Get Your Cruise On!!!

On Saturday we returned home from a cruise to Catalina, CA and Ensenada, Mexico that set sail out of Long Beach, CA. Thanks Mom and Dad for watching our kids while we were gone! Kirk and Lisa Nestler, Brian and Mindyn Clark, Heath and Stacey Aplington, Mark and Jaylynn Martin, and Nate and Stacey Rackham all went. It was awesome hanging out with friends, building on past memories and making some new ones. The trip went as follows:
Day 1
We met in Twin Falls at Mark's house and traveled down to Las Vegas. We stayed in the Excalibur and had a fun time walking the strip and checking out the Vegas scene.
Day 2
We drove the remaining miles to Long Beach, CA and boarded the ship. It seemed almost instantly that I found myself knee deep in wonderful foods of all kinds. We then disembarked and let the fun begin. Mark instantly made us known on the ship by winning the first game show and bringing home a beautiful plastic Carnival ship trophey. We were all very proud of him. Then we enjoyed laughing until our sides hurt from a comedian's show.
I will be honest, that is where the good entertainment provided by the ship ended. There was an opening show that included dancing and singing by a Carnival entertainment crew, but it seemed the requirement of homosexuality was preferred over actual talent or skill for the trade. Sometimes the flaming was so hot that it literally singed my eyebrows. Dinner was exceptional as we enjoyed all sorts of amazing gourmet goodies and my wife's favorite the famous warm chocolate melting cake.


Day 3
This day we were supposed to arrive on Catalina Island off the coast of California; however, the wind created waves that did not allow us to port so we spent the day sailing around the island. Tifani and I got a little cabin fever and decided to get some running in, after all, we had most likely consumed more calories in the first hours on the ship than we normally do in a week. The bouncing from running and rocking from the ship took a nasty toll on our stomachs and we found our pale selves looking for some motion sickness medicine. Once we popped some of these chewable goodies we felt better, and headed to the buffet/poolside to eat some more and soak up some sun. We did soak up a little more sun than we thought and we are still suffering from it. I thought I was tan, but as soon as we reached the desert of Nevada my face pealed off like a snake shed. Curse the tricks of the humidity. While Tifani laid out, I took some turns down the waterslide and finally convinced Tifani to join along. It was a lot of fun!

This night was the formal night. I abandoned our room and let Tifani and gang get prettied up for the formal dinner. I went up to the casino lounge and enjoyed the soothing sounds of Allegra (an onboard musician and a favorite of ours) while sipping back on an equally soothing virgin piña colada. Dinner was wonderful. I munched down lobster, prime rib, strawberry bisque and some other goodness. After dinner we headed to get our karaoke on, and get it on we did! We dominated the scene to say the least. From the karaoke we headed to the dance club that was a lot of fun except for the 70's techno flash back the DJ entered. After watching some disturbing yet somehow entrancing pole dancing by Kirk and Mark we boogied a little while and then went to watch the Carnival entertainment. I will not recap this as I have mentioned my feeling about it previously. However, it was hilarious to see Mark try and suffer through as much as he could until he exploded and said rather loudly, "I am not spending my night like this!" or something similar and marched out. I think he ended up at a black jack table with a coke plus cherry in his hand and a grin on his face. From then on it was a contest of who would leave the show next. I became competitive seeing how long we could suffer. Luckily I fell asleep and when I was woken by a very loud off tune note I was sure we had won, but Heath and Stacey were holding strong. So we decided to leave together. It was an awesome night, but the fun was just beginning.



Day 4
We ported in Catalina today, well actually it was the Avalon part of the island. We parted ways and some of the group rented beach cruisers and rode around the island, some rented golf carts and cruised around and some went zip lining. We, Tifani and I and Kirk and Lisa looked for some segways to rent but came up empty handed so we headed down to the beach to see what we could find to do. We witnessed a man be pulled from the depths of the ocean and recieve CPR. He was involved in a scuba diving accident. We moved along and found a small surfers shop an the beach where we rented Kayaks, wetsuits, and snorkeling gear. This turned out to be a great idea. We kayaked to frog rock and frog beach which was pretty much secluded, and we saw seals, and several types of fish along the way. We then kayaked back and snorkeled around for quite a while. We found a bat ray that was approximately 4 feet wide and had a stinger of about 3-4 feet. There were tons of fish and it was fun exploring the area. Kirk and I discovered a type of fish we had never seen before that moved like a butterfly, was neon purple and outlined by other colors. It was awesome! I dove down and snagged a good looking shell for Tifani that ended up occupied by a hermit crab that we returned to the ocean. It was a great day and was a lot of fun! We got back on the ship, scarfed down some buffet and then about 2 hours later scarfed some more amazing dinner. It was great!


Day 5
Benvenido a México. We spent this day in Ensenada, Mexico. After bargaining for about an hour with a rental shop, we rented some four wheelers and a rhino for a great price. They are street legal in Mexico, or so it seems, and so we drove around the city and spent a good deal of time bargaining with venders and enjoying the shopping experience. We found some cool things for our kids that they love. One highlight was a guy that does very detailed art using spray paint cans. It was amazing! After shopping we decided to go to a place called the "la bufadora (blow hole)." We drove for about a half an hour and then stopped to ask how much longer we had. When the man told us we had to go at least a 1/2 hour more we turned around and headed back. We probably looked hilarous, a group of gringos cruising on the highway in Mexico on some ATV's and a Rhino. It was awesome though, to see the setting away from the shopping and port. Something a little more real-life. I was shocked by the Applebee's, Ashley Furniture, Wal-Mart(ok I wasn't that shocked about this), and Costco. We then headed to the beach and found some small sand dunes. We had a blast flipping cookies, driving in the ocean, jumping off sand dunes, etc on our rentals. Tifani and I cruised back over to Wal-Mart to get some sun-burn relieving cream. It was fun to mingle with the locals and get that look like, what planet are you from? We drove back, boarded the ship and tried to drown ourselves once again in ocean of food on board.



Day 6
It is always sad to say goodbye. We disembarked this day and continued our journey home. None of us were particularly excited about the long drive ahead, but we were all excited to get home. We took off and traveled very well until about 6 hours from home in the middle of the Nevada desert. Brian was driving when the car started shaking. We had a flat. I had a donut and we hoped we could use it to get to Winnemucca. We couldn't remove the flat tire because of a security nut that can only be removed with a specific key that I didn't have and wasn't given to me by the owners that I bought the car from. So luckily, a man stopped to help us. He gave me a ride back into the nearest town, Fallon, NV. The tire shops were all closed and so it looked like we would be staying the night. I called my insurance, got a tow truck and booked a room for all of us to share at the Econo Lodge. The tow company was going to charge a few hundred dollars beyond my insurance in order to bring all six of us back into town. Luckily, the nice man I was with volunteered to use his business van to bring us back in. He was our good Samaritan. We all ended up back at the Econo Lodge with pizza in our bellies. I enjoyed a good nights sleep wrapped in a blanket with arabian hair all over it and coffee stains (I hope they were coffee stains). In the morning I ran to the Les Schwab and found out all our tires had to be changed so that they matched, otherwise it could possibly ruin our transmission. This ended up being more expensive then the entire trip put together, nevertheless, the issue was resolved and other than cussing the Oregon speed limits we made it home unscathed and with a little extra adventure in our pocket (a very expensive one).

This shirt Brian is wearing was only removed from his back a total of about 6 hours the entire trip. This won him the highlight of the trip award. Way to go Brian!
This is an LDS church in a small, reservation town, in Shurtz, NV. Can anyone say singlewide?
The last couple of days home my mind easily floats to beaches, ATV's, soft serve Ice Cream, 1am BLT/green salad/apple juice room service, the soothing sounds of Allegra, the cool towel creatures constructed by the slaves on the ship, the finishing a meal walking past the buffet and somehow ending up in line grabbing just a little more yummy food, the late night hot tubbing, the often embarrassing but always entertaining karaoke, and of course Tifani's comment to Crystal. Nevertheless, the best part of the whole trip was the company. It was beyond fun to spend time with my friends and especially my wife. I love you guys! I definitely want to do something similar in the future.