Lesson 109-The 'Moon

It took us quite a while to decide on our destination for our honeymoon, but I knew that after all the wedding-planning shenanigans a cruise would be ‘planning-free’ so I could relax and enjoy our time together.  We eventually settled on a New England/Canada cruise in mid-October.  We flew from Phoenix to New York and stayed at The Alex Hotel (a wedding gift from one of my bridesmaids) and had dinner with Husband’s cousin, his GF, and my dear friend/bridesmaid all who live in NYC.  The next morning we spent walking through Times Square and through Central Park before boarding our ship.

That night we hit a storm of Titanic proportions (pun intended, bad as it is).  The waves and wind woke me up throughout the night and early that morning we were awoken with the captain’s announcement that Rhode Island, our first port for docking, would have to be skipped because of the storm.  All outside decks were blocked off and the fancy-shmancy folk with outside decks were advised to stay inside.  And we were stuck inside at sea all day.

Sunday night was our first dress-up dinner.  And we looked good.  But I had to eat dinner all by myself cause Husband got sick.  Now he’ll tell you it was just because he was overheated with his sports jacket and tie.  And I’ll let him believe that…but just between you and me, I made him take two doses of Dramamine and he was all better the next morning.  With that, I’ll let you decide what the cause of his sickness was.

Monday we were able to dock in Boston.  Husband and I did our own walking tour with the help of my Lonely Planet guidebook.  It was very cool seeing all those historic sites.  I’ve learned that travelling really makes me like and appreciate history so much more. We left Boston a couple of hours late due to repairs that were required to ship from the storm the days before.

Tuesday we were in Maine.  The leaves were gorgeous.  And it was such a picturesque Maine harbor town.  And they had blueberry soda.  We don’t have that in the desert.  It was yummy.  The entire time we were there I kept thinking about a movie I loved as a kid, “Andre”.  I recommend it if you’ve never seen it.

Wednesday was spent in St. John, New Brunswick, Canada.  Although we found a market where I was able to find some English yummies and an interesting salesman who made it own clay maple leaf ornaments, this town was wasted on us.  It was mostly just an industrial city with no true tourist attractions.  We spent most of the day playing cards on the ship.

Thursday morning we arrived in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.  We found a beautiful garden in the middle of town and had fun walking around taking photos.  We also toured the Titanic exhibit at a museum.  It was fascinating and so educational.  We came across a garden in the middle of the city that was beautiful.  Lots of fun to walk around and talk pictures of all the beautiful fall colors.  A mid-afternoon stop at Tim Horton’s for coffee and donuts was also exciting.  Our departure was again delayed, this time to lobster traps being so tangled in the propellers that the ship was completely unable to move.

Friday was another day at sea.  We hit another storm, but thankfully nowhere near as severe as the first storm.

Early Saturday morning we arrived back in NYC and disembarked.  We climbed into a yellow taxi and headed for LaGuardia Airport.  As we progressed through the city, Husband began to feel sick again with a sore throat, headache, fever and chills.  Giving him my scarf to stay warm and Tylenol to bring down the fever and ease the aches and pains, we sat in the airport for several hours before our flight departed.  The turbulence on the flight to Denver didn’t help Husband any and by the time we arrived in Phoenix, he was starting to feel the tiniest bit better.

But despite, storms, illness and delays we had a great time exploring the East Coast, spending time with each other, and enjoying cooler weather.