Day 1 June 26 - 28 Fly to Rochester and Jake's

The plan for this trip is to fly to Rochester, spend a few days with Jake and the boys, then fly to Boston on Monday. We'll stay at the Seaport Hotel the board the ship the following afternoon. We'll cruise around the Maritimes and return to Boston. We'll fly home on July 13th. We'll be joined on our trip by Paula and Larry Nappi, our good friends from our Boise "Small Group". 

Thursday, our Uber driver came at 3:15AM as ordered. (Ugh) Our 5:00 flight for Denver on time, then on to Baltimore and finally arrived in Rochester by 6:00. No problems. Picked up our rental car and arrived in Naples at around 8:00 and found our rental apartment. Jake and Rowan stopped by for a brief visit. Long day, but "its all good!"

Friday - The weather today is cloudy, low 70s. The locals love it; its been terribly hot the past few days. We joined Jake and Brennan for breakfast at Caruso's, then up to Jake's to see the progress he's made since our last visit. Recently poured the concrete floor in the garage; new vehicles and toys added to his collection!

Late afternoon we drove up to the mall cinema at Victor to see "F1". We enjoyed the movie and then had a nice dinner at PF Changs.

Back home by 9:30 to finished up the Mariner's game.

Saturday -We (Jake and Brennan) drove out a ways to a favorite bakery where we met Rowan and his girlfriend Elli for a nice breakfast. The weather is beautiful! Then back to Jake's place for nothing in particular. Mid afternoon Jake and Brennan and us drove up to Rochester to see a Red Wings baseball game. Nice stadium, fun people watching, good hot dogs, terrible baseball (!). Red Wings, in last place, lost 8-0. Turns out it was a doubleheader, which we didn't know, so we left after the first game. When we got back to town we met Rowan at Ling and Louie's for ice cream (that was our dinner?)

Our AirBnb

Sunday - June 29 Lunch reunion with Zimmers

Spectacular weather today! Sunny, high only around 80. After breakfast with "the Boys" at Caruso's we left about 10 to head east to meet our old friends the Zimmers and Flaherty's at Elderberry Pond Restaurant in Auburn, about 1.25 hours away. Beautiful country drive! Everything is so green and lush and the farm fields are gorgeous! (Makes you realize Southern Idaho is not pretty!)

We met Art and Shirley only to learn that Dick and Dona were not able to join us since she had recently fallen and broken a hip and was slow to heal. We really missed them in our "catch-up" conversation. Nevertheless, we caught up on old times and had a fantastic lunch. Art is 88 and still going strong. 

On our way back home we stopped in Geneva to look at the beautiful Seneca Lake and a quick stop at an old Wegman's. Back to Naples about 5:00.

Last weekend was High School graduations, but the parties were still going. Rowan is still a junior but he had to make the rounds with Elli. We joined one such party at Jeff Hall's beautiful home on top of a hill overlooking Canadaigua Lake. Wow! (Jeff is Jake's boss for his inspection job. They've been close friends for many years).

So, we leave this very cool little town by 8:00 in the morning to drive back to Rochester and on to Boston. Jake and the boys are doing great!

Elderberry Pond

Seneca Lake in Geneva

View of Canadaigua

Graduation party

Little hike in County Park

Monday June 30 to Boston

We left Naples about 8:00 for the one hour drive back to the Rochester airport; beautiful day! We got there in plenty of time for our flight to Baltimore, then enough time for a lunch (crab stew I couldn't eat - way too spicy!) We arrived in Boston on time about 5:30.

Logan airport has a great Ride Share system, so we had an easy time ordering a ride to our hotel ($27 for a two mile ride across the bay). Our hotel is the Seaport Hotel, in an area which has seen major development over the years, right across the street from the Boston Fish Market. Dinner at Legal Seafood, just down the block. It's a famous eatery on the site of the former Jimmy's Harborside. We shared an unhealthy Fisherman's Platter which was awesome!

The cruise port is just down the street. We can board the Volendam between noon and 2:30.

Rochester airport

Boston

Boston Fish Market

Legal Seafood

July 1 Leaving Boston

Up early for a nice jog/walk around the fish market waterfront. Warm and muggy. After a nice breakfast in the hotel we took an Uber over to the ship a little after noon, went through security and reached our cabin a bit after 1:00. Quite painless.

We're on the Volendam with about 1350 passengers, 500 crew.  It's one of the smallest Holland ships.

Our room is on deck 3, its called a Lanai. At first glance, I don't like it. It opens right on to the promenade deck so people are walking by. Fortunately, the glass in one-way so they can't see in. We have two lounge chairs right outside the door, but already other people have been sitting there! I would rather have had the type room we're used to on the upper decks, with a private balcony.

The ship left the dock at 4:00, right on time. It's always fun to watch the "sail away" with nice views of the city disappearing into the distance. It's sunny hot and humid! I found it interesting that there was nothing going on at the container port. I wondered why?

After exploring the ship we connected with our travelling buddies, Larry and Paula Nappi. We met for dinner in the main dinning room and had a fine meal - they never disappoint. 

Evening entertainment was a funny comedian followed by a few minutes listening to the various musicians at their pianos.

Fort Independence

July 2 Wednesday - Sea Day

Woke up to pea soup fog and rain! But no mind, two-day is a Sea Day! We saw two presentations: one about Canada, the other about Sydney, our port tomorrow. These are always very informative.

Our Have it All Package includes two dinners at specialty restaurants, Pinnacles and Catelloni. Turns out the only available reservations are after 8:00, past our bedtime. Lesson: go on line well before the cruise and make reservations in advance. We decided its no big deal; if we took a later time we'd miss the shows, and they're more important. One really needs to do dinner at 5:00 to make the 7:30 show with no rush.

Tonight's show was a musical group doing pop stuff from the 50-60-70. They were Awesome!!

Tomorrow we have our first shore excursion, in Sydney, Nova Scotia. 

Thursday July 3 - Sydney, Nova Scotia

We joined our coach at about 8:15 and drove an hour to the Alexander Graham Bell National Historical Site Museum in Baddeck. Sydney is a pretty good sized town but there's not much to see a long the route except lots of trees!

The museum is amazing! We had no idea all the things that Bell was involved in. We all know he invented the telephone, but we didn't know his experimenting with airplanes and hydrofoils. Or that he was passionate about people with hearing loss. Or desalinating water.

After our visit to the museum we had some time to wander around the village. We stopped for coffee and rhubarb cake at the High Wheeler Cafe.

We returned to the cruise terminal and had plenty of time to grab some lunch (lobsta roll at the Flavor on the Water ) and visit some very cool shops in the complex. Sam purchased a pretty stainless steel bracelet and I found a couple of Breton/Celtic CDs (the shop owner put me on to them as we discuss the Rankin Family Band).

Our entertainment after dinner was high energy band called Breton Thunder.

One sees odd things in the port. This is a heavy lifter used for oil rigs, etc

Hydrofoil

A G Bell Museum

Ceilidh means "jam", "we're having a party, bring your fiddle".

Seal Island Bridge

Our cabin on Deck 3 Promenade

World's Largest Fiddle

Breton Thunder