Grand Canyon panorama

Click the photo below (or click the text link below the photo) to see a Zoomify panorama photo of one small sectional view of the Grand Canyon.

To see the entire photo, drag horizontally (left and right) in the Zoomify window that opens when you click on the thumbnail photo below.



View the Zoomify panorama photo.

A Grand day (canyon and otherwise)

We drove to Sedona this morning to meet our minibus tour group at a local resort. FYI, Sedona is actually the name of the wife of the town founder, Somebody Schnebly. Sedona's mother made up the name. A true story. Straight from our guide, a likable guy just full of interesting tidbits. Such as: a Navajo elder was watching astronauts train in a meteor crater (in the ’60s). He approached them. They told him they were going to the moon. Since Navajos believe some of their ancestors stayed on the moon when others came to Earth, he asked them to deliver a message to the Navajos on the moon. The astronauts-in-training recorded the elder's voice as he spoke in Navajo. Later, when they had the recording interpreted, it said "Don't sign anything."


The SwanMobile heads towards Sedona early Tuesday morning.
The tour bus stopped in the Route 66 town of Williams so a couple of our tour group could take the train to the Grand Canyon.


The Williams Depot

I'll post more Grand Canyon photos Wednesday morning. Meanwhile, here are some shots from a busy day.


Robin always finds time to study or work on a project. The minibus is today's office.


Lunch at El Tovar, the historic log lodge at the south rim of the Grand Canyon. We also celebrated Pat's birthday (Robin's mother) with a bottle of Grand Canyon wine (made in Hillsburg, CA).


The Watchtower, south rim. A really beautiful structure, designed by Fred Harvey's (Harvey House Hotels) female architect.


The Colorado River is barely visible in the background.


Inside the Watchtower.


A Navajo roadside shop.


Navajo beader at the roadside shop.


"Raven, sweetheart, if you think this watchtower is nice, you should see the Tower of London."

Santa Fe to Cornville

Cornville. It's almost like Sedona. In fact, it's about 20 miles south of Sedona. Robin's mother rented a house in Cornville, drove here from California with a friend, and invited us to join them for the week.

We left Santa Fe at 8:00 this mornning and arrived at 3 PM. Looking forward to several days of exploring the area. Tomorrow morning we drive to Sedona and hop on a tour bus to the grand canyon. The trip includes lunch at the famous lodge there (El Tovar). It doesn't include a ticket to the Skywalk (a glass walkway that juts out over the rim of the canyon), but I'm hoping we'll have time to do that too.

The drive here was enjoyable. Lots of southwestern-style scenery. We stopped in Grants, New Mexico, on historic Route 66, at El Cafecito for a late breakfast.



I was tempted to try another place, a couple of miles earlier (also on Route 66 in Grants), where we stopped to get gas, but you know how sometimes you pick up vibes that you should just keep going -- plus, the service looked pretty slow. Now that I think about it, the place did have lots of atmosphere. An open atmosphere, you might say. More than most places. But that's not necessarily a good thing.

Shakespeare At Sea 2 - The Movie

Here's the 10-day cruise in a 5-minute movie. I had to delete the footage that showed me repelling a Caribbean pirate attack as I saved the ship, crew, and passengers from certain death, but the movie is already twice a long as I'd planned. Also, to keep the movie a reasonable length, I had to cut all the nude beach scenes and the shots of the UFO that hovered over our ship for three days. But I kept all the good stuff.

Atlantis Submarine Tour - The Movie

I've posted a short movie (2:17) of the Atlantis Submarine Tour we took in Barbados. I hope to add a few more short movies of the cruise this week.

So Here We Are

After the farewell cocktail in the Crow's Nest, I ran to our room grabbed my GPS and laptop, then went back to the Crow's Nest where there are huge tilted windows, ideal for picking up a GPS signal. I launched my RouteBuddy software, then plugged the GPS into the laptop for a full screen map of our position in the Bahamas area. Unfortunately, I didn't download a detailed map of the Bahamas before I left home, but the screen shot below shows our exact location at 7:45 PM Sunday night.


The red circle is our location.


Detail of our location. It would look more interesting if we weren't in the middle of an ocean.

Half Moon Cay, Bahamas

About 8 AM we arrived at Half Moon Cay in the Bahamas. This is a private island owned by Holland America Cruise Lines. Here, you can take a launch from the ship to the island and have the beach all to yourself. All two thousand of you.

The beach is beautiful. Beautiful turquoise water. Beautiful fine, white sand. Robin stayed on the ship while I checked it out. It was so pretty that I decided to go back to the ship and convince Robin to come ashore. By the time I got back to the ship, the sun was so blazing hot that I decided to stay on the ship myself. However, as usual, I documented the day with some photographic evidence.

At 5 PM we're meeting pals Duane and Margie (from Ashland, OR) at the Ocean Bar (a piano bar on Deck 3), then we have a farewell cocktail party in the Crow's Nest bar on Deck 10. Finally, we have reservations at the Pinnacle Grill at 8:30 with Theresa, principal of InSight Cruises (organizers of this and other themed cruises, including MacMania Cruises).


Boarding the launch that will take me to the private paradise of Half Moon Cay. I wonder where all these other people are going?


A veiw of the cruise ship as I approach the private paradise beach. Hey, this isn't so bad. I wonder where everyone else went?


Oops. And this is with half the ship still heading this way.


I'm back on the ship, and most of the sunbathers are on the beach.