This is (finally) the final post of photos from our February cruise marathon. Completed galleries can be found on my Adobe Portfolio page for anyone wanting to see more.
Cruise ships have always had vast art displays on board. Even back in the early days of steamship travel, ships were known to have decor consisting of paintings, sculptures and murals. Modern cruise ships seem to be carrying this artistic theme even into their design. More and more we are seeing sweeping atriums, huge glass observation decks, and dramatic architectural features that are much more about form than function.
On our Celebrity Apex cruise, I tried to capture a bit of the flavor of t his art, as well as some of the design elements. Here is a small collection of what I saw.
Izzit selfish to curse Covid for stealing a hunk of our active retirement years? Given the pieces it tore from child development, death rates, and crippling isolation, well, t feels so small to grumble, but there it is Tom… Rita and I were (needlessly?) imprisoned while we still had vigor and vim (well maybe a tad more vim?). And sedentary aging quickly sucks at ambition. Sigh.
OK, enough grumbling. What’s to celebrate is…. (1) you two braved the negatives and continued to explore a closing world, (2) And you generously took the time to tell photo essays that get into the weeds… Show and ‘splain details that support wonder. And after all, art without wonder is merely craft, right? Thanks for this enormous effort Tom, maybe it’ll trigger our lust to wander again? Hmmmm…..
Well, Ted, it’s a big world out there, and we had choices to make regarding what we wanted to see and how we wanted to see it. Yes, Covid caused us to re-think our approach for a while, but Kathy & I were determined to not let it slow us down. We never really bought into the paranoia that gripped (still grips?) the country and resolved to not sit around waiting for someone to give the All Clear.
After the initial lockdown phase, we gradually eased back into mobility with a trip to the beach, relatively isolated other than a few trips to a grocery store. That gave us the confidence to venture farther into the country. Yes, it was a little weird for a while – finding bathrooms was often the biggest challenge. But motels were open, gas and groceries were available and the world was charmingly quiet for a while. We made an 8000 mile road trip to the Pacific Northwest in August 2020 and another 6000 miles to the Southwest in May 2021, avoided most of the popular places but managed to get to all of the US states we had yet to visit, all in our little red Subaru. When the world was finally emerging from its hidey hole we capped it off with a visit to Hawaii in February 2022, appropriately our 50th state.
I don’t feel like what we did was especially heroic, but I do appreciate your sentiments. I would encourage you to give travel a try again. The world is largely as it was, and it is waiting. Time, however is not.
Wow, it’s like living aboard a floating art museum. Sheesh, is about all I can think to say.
‘Sheesh’ is an appropriate word!