A repeat day of nice weather. Antigua is not as developed as the other islands we have visited. None of the shore excursions excited us. We opted to sleep in and have late breakfast with Al, Keith, Mike and Louie; the group of friends we are hanging around with this week. Afterwards, we were off for a walking tour of St. John and a visit…
dutch and french st. maarten and orient beach
Hot sunny weather greeted us again this morning in Phillipsburg, the capital of Dutch St. Maarten as we ate breakfast on deck again. We could get used to a life like this. We were off early to a whole day excursion. We started with a driving tour of the Dutch side of the island. We stopped to shop at an island marketplace where the prices…
sail, snorkel adventure to great st. james
It was an early morning for us at our first port of call, St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands. After enjoying breakfast outdoors on the Windjammer Café deck, we were off to our first shore excursion. We joined a group of about 60 other Pied Piper cruisers sailing on a catamaran to Great St. Georges where Brett snorkeled and I enjoyed sunning myself on…
a visit to old san juan
Another sunny day in the 80s in Puerto Rico. After checking out of our hotel, we headed for Old San Juan for a ½ day of sightseeing before we boarded the ship. This city is insanely busy with parking at a premium. After scouting fro a parking space for 15 minutes, we found a convenient parking deck and were off for some exploration. Old San…
our visit to the rainforest
Today was a sunny hot day in San Juan. We decided to take a scenic drive along the ocean. Our hotel’s bell captain recommended a drive that took us to El Yunque National Rainforest and Luquilla. It was a very pleasant day and enjoyable drive. The rainforest turned out to be a terrific time. After our visit to the park information center, we were off…
puerto rican thanksgiving
We left a snowy 27 degree Cleveland this morning and arrived around 3:00 p.m. this afternoon in San Juan with sunny skies and 87 degrees. We met up with our pals Al and Keith at the airport and were off to the hotel. We are staying at the San Juan Hotel Intercontinental Resort and Casino for a few days before we catch our cruise ship….
4 month post-op update… the statistics
I am a little late on this update since I was in Las Vegas last week without my scale. The good news is that this month my weight loss started kicking in again. My current weight is 210, 48 pounds down from the start of the pre-op diet. That’s an 8 pound loss for the month. My BMI is 33.9. I have lost 47% of…
Apple Pie Sweet Potatoes
This year, a super simple sweet potato recipe returns to my Thanksgiving table. It came from a newspaper column recipe a few years back. It is nice for a couple of reasons. First, it is microwaved saving valuable oven space that I just don’t have. Second, it is not quite as sweet as traditional candied yams. I grew up on Thanksgiving candied yams with loads…