November 2009
In the Bitterroot Athlete Valley

Halloween came and went quickly as I was on the road and on a plane at the time.  I drove to Spokane and flew to Dallas; spent the night and caught up with my mother and sister for a cruise.  We boarded a Carnival cruise ship bound for Jamaica, the Grand Caymans and Cozumel.  Pretty nice for being unemployed, eh?  (Story at end.)

This is Dallas at sunrise, below, through the window of my hotel room.  It was quite a distance taken with my zoom lens. What a contrast...going from our country view, right, to the view below?! It is SO flat in Texas, but REALLY nice and friendly people!

The cruise was a great get-a-way although the Bitterroot Valley was nothing to get away from as it was like spring for most of November.  The runners took full advantage of the mild weather. I remember Novembers usually having more fog and ice freezing on the trees at this time? It was a great Fall.

Saturday Runs

We had some nice Saturday runs and got in our own little Thanksgiving turkey trot although there was one in Missoula, we decided to stay in Hamilton.

On the 14th, we met at the Canyons.  I had the "Matt" image with me so we had to get our picture with him. It was fun to have the image to take pictures with as he is so lifelike. I finally gave him to the real Matt this month.

The 21st was a little chillier run, but Justin still showed up in
his shorts. On Monday, the 23rd, Justin, Marisa and I (all not working) went to Como to run the trail to the falls. It was beautiful. There was about three to four inches of snow on the trail and no wind at all. It was so nice that we continued to the south side and all the way around the Lake. It was a little rough in spots with rocks hidden under the snow and a few new larger rocks on the path.  It was a long run and a little more intense with the snow and footing. I was worn out for the rest of the afternoon.

Our turkey run was nippy, but sunny and blue skies and felt really good afterwards. We started from my house and ran down West Bridge, turned left on Rickets, and then headed up Blodget Canyon Road.  We made a right and went up on a neighborhood ridge that over the last two years we have run by dozens of times and never turned there. Cory and Marisa found this 5.3-mile loop on the map, which returned via Oertli and Rickets and back up the West Bridge hill climb.  We felt totally invigorated and headed to our respective turkey dinners. The warm fuzzies are the best thing about running... and eating anything you want pretty much guilt-free!

Local Events

The only other event pictures that I had in my camera was the Christmas tree lighting in front of the post office. Hamilton put up a bigger and better real tree this year with the help of a number of volunteers. Carolers cruised the sidewalks as businesses stayed open until 8:00.

Why Go On A Cruise?

There wasn't a whole lot going on this month so I will tell you a little bit about my cruise.  Why go on a cruise?  It is a great way to indulge yourself in the warm ocean waters!  Plus, you can't beat the price of a cruise compared to hotel rates staying on one island.  It is also very relaxing, that is until you do the island excursions and still try to maintain the ship's late night entertainment schedules.  This was my fourth cruise and this time being in pretty good triathlete shape, the food kind of got to me. When you aren't paying for food you don't have to choose between dishes.  Thus, when there are multiple good choices of appetizers, main courses, and desserts you don't get just one!  Darn! And when they have so many good choices, the pressure is on!  So twos and threes became normal.  But, once I got that over-full feeling a few too many times, I began to ease back on the food again. Plus, I began to wonder about the food after getting used to eating more organic at home. I doubt if they use anything organic. Desserts were more addicting and   it took me a good month to ween myself from them, although the holidays have contributed to my dessert delinquency.

So did I exercise?  You bet!  Up bright and early to jog around the exhaust tower 10 times for one mile!  A number of fitness enthusiasts were out there.  The first two days we were at sea so the view was ocean, ocean and more blue ocean.  And it was warm, about 85 degrees!  So the earlier I ran the better.  It was also windy.  As I ran forward (bow-front) the wind was blowing hard in my face, aft (stern-back) the wind could blow me off the back deck if I didn't turn it was so forceful!  Around again and again.  And again. And again. I was lucky I got 3 miles in and I really needed my tunes for that.  Then it was off to the workout room, which was really nice. I did a little elliptical and weights and felt like I earned a couple desserts and second and third course meals.  I did this routine about three times and started to wain from too much food the night before, staying up late and going on excursions on the islands.

Fun in the Jungle

Our first excursion was Jamaica.  The island was large, hilly and very tropical. We hopped on a small tour bus and went to Mystic Mountain, the Jamaican Bobsled training location-now tourist attraction and zip line fun.  This was a rain forest area about 1.5 hours from our ship.  They are very proud of their Jamaican athletes, including Bolt's recent Olympic track records.  They had Olympic athlete  displays and the bobsled team, but didn't mention the Jamaican bobsled movie, which was very moving and humorous.  (Snacking interruption...a little left-over holiday chocolate cake and chocolate creme frosting with strawberry-mousse filling snack and I'm back to editing....)

The bobsled was fine, nothing special besides the view of flying through the rain forest.  The real fun was the zip lines.  I had never heard of people doing this before. I had only seen it on James Bond.  But, some people on the tour said they look for zip-line excursions and do them wherever they find them.  Once was enough for me. But, this wasn't just one zip line. There were about six of them with one vertical drop.  I said I wouldn't scream, but I screamed the whole way. Then the vertical drop, I saw what was coming and said I would not scream, but I screamed again. Even the rope bridge was more difficult to walk on than it looks in the movies!  By the last zip stretch, everyone was getting brave and the group all coaxed each other into "no hands." I did no hands as I went flinging around backwards to the stop where the Jamaicans were always playing with you and telling YOU to stop because they said they couldn't stop you, but they always did and they would laugh at our fears of crashing into the trees.  My mother was the greatest surprise. At  age 73, this was her favorite excursion.  She is a wild woman at heart.

Grand Cayman

It was on to Grand Cayman island.  My mother and sister went parasailing while I went scuba diving.  I walked to the Lobster Pot Dive Center at "Cheeseburger Bay" near Burger King for two of four dives to get certified.  The young girl at the front desk in their retail shop was from Nebraska and my dive instructor, Mark, was from Kansas!  They both had moved there permanently, Mark for the love of diving. It was beautiful. The water was 85 degrees and I did not use a wetsuit.  We swam out from the shore and the turquoise waters were alive with coral formations and every beautiful fish that you see in a fish store or a commercial tropical sea aquarium. It was amazing. All the brownish areas in the water around the island as viewed from the ship were the coral formations. We saw lots of colorful fish, a turtle swimming, very large coral-eating parrot fish and little manta rays too. It was very beautiful to see the fish interacting in their environment.

After my two dives, which were 35 and 40 minutes each, I headed down to 7-Mile Beach.  It is literally 7 miles of white sand beaches on the turquoise waters.  The Dive shop advised me to get a taxi to the beach.  I learned that the honking vans were the taxis and the honk was supposed to alert you that they were asking if you wanted a ride?  I thought on my walk down that they just liked to honk a lot? They were also driving on the wrong side of the road as well as in Jamaica.  I quickly got a ride by barely lifting my hand as a "yes." There were a few other Americans in the van and they said they were going to "Hell," a town in the Grand Caymans.  I asked what they were going to do there and they said they were just mailing a few post cards! :-0

I was dropped off next to a bar on the beach so I thought I would celebrate my first two open water dives with a pina colada.  $11 later with the average-sized drink, I made my place in the sand. There were hardly any people around since they said that they spread people out since it is such a long beach. I layed in the sun for a bit and watched the kids play in the water and the adults floating carelessly on rented water mats.  It wasn't long that I realized I had to head back after figuring out the time, which we were supposed to stay on ship time and not island time. I traded the taxi guy for a colorful Grand Cayman $1 bill for $7 American and my cab ride.

Cozumel

It was Cozumel the next day and I was beginning to get tired with late-night shows and running here and there on the ship trying to find each other.  By now, hurricane Ida was coming up behind us and the sky was overcast and a little drizzly. I took a taxi to the Deep Blue Dive shop in town and I was liking it less and less as we got deeper into town and the tenement living quarters were closing in. The dive shop was quite professional online, but the shop itself wasn't as appealing in this neighborhood. We hopped in a little truck and headed to the beach. I don't think my dive instructor wanted to dive as he looked at the wind picking up, a light rain coming down, and waves breaking on the beach. I didn't really want to go either. It reminded me of a fishing guide at Apple Days in October that was all bundled up, snow was on the ground, it was under 18 degrees and they said they had tourists coming in that still wanted to go on the river that day!

My guide ran through the check list and I donned my wetsuit as the water was 82 degrees.  We went through a series of skills testing and I was not having fun.  The waves were crashing, there was a current and I kept bumping into him under water, swimming on top of him and I was up and down, up and down depth-wise, cold, and my ears were hurting bad from the pressure at 30 feet. 

By the second dive, I considered not going in, but I had to as I did not come all this way to not finish and this was my final dive to get certified.  I got in the water once again and the waves were making me crash into the stairs and railing as I tried to hang on and get a clue about diving with a compass. I had to swim back and forth on the surface with my tank and gear and only looking at my compass watch holding my wrist parallel to my chest.  I was not good at it and he made me do it again. Then we did it again under water.  I thought it was decent enough to get near the exact spot, but it wasn't and I had to do it again. I have never used nor needed a compass and certainly not under water.  He let me get by the second time. I still had difficulty "equalizing" my ears, but after swimming around looking at...not much...it wasn't very scenic where we dove; less fish, very little coral at all and just silty-clay-like ocean bottom. It wasn't a good dive.  I got out and got my papers signed and stamped for certification.  I headed back to the ship early via the tequila-tasting shop. Then it was time for a buffet meal. 

Last Day at Sea

Hurricane Ida sent 12 to 20 foot swells to send the ship on its way back to Galveston.  We were rocked to sleep that night, which i found I really liked.  I have been sea sick before, but it was after two servings of escargot (just because my family was grossed out that I was eating it, so I had to have more.  It was a rocky night on that ship, Ensenada, Mexico in the morning and I was sick.)  But, this time I did not get ill.  Barf bags were put up in the hallways, but I never saw anyone sick. They have really good ship stabilizers now.  The upper decks and pool were closed off the next day at sea due to the winds.  There was one pool area though that had a retractable steel enclosure over it and the whole deck was enclosed in a glass-like structure. This was the adult hangout area.

Overall, Grand Cayman was my favorite.  I think mostly because the island was the most similar to the US in terms of businesses and people, besides the warm waters, white sand and good weather.  The whole trip was fun and always difficult to come back to reality and start making your own dinners again.  (Photo on the left was our dinner group, a Mom and two daughters also.)

Have a great month and thanks for reading all the way through!

Antara Croft

	The Jamaican Bobsled Team
Mark & I in front of the Dive shop in Grand Cayman	The main pool deck late in the afternoon at Grand Cayman. There are a couple more small pools at the bottom of this picture that are cut off.
Our room with balcony...a clean day.	Sunrise before arriving in Jamaica
Gave "image Matt" to Matt standing him up in front of his kitchen window...but the wind blew him over.	Ditch above Skalkaho Hwy coming from Golf Course Road Nov. 30th.  Ward Mountain in view.

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