Let's Go on a Cruise--with a stop in the Dominican Republic!

We've spent the last nine years driving around the United States and Canada in our motor home. When traveling full-time in an RV, we didn't have much reason to travel using other modes of transportation. But we had some airline miles that had to be used or they would be lost, and our beloved motor home is sitting on a consignment lot so we can't RV travel. So we found a 9-day cruise on a great sale, and used our miles to fly to Miami. Let's go on a cruise! We chose the 9-day Southern Caribbean cruise on the Norwegian Cruise Line's ship "The Gem."

We love cruising, and over the years we've been on nine different cruises leaving from seven different ports. But the last one was around a dozen years ago. A lot has changed in the travel industry in those years, so our cruise skills needed to be updated. We did remember that you want to arrive in your departure city the day before, to be sure that delayed flights won't make you miss the boat. We arrived in Miami the day before, and stayed in a less touristy part of this touristy city. Then we figured out how to ride the free trolley system that linked the Coral Gable Trolley to the Coral Way Trolley to the cruise port. We are frugal travelers so we are always looking for free or cheap options. Even though it was slower, it saved us an expensive taxi ride and gave us a little tour of the city. Yes, we had to walk another half-mile further to get to our cruise terminal--but it was free!

We left our suitcase at the port to be delivered to our room, and boarded the ship. We had views of the Miami sky line as we started exploring the Gem. You can tell that our room isn't ready because we are still wearing our backpacks.

 It didn't take us long to find the soft-serve ice cream machine, and Mark had his first cone just minutes after we got on the ship.

The cruise industry has changed, and NCL is proud of their "any-time-dining." Supposedly that means that you can eat wherever and whenever you want. But if you decide you want to eat at the most popular times, you might have a considerable wait to be seated. So we booked a reservation for one of the dining rooms at 5:30 each evening. That gave us time to eat before going to the early show. The two of us were often seated at a table for four, and we enjoyed meeting other travelers that were sometimes seated with us. At least on NCL, the days of sitting at the same table of eight with the same people and same servers every meal is gone. 

While not all ships have complimentary ice cream, Mark is excited that the Gem does. We're still waiting for our room to be ready, and he's having his second serving of ice cream. This time he's enjoying the hand-dipped ice cream in a bowl.

After a day at sea, our first port was at Puerta Plata, a city in the Dominican Republic. We pick a cruise based on the port stops, and this Southern Caribbean route gave us many ports we have never visited. The Dominican Republic is a new country for us.

We were one of four different ships in the port this day, so we knew it would be busy. The big tour busses were lined up, ready to take bus-loads of ship passengers on canned tours around the island. Even though this is the easiest way to see the sites, this is not our style. It's crowded, it's touristy, and you have no control over what you see and how long you see it. It's also very expensive.

Another option for ship passengers is the man-made beach area just outside the port. It included a lazy river and beach volleyball, and would be a cheaper way to spend the day.

This area is called Taino Bay, and it was very nice. But it's not our style either. It is man-made and feels very fake. To spend the day here means that you had been in the Dominican Republic, but you really hadn't seen the island at all.

Our style is researching the best things to do in a day, and then figuring out the options of how to get to those places. We decided that this was a walking day, and we headed out of the busy port area toward our first point of interest. We had printed out our maps at home, and we were planning to first make the uphill walk to the highest point of the island. But taxi drivers kept yelling at us that the area wasn't safe to walk, and their prices to give us a ride kept going down as we continued to walk. We finally made a deal with Jose, who agreed to drive us to all the places on our list for a fixed price. That will save us some time and miles on our legs, so our walking day turned into a taxi day.

The first place on our list was Teleferico Puerta Plata Cable Car. Getting a taxi ride to the cable car allowed us to beat the big bus tours and long lines that can happen on a day with four ships in port. We bought our $10 tickets for the cable car that whisked us up to the highest point in the Dominican Republic.

We had read that the ride to the top wouldn't be worth it on a cloudy day, but we were blessed with clear skies that afforded a view that stretched all the way to the horizon. We could see our ship parallel parked in Taino Bay as the city of Puerta Plate stretched out in front of us.

This ride to the top also brought us to one of Dominican Republic's national parks--Isabel de Torres. A map of the park showed the trails and highlights that we would see. It looks like we are still going to get some exercise on this port day.

We stopped in at the church at the top . . .

and then headed down the trails.

The park is sprinkled with colorful photo-ops, and we took a picture at most of them.

We are in the tropics, and we saw flowers that are normally grown as prize house plants in the United States. But here they are growing wild in the gardens in the national park.

It was a beautiful place to start a beautiful day in the Dominican Republic.

Jose promised to pick us up in an hour, which was really a perfect amount of time for the cable car ride and walking through the gardens. Because we were here early in the day, we didn't have a line for our trip back down on the cable car.

It was nice to have an air-conditioned taxi ride down the hill and into downtown Puerta Plata. It was the right decision to hire Jose for the day! The next stop on our list was a chocolate factory tour. Jose delivered us to this little shop that gave out free samples of chocolate, and the tiniest goblet of chocolate wine.

Then he walked us to San Felipe Street, which is better known as "Umbrella Street."

Having our own driver also meant that we had our personal photographer to take the iconic picture on Umbrella Street.

Just a block away is another item on our list--Paseo de Dona Blanca.

The Pink Alley is a popular tourist stop where everything is painfully pink.

Dona Blanca is the inspiration for this very pink alley, and Denisa spent some time on the bench with Dona while we were there.

We always visit local churches, and the Cathedral of St. Philip the Apostle was the biggest in town.

Fortaleza de San Felipe didn't look so far away on our map, but once again we were glad that we had a ride to get to the fort instead of walking on this warm day.

One of the pictures that Jose took at the fort has our ship in the background. So you can see that we have traveled almost full circle back to where we started this morning.

This is an interesting area on the coast, and we can easily walk back to the ship from here. So we paid Jose for his transportation early, hoping that he might be able to get more fares from other cruise passengers on this busy day in port. Then we meandered around the plazas along the coast.

We're only including the more picturesque spots around Puerta Plata in the blog. But we have to report that while we were off the normal tourist path, we saw plenty of garbage strewn around. 

It's not a sparkling clean place, and sometimes it was hard to take a picture that didn't include garbage.

Denisa loves a good lighthouse, so this big gold tower was obviously on her list. But when we got closer we found that it was locked up and in disrepair. It could be such a neat tourist stop with just a little upkeep! 

That was our overall opinion of Dominican Republic--it could be such a neat tourist stop with just a little upkeep. But after a port day, we have determined that we won't need to return to this country. It shares the island with the country of Haiti, which is going through some serious unrest that makes it unsafe to visit. While we never felt unsafe on the Dominican Republic side of the island, by the end of the day we were glad to have had our local taxi driver chaperone.

We walked back along the coast and through the man-made Taino Bay area with its many photo ops.

As our ship pulled out of the port, we could see the mountains that surround the city of Puerta Plata. It looked like the top of the cable car was in the clouds this afternoon, so we were lucky to get our cloudless views this morning.

We sailed past the rocky shore line that housed the fort and the lighthouse and waved good-bye to the Dominican Republic.

We are really enjoying our ship. We're finding that the Gem has a great outdoor walking track that encircles the entire ship. That helps to walk off all those calories we are consuming in the dining rooms--and at the ice cream stations. It also makes for a nice place to watch the sunset (on the way to the buffet for a night cap of ice cream for Mark). 

What do you think--Should we sell the motor home?

The motor home has been sitting at the ranch for almost six months without moving. We've been so busy working on the house and traveling in different ways, that we haven't used it. The one time that we could have used it to stay for a month in South Texas, the high price of diesel convinced us that it would be cheaper to rent an apartment for a month. While we've been lucky that all our mice-prevention tricks have kept the critters at bay in the motor home, it's not good for it to sit without being used. What do you think--"Should we sell the motor home?"

Mark is the practical one, pointing out that we're going to have to make the investment to buy six new big tires with their big price tag in the next year. He also pointed out that we needed something so big when it was carrying everything we owned. But now we have a house to store most of that stuff. We could certainly travel much stealthier in something smaller. He also noted that diesel has doubled in price since the last administration, and filling up that 100 gallon tank is painful. What do you think--"Should we sell the motor home?"

Denisa is the sentimental one, and she loves this motor home. We've changed out the uncomfortable RV furniture for cozy residential furniture that is comfortable. We bought customized carpet, recovered the dining chairs, had custom storage added . . . It's our home, and we have loved living in this motor home. It has allowed us to visit beautiful and interesting places all over the United States and Canada. More than just visiting for a short time, having this motor home allowed us to linger in places and really immerse ourselves in new areas that most people have to whiz right through. We have loved the form of travel that this motor home made possible. What do you think--"Should we sell our home?"

Then there's the other conundrum. How do you sell something so big? RV lots are full of new RVs and the market seems to be saturated. If we had sold it in 2021, we could have named our price. But in 2024 we're on the wrong side of the market. We knew that we could be the best salespersons for our motor home, because we know all the good things about her. We have been genuinely pleased with this coach and it has been a perfect full-time rig for us. After nine years of living in it, we can recommend this motor home highly! But putting it "for sale by owner" is complicated. Where would we market it? How would we feel about people test driving this big rig? Most people are going to have to get a loan for a purchase this size. Interest rates are high and we found that lenders aren't crazy about making sizable loans for recreational vehicles right now. What do you think--"Should we sell the motor home?"

We found that RV dealerships will make an insulting offer to buy the motor home. Then we found an RV consignment place that has a pretty good reputation. PPL has been in business in Texas for over 50 years, working as the middleman between RV owners and buyers. They just opened an office in El Reno, Oklahoma, which is a four-hour trip from where the motor home has been in storage for these six months. What do you think--"Should we sell the motor home?"

We decided to give it a try. We started the sad process of taking everything out of the motor home. We have to say that one of the things we love about this Tiffin is the solid wood cabinetry and the massive amount of storage. We had every nook and cranny filled, and we were astounded at how many pick-up loads it took to relocate everything to Kansas City. That empty house we bought just got a lot fuller when we started unloading the motor home. We cleaned her inside and out and we delivered her to the PPL lot at the end of February. We took this final picture of her sparkling clean inside and out. She looks so good, maybe we should keep her! What do you think--"Should we sell the motor home?"

We had to sign a contract that we would leave it on the lot for 90 days. If it didn't sell, we would pick it up in three months and start traveling in it. That means we wouldn't be able to travel during the spring-time--our favorite RV travel season--because the motor home would be locked up on the sales lot. We left it in God's hands. It would sell if it was supposed to sell. If not, we would welcome her back and reload those big cabinets. After 90 days we could drive her off the consignment lot to make more happy motor home memories.

Did we follow our plan to continue to travel?

Wow! It's been six months since the last blog post! It's amazing how easy it is to get out of the habit of writing blogs when we make life changes! Our plan was to have a sticks and bricks home base, but continue to travel. Did we follow that plan?

After spending several months getting our new place into shape, it was time to see if we could leave it behind. First, we enjoyed the Christmas holidays with family. It was a bit of a Christmas miracle to get everyone smiling and looking at the camera for our Christmas card picture this year.

The Christmas decorations were still up, when we locked up our house and headed south for the entire month of January. It turns out that was a great decision, as we missed some record-breaking cold weather in Kansas City during that month. Should we take the motor home on our trip south to the land of the palm trees?

With the higher price of diesel, we calculated that it would cost close to one thousand dollars to drive the motor home all the way to the tip of Texas and back. So we opted to rent a place for a month, and drive our pickup to the Rio Grande Valley.

We've gone to Bentsen Grove Resort many times, but this trip would be different. Denisa's 93-year-old mother bought a place and has wintered in the same lot in the same resort for 39 winters. But now that she can no longer drive in the fast traffic of South Texas, she decided to sell. So we spent much of our month in the winter warmth getting her mobile on the market. We placed an ad on the park's facebook group, and it sold the first day! 

Then work began boxing up 39 years of memories that we would take back with us in our pickup. It was definitely a "working vacation." But the weather was warm and we enjoyed day trips to places down south that we might never see again. We drove Denisa's mother to Rockport to visit friends and see the Gulf again.

Even though we will continue to travel, we have to say that we will miss the citrus trees in her yard with the bountiful harvest of tangerines each winter.

For many years, we've watched the progress of the construction of the border wall between the United States and Mexico. That wall runs just four miles south of the Bentsen Grove Resort. Construction has come to a halt since 2020, but we had to bike up to see it once again.

We were glad that our youngest son decided to fly down to spend a long weekend with us. He's been visiting south Texas since he was born, and he wanted to see it one more time as well.

Our trip to South Padre Beach included helping an older couple. They had driven too far into the loose sand on the beach and got stuck. But Blake and Mark managed to use all their muscles to get them out of their predicament.

We returned to our house at the end of January, glad to see that it did well in the cold weather while we were away. It looks like we can continue to travel during the winter even though we own a home. But some fun experiences don't require a long trip. After watching our home-town Kansas City Chiefs win their second Super Bowl in a row, we traveled downtown to welcome them home at the championship parade. It only took a 20-minute drive to Kansas City to join a million other people for the historic celebration. It was crowded and crazy. Instead of going to Union Station for the end of the parade, we opted to head home. It was on the short drive home that we got our first text asking about our safety as word hit national news about the shootings after the parade. We're thinking that we won't make the trip to such a crazy crowded event again.

But will we keep with the plan to continue to travel other places? A couple weeks after our return from the south, we headed north. We went on a family ski trip to Colorado.

Our granddaughter is in her second year of ski lessons. We snapped a cute picture of her and her parents on the way to ski school one morning.

Our grandson is too young for lessons. But he's not too young to hitch a ride on Grandude's skis.

We have enjoyed much time in the Rocky Mountains in the last nine years of travel. But arriving there slowly in the motor home has always allowed us to climatize to the high elevations on the way. We might spend a month traveling from the plains to the mountains, getting used to the increasing altitude very slowly. But this trip we drove from the Kansas City elevation of 900 feet, all the way up to an elevation of 9,000 feet in just one day. We have to say that is too fast for us. We had head aches and felt rotten during the entire trip. So even though we enjoyed a good day of skiing and good family fun sledding, we never felt good. Maybe we're too old to put our body through that kind of travel with such a dramatically sudden elevation change?

After traveling all of January and much of February, did we keep with our plan to continue to travel? We had some airline miles that had to be used or lost, so we booked another trip for March. But that's a topic for another blog. In the meantime, we're going to make a concerted effort to keep up with the blog. We have more updates and more travel adventures to share!

How is life in a sticks and brick house? Our Three-Months-After-Closing Report

Over nine years ago we bought the motor home that we have lived in since then. Full-time RVers call a stationary house a "sticks and bricks" home, to differentiate it from our RV that was our home for almost a decade. Now it's been several months since we signed the final closing papers where we officially became the owners of a house without wheels. After the closing costs were finished, we still had plenty of major purchases to furnish it. But because we purchased this house "as is" it had lots of things inside. Some of those things we wanted and needed, and some things we did not. For example, the kitchen was almost completely equipped, but we had to buy new flatware. We hadn't picked out forks and spoons since the bridal registry 43 years ago! But it had most of the things necessary to fix meals and bake cookies. 

We have a second kitchen in this house. It's in the basement and it is child-size. We have the wooden stove and cabinets that Denisa's father made for his three little girls over sixty years ago. It's been used by children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren over those years.  In this three-months-after-closing report we can verify that another generation is still happy to play with it.

Both of our grandchildren enjoy playing in the basement. It took us close to a month to get that messy full basement cleaned out and organized. The center of the basement has a play house equipped with furniture. All it needed was a little imagination--that includes Eli putting the finishing touches on his plastic dinner. The basement also includes a corner for Denisa's crafts, a corner for Mark's wood shop, a corner for exercise equipment, and lots of play space.

Upstairs, the third bedroom houses a twin bed, the piano, and Denisa's sewing machine. One of Carter's favorite activities at this sticks and bricks house is sewing doll clothes.

While we were sewing together, she said that she was so happy to learn how to sew. Then she told Gram, ". . . and when you're dead I can teach my granddaughter how to sew too." Well alrighty, that just warmed Gram's heart in a weird kind of way. We were still smiling when the first doll dress was finished and was modeled by Carter's American Girl doll.

We have a reading corner, and Eli likes to read here. We also are gathering a nice supply of stickers, trucks, and puzzles--more of his favorite activities. None of that would have fit in the motor home.

Another major purchase of this first month was a new mattress. We had to do lots of research since we hadn't bought one of those in a while. We also bought a new bed spread, and Mark added cool indirect lighting in the master bedroom, bathroom and entry way. The master bathroom was also a major project, cleaning and resealing the grout in a walk-in shower that is entirely too big for this little house. We estimate that we spent about 40 hours in that shower--not taking showers, but restoring it. We didn't remember to take pictures of those finished projects, but we did remember to take a living room picture. It includes a mish-mash of furnishings from many different sources: the big television set that our son donated when he got a bigger one, the love seat with two electric recliners and the television stand that came with the house, a glass-top end table that Denisa found and repainted the base, a brown recliner from Mark's Mother's house, the round stain glass duck that Denisa made many years ago that her sister had been storing, clocks and vases that were left in the house . . . The gas fireplace was broken and Mark had to order two different parts to fix it. It's bits and pieces from many sources that make up what we now call home.

A television set once hung in the spot over the fireplace. But it was at the wrong height and we were gifted the bigger television. So Mark took down the old television and all its hardware, spackled over all the holes that left, repainted the wall, and carefully hung that very heavy oak-framed stain glass duck. It was a major project, but it made our place feel more like home since that duck was part of our last home. We appreciate Denisa's sister and brother-in-law taking care of it for the last nine years, and then gifting it back to us now.

Another major project was restoring the wooden floors in much of the house. It took a lot of time on hands and knees, but they are now shiny and clean enough to work on puzzles.

The house also came with a solid wood dining room table. But it was badly damaged with water and heat and the remains of craft projects. We used a table cloth for most of that first month to cover all the damage.

But we had some pretty weather days, and we decided it was time to refinish it back to its past glory. Our deck made a great place to strip off all that old damaged finish and do some sanding.

We stained it to match the kitchen woodwork. Five layers of polyurethane later it is a beautiful piece of furniture once again.

We'll have to wait until next spring to spruce up the yard and the outside of the house. For now we are getting used to the idea of having to mow once again. It was a nice nine-year vacation from mowing. While our son mowed for us the first time, we finally bit the bullet and made another purchase--a new lawn mower. Even with all the things included in this "as is" house, we have made a record number of purchases this year. But we are continually surprised at the things we find in the house that we don't have to purchase--a crock pot, rakes and shovels, plates, end tables, Christmas decorations, griddle, outdoor furniture, fall wreath, mixer, place mats, salt and pepper shakers, toaster oven, exercise bicycle, towels, food processor, desk, wheel barrow, cheesecake pan, computer printer, lamps, fans, saws, rugs, plastic storage containers, food processor . . . It's been an interesting three months of finding treasures in this house.

It was a full month before we felt we had enough time to get some exercise and start exploring our new home town. We are really enjoying the trail system surrounding us. Even though we are in a Kansas City suburb, we can walk a half-mile from our front door and feel like we are out in the country.

That's a wrap-up on our three-months-after-closing report. It's much different than traveling around the country in a motor home, but we are beginning to feel quite at home in our new house. We like our sticks and brick house, but we want to add that we're not finished traveling!