One year ago today, we visited to Kruger National Park to see this elephant family crossing the road with a few babies protected by the parade. For more photos, please click here.

As we’ve decided on future cruises, we’ve made a decision that three cruises in and around Japan make sense to us. The prices are good for these highly coveted ports of call and after spending 28 days living in the country plus three cruises, we feel we’ll have scoured Japan as well as possible.


Subsequently we’ll be in the area of Southeast Asia from February 27, 2022 until May 6, 2022 for a total of 68 nights. We love the fact that we will have time to explore Japan and gain a more expansive perspective of the country and its culture.


Tomorrow, we’ll share the details on the third and final cruise in and around Japan. At this point, we don’t have plans as to where we’ll go when the cruises end other than to visit family in the US, (as mentioned in yesterday’s post) when the third cruise ends in Vancouver, British Coumbia.


As for yesterday’s events, we headed to Mary and Eugene’s house at around 3:15 pm to find no less than 20 local residents in attendance. As the day progressed more and more people arrived.


The decibel level was ear-splitting but festive and fun. Eugene appreciated the attendance be so many of their friends. Word got out through the neighborhood and by evening’s end, there was well over 25 well-wishers. 


“Any cause for a party” is the motto around here and we jumped right into it shortly after arriving in Apache Junction over a month ago. I’ve been carefully monitoring my wine intake and after a few glasses I switch to sparkling water which takes me into the late evening.


After most of the guests departed we wandered across the street to Margie’s house to play more Buck Euchre. It was Tom and I, Kevin and Margie who lasted well after midnight playing the fun game. 


We didn’t get to sleep until after 1:30 am but managed to get in a full six hours leaving us both feeling fine. Today, the festivities begin again around 3:00 pm when we’ll be dining at Colleen and Gene’s for steak and shrimp. 


I never got around to making the butterflied garlic butter broiled shrimp last night and decided to save it for today’s big meal for the eight of us. I have no doubt, at some point, we’ll play cards again today rotating players so those of us interested are able to have a turn.


Most of the group of us have been up past 1:30 am for the past four nights. I bowed out a few nights knowing I needed to get some sleep. But, the rest are a little raggedy from staying up so late many niights in a row.


Now at our place, we continue to work on setting up items and sortiing and organizing supplies we’ve received in the past few weeks. This morning Tom installed a glass screen protector onto my phone. 


When we recently purchased the two Google world phones, Tom had installed a similar screen protector on his phone. But, since I’d purchased a phone case that closes, I didn’t think I’d need one. As time has gone on and yet to scratch the screen, I decided it would be best to add the extra protection.


As mentioned above here is the information on the above mentioned second cruise in Japan. Our costs are slightly different based on our cabin selections but we’ll post those costs after we sail on each of the cruises:

That’s it for today, folks! Gee…we are only 11 days from departure, looking forward to the next leg of our journey.


Have a fantastic weekend!

Photo from one year ago today, January 18, 2019:

The baby elephant at play with family members. For more photos from Kruger, please click here.