So my bride and I were honored to be invited on a birthday cruise last year, for an old friend’s husband. We accepted the invitation and as neither of us had been on a cruise before we were very excited by the prospects of water, sunshine, new destinations, and booze. Well as life would have it the days crawled by until the day of departure had crept up on us both. So as the final arrangements were completed and all the kids’ safety was ensured we flew out for the great state of Texas. We arrived to beautiful weather and gracious hosts who promptly filled us with Texas style Barbecue and adult beverages galore! The birthday man (who I will call Ross until the statue of limitations run out) is a maestro on the smoker/grill and as patient a host as I will never hope to be! After a good night of food, booze, and cigars everyone went to bed throughout the house. I say throughout the house because this was a family event and family flew in from the highlands for the event. Highlands as in Scotland, highlands…so space was a premium! Even then my love and I still had a queen sized inflatable bed in the upstairs that beat the snot out of the full sized torture rack that we shared while together in Crete. Yes the hype about Texas is true. They do NOTHING small! So after a sound night of sleep we were greeted to a batch of scrambled & scattered (scrambled eggs with sausage and other goodies cooked up together) served in a cook pot the size of my head! I can still smell the yummy the goodness Mmmm Mmm! After that we packed out the vehicles and hit the road.
Now a quick aside to comment on the Lone Star State. Texas is exactly what you would imagine. Gleaming cities, rough docks, open prairie, desert, marshes, the list goes on. If you ever saw it on TV or the movies and went “oh that’s Texas” you will see it in Texas. Because Texas is HUGE. Sure you can look at a map and go “big” but until you get there it doesn’t sink in. The last time I was in Texas I was 15 years old and then it realllllllly didn’t sink in, now that I am…older than 15, the magnitude of the place really becomes apparent .
So anyhow we arrived in Galveston after driving 4 hours or so (it seems I blanked out after the first 2 light years) and made our way to the ship. Lucky for me I am former Navy and am used to the concept of hurry up and wait so lines and ID checks are pretty much routine. So the cruise line took our credit card info, rights to our first born, and copy righted any intellectual proper we may ever create and let us onboard….or so we thought. It seems there was a small glitch in a computer somewhere that held our group up for a little while. So after a short duration we were allowed on. We promptly shoveled food in our mouths and had to move on to mustering at our lifeboat stations. You see since the Titanic mustered up at Davy Jones locker, maybe it was the Lusitania, you have to learn your lifeboat station. During this 15 minutes of bliss you learn to rapidly proceed to this vitally important place as every screaming kid, fat hillbilly, and Arab rug merchant tries to shove, elbow, threaten, bite, and cajole their way to past you. I applauded the industry on their use of realism in conducting this training as the same people will most likely stampede over your bloody wreak of a body in an actual emergency. As the old adage goes, The more you sweat in training the less you bleed in battle. Anyhow the rest of the day was delightful! We ate dinner and had drinks with our group until the wee hours and fell asleep nicely buzzed by booze!
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