Standing by a small wind turbine blade in Lamar Colorado in 2005
We saw a wind turbine recently, and I said “Do you remember that wind turbine we saw in Kansas? It must have been 150 feet long.” It wasn’t. It was only 112 feet long and was in Colorado close to the Kansas border, but the memory inspired us to turn to Google to learn more about wind turbines.
Slowly rotating up in the air, they don’t look that big or to be moving that fast. Looks are deceiving.
A modern wind turbine can have 8,000 parts. Looks are deceiving.
Blade size varies a lot. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, the typical wind turbine you see driving along the road has blades of over 170 feet (52 meters). The largest U.S. turbine is GE’s Haliade-X offshore wind turbine, with blades 351 feet long (107 meters). Two or three blades are used rather than four to avoid balance issues, and while adding more blades increases the electrical output, it is generally not worth the extra cost.
The blades usually spin between 13 and 20 revolutions per minute. Depending on the length of the blade, the tip speed may go as slow as 75 mph, miles per minute, and as fast as 150 mph.
Blades are attached to a hub, and together, they are called the rotor. The rotor is attached to the nacelle, which holds the gear box, generator, and couplings. Wind vanes and other sensors detect the wind speed and direction, and motors inside the nacelle turn it to face the wind. Nacelles can be over 50 foot long.
This is all mounted on a tower, which can be as simple as a long tube supported with guy wires to the huge steel and concrete structures in a modern wind farm. The tower is the most expensive part of a modern wind turbine. Winds are usually faster higher in the air, and high towers require more strength to compensate for the forces applied by the wind and rotating blades.
The average wind turbine in 2023 was 320 feet tall.
Ilia Malinin, the only person alive able to do a quad axel – evidently too fast for my camera. 😃
Like everything in sports, the more one understands the better one is able to appreciate and enjoy the fine points of the contest.
We started watching ice skating competitions on television in the 1970s when ABC producer Roone Arledge took the time to illustrate and explain what the skaters were doing. Now they just talk about them. We didn’t see live performances until the 1980s, never saw the best skaters live until the 1990s. We never saw the best in competition until this year when the U.S. National Figure Skating Championships came to Columbus, Ohio.
Not skaters ourselves, we still aren’t able to distinguish many of the jumps, especially those that require one leave the ice with a particular foot and land on a particular foot. But I have made a game of spotting the axel, hard to do but easy to spot because it is the only one that starts facing forward, the number of rotations, the quality of the landing, and in general the artistry of the performance. I am always pleased when the judges happen to agree with me even if I don’t know why.
Skaters compete in a short program and later in a long program, the combined scores determine their place. All the skaters have to perform the same things in the short program, if not in the same order. So we bought tickets to see the short programs. Now, I wish I had purchased tickets for all the events. We loved it!
Columbus, Ohio was the big winner. On this, their first time hosting a major figure skating competition, 60,000 people attended over the six days of competition, a 53% increase from last year’s nationals in San Jose, California. Five-time U.S. ice dance champion Evan Bates was quoted in the newspaper as saying “I don’t think we’ve seen as good as a crowd in a non-Olympic year in quite some time.”
Click on photos to enlarge and reveal captions:
On Sunday night, we watched the “Skating Spectacular,” not a competition but a showcase for some who competed. They generally do not do their most difficult jumps on these occasions.
The highlight for us, however, was when Jason Brown was awarded the Button-Salchow Trophy at the event “halftime.”
Jason Brown wins Button-Salchow Trophy
US skating great Dick Button was given the trophy in 1947 by Ulrich Salchow, ten-time winner of the World Figure Skating Championships. Button gave it to US Champion Misha Petkevich in 1972, who gave it to US Skater Paul Wylie in 2010. Comparing it to football’s Heisman, Wylie and Petkevich said it would now be given every four years to an outstanding skater who has made great contributions to the community.
Brown won the U.S. Championships in 2015, but he cannot do the quadruple jumps and has to rely on his artistry to keep competing. This year, that was enough to give him the Silver Medal.
Since 2001, fans have thrown stuffed animals on the ice after a performance. When Brown left the ice after his sliver medal performance, there must have been over a hundred stuffed animals tossed onto the rink. He donates them to Ronald McDonald Houses around the country.
After “half-time,” Brown skated to live music played by members of the Columbus Symphony. We both agreed, it was the most beautiful ice skating we have ever seen.
Dates of our visit: 24 to 27 January 2024
PS: We recorded it all, watched it all, and even saw ourselves in the audience! 😁
As Alie can’t handle the Caribbean heat anymore, I went on-line and booked an air-conditioned car and driver to show us some of St. Lucia.
Mathias in St. Lucia picked us up in an air-conditioned van with room to take our wheelchair if we should need it later. He spoke good English, was knowledgeable about what we were seeing, took us to a local restaurant in the mountains to have lunch [pointing out on the way a large tourist trap restaurant frequented by buses], took us to a botanical garden which we effectively had to ourselves not with a busload of other tourists, pushed Alie’s chair over the difficult spots – and would have pushed it all the time had we wanted – and knew the names of the flowers, fruits and seeds we saw in the garden.
Click on photos to enlarge and see captions.
Experienced cruisers often prefer to book their own tours although there are advantages in booking through the cruise lines, especially for those with less experience. We booked our own about a half dozen times over the last twenty years but did so depending on the particular circumstances, not as a regular thing. There were a couple of less successful tours with drivers who were not used to showing people around, but the others were very good.
In Lisbon after negotiating a price; the driver not only gave us a good tour, he helped us avoid the long line to get Lisbon’s famous Pastéis de Belém from the same place that has been making them since 1837. In Samoa, our fabulous driver told us all about his family’s customs and took us places not offered on other tours. After taking a small group tour in the Azores arranged by the cruise ship, we asked the driver if he would come back in the afternoon to take us to a different area; it was a wonderful tour to places tour buses never reach. In St. Thomas, we took another cab whose driver primarily took us to the standard places but was willing to stop where we wanted and let us have as much time as we wanted at those stops. A driver in Grand Turk knew every person on the island and to whom the goats and burros by the road belonged. A woman cab drive in Nassau took us to a combination of places offered by no other tour. A driver on Aruba took us to a village to see a wonderful display of murals, letting us off at one end of the main street and picking us up at the other so that we did not have to backtrack. In Santiago, Chile we also booked a tour on-line. Waiting in our hotel lobby, we watched a crowd of other tourists line up for a bus. When a man came in to call for us, I asked how many there would be on the tour, and he replied, you, myself and our driver. For the next two days, he was our private guide taking us everywhere from a high mountain restaurant and resort to the highlights of the city. In Buenos Aires, a tour booked online combined famous spots with lesser known, overnight hotel rooms in the city and at Iguazú Falls, airfare to the falls and a small group tour there and transfers from the port and later to the airport after our stay, all for less money than the cruise line was charging just for a daytrip to the Falls.
We took the St. Kitts Railway, a tourist train, on Christmas Day, 2011. It was one of those occasions that seemed perfect, at least in our memories. The weather was perfect, a trio of carolers went from car to car singing standard Christmas music, and small children waved from their houses shouting “Merry Christmas” as we passed by.
Children wave and shout Merry Christmas, 2011
One shouldn’t try to recreate such memories. But we booked a trip on the railway again for December 26, 2023. Waiting in line on the dock after being told by a railway employee the train was “naturally air-conditioned” by the breeze, Alie decided the heat was too much for her and went back to our ship. I agreed. She can’t really handle Caribbean heat anymore. But I was bummed.
Two islands form the country of St. Kitts and Nevis [pronounced Nee vis]. The islands were named for Saint Christopher Nevis. It is the smallest sovereign state in the Western Hemisphere and has about 50,000 people. It has twice as many monkeys as people.
The Brits and French fought over it in 17th century, and divided it among themselves in 1627. The Spanish drove both out in 1629 but lost it again in 1630. The two halves were united again under the British in 1713. Although independent today, they still drive on the left.
Sugar was the principal industry from 1640 to 2005 and was dependent on slavery. There was a long decline after slavery was abolished, and tourism provides most income today. The old sugar mills and plantation homes not converted into hotels are now ruins adding charm to the scenery.
Their flag has four colors: red for slavery, green for nature, black for Africa, and yellow for the sun.
As I waited alone in the crowd on the dock, a woman, whose name I am embarrassed to say I forgot because I did not write it down, introduced me to her children, Emily and Jackson about 12 and 9. These children put out their hands for me to shake, a demonstration of old-fashioned manners I thought long gone. Later I met their father, Patrick.
This family’s kindness to a stranger rescued my day.
Click on photos to enlarge.
St. Kitts in early morning 2023St. Kitts Railway is a worthwhile tourist train.Old sugar cane fields beneath the volcanic mountains.Old sugar cars rusting in abandoned fieldsSt. Kitts has beautiful black volcanic beaches.We passed small settlements along the coast.Jackson and Emily liked the goats.Our car was towards the back of the train.
Each railway car has two levels, a lower level where I went to await departure, and an upper level where most people went for a better view. When we started out, I went up the stairs to the upper level, now crowded. But Patrick slid his family a little closer together and motioned me to join them.
Jackson and I soon became friends, and I was able to point out to them sights along the way not mentioned by the guide such as the children waving to us from their porches as we passed by. Soon Jackson and Emily were caught up waving back. Later, we saw small goats grazing in the former sugar fields, some quite close to the track.
Energized, I engaged one of the two attendants passing out drinks, a young woman, in conversation. She was just 19, and we agreed she might have been one of those children waving to Alie and me in 2011.
With their parent’s permission, I took a picture of Emily and Jackson. But I do not believe in putting children’s photos on the Internet. I will cherish my memory of them.
Jackson, in particular, was remarkable in one way. I am extremely deaf catching only one out of four words, or more likely one out of four syllables. So, when I met him, I asked him to speak very slowly because it gives my brain the time to fill in the blanks from context. When the ride was all over and we were heading back to the ship, Jackson still remembered to speak slowly. I am not sure anyone else, including my wife, has been able to accomplish that. It was the icing on the cake of a very nice day.
Former Astronaut Tom Jones answers questions after his presentation.
Circumstances prevented our cruising after 2019. Even before that, we noticed Princess, Royal Caribbean, Holland America and Norwegian all cut back on menu items etc. as a result of the increased cost of fuel since we first started. We found cruises to be an inexpensive way to add some luxury to our lives and miss many things that are now a thing of the past.
We made up for lost time this year. We were on Holland, a small Royal ship and one of the giants. They all eliminated evening stateroom service, seem to have fewer staff per passenger, and continued to eliminate items from their regular menus. I would say the lecture quality has gone down over the years and many ships now only have port talks which tout stores they have relationships with.
Amenities like 24-hour coffee service and late-night dining were gone. Fixed seating is less and less available as people seem to prefer “anytime dining,” which I refer to as “anytime waiting in line.” Evidently, also in response to customer demand, dress was not formal even on Holland which caters to an older crowd. They now call them “gala evenings” not formal evenings.
One of three formal nights on the Queen Mary 2
The ladies on Cunard’s Queen Mary still looked great in their formal evening gowns. There were no roaming intrusive photographers trying to sell photos. They had an art gallery with art for sale, but none of the heavily advertised art “auctions” seen on other lines. We were not pestered by Cruise Director announcements reading the schedule; it was assumed we could read the programs ourselves. They even assumed you could get yourself off the ship without a dozen announcements. They still have a short daily newspaper delivered to your room.
The ship harks back to its art deco predecessors and has fine wood paneling everywhere. There are posters harking back to the history of Cunard at every elevator lobby, and one can even follow a “trail” on one’s phone to see them all. I was interested but not that interested.
Cunard has clung to other old traditions. It is an English ship. Waiters are impeccably uniformed and responsive. They know what silver goes with what course – far better than I. Not intimidated by this polished service, we found it to be a glimpse into how the wealthy traveled in days gone by.
Click photos to enlarge and see the captions.
The library
Room Service was free 24 hours a day. The dining rooms were open for breakfast, lunch and dinner even in port. Afternoon tea was served in the “Queen’s Room” or in your cabin every day. It is an English ship. Stateroom attendants are in twice a day. A bottle of champagne awaited our arrival even though we were in what Alie calls “steerage class.”
There was a library and a bookstore. The former is becoming rare on ships, and the latter was a first for us. There was more public space per passenger which meant one rarely felt crowded and rarely had to wait long at all for an elevator. Leaving at the end of the trip with a wheelchair was not a problem on the Queen Mary 2.
We heard a fantastic presentation by former astronaut Tom Jones. Alie was not feeling well during his first lecture, and I took notes. At the end, a lady a couple seats away said “you know there won’t be a test.” We chatted for a while. She turned out to be Jones’ wife, and Alie and I had tea with them later. Alie caught the lectures she missed on the TV.
The food was great — except for breakfast which more in the English tradition than the American. They have a full English breakfast, but they seem to think an omelet is just a folded beaten egg. It is an English ship.
There was soccer and cricket on TV but no American football. It is an English ship.
Even “Fido’s” needs are looked after.
Date of our travel: 22 December 23 to 3 January 24
All opinions are our own and we have never received compensation for our posts.
There are many cruise ships today. There is only one ocean liner. Cruise ships are built is to take people on vacation, to take passengers to vacation spots and to entertain them while they are on board. An ocean liner also is built to transport passengers across oceans in all sorts of weather. Liners are proportionately heavier and stronger with more steel in their hulls. They have sharper bows to cut through huge waves and deeper draft to keep them stable. Their bones retain the genetics of the first Cunard ships in 1840.
Today’s cruise ships are the product of a long history of ocean liners crossing the seas. Before the advent of the modern airplane, many liners crossed the North Atlantic. Perhaps the most famous is the tragic Titanic.
With the rapid growth of the cruise industry, many predicted a quick financial failure for the liner the Queen Elizabeth 2 when it was launched in 1969. Over the next 40 years, however, it traveled more nautical miles than any other ship in history and was succeeded by the Queen Mary 2, the fastest passenger ship in the world today.
I often write that cruising is not for everyone and everyone who cruises has their own goals for their vacation. We like cruising, and we saw those old movies with stars traveling on luxury liners. We wanted to try a liner. Alie has a sense of history. I do too, but also my 80th birthday is closer than my 79th, and I am tired of airline and airport hassles. I wanted to see what it would be like to take a liner to Europe.
My next couple posts will talk about our vacation via Cunard’s Queen Mary 2. But for now, here are some photos taken on the ship.
Click on photos to enlarge and see the captions.
Rapid rise in fuel costs in this century’s first decade was followed by economic turmoil in the second decade and then by COVID in the third. Almost all cruise lines cut back what they offered in order to cut costs. Furthermore, today’s passengers, even on the smaller luxury lines, are looking for a less formal vacation. We are grateful for what we once could do. We enjoy today’s ships, but we are grateful our first transatlantic crossing was on the Royal Caribbean Brilliance of the Seas in 2002 when they still had midnight buffets with different themes like pastry or ice sculptures or desserts or just chocolate. Tuxedos and gowns were worn on formal nights, and it was a pleasure to see everyone in their finery watching champagne flowing down a tree built of layers of glassware.
New Year’s Eve
Cunard no longer has the late buffets nor champagne trees in the main lobby, but in many ways the line still harks back to those days, and my next post describes it.
We stopped in New River Gorge National Park on our way to and from Charlottesville, Virginia. Unlike our last visit, the sky was clear and beautiful. We spent two lovely days in the park, but you might want to be careful before you duplicate our drives.
Driving north on U.S. Route 19 and across the New River Gorge Bridge, we stopped in the Canyon Rim Visitor Center both to get a little information and get a better view of the bridge.
Then we drove the steep, narrow, winding Fayette Station Road to the bottom of the valley, crossed a working railroad track and the Tunney Husaker Bridge and up the other side of the valley back to U.S. 19. Much of the road is one-way, so the complete crossing of the valley can only be accomplished in one direction northeast to southwest.
Completed in 1977, the 876 feet high New River Gorge Bridge is higher above the water than the Washington Monument with two Statue of Libertys stacked on top of it. Completion reduced the valley crossing from a 45-minute winding drive to 45 seconds across the bridge. It is still the longest steel arch span in the Western Hemisphere.
Click on photos to enlarge.
Tunney Husaker Bridge on Fayette Station RoadNew River Gorge Bridge US 19New River Gorge Bridge US 19Under the bridge
On our way home, we stopped again, this time to see the old railroad town of Thurmond, also at the bottom of the gorge.
Captain W. D. Thurmond acquired 73 acres along the recently completed Chesapeake and Ohio Railway in 1873 to build his town.
Layers of coal can be seen in the rocks of the gorge. It takes 10,000 years of peat accumulation to create one foot of coal, and the seams in West Virginia average three feet high and. West Virginia coal is bituminous coal that has a high heating value, valuable to industries like steel and electricity generation as well as fuel for the old steam engines.
Thurmond quickly became a center for coal and timber shipments out of the valley. The railroad track was the town’s main street.
Business in the new town peaked in 1910 with more tonnage shipped than Cincinnati, Ohio and Richmond, Virginia combined. 75,000 passengers passed through that year too.
The town thrived, had two banks, two hotels, restaurants and a movie theater. Coal companies supported baseball teams and even gave ball-playing miners higher wages. Sort of a “wild west” town, it developed an anything goes reputation.
But development stagnated during the Great Depression and practically died in the 1940s as trains shifted from coal to diesel fuel. Today, the town is owned by the National Park Service, and just four people live there in the winter. Indeed, the Thurmond visitors‘ center wasn’t open.
The road roundtrip to Thurmond [there is no other road] was not as steep or windy as Fayette Station Road, but it too was very scenic, and we found ourselves alone much of the time.
Dates of our visits: 16 and 18 November 2023
Most of all, we loved the scenery both going in and out of the gorge and while in it. We loved that there were very few other people visiting. But before you drive these routes, you should remember we were there in November, there were few leaves on the trees, few people, and it would not look or feel at all the same in the summer.
We are making new memories on our first voyage on an ocean liner, the Queen Mary 2.
Click on photos to enlarge.
The midnight buffet opened early for its photo shoot.
There were parties throughout the ship. Nonetheless, having spent my teenage years on a dairy farm, I was still up with the cows. There was no after party mess. The crew had already cleaned it up.
This young couple celebrated as only the very young can.
Taken in Wisconsin Dells on my first cross-country road trip in 1964, a dog was still jumping in 2021.
It is good advice to focus on the present, not the past or future. However, our present selves are made up of our memories, and positive thoughts about the future inspire our present acts.
Everyone, finds both hardship and joy in life. We are no different. Perhaps joy is made better because of hardship. As we look forward to 2024, here are a few photos from our lifetimes of travel and the times that brought us great joy. You won’t have the same memories, but I hope you may find the photos inherently interesting. The earliest were from a cheap camera that produced 35-millimeter film. My cameras improved over the years, but none then had the capability of today’s smart phones.
Click on photos to enlarge and see the captions which endeavor to show why I chose them.
Happy new year everyone, no matter which calendar you follow.
Johnny Bench and Bob Hope, Freedom Hill, Da Nang, 24 December 70
This is an update and revision of my 2011 post. I plan to publish a book about my experiences in Vietnam by my 80th birthday next May. The central theme is no one knows what happened in Vietnam; those involved only knew the small portion that they experienced as seen through lenses colored by their own past, expectations and beliefs. As I worked on the part about my Christmas there, I realized many might not remember Bob Hope, nor the role he played in American life in 1970.
In 1970, I was on the other side of the world as part of a six-man army mobile advisory team in Quang Tri Province. Our job was to teach the local Vietnamese soldiers how to defend their hamlets.
On Christmas eve, I was one of five lucky soldiers whose name was drawn out of a hat containing all province advisors’ names. We flew to Da Nang to see the Bob Hope Christmas show.
By Christmas Eve 1970, Bob Hope was a national institution, perhaps better known than Taylor Swift today – young people probably don’t believe that.
One hundred years ago, Hope was already performing a small time dance act. He then performed in vaudeville and on Broadway. He appeared in more than fifty movies and was on radio and television for over sixty years. He was known to me and my generation because he was on TV. He hosted the Academy Awards nineteen times at a time when only local programming and the major networks were available. Hope was a significant player in American life.
He started entertaining American troops in May 1941 and continued through World War II. After the war ended, his first Christmas show for service personnel was in 1948. Later, he entertained soldiers in Korea. Even after the war in Vietnam became so controversial, so political, Bob Hope was there. We watched those “Christmas” shows on TV every January as I grew up.
Bob Hope’s theme song was “Thanks For The Memories.” My greatest memory of Bob Hope is the many times he entertained our military forces. In Da Nang, I felt I saw part of that history.
Horizontal slashes cut into the side of a mountain held benches. The stage faced this crude amphitheater. We had to sit high up on the hill. But we were the lucky ones. We had tickets and were better off than the hundreds of soldiers sitting on the hillside above the seats. We were even more lucky than the guys near the front whose blue pajamas identified them as just brought in from the hospital. There must have been five thousand guys packed onto the side of that hill.
The show was done live for radio, and TV cameras taped it for later use on Armed Forces Vietnam Television and for Hope’s TV special to be shown back home. Every guy probably wondered if the folks back home might see him. Armed Forces Radio didn’t censor the off-color ad-libs, something they would not see and hear at home.
As he had for years, Hope brought along Les Brown and his “Band of Renown.” The older members of the band were wearing slacks and golf shirts. A young trumpeter wore jeans, and a still younger drummer looked like a hippie who had found an Army hat. They were good. As I listened, I felt a bond with all the soldiers Bob Hope entertained in World War II, Korea and Vietnam.
Les Brown (white shirt)
Johnny Bench, the Cincinnati Red’s star baseball catcher who had been elected to the Hall of Fame in 1969, came out and tossed jokes back and forth with Hope.
The troops laughed and cheered for Hope and Bench, but they went crazy for the singers Gloria Loring and Lola Falana. The “Gold Diggers” and “Dingalings” from Dean Martin’s television show danced. All they really had to do was stand on stage to get a cheer. As he had many times over the years, Bob Hope called out, “Men, this is what you’re fighting for.”
Click on photos to enlarge and see captions.
Finally, Hope brought out the entire cast and a five-hundred-foot-long Christmas card signed by folks at home. The troops loved them all.
Most of Bob Hope’s jokes knocked the Army, Đa Năng and Vietnam. I was surprised to see that he read those lines from cue cards, but I suppose it was better for the taped shows. I was even more surprised, however, when a few weeks later I read an article in a national magazine which implied the troops at Đa Năng didn’t like Hope and noted they flashed the peace sign at him. The reporters may have felt the war was wrong and regarded Bob Hope as part of the “establishment,” but the troops knew that once again he was there for them.
No one booed in Đa Năng Christmas Eve 1970. The troops loved Bob Hope, and if both Hope and they were flashing peace signs, it was because all wanted peace. No one wanted to be there that Christmas. At a time when it is common to say, “We support our troops,” younger people may fail to realize there was a time when our troops were not honored, a time when many openly disparaged our troops and anyone who was there for them. Bob Hope always supported our troops.
RalieTravels 
The kindness of strangers on the train in St. Kitts
We took the St. Kitts Railway, a tourist train, on Christmas Day, 2011. It was one of those occasions that seemed perfect, at least in our memories. The weather was perfect, a trio of carolers went from car to car singing standard Christmas music, and small children waved from their houses shouting “Merry Christmas” as we passed by.
One shouldn’t try to recreate such memories. But we booked a trip on the railway again for December 26, 2023. Waiting in line on the dock after being told by a railway employee the train was “naturally air-conditioned” by the breeze, Alie decided the heat was too much for her and went back to our ship. I agreed. She can’t really handle Caribbean heat anymore. But I was bummed.
Two islands form the country of St. Kitts and Nevis [pronounced Nee vis]. The islands were named for Saint Christopher Nevis. It is the smallest sovereign state in the Western Hemisphere and has about 50,000 people. It has twice as many monkeys as people.
The Brits and French fought over it in 17th century, and divided it among themselves in 1627. The Spanish drove both out in 1629 but lost it again in 1630. The two halves were united again under the British in 1713. Although independent today, they still drive on the left.
Sugar was the principal industry from 1640 to 2005 and was dependent on slavery. There was a long decline after slavery was abolished, and tourism provides most income today. The old sugar mills and plantation homes not converted into hotels are now ruins adding charm to the scenery.
Their flag has four colors: red for slavery, green for nature, black for Africa, and yellow for the sun.
As I waited alone in the crowd on the dock, a woman, whose name I am embarrassed to say I forgot because I did not write it down, introduced me to her children, Emily and Jackson about 12 and 9. These children put out their hands for me to shake, a demonstration of old-fashioned manners I thought long gone. Later I met their father, Patrick.
This family’s kindness to a stranger rescued my day.
Click on photos to enlarge.
Each railway car has two levels, a lower level where I went to await departure, and an upper level where most people went for a better view. When we started out, I went up the stairs to the upper level, now crowded. But Patrick slid his family a little closer together and motioned me to join them.
Jackson and I soon became friends, and I was able to point out to them sights along the way not mentioned by the guide such as the children waving to us from their porches as we passed by. Soon Jackson and Emily were caught up waving back. Later, we saw small goats grazing in the former sugar fields, some quite close to the track.
Energized, I engaged one of the two attendants passing out drinks, a young woman, in conversation. She was just 19, and we agreed she might have been one of those children waving to Alie and me in 2011.
With their parent’s permission, I took a picture of Emily and Jackson. But I do not believe in putting children’s photos on the Internet. I will cherish my memory of them.
Jackson, in particular, was remarkable in one way. I am extremely deaf catching only one out of four words, or more likely one out of four syllables. So, when I met him, I asked him to speak very slowly because it gives my brain the time to fill in the blanks from context. When the ride was all over and we were heading back to the ship, Jackson still remembered to speak slowly. I am not sure anyone else, including my wife, has been able to accomplish that. It was the icing on the cake of a very nice day.
Date of my visit: 26 Dec 2023
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