Cruise – Deep Dark Thoughts

Not a Cruise

This past week, my wife, both daughters, and I were supposed to be on a cruise ship travelling around Alaska. We booked the cruise over a year ago and were greatly looking forward to our first vacation together on a ship with the entire family. We have never previously done anything like this with just the four of us.

In April of this year, we received an e-mail from the company that owns the cruise ship informing us that due to the recent pandemic, all of their scheduled trips were canceled until further notice. Our vacation was off.

The company told us that our money would be held in reserve so we could schedule a new trip when the ships were all back in the water, which is only reassuring if you believe the cruise company isn’t going to go out of business in the meantime. We will just have to wait and see.

Since we already had the time off scheduled for the middle of the summer, even though we couldn’t go on a cruise ship, we still wanted to take some sort of vacation. My wife and I decided that we would take our camping trailer and go on a short trip to an RV park. It’s not a cruise, but at least it was something.

It was something all right.

Instead of being on the Pacific Ocean, floating past massive glaciers and watching marine life swimming around the ship, we drove to an RV park located 45 minutes from our house with spotty Wi-Fi, 100 degree temperatures, and garbage trucks driving through at 3 o’clock in the morning. Not quite the same experience.

We left the kids at home because I didn’t want to listen to their complaining. It would interrupt my own complaining. Besides, someone had to stay home and feed the overabundance of cats that have recently collected in my home. (The kids wanted to adopt two new kittens, so I figure they can stay home and take care of them).

We originally scheduled a trip to Alaska because I thought if we went far enough away, my wife would be forced to stop thinking about work and actually enjoy her vacation. I still think it’s a good plan. However, because we ended up less than an hour’s drive from home, my workaholic spouse spent more time on Zoom meetings and phone calls than she did talking to me.

Of course, maybe finding reasons not to talk to me is her idea of a great vacation. If so, I can tell you that she had a wonderful time.

The RV park we selected was connected to the Jackson Rancheria Indian Casino. We decided on the casino for a couple of reasons. Namely, cruise ships have gambling and lots of food available, and casinos have gambling and lots of food available. It would be almost as if we were onboard the ship after all.

Except most of the casino was shut down because of Coronavirus. Half the slot machines were turned off, and the few that were still working were filled with sad-looking little old ladies trying to smoke cigarettes through tiny holes cut into their cloth masks. It felt like a scene from the Walking Dead, and I half expected at any moment for the people around me to suddenly stand up and begin shambling menacingly in my direction.

In addition to the ghost-town feel of the place, the restaurants were all closed as well. The only food available was a single food court where they expected you to line up, grab your food, then get the hell out. As far as cruises go, this was the worst one I had ever been on.

I still stuck around long enough to lose a hundred bucks in the slot machines before slinking back to the trailer park in defeat. It was not quite the dream vacation I had planned. My stomach hurt from eating like a raccoon rummaging through a garbage can, I was $100 poorer, and my wife spent most of her time sitting next to a slot machine on her phone, texting and sending e-mails.

After about two hours in the desolate remains of a once proud gambling establishment, we finally gave up and wandered outside to catch the shuttle bus back to the RV park. When I boarded the bus, the driver put on his mask for our safety and I watched as his glasses immediately fogged up.

Hmm. Coronavirus, or fiery bus crash? Decisions, decisions.

Oddly, I almost hoped that we did crash. As we careened off the road and down a steep hillside, I could pretend we had just hit an iceberg and I was going down with the ship. If we were fortunate enough to drive into a lake, even better.

No such luck. We made it back to our trailer in one piece.

Well, it wasn’t the vacation we originally booked. There was no boat, no scenery, lousy food, hot weather, and we were practically walking distance from home. On the bright side, though…

Nope. No bright side.

We wanted a cruise, and what we got was definitely not a cruise.

We are going to try again, however. We will use the money we have already spent to schedule a new cruise to Alaska for next summer. The entire family still wants to go. I only have one question about next year’s trip:

Should I wait until next year, or go ahead and book the RV park again now?

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Karaoke for Beginners

At fifty-two years old, for the first time in my life, I went out and tried Karaoke. I didn’t plan it or seek it out in any way. It just sort of happened.

I was trapped on a ship during a cruise with nothing else to do, so I decided to get a drink and sit down in a lounge where the cruise staff were setting up microphones and speakers for Karaoke. I don’t know if the bigger mistake was going into this particular lounge or getting the drink. Regardless, inhibitions were lowered and bad decisions were made.

I sat with my wife and several friends as we watched the stage get set up. We chatted about what songs people might be singing that night, and we started speculating on what music we would select if one of us decided to take a turn at the microphone.

The first volunteer (contestant? victim?) was a woman wearing a gray knitted sweater and sporting a hairstyle that immediately had all of us speculating on the number of cats she was currently concealing in her stateroom. Her song choice did not win her any new friends either, as she started out the night with her rendition of My Heart Will Go On. Not a completely appropriate song to choose to sing on a cruise ship.

She finished her song on a high note – the wrong high note, but still, she really belted it out – and the audience clapped her off the stage. As she left, waving at her adoring fans with gleeful abandon, singer number two waited patiently in the wings to take her turn.

My one drink became two, and then three as the songs continued on stage with a variety of people from all over the vocal talent spectrum. My friends and I dutifully applauded at the end of each number, rewarding the performers’ bravery, if not their actual ability.

Then, without warning, a couple of the friends I was sitting with decided to join in the festivities. They walked up to the podium where the host was taking song requests and began searching through the music selections. They each picked a song, then came back to our table to wait for their turn to sing.

One of my friends asked me if I was going to sing. I told him that was never going to happen. I said that I was afraid I would get up on stage and completely embarrass myself.

I think my argument might have worked a little better if not for the fact that at the exact same instant, a bearded gentleman who weighed about three hundred pounds stood up at the microphone and began to scream (literally scream!) “Tiptoe Through the Tulips.”

When the song was done, and our ears had stopped ringing from the electronic feedback the big man had created, my friend patted me on the shoulder and said, “You need to go up and pick out a song.”

Realizing I wasn’t going to be able to weasel out of it, I stood up and trudged over to the host’s podium. I hung my head and shuffled my feet as slowly as I could manage. I felt like a condemned man making his last walk to the gallows.

When I reached the podium, the host looked up at me, smiled, and asked what I was looking for. I told him, “the back exit.” He laughed, told me that he didn’t think he had that one in his computer and asked me to try again.

“What do you have?” I asked him, resigned to my fate. He showed me the list of songs available. There were thousands, so I just latched onto the first one I recognized and thought might be within my extremely limited vocal range.

Twenty more minutes went by while each of my friends got up and sang. They did pretty well. It wasn’t a professional concert, but they didn’t vomit and fall of the stage either, so all in all I give them a win.

Then it was my turn. I heard my name called over the speakers and I got out of my chair … and crawled under the table. It took two of my friends and a passing waiter to pull me out from my hiding place, and I still think I could have held on if that stupid table had been bolted to the floor. But, because I didn’t want to make my entrance while dragging a cocktail table behind me, I let go and decided to walk up on my own.

The music began almost the moment I touched the microphone: “Piano Man” by Billy Joel.

I killed it.

By “killed it,” I of course mean that I murdered the tune and the lyrics almost beyond the ability of the police to identify the body, then I left the pieces buried in a shallow grave in the backyard.

As I walked off the stage in shame, I noticed a man dabbing at a small trickle of blood that had begun to leak from his right ear.

Oddly enough, despite my shame and embarrassment, I was smiling. I think I actually enjoyed myself. It was kind of exhilarating to be up there on stage, and even though I was awful, nobody in the room seemed to care how terrible I was. Everyone was still having a good time.

I returned to my table in a surprisingly good mood and ordered another drink.

I don’t think I will be shouting out “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” at the top of my lungs anytime soon – I’m not that brave – but I might be convinced to stand up behind the microphone again sometime in the future. Maybe next time I can do something by the Beatles. Or maybe the Eagles. I bet I could really do some damage to “Hotel California.”

And yes, I think “damage” is the right word for that sentence.

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A Quick Trip to Nowhere

I have heard it said that getting there is half the fun. Well, what if you never get “there?” What if “there” just doesn’t exist? What if “getting” is the whole thing? Do you miss half the fun?

What am I talking about? I’m not totally certain myself at the moment. So, let me back up and start at the beginning. Recently, I boarded a cruise ship and took a voyage down the coast of Mexico. While I had a very nice time, most of my vacation was spent travelling from one place to another without any real destination in mind.

The vacation started on a Thursday morning. I got in my car and drove for two hours to San Jose where I caught a shuttle van that drove me for an additional hour to San Francisco. In S.F., I boarded a massive cruise ship which carried me down the west coast of California and Mexico for four days. On the fifth day, the ship stopped in Puerto Vallarta where I got into a taxi and drove around the city for a few hours before getting back on the boat.

The ship then made three more stops over the next three days. I rode tour busses, taxis, and shuttle boats for a few hours each day, then re-boarded the ship before it left port at 5 PM every evening.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

So, is it really a vacation if you never actually get anywhere? If you are constantly moving forward with no end point to the journey, is it really a journey, or is it just travel? There was no set destination or arrival point on this trip, instead there was only a parade of vehicles moving me from one place to another. Cars, cabs, boats, busses, and more walking than I care to remember, just to travel for ten days and end up exactly where I started: My own front porch.

And let’s not forget the four thousand bucks I spent to do it. It apparently costs a lot of money to go nowhere.

I enjoy travelling. That’s why I agreed to the cruise in the first place. And, frankly, I would happily do the whole thing over again. During the trip, someone else did all the cooking, cleaning and bartending so all I had to do was eat and drink until I passed out, then sleep until I was rested enough to start eating again. Who can complain about that? Me and my three extra chins had a great time.

There was excitement on the trip as well. For example, I really wasn’t sure if I was going to survive the taxi ride in Puerto Vallarta. The driver kept talking to me over his shoulder while he drove along streets of a city where car lanes were more suggestions than requirements. He would veer from left to right, whipping past pedestrians and other vehicles at high speed while telling me in broken English that the house we just passed belonged to his cousin who owned the best bar in the city, and all I needed to do was say the word, and he would take me there for some tequila.

I passed on the offer. Based on his driving, I figured he had already had enough to drink.

At one point, I heard a siren from somewhere nearby, and I started looking behind us for an emergency vehicle trying to pass the taxi. I soon discovered I was looking in the wrong direction. A moment later, I spotted an ambulance with its lights flashing and siren blaring, moving past my window in the lane right next to us.

We were passing it.

My taxi flew by the ambulance like it was a little old lady that got in our way while out for a Sunday drive.

I vowed then and there, that if I ever got badly injured or sick in Mexico, I would never call an ambulance. I was going to get a cab. It would probably save me ten minutes getting to the hospital.

The entire ride was a roller coaster of excitement, dread, and a growing queasiness in the pit of my stomach as I imagined the car I was in becoming part of a twenty-car pile up in the middle of a busy intersection. In fact, the only time the driver slowed down and acted like a human being behind the wheel was for the thirty or so seconds it took for a police car to drive past us. I don’t blame the guy for being cautious either. Police cruisers are a little bit more intimidating in Mexico than in the U.S.

(Don’t believe me? Just take a peek at this week’s cover photo above. I took the picture myself during my adventure.)

When we finally crossed the finish line of the imaginary race in my driver’s head, I stumbled out of the taxi and sat down on the curb until my heart rate returned to normal. I told the driver he should put a video camera on his dashboard and record his trips through the city. I imagined that many of his passengers would be willing to pay good money to get a copy to show their friends back home. I know I would love to have video proof of the harrowing events I survived that day.

During the ride, I thought about using my phone to make a recording, but I realized that would require me to release my death grip on the car seat in front of me. So, instead of video, all I have are a couple still photos, frequent night terrors and a pair of permanently stained underwear to remind me of my brush with mortality.

Getting back to my original point, I guess sometimes the journey, all by itself, is enough. Or to be more specific, surviving the journey is enough.

If there is only one thing readers remember from this week’s blog, I hope it is this: It’s hard to care too much about where you end up when you are just happy you arrived in one piece.

That, or maybe, if you are ever in Mexico and need an ambulance, flag down a taxi instead.

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