Mystic Explorer

Mystic Explorer has traveled back from its winter trip out West. We had a great three months in Arizona meeting up with old friends, making new friends and just relaxing.
I joined a wonderful group of women in the Cactus Quilters. Over 80 women from every state and Canada. So many talented people willing to teach many forms of sewing, quilting, fabric arts for a nominal fee. The space we share was wonderful and had everything we needed to be creative. I am looking forward to creating with them next year.
We took a week traveling back to Tennessee where we will leave the RV and drive to Florida. It was a windy trip back but luckily we stayed ahead of the tornado’s and storms.
We leave for Sarasota Sands tomorrow to spend a relaxing week at the place that has brought me/us so many memories.
Happy Easter to everyone.🐣🐰

Happy New Year!
I have been remiss posting since we took off in October so I will get everyone up to dat in this post.
We left Michigan 10-30-22 and spent the evening @ the KOA Benton Illinois. The next evening we stopped @ KOA Little Rock Arkansas followed by KOA Mt. Pleasant TX. We arrived at Alsatian RV Resort in Castroville Tx on 11-1-22 where we will be staying until end of December.

Castroville is a small town south west of San Antonio. We had a great site with a casita on the 14th green. We met wonderful neighbors-Patsy and Lee who were 90 and still driving an RV. We meet the best people R-ving. The weather here has been less than desirable. Cool and rainy most of the time. This left lots of time for me to sew and Jai read books. Jai and Mike did find a beautiful day to hit the course for 18.

We spent Thanksgiving and Christmas @ Mike and Deb's with family, friends, food and alcohol. Colin made it for Thanksgiving and Dana for Christmas.
Mike found a Triple D for us to try outside San Antonio. It was a great place to gather with family and friends.
The weather in Texas was not good for the second year in a row. Needless to say Texas will not be on our 2023 trip for November and December.

December 30th we left Castroville and headed to Fort Stockton. News Year Eve ended up being a windy drive to Las Cruces, New Mexico. New Years Day was another windy day which makes it tough on Jai. We made it to Rincon Country West around 1pm. The rain arrived at the same time which made set up a mess.
We will be here thru the end of March. Haircut for Jai and pedicures for both have started out the week on a good note.

Anchorage Alaska-Sunday morning and we have to test for COVID prior to boarding the boat this afternoon. We tested at 8:30am and went to breakfast at a Alaska Crepery. While eating our great breakfast I received a text that I was positive for COVID!!! Jai checked his and he also was positive.
We returned to the hotel to see what happened next knowing we would not be able to board the ship. After realizing we would be on our own we were able to get our luggage before it went to the ship and headed to our room. Texted our Holland American guide on the land portion and she was no help. We both got online and found a flight from Anchorage in the morning and a hotel room for the night close to the airport. After taking a cab to the new hotel we dropped our luggage, walked to a local bar. This place was next to the largest float plane community lake which made for a great atmosphere to start day drinking!!!!

We arrived in Detroit Tuesday night and now home. Our symptoms have been light except for Jai's cough and me being very tired.
We have been credited for our missed excursions already and will receive cruise credit to be used for that portion within a year. Hopefully we can get refunded for the return flights and extra hotel night-that is still to be discussed.

Here are some pictures prior to the vacation interrupted.

We took a bus from Anchorage to Seward for a boat tour to Kenai Fjords National Park. We again hit rain off and all for the 7 hour boat tour. I was dressed in my Frog Toggs and braved the weather for most of the trip. We had an amazing all women crew that gave us an unbelievable day on the water. We saw a bald eagle while still in port, Orca(killer whales) not long after leaving the port along with Dall's porpoise. They look like mini killer whales that follow the boat like porpoises. We also saw puffins, tufted puffins, stellar sea lions, harbor seals, sea otters and a mountain goat. While at the glacier we were treated to it calving numerous times.
On the return trip we were greeted by a humpback whale which has usually left the area and headed to Hawaii. Once back in town we were treated to a rainbow. Nice way to end our adventure.

Photo workshop in Denali with a local guide and another student. Todd spends May1 -September 15 every year to take people out to hone their landscape skills on their cameras not using the auto mode. He was able to help us learn how to take better pictures with the equipment we have. Even with it being a rainy, cold grey day and no big wildlife we had a successful day.