Tom's Thoughts and Nancy's Notes

We've been in our Murphy location some 3 years now. Haven't ever gotten around to landscaping the front yard beds and tree rings other than the minimal setup the builder provided. I think our house was the only one on the block without something having been done to spruce things up...

This past week we put an end to that. I contacted a landscaping company at the end of June (used by some neighbors down the street) and Kevin came out and drew up what he thought would be a good fit. On Tuesday, they descended upon us and commenced to reworking the whole area. Most all of the plants we had already were re-incorporated into the plan and many new ones were brought in. Of course, rock borders were added across the entire front beds, as well as rings placed around the two trees. In addition to the new and relocated plants, a lot more bedding soil was brought in and hardwood mulch to go on top of it all.

Here are pics of the crew doing their thing...

Once at the game, we found our seats which were in the lower sections about even with 1st base. It was a nice evening so it didn't get too hot. We were in our full Ranger's regalia ready to root them on to victory!

The first pitch of the game! Anyone want some peanuts?

I did think to grab this target for posterity. Most of the holes in this target were there already when I came to this shooting lane to shoot the 9mm Springfield XDM 3.8". I picked a spot on the upper left hand area of the paper target where some fine print was printed and shot that area. I put all 5 rounds within a bulls-eye diameter! (I think I did just about as good with the Glock 19, but I didn't think to retrieve that target...)

The final gun we shot this night was the Night Hawk Custom .45 ACP. We took turns one at a time with this gun, and as each person (or couple) completed their shots, the double target paper was retrieved and handed over as a souvenir. Here is how I did:

And here is how Nancy did:

We are apparently a "low shooting" family, but we are consistent! When we finished and the instructor retrieved our target, he said "nobody better try and break into this couples house!"

It was fun, and a good experience.

Tom

The exhibit contained artifacts of the Titanic - dishes, hardware, some clothing - and replicas of a third class room and a hallway. Most of the exhibit, though, was photos and displays of explanations you read that gave you history of what was going on at that time. The "powers that be" came across as a little too arrogant. The sinking of the ship really didn't have to happen.

When you surrender your admission ticket for entrance into the exhibit, you are given a boarding pass of an actual Titanic passenger.

After everyone got back from their excursions, were checked in and accounted for on the ship at Progreso, that afternoon we headed around the Yucatan peninsula toward Cozumel. Of course they timed it so we arrived bright and early the next morning at the cruise pier at Cozumel.
Here we have gotten off our ship (the one showing on the right side of the picture). Another ship was already docked at this cruise pier, and that is the one showing on the left. Lots of goings on as vendors were trying to get you to have your picture taken with them in their costumes, etc.
This shot is back off a bit further, and you can see our Carnival Triumph ship on the right side of the picture. And yes, this ship is the SAME ONE which had a fire and got stuck a few days out in the gulf toward the end of February. We were so thankful that we weren't dealing with ship failure during our cruise back in October. That would not have been fun!
Here's another shot from even further on down the cruise pier. You can see just how big these cruise ships are!
There are a series of "duty free" shops which you negotiate through near where the pier meets up with the land. We managed to wade our way through all these shops without buying anything...



We decided to "sail" with a group on 12-meter America's Cup racing sailboats.
This is actually one of the "Stars and Stripes" 12-meter racing sailboats used by Dennis Conner to defend the "America's Cup" trophy back in the 80s sometime. This is the boat we would "crew" against another 12-meter racing boat.
This was our team "leader" who positioned each of us at our various crew spots - and explained how everything worked.
This is the "main streamer" (or something like that) which would be my (Tom) responsibility. This rope was tied in directly to the main sail. It was my job to apply tension on this rope around this buckle thing to either maintain the current setting, or to let it slip out some to give the main sail more line, or to help in winding the rope back in to pull in the main sail some. The actual "pulling in" of the rope was managed by large cranking handles/winches operated by two other crew members, but I would have to keep the proper tension so that their cranking would result in the rope being brought in.

Here we are underway. The other 12-meter racing sailboat we competed against is ahead of us at this point. We made 6 lengths around some buoys spaced some distance apart. We finally caught up with and then passed the other boat on the last leg of the race - so we were deemed the champions!


Once our sailing adventure was completed, we made our way back through some of the shops and bought some trinkets, and then made our way back aboard ship. That afternoon, an artist proceeded to transform a big chunk of ice into that of an Indian Chief with a full feather bonnet. It probably didn't take him more than 10-15 minutes from start to finish. It came out very nice!

Late afternoon, we pullled away from the cruise pier in Cozumel and pointed north to head back to the home port of Galveston. Here's a shot of our wake. The seas were calm so the trip was very smooth.
After traveling all night, come morning the next day we arrived back in Galveston. This large structure is the gangway which the ship pulled along side for everyone to depart.
One last look back at our ship as we departed down the gangway! It was a fun trip, and we made ourselves relax and enjoy just "doing nothing" to speak of.