sunday. 10. Our room is quiet, thankfully. We are very close to a major highway. We exercise before going to the hotel’s 7am breakfast. We both find plenty of choices for breakfast and we have a couple of hours to ourselves before heading to Pompano for church with several friends from my childhood and even my mother’s childhood friend Janice. Steve, the preacher knows Darrell and I. Darrell has preached for the group in the past and is also giving the sermon today. Afterward we have lunch with Janice, her grandson James and his wife Lucy.
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At Our Hotel in Boca Raton, Florida Enjoying Morning Coffee
Monday. 11. Morning visit with Janice and James at their house. Called Layton’s Garage and find out that they sold their parking garage. We have to find another storage lot to park our truck for 2 months! Late lunch at The Mason Jar. Tuesday. 12. Getting our vehicle storage figured out for tomorrow through mid-January. Final packing decisions for our luggage, clothing, and items for Andrea and Jeremy in Brazil. When our cruise ends in mid-December we will be in Buenos Aires and flying to Brasilia, Brazil. Our luggage weights must comply to the airplane rules. Darrell used the hotel printer to print our luggage boarding tags for our cruise beginning tomorrow. We are getting excited about our cruise beginning tomorrow. We went out for a nice lunch at a Colombian restaurant in Boca Raton. We took a nap today and otherwise worked on our computers.
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| A Florida Flower. A Bloom Within a Bloom |
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| Onboard Our Cruise Ship for 35 Days! |
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| Our Balcony Room on Sapphire Princess |
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| Looking Back at Ft. Lauderdale, Florida from Our Balcony |
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| 5am Morning Darkness on Ship |
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| 5am We Are Doing Morning Exercise on Deck! It's Windy. Our Mats are Blowing Under Foot. I'm Taking a Picture! lol. |
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| At the Back of the Ship at Sea |
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| Dressed for Dinner |
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| Sea View in Our Room |
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| View of Ship Behind the Movie Screen at a Putting Green at 5am Where We Find a Sheltered Place to Exercise |
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| Early Morning Exercise at the Putting Green |
Wednesday. 13. Check out of Residence Inn in Boca Raton. Drive our truck to the 2 month storage. Get an UBER to our ship the Sapphire Princess at Port Everglades. Board between 11am and 2pm with two large suitcases and two backpacks. Mission accomplished. We had lunch on the ship today. The weather was sunny and clear that helped us feel comfortable getting to our ship.
Thursday. 14. And Friday. 15. Both sea days. We exercise and continue our diet of higher protein and little sugar. The passenger led Bible study is listed for 8am. It’s usually at 9am. We stretch a bit to get there this early. We have two mornings of 11 participants. We are reading the book of Mark together and Darrell is leading the group to read and make comments as we read story by story. We’ve enjoyed excellent food and service on our cruise. We’ve also had some very nice live music shows in the evenings.
Nomad Notes:
Our plan is to clean out our perishable items and get our truck ready for the two month storage at Layton’s Garage in Ft. Lauderdale. On Monday I called Layton’s Garage and discovered that they only have outdoor storage now. We decided to shop around for other storage/parking businesses.
Janice has lived in Ft. Lauderdale most of her life. She and my mother knew each other around age 9. My mother married and left Ft. Lauderdale around age 18. My mother’s parents were called Ft. Lauderdale pioneers. They were part of the mass of people moving to the state in search of their futures here during the 1930’s. They met and married during that decade. I have come to Ft. Lauderdale regularly all of my life. Mainly I came with my parents to visit mom’s parents. I spent several summers of my childhood at my grandparents house on NW 7th Terrace. It was these times that I learned about my grandparents and about Ft. Lauderdale. I have many vivid memories and loved my grandparents dearly. During my childhood summers here, I knew Janice and her 3 children who attended church with my grandparents. I also knew a young couple named Steve and Teresa. Steve and Teresa are still here and grandparents now. Steve has also become the preacher for the church here.
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