The Horsemeister Blog: We MADE it HOME

Yesterday we all ate early, packed and were off the ship by 8:30 am then started our 14 hour drive home. We were thankful for good weather all the way. That is until we pulled into our very icy frozen driveway. Why or why isn't the ice melting? While we were gone Hannah actually wrecked her car. Joan has it worse right now than someone with teenage boys. She has more wrecked cars at her house than a junk yard. Well that may be a slight exaggeration. We had a wonderful vacation and even Mark said this was the best cruise yet. It really isn't about the cruising, it's all about the fun group of people we went with. There were 25 of us on this group. Loretta wanted a picture of everyone so the last evening we co-operated and got this before heading to the dining room for our last dinner together.

Going way back to blog news on our first day heading out to sea the sunset below was taken on our first evening just before dinner.

It was also taken from our cabin. Not bad as it was taken through the cabin window. It was even more beautiful from the deck of the ship but I didn't want to haul the camera up there and then to the dining room. After our dinner we met for the singing making this our budget gospel cruise. Our next day was a full day at sea. we all got just a little too much sun but that was because we were all so glad to get out of the cold there was no way we wanted to cover up out of the warm sunshine. We again met after dinner to sing. This time Beth also brought a fun game to play issuing everyone a pad of paper and a pen. Each person was to draw something, flip the page over and wrote what was drawn then pass the pad to the next person who was suppose to draw a picture of what was written without flipping it over to see what the first person had drawn. By the time the pads of paper got back to the original drawer we just had to laugh at what was written and drawn by the next 28-30 people. We had others from the cruise joining us each night.

We arrived at Progresso the next morning. Diane had booked our own private all day tour to see Progresso with Sergio Tours. We first took a boat ride through the mango trees to visit fresh water springs where we were met by raccoons and another animal like a raccoon.

There were reptiles like alligators swimming in the canals but the guide told us the fresh springs were safe. We saw 4 of them as they came up for breath but none came out of the water for good pictures and we weren't allowed to swim in the canals to take pictures underwater of them.

The bird below is called a water chicken.

It was very hot so we were all glad to jump in the springs to cool down. Diane and Joan pulled out their snorkel equipment but there really wasn't much to see other than some small fish where we were allowed to swim. Our next stop was to visit the flats so see the flamingos.

From there we went to the salt mines. These were acutally used during the Mayan times and are still used today. We were told to walk into the water barefoot and the salt and water heal all kinds of wounds and make one's feet and hands soft. We also learned here why the flamingos are pink.

Our tour guide's grandmother is 84 years old and still lives in a hut just like the one pictured below.

We stopped at another place to see flamingos then headed to see Mayan ruins. The mosquitoes were bad at this place thankfully both Joan and Rhonda brought along bug spray. We hiked to the top of the tallest to get the pictures below.

Joan was the first to make it to the top but she just ran straight up, she didn't wait for instructions from the guide.

Our last stop was to an all inclusive resort on the beach. Well the beach sand was nice but the gulf water was not. It was filled with seaweed so we didn't really swim in it although we jumped in to cool off. It was too hot to sit out in the sun so we made our way to one of the pools on the property. Diane figured out how to be in the sun and yet still keep cool by putting her chair in the pool.

Marvin and Gale were serenaded by a troupe of wandering musicians. They put their hat on Marvin for one of the songs.

We were taken back to the ship just before the ship was due to pull out.

This evening after dinner Mike needed a break from singing so we all met by the ice cream machine to play games.

These pictures were actually taken 3 different days. We played until almost 11:30 pm. It was hard to get up for breakfast the next morning but we had another day planned for anyone wanting to go into Cozumel and NOT go to the state park. Usually that is the only place we go when there. We started hiking into town looking for a beach to snorkel. This big fellow was guarding fence separating a beach from the city but there was a sign posted that read Restricted Access so we kept hiking.

There were plenty of buggy rides available if anyone wanted to ride.

Each place we stopped at to ask about a beach we were strongly encouraged to hire them to take us to a "beautiful beach with the best snorkeling for $30.00 each" Each time we said no and kept walking. Joan finally found a dive shop and asked if we could snorkel as we had our own equipment and was told, "sure, you just have to buy 1 drink and you can use the area PLUS have free WiFi for our phones." That was a bargain we couldn't resist. They offered 2 cokes for $5.00 so we all got a coke. This big fellow was guarding the water but when he saw we had the coke he let us right in.

The snorkeling was good at this place with many different colorful fish swimming in and out of rocks and plenty of shell fish. We snorkeled as long as we wanted then went up to check for messages in the dive shop cafe. As we were doing that a storm rolled in dumping copious amounts of rain. We sheltered inside there until the rain stopped then walked back to the ship. Before dinner Loretta had asked us to meet for pictures and that went off without a hitch, although Brook, Nate's wife wasn't feeling well so Mike was glad to sit in for her. He was sure no one would even notice.

At dinner the captain of the ship announced that we were heading into a big storm and to take precautions when moving around the ship. We had another singing then played games again until late. For our last day at sea we awoke to rain so spent the morning together playing games. When the sun came out we migrated up by the pool until we needed to head in to get ready for dinner. As this was the last dinner on the ship the diners got a little rowdy and some had obviously had too much to drink. One man tried to capture Joan but he had no idea what he was getting into. I'll let the pictures below tell the story.

Before that man knew what hit him she had him in a choke hold.

We all had a good laugh at his reaction. After dinner we again played games until late into the night. If interested in seeing the rest of the pictures from the cruise click HERE. This afternoon Karin arrived to work with Sarah, Rebekah and the horses. She brought in 6 mares to start. Sarah tacked up Oksana and Karin tacked up Anna. The picture below Anna had already been taken outside and Karin was working with Jenis.