Blue Planet Journey

Caroline and I sailed on the world's largest cruise ship, the Wonder of the Seas ( WOTS ), April 20 through May 12, 2022. The WOTS is operated by Royal Caribbean, and has  18 decks. When full, the ship has 2,300 crew members and accommodates up to 6,988 guests across its 2,867 staterooms. We were on this ship for 4 consecutive cruises (more on this later). For the first cruise, from Fort Lauderdale (FL) to Barcelona (Spain), there were "only" 3,648 passengers, which was 52% of capacity. We were on one of the last cruises in January, 2020, before the industry shut down. That was on the  Royal Caribbean's  Allure of the Seas . Two weeks later, the  crew and guests on the cruise ship  Diamond Princess  were quarantined in a Japanese port. For us, it was a lucky miss.  Now, we were on the WOTS . On February 15, 2022, Royal Caribbean lifted their mask mandate, and no masks were required for vaccinated passengers, although all crew used KN95 masks at al...

Caroline stretching after a bike ride to Great Falls Park, Maryland. Before we left Utah to travel back to the District of Columbia for Thanksgiving, we continued to enjoy the fall weather. Except, of course, the rain that lasted ALL DAY during the Logan Marathon . Like a lot of racing events, the finisher medals in 2020 reflected the novel coronavirus pandemic. Note the mask on the moose head on this medal! My training partner, Wesley, was still in DC, so he ran a solo marathon the day after my race (his first). Below, he takes his first step on his 26.2 mile journey, mostly run in Rock Creek Park to the Maryland border and back. Katelin presented him with a finisher medal, and then she drove him to a country brewery for some relaxation time. Congratulations, Wes! Then our last race of the year was the annual Halloween Run in Logan, with our neighbors. We all performed well! From left, neighbors Jana, Caroline, me, Andrea, Onya, and Brent showing our place ribbons. In October, be...