The sombrero diaries-Final nights.

So as I recall we all just sorta did our own thing and napped and stuff the last night on ship. Blame the tamarind tequila or the need to censor a family blog. But I do remember our laundry coming back pinkish with a set of purple culottes that were once red. But other than that a very pleasant evening, if pleasant is a freak-out mad dash to pack clothes and minimize the carryon luggage and booze on your person. However it all went off with nary a hitch. Disembarked and packed trucks and headed back to San Antonio. We unpacked trucks again, settled down for a great dinner, conversation and a glass of bourbon. Then off to bed for a 4:00 AM wake up and dash to the airport. Goodbyes were said and thus ended a spectacular birthday party/vacation/adventure. The end.

What you want more? Ok so I got some goofy looks from people in the airport. I mean I am wearing a big green sombrero the whole time but hold down the hat envy. Freud could write a book on it I tell ya! Except he's dead. Anyhow sure it was a nuisance having people bump into my hat on the plane, I had an aisle seat, but I understand it. Who wouldn't want to touch it? It is green felt! That's like twice as nice as Corinthian leather! I am certain I read that somewhere! Sure the stewardess was miffed when she asked where we went (smug with her airline attendant training) and I responded France, but hey Poncho is new to the high speed life of America! I can't have him swayed from a righteous path by some floozy stewardess looking to touch my sombrero! So off she went and not a ginger ale was to be seen the entire flight!

The sombrero diaries-Cozumel

So many things are discussed about Mexico. Bad water, tequila, sun, beaches, poverty, crime, sombreros, etc., etc... My God-Daughter will tell you emphatically NOT to drink the water. This wasn't my first rodeo when it came to travelling abroad so that was not a problem. My mind run that course easily. No water, no ice, no frozen delights that could be made with tainted water, don't rinse your mouth with tap water, don't wash your hands and put them in your mouth until fully dry. Paranoid? Well guess who never had Montezuma's Revenge? This guy! Tequila? I don't really like the stuff. However there is always an exception to the rule and Cozumel I found it!

So we crossed the brow from the ship and we were in Mexico! After the obligatory pictures and shop browsing we ended at a cab stand where the haggling began again in earnest. After a span of roundy round with the drivers we hopped a van and headed to the beach.via a tequila distillery. Well sort of. It was a very nice Hacienda that was converted to show how tequila is made at the actual distillery a few hundred miles away. However, free samples of everything were provided so that makes it a non-issue!! So as I said tequila and me are not friends. No story there, I am just not a fan. That is until I tried a tamarind flavored tequila. This stuff was FUN. So we buy a bottle with the express idea that we are taking it to the beach and sharing it and having a good time. You know what? That is exactly what we did too. No drama. No punch line. After the Hacienda we all went to this beautiful beach and drank tequila and sunned and swam and had some food that my wife labeled "gorgeous". You know what? It was gorgeous too, from the octopus to the nachos it was just gorgeous. Like so many other nice things in life they all come to an end though. 

After far too few hours we headed back to town and did a little more window shopping, and that is when we saw him. My wife actually spied his younger brother and pointed him out to me, but. that was when I saw Poncho. How anyone could miss Poncho I don't know! He was covered in dark green felt and white sequins. He was majestic. He was all that was, and is, Mexico to me. The Cisco Kid and Zorro rolled all up into one.A BIG GREEN SHINY SOMBRERO!! So after some time alone talking to Poncho and weighing the options of getting him on the ship, off the ship, on the planes, off the planes I decided to do the smart thing and say sorry Poncho you have to stay. At which point my wife asks me why I don't have a sombrero on my head. I explain the logistical nightmare of a 2.5 foot sombrero and air travel. Which she promptly poo poo's and tells me to go buy a sombrero. So I go back and hem and haw..and buy myself the coolest sombrero ever! Sure I got strange looks but who cares? They're all just jealous. 
So shortly after that, on the ship we went and out to sea we go! Next stop Texas!

The sombrero diaries-Birthday!

So somewhere in the mix of things Ross's (name changed to protect the innocent) birthday came around! We were all dressed to the nines and the ladies were very lovely in their dresses and heels! We had a lovely dinner, as normal and the we noticed that some of the ladies had mysteriously disappeared. Now I knew a little bit of what was going but not Ross. Poor Ross had been celebrating his birthday with smuggled rum most of the day, as my fading memory recalls. Hence the slightly concerned look from time to time. Mind you if I was in his position I would probably be on Red Alert with a butter knife secreted up my sleeve awaiting ninja ambush and a sniper attack! Some people just think differently I guess. However after a while the restaurant is nearly empty and the ladies return, Ross's wife is dressed in a short white dress ala Marylyn Monroe and her blond hair fluffed to perfection! A beautiful cake is put before the guest of honor as his wife begins a whiskey voiced rendition of Happy Birthday that would knock your socks off! All in all a fantastic birthday! Happy Birthday and thank you for inviting us!

The sombrero diaries-Grand Cayman Island & Hell

The best thing about going to sea is getting to go back on land, as long as that land is somewhere else! Sure home is nice but somewhere else is an adventure! Not to mention there is something to be said for travelling over the horizon of blue water and seeing land again. It still gets me excited and that day was no different! So we gathered up and met our group (they were well prepared and in line to get in line while we were….not) and waited for our boat to go ashore. The process was smooth and a very pleasant little trip! Not to mention that it was warm/hot, sunny, and a new place with nice people. Hot and sunny is a nice change from our normal November weather and it was a JOY to see my bride drink in the sun! She was aglow and tanning shades by the second, and that is just walking down the pier! Her ability to tan is something that I am not capable of doing and I am constantly jealous of, just don’t tell her that! Anyway, so we do a little walking and find some bus tours. Our group is trying to decide the best value for our buck when Cash Money comes up. Cash Money is 6’ 3”, 220 lbs of Grand Cayman magic! He sells us the exact same deal that all the other drivers for his bus company have been trying to sell us for 10 minutes and we love it! We say yes we will take the deal and head to the bus. As we begin loading up he hands us over to another driver and the 14 people in our group go nuts! “Nooo! We want him to drive us!!” we moan! “That wasn’t the deal?!” we cry! So after a bus shuffle and my bride helping to wrangle more tourists for the 30 person bus we head out.

Now Grand Cayman is a new destination for me and most of the others. It is small, a few miles long and even thinner than that wide, however it is very pretty. We drive up the main road and learn a bit about the place, who owns what, what kind of damage was sustained during the big hurricane, the entire time we are the epitome of American tourists. Our heads swinging left to right with the occasional click of digital cameras on the cell phones. Bliss! It is so nice to be comfortable as a tourist without having someone hocking wares at you! So we travel up the island until we end up in Hell. Yes Hell. Hell is a limestone formation built up from sea critters that look remarkably like the flames of, you guessed it, Hell. Turns out way back when some English fella was shooting birds there and between misses and the hits (that fell into the jagged rock formation of course) the gentleman would exclaim “Bloody Hell!). The name stuck! Now there is a fence to protect the area and a small gift shop where we sent my Mom and Dad and the kids a post card. Then on the road again!

The next stop was a small tourist trap where we got loaded up on free rum samples and rum cake, best samples ever! Tortuga rum is great! Why? Because of something extra they do with it…they give it away as free samples at a gift shop! YAAY RUM!! The next stop we got to peek between the chain linked fence and look at a turtle farm. Which was great because I sure wouldn’t pay to look at large concrete tanks full of turtles? However right across the street is a place where you can swim with dolphins and have them give you kisses and stuff. Which was very nice because our group had a fantastic time making out with the dolphins and got some very nice photos too? At this point some of our group went to shop while a few of us stayed at the beach. The beach was beautiful! We ate conch fritters and marinated conch and got a good top off of sunshine. It was so nice to see Shona and the kids playing in the water, while my pale self slowly roasted on the sand!

So we wrapped up the day by taking a short walk downtown, which was less impressive as the beach and eating a little more food not from a buffet. It was average but filling! Returning to the ship we napped as the ship headed out on to the Riviera De Maya. A great time for all!

The sombrero diaries-Day FAT

So at some point  between cocktails and sleep I travelled from “down” in the ship to the Lido deck. Lido-The term lido is an Italian word for beach. Thank you Wikipedia. There really is a Lido deck, The Love Boat did not make that up. Captain Stubeing, Julie, and Isaac the bartender were fabrications of a demented mind but the Lido deck is real! It has sunning areas laid out in an amphitheater style, a stage, Jacuzzis, the buffets, and a bar. In fact the coliseum like layout was the perfect setting for my latest humiliation. It was like a gladiators death the way my self-image died! As I was saying I walked up to the Lido deck and as soon as I got through the sliding double glass doors I see our group and my lovely bride. They seemed happy and in high spirits, but I was soon to learn that their positioning was a tactical ambush. Like assassins laying a trap they were there….waiting. Patient as crocodiles. Cunning as lionesses. The silent panthers in the night awaiting the unsuspecting fawn. Yours truly was the fawn. You see my innocent Hoosier senses were stunned by the loud noise and blinding sunlight as my bride tells me I had just missed the hairy chest contest. Little did I know the rest of the pride was arranging my late entry in to the contest. So I let my guard down and enjoyed the spectacle! I laughed with the rest of the Romans filling the coliseum and then they struck! We got you in as a late entry “she” says. Who “she” was I don’t recall because my mind was numb with terror, my guts turned to water as self realization dawned…I was next to walk the bloody sands of the coliseum and die for the crowds pleasure! So I walked the steps and as the music began I shook my money maker. I didn’t win the hairy chest contest, that particular honor went to a man of Indian decent. That doesn’t bother me because India has a long tradition of dancers par excellence, and in the end I am still huge in India!! The rub is I saw myself on the ships TV a day later…..we are on the Atkins diet now! My target weight is only 25 lbs away (after a morning poo). 

The sombrero diaries-Day 2-3

So the next day we met our steward. Steward, we came to find out, is an old Norwegian word meaning creepy Filipino guy who  is somehow always outside you door except when you are looking for him. Those Norwegians have a way with words I tell ya'. OK remember the old Looney Tunes cartoons that had the mad scientist who was supposed to be Peter Lorre? There you go! Our steward! Imagine opening your door, slightly hung-over and seeing that mug. You get it now!? 

Well it didn’t take us long to settle into a nice routine of eat, drink, be merry, and attend events. Now the events are a little weird, I say weird because I never imagined attending an art auction on a cruise ship. Yeah art auction. They sell art on ships. Not nice art but pretty pricey stuff! No I didn’t come home with anything for the walls but only because there was not a single Elvis on black velvet, let alone any dogs playing poker to be found! I mean how many light houses need to be painted people?! 

However the biggest two card monty grift, I mean event,  happening on the ship, is a thing that is referred to as a “raffle”. Now for those of you who don’t speak gypsy I will give a little background for you. It seems that in 1450, or there about, Vlad III (aka Vlad Tepes, Vlad the Impaler, Vlad the Jerk, but most commonly referred to as Mr. "Oh please your highness don’t put that stake up my backside!") decided to do away with the leash laws for the gypsies of Romania and they all got out! This lead to the gypsies opening a burgeoning trade in fleecing rubes out of their money by fun things like raffles. Don’t get me wrong a fool and their money are soon parted…but leave my money out of it! Frankly the worst part of this grift is not that I spent any money on raffle tickets it is that I wasted my time! You see you get the tickets for free most of the times, but you have to bend the laws of the universe to attend them! There are 2-3 raffles running and they are staggered about 4 minutes apart from each other, but on different decks of the ship. So when one is finishing the other has already started, and all of them require that you must be present to win. It is the perfect grift because now you are either vying for an elevator or jogging the steps to get to the raffle on time or risk not winning because you were elsewhere. This cardio workout now has the end result of your stomach growling and you need to get a bite to eat...not to mention you are thirsty so you need a cocktail, which is about 37 dollars a cup. HA HA!! There's the rub! It is all trying to get you to buy expensive booze! It is like American Alley in Crete! Luckily our crafty friends had a nice ace up their sleeve that stuck a thumb in the cocktail lounges proverbial eye. I won’t reveal the secret (statute of limitations remember!) and we paid bubkis for our booze! Take that Dracula!

Our steward

The sombrero diaries-Day 1-1.5

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!