September 29: OUR ANNIVERSARY DAY IN NEWPORT, RI

We just completed our first excursion into Rhode Island and have found a Panera Bread for lunch and free WiFi time so will try to post here during lunch. Our next excursion is less than one hour from now….

I need to back-track to yesterday, Sunday the 28th. We got up and out of our Elizabeth, NJ hotel room at 9:00 and THOUGHT we were headed to breakfast before starting our drive over to Brooklyn. Once on the road, we couldn’t get off without a lot of difficulty so went ahead and made our drive to the Cruise Pier. We had to drive right through the middle of downtown Manhattan; but thankfully the traffic wasn’t horrible as it was a Sunday morning~~ we only experienced a couple of aggressive New Yorker drivers honking at us. We got arrived at Pier 12 in Brooklyn at 10:30 which was some 2-1/2 hours ahead of our scheduled 1:00 embarkation of the ship. We got our luggage tended to right away and while out there doing that, a little accident happened between two vehicles right behind us. We were eye-witness to the vehicle behind us also parked along the drop-off curb where a vehicle coming up the 2nd lane alongside him swiped the driver’s open car door. Boy, how you hate to hear the crunch of metal of metal when two cars collide. I know it was a bad way for both of the people involved to start their cruise. But back to us~~ we were able to check on in and were allowed to board the ship at 11:30 so that was extra nice. We got on, found our stateroom, and then went to the buffet to grab some lunch. It was extra good as we hadn’t had anything to eat since dinner on Saturday night.
We ate and then walked around getting acclimated. At 4:20, we had to attend the "MUSTER" call where we learned what to do in case of emergency and having to abandon ship. What an eerie thought!! After Muster, we went outside to watch our 5:00 p.m. launch from Brooklyn. It was a very pleasant temperature and a beautiful evening. We enjoyed watching the start out on our week-long cruise. We talked to some nice folks out there and eventually went back in to catch some dinner where Richard had Prime Rib and I had a Italian pasta dish. All was delicious. We purposely sat at a table for 8 and soon had 6 nice folks join us for dinner. There were two nice couples and then two more ladies. We had lively conversation through dinner. We returned to our stateroom after dinner and relaxed for a bit before going to bed. It was an exciting day to say the least!

September 29th ~~ Our 35th Anniversary is today!
We got up at 6:00 to get showered and dressed for our day. We went to a restaurant for a lovely sit-down breakfast with exquisite service for 2 and enjoyed the start to our anniversary day. From there, we returned to our room for a few minutes to prepare to disembark the ship and make our way into Newport. We met our group for the tour in the Princess Theater and were taken from there to board the covered lifeboats from the ship to be "tendered" over to the town of Newport. Once across the sea by way of life boat, we boarded our bus to take the tour of the town. We boarded a big bus and made a wonderfully narrated ride around Newport which ended at the Astor Mansion where we were shown through it by the way of a "play" put on by actors and actresses dressed in period costume. It was as though we were the invited guests for a weekend of balls, dinners, etc. That’s how we were shown from room to room and learned about the Astor’s lifestyle of luxury in the late 1800 Newport.

We are eating lunch and will be leaving to go on our next tour shortly. We are having a truly unique anniversary day and are enjoying it to the hilt. We had a real sweet call from Amy on our cell phones this morning which left me in tears while hearing it as we were on the life-boat ride. I imagine my comrades wondered what on earth was my problem. HA!!!

Amy~~~ we have met a real nice couple from Springfield, ILL whose grandchildren were all homeschooled by the Abeka method. She was sure that they all had done the 5th grade videos so that was neat. They were the first "bonafied" Christians we have met thus far and we truly enjoyed the Christian camaraderie with them.

I need to sign off so I can eat and we can get to our next tour on our anniversary day.