We had a great time visiting bedlamhouse and ladyat's new place down in Danville, Indiana. In the evening, min0taur, Sally, tollers, and Jen joined us for dinner and a bit (not nearly enough :) ) music. We bugged out right after dinner at about 9:45 Eastern time and made it back to Chicago in about four hours. We would have done better than this, except Indiana 39 headed off into a long detour as we tried to take it north from Danville to Lebanon; then the River Road toll plaza on the Northwest Tollway was an absolute mess from construction. Par would have been about 3.5 hours, I think.

We arrived home to find the house still here, but an alarm going off in the basement. Apparently, an enormous can of "denatured alcohol solvent" decided to develop a pinhole leak and the basement is now saturated with ethanol and methanol fumes. Our gas detector is having a fit. If it doesn't give up, sooner or later I'll unplug it so we can get some sleep, having opened all the windows in the basement to give the stuff a chance to dissipate after removing the box that the can had been in -- along with its alcohol-sodden contents -- to the backyard.

Meanwhile, we're hoping that fuzzbucket_cat will forgive us for our two week absence, but he's sulking in the back yard right now. I don't think he likes the gas alarm either.

We pulled into Danville, Indiana to visit bedlamhouse and ladyat around 5:30 PM, somewhat later than we'd expected, but I'd neglected to take the time change into account. Also, we'd gotten started late, lunch took longer than expected... Ok, you know the litany.

The new (old) house is gorgeous. It will be even more gorgeous once they've finished moving in. Of course, I have a thing for Victorian houses.

And now, I'm helping bedlamhouse test out his new wireless network. So far, so good.

min0taur and Sally may come by later today. We'll see what develops.

Texas is big. Really big. It took us about five hours to get out of Texas today, despite taking the short cut north through Wichita Falls. We spent 14 hours on the road today, traveling 808 miles according to Mapquest.

Tomorrow's trip to Danville, Indiana to visit bedlamhouse and ladyat should be much easier.

Back from England and arrived at O'Hare, where Sam and Bonnie picked us up from the airport and we bought them dinner.

Thanks to oreouk and demoneyes for their wonderful hospitality during our stay!

And now I'm going to start working through back messages and go to bed. Con report tomorrow with some luck...

daisy_knotwise has almost finished the book that she borrowed from oreouk, meaning that it's time to think about getting some sleep so we actually get up and packed on a timely basis in the morning. We'll be waiting until Alex gets out of school to head up with demoneyes and oreouk, so we should get in around dinner time or thereabouts.

See you at 1812 Tones!

We were going to go out to Canterbury today, but having violently overslept, we've revised our plans and are going to spend the day at demoneyes and oreouk's resting up for the con.

After all, the objective was to avoid the dreaded Bataan Fun March.

So daisy_knotwise and I went to see the London production of The Producers today. It was really laugh-out-loud, hurt-yourself-laughing funny. You do have to like humor that not only goes over the top, but which plummets down the roller coaster and vanishes beneath the earth (one couple sitting next to us left at intermission, apparently having come to the wrong show).

The performances were excellent (Ulla's understudy was in place, but she was just fine), the set pieces were very well done, the production numbers were just absurdly good, and we had a wonderful time.

I do understand why the movie didn't get any Oscar nominations for the music -- really the only memorable number in the show is the original Springtime for Hitler which I suspect wouldn't qualify for a nomination, having been in the non-musical movie version of The Producers. But the songs all move the plot along nicely and are fun to listen to, which is their primary function.

It's nice to know that there are parts for old, fat actors who can sing and maybe dance a little bit. Now if I can just convince Steve Salaba that he should play the Leo Bloom part for SpaceTime Theater...

A bit more tromping around than daisy_knotwise had in mind, but a good time in any case.

We got tickets for the Big Bus tour, then jumped off after two stops to see Westminster Abbey, which is spectacular. Unfortunately, the next stop for the Big Bus wasn't well marked and we ended up walking past it and all the way to Victoria Station where we had lunch and rejoined the bus tour. This meant we missed a close look at Buckingham Palace, but we would have needed to walk up there since the bus was going the wrong way.

We rode back around on the tour past the east side of London and got off at the London Eye as it was getting dark. This made for a nice half-hour ride looking at the lights of the city. Then we walked back to Charing Cross and caught a train back to oreouk and demoneyes's house.

Tomorrow, we're off to see a matinee of The Producers. I grabbed the tickets before we got on the bus...

daisy_knotwise and I headed into London today, making excellent use of the 1-day unlimited travel pass that oreouk had suggested. The currency exchange that she'd recommended has either disappeared or I couldn't find it, so I avoided getting disastrously ripped off by the money changer at Charing Cross, and we headed back for lunch with Lissa and telynor. Gwen passed us the loaner mobile phone and Gretchen and I set off for the British Museum.

As it happened, we popped out of the Underground directly in front of the theater that's playing We Will Rock You, the Queen musical. We'd talked about seeing a matinee, but they don't have any matinees until Saturday, and we'd really rather be at 1812 Tones then.

Off to the British Museum then, where we saw a great many artifacts and tired ourselves out. Then back to the Underground station, where we discovered that we couldn't get back via the line we'd come in on, because they'd closed the platform to work on it. Quick, Gretchen, the map!

We rerouted with an extra change and got back to London Bridge station, grabbed something to drink, and barely missed the train to Gravesend, so we got back a good bit later than we'd intended. But we eventually did get back, called Lissa, and were rescued from the station.

Everyone's off to bed now, where I should be shortly.

daisy_knotwise and I arrived at Heathrow this morning after a flight that was mostly unremarkable, save for the turbulence and the one young woman who was hyperventilating and ended up being fed oxygen by the crew. oreouk picked us up from the airport without incident. Amy was vying for the part of "World's Cutest and Most Reasonable Baby", having come along for the occasion.

We arrived back at Casa Allcock where demoneyes was finishing up his new song, which Alex was already learning, possibly for the purpose of tormenting his sister in future years. We crawled into bed for a nap, woke up, spent the evening visiting, and are now planning to get some more sleep before heading into London tomorrow.

I have so far avoided any killer escalators, but there's always tomorrow!

It appears that I can only skip back 475 entries on my friends page. This is not enough to get back to when I actually left on vacation.

Home at last. More to say later, but at least I didn't have to go into work tonight. :)

Today, for our enjoyment, the Captain (and Mother Nature) have programmed force 9 winds, 60 knot gusts, and very rough seas.
( What was that crash? )
The talent show went very well. Gretchen and I have been fielding compliments on "Apology" from a lot of people, including Doug, our Cruise Director, and members of his staff. We appear to have struck a chord.

It looks like we'll arrive in San Diego on time tomorrow, which means we can catch a plane home and return to normal life.

This will be a good thing.

(And I'm definitely going to put the shorts away until next summer.)

We're up to Saturday now on our return voyage from Hawaii.
( Good news today... )
Gretchen and I watched De-Lovely, the Cole Porter bio pic, in the ship's theater last night.
( Capsule review, very minor spoilers )
We had a bit of unscheduled excitement today.
( Catch! )
Gretchen and I survived the rehearsal for the talent show earlier today. She's off getting a manicure now while I type up this entry. The show goes up in a little over an hour. Wish us luck!

(One of the other fellows in the talent show is from Elk Grove, Illinois, plays the harmonica, and reads science-fiction. We're sending him a flyer for Capricon.)

Shipboard life isn't overly exciting. On the other hand, our bathroom light failed tonight promptly at 11 PM. We've put a call in to the Front Office. So far, we're at 15 minutes of darkness and counting.

This, however, wasn't as bad as the vacuum failure in the vacuum toilets earlier today that stopped them all from working on this level for a while. Fortunately, that seems to be fixed.

The ship has continued to travel slowly, as we're now dealing with a force 7 headwind again and -- as of this afternoon -- one of the diesel generators that supplies power to the engines wasn't working, although the engineer assured the Captain that it would be working by 6 PM. I haven't heard a call of "Man overboard" yet, so I'm guessing that he succeeded. He'd better, or we're never going to make it back to San Diego on schedule, at which time all sorts of annoying things will happen.

Do you get the feeling that Holland America might need to put a bit of money into maintenance?
( What's for dinner? )
The bathroom light is still out.
( Quips inside )
And the bathroom light is still out. It's been half an hour. Time to call the desk again. *sigh*

This was my first real trip to Hawaii (a few cumulative hours spent in the airport lounge at Hickam AFB don't count for much) and, as we head slowly homeward, I'm left to wonder what I might do if I were to come back to Hawaii again.
( Musings inside )

Last night, we cruised past Kilauea on our way out of the islands.

It was about 11 PM by the time that we arrived at the mountain and quite thoroughly dark, save for the light of the just past full moon shining on the water and the spots and streams of glowing red-orange lava working its way down the mountainside. There were low clouds, so we couldn't see much of the top of the mountain, but there was plenty of activity down below. It wasn't a photo opportunity, though. Jerry had the best camera of the lot of us and it recommended a 15 second exposure with his lens stopped completely open. Of course, that's not really an option on a cruise ship.

And here we are in Kona, Hawaii on our last day in the Hawaiian Islands.
( Kona, Kona, Kona )

daisy_knotwise, Jerry, and I had carefully booked no shore excursions whatsoever today with the intent of roaming around Lahaina, Maui and seeing what looked interesting.
( Another One Bites the Dust )
After lunch, we did a little more shopping and caught a tender back to the ship. Gretchen had been sleeping all morning and was just ready to head up to lunch, so Jerry and I joined her for iced tea and soda while she ate. Gretchen still felt too lousy to head off to the island, so I gave her an Actifed tablet in the hopes it would help clear up her sinuses and let her retire to a lounge chair on the Lower Promenade Deck, while I headed back to the room to cool off and read.

Jeff and Carol had gone to nearby Lanai on a snorkeling expedition in the morning, so I left them a voice mail to tell them that I'd be happy to head back over to Lahaina and play tour guide if they wanted to see the town in the afternoon and lay back on my bed reading "The Eyre Affair".

Carol called a bit before 4 PM. She was happy to have some company in Lahaina, because there was no way that Jeff was going to be going with her.
( The Incredible Duntemann Death Curse du Jour )
Gretchen and Jeff were feeling somewhat better by the time we got back. I gave Gretchen the sarong, which she tied off to make a dinner jacket, and the five of us proceeded upstairs for dinner, then downstairs to bed. Well, everyone else is in bed. I'm typing this for you to read when I get a chance to upload it.

And our ship has sailed for Kona.

Actually, we were Rocking and Rolling Down to Old Maui tonight. At some point after our scenic cruising of the inaccessible -- but darned pretty -- cliffs of Kauai, we found ourselves back in force 7 winds and the Statendam was definitely rocking and rolling. A lot.
( Suppertime, yes, it's suppertime... )
After dinner, we decided to head back to the room so we could get to bed early and get on a tender to Maui at a reasonable hour. Unfortunately, the best laid plans of mice and men were about to take a beating.
( Lights Out! )

Today, we were in Kauai. (Today is Sunday, for those of you not familiar with time-slip theory.)
( And what did you do? )
And now it's time to go take the shirts out of the washer and put them into the dryer so I have some clothes to wear tomorrow. Our cruise is just past half over.

It appears the Internet connection is up, so Jeff and I are uploading as fast as we can.

See you on the flip flop.

The other major development for today was that there was a phone message when we got back to the room yesterday night from the Ship's Nurse, asking if I was still planning to get off in Kona. Reading between the lines, it seems that I had managed to get a note from the doctor to get off and fly back, but nobody had told me that I could. (Although I never did actually confirm that, since I have no flight booked out of Kona at this point and no Internet connection to get through to my travel agent. Yes, I suppose that having her phone number would work, but I don't have that handy either...)

So I dropped by the infirmary this morning on the way to breakfast and let her know that I'd be sticking it out. I've heard that last Saturday and Sunday's seas were apparently exceptionally bad. I'm hoping that report is correct.

Later in the day, Jeff, Carol, and I walked over to Aloha Tower, which is now the site of a small Hawaiian shopping mall with a great many stores and restaurants, as Carol wanted to find a postcard that said "Oahu". This proved harder to find than one might have imagined, but she was eventually successful.

On the way back, we passed the Ship's Nurse in civvies on her way out for a night on the town. We said hi to each other.

I think she recognized me by now...

We've arrived in the Live Journal posting time warp, due to the Internet connection on the ship being down. I'm typing this on Saturday night, just before we sail away from Honolulu, but I won't get to post it for another three days when we're departing from Kona. But what the heck...
( Once around the island, James )
In the meantime, I have filled up my 128 MB compact flash card in my camera, having taken about 200 pictures. Although I have a few spare 32 MB cards around, I asked Jerry -- who was planning to walk over to CompUSA to get a new flash card for his Digital Rebel -- if he could pick up an extra large card for me.

He returned with a 256 MB card. For $20.

I now have space for 400 more pictures.

God help the photo albums of the future.

I somewhat perplexed daisy_knotwise yesterday, when I confided in her that most of what I know about Hawaii comes from an ancient comic book, "Dennis the Menace Goes to Hawaii". What can I say? I've been reading these things for a very long time.

Anyway, Gretchen and I went in different directions today in Honolulu. Carol (Jeff's wife), Jerry, and I went to Pearl Harbor to see the USS Arizona Memorial and the USS Missouri; Jeff and Gretchen went on an island tour because the Arizona Memorial would have been "too sad". This is understandable.
( Off to Pearl Harbor )
Since the ship is in dock now and not bouncing around, I'm going to try getting into the Jacuzzi for the first time this trip. My sore, tired legs (mostly from yesterday's hike) should appreciate it.