A day or two=a week or two

Well as usual .... I intended to get back to the blog a day or two after my last post and almost three weeks later I'm trying.......
I am happy to report that we were EXTREMELY lucky that the hurricane jogged a bit west and missed us...for the most part. Watching the radar throughout the night it looked like most of the heavy rain bands seemed to be north of us. For whatever reason the storm bands seemed to break up a bit near us. We still had strong winds and some rain bands....but nothing terrible. We were boarded up tightly and it was actually kind of quiet inside our house. Also we never list power....which was even luckier. I was able to watch the storm's progress all night ( when I wasn't sleeping) and keep track of what was going on. We were so thankful that we did not have any major problems afterwards...some tree branches down,etc but all in all we we extremely fortunate. I ended up with a few extra days off due to power outages and closures....so it was a wacky but okay week for me.🙂
Two days later it was like a big reunion at the local spot n town.

 It was like a party atmosphere at LongDoggers....everyone was there enjoying the fact that the storm was past and we were all okay. Some were there because they did not have power.....and just wanted a hot/fresh meal. you can only eat so many granola bars<|strike> it was nice to see everyone and enjoy the craziness,/strike>
As I mentioned, we had just returned from being away for a week. We were on a cruise that sailed from NYC to Newport, RI, then Boston, then Bar Harbor, then St.John and then Halifax...before sailing back to NYC.
John and I and my sister Martha and her husband Tony went. We arrived in NYC on Thursday so we would have a couple of days to explore before sailing on Saturday afternoon.
Our first port was Newport, Rhode Island. It was a beautiful,  actually kind of warm day. Brenna and Josh had flown up for the weekend...so we had a plan to meet up with them on Sunday.

We met up with them in town and then went to walk along the cliff. It was 3 1/2 miles each way. The path goes along the beach in back of some lovely old beach "cottages"...aka mansions. We kind of did a power walk...hahaha and I got one heck of a blister by the end of it.

We passed Salve Regina University...kind of a nice spot on the oceanfront  for this small  Catholic school. (Turns out one of our friends' mother went to school there.)

There were some good waves breaking that day and we watched a group of surfers down on the beach as we were walking along. One of the mansions belonged to Doris Duke...according to the history she used to host Surf Contests down on the beach behind her house.. Duke Kahanamoku (sp?)was a guest there.It looked like a decent surf break.

This was part of the way through the walk. While we were walking on these rocks...Martha actually saw someone she knew from the hospital in Hawaii. Turns out the woman and her husband and a group of friends from Hawaii were all on the same cruise as us! They came down to dance with us a few different times.

After lunch we all stopped at a local bar and grill for a bite to eat. I had a delicious cheese, fruit and nut board.

Before long it was time for us to head back to the dock to catch a tender back to the boat. We said good-bye to Josh and Brenna and hopped on the boat.

That night on the ship we had a really great steak dinner, a few drinks and this special dessert.

our waiter brought Tony ice cream, peanut butter, peanuts and chocolate brownies

Then it was time yo go dancing! Our first night on board we made our way to CLUB 6 after dinner. The DJ was playing some pretty good music...enough to get us going anyway. We danced and encouraged other people to get up and dance. We had fun and everyone who danced with us did too.
We met three ladies from NC. They had all worked together as Medical Technicians...although two were now retired. Tony was chatting away with them and eventually they all came out and danced. The funny thing is we ran into those ladies at every port...hahaha Over 3000 people on board but somehow we always managed to cross paths.We had a fun time and stayed out until almost 1 am before we called it a night. Our plan was to give the DJ a list of requests and a good tip the next night and see what happened. Our plan worked! hahaha He played every song on the list and others that were similar. The three ladies came back to dance again...and we rounded up a few other dancers each night. I think we were getting a bit of a reputation...hahaha people would spot us the next day and give us a smile or a thumbs up. hahahaha One young girl came to the club on Thursday night and told us her Mom had been dancing with us the night before and  had told that she ought to come down and join the fun.we were tlike "motivational dancers" every night. We were having so much fun any one who wandered in to the club eventually had to get up and dance! Naturally there was wine (or champagne) involved (except John)...and that may have loosened every one up a bit. hahah There was one guy on the ship who showed up every night as well. He acted like he was a "Ladies Man" ...he always seemed to be lurking around the single woman. He'd ask them to dance and then get up close and run his hands up and down them or start booty dancing with them. He steered clear of Martha and I...which is a good thing because Tony was about ready to jump him!!! It was funny...but we were afraid Tony might get really pissed and throw a punch at the guy. He came slinking up to one of our friends "Katrina" from NC and Tony went right over to him and told him to get lost. Her two friends were cracking up while they watched the whole thing from the side...hahaha Tony told him he couldn't come across the halfway point on the dance floor...and "Don't come near my wife or her sister!!!" It was like an ongoing soap opera at times....every time "Michael" appeared I'd say..."AhOh Here comes Tony's nemesis...kryptonite or whatever. It kept things interesting...that's for sure."
But the DJ liked us...because we gave him tips every night...and we liked him because he was playing all our music...and the other guests liked us...because we livened up the place! We  would be saying "Maybe we won't go out tonight...we're kind of tired"...but by 11:00pm when the music started in the club...we always got a second wind. We usually stayed out until it closed! We also had a great waiter Dominic (?) who took care of us every night. He especially liked Tony( the tipper) hahaha. He really did take care of us...and he and Tony had a few dance move exchanges....hahahaha

                                                            John and Martha dancing to the music.
Next up...on to other ports.....