A bitter sweet good bye to another successful ship reunion

Me and her at the Bellingrath Gardens

So, when we last left off I was writing a blog post at 5 a.m. after a middle of the night false fire alarm brought the entire USS Cogswell reunion to the lobby while hotel management worked out how to reset the alarm and restart the elevators.

(Note to self: When staying in an older hotel always ask to be housed on the lowest possible floor).

After the short night we headed back downstairs to catch an 8 a.m. bus to Bellingrath Gardens.

As I boarded the bus I shook my head and pronounced loudly, “you guys will never believe the weird dream I had last night.” Almost in unison, they responded that I was not dreaming.

Joan stopping to smell the roses

As it turned out we accidentally left two couples behind at the hotel as they accidentally slept in and had to catch up with us at the gardens in their personal car.

The gardens were beautiful, but the weather was a little on the unpleasantly warm side with plenty of humidity. Joan’s knee was bothering her a lot, but she declined my offer to borrow one of the garden’s wheelchairs to help her around. She’s a trouper.

It took about 15 minutes to walk the paths to the Bellingrath home, which is a beautiful home that was one the residence of Mr. and Mrs. Walter Bellingrath. He made his fortune in the early part of the 1900s by purchasing the first Coca-Cola franchise in the Mobile, Alabama area.

At the beginning he did his own bottling, driving and delivering and built the business into a multi-million dollar empire in a short time.

One of the many pretty flowers

The home started out as a small camping retreat for Mr. Bellingrath to take him away from the pressures of work at the suggestion of his doctor. The small camp cabin turned into a beautiful two-story impeccably furnished home. The couple had no children and when Mr. Bellingrath died (nine years after his wife died) he left the home and gardens as a memorial to his wife and for the public to enjoy.

Mrs. Bellingrath collected Boehm Porcelain from around the world and the extensive collection is displayed throughout the home.  No photos are allowed inside the home, but you can check out the pictures of the home and gardens by following this link.

Another cruise ship

Following the home tour we watched a short film on the house and then boarded a river boat for an enjoyable 45-minute cruise on the Fowl River which runs next to the Bellingrath property.

Joan and I took a long route back to the front gate and walked the boardwalk that takes you through the bayou gardens. We were looking for wildlife, but saw only one fish.

With the heat and humidity rising we took frequent breaks but got back to the main entrance and gift shop in time to cool down in the air conditioning before boarding our bus back to the hotel.

We arrived back about 3:30 p.m. and headed to our room to freshen up for the official reunion photo session and then the formal  banquet.

Another beautiful spot in the gardens

My shipmates and spouses gathered on the mezzanine floor for the photo session and then we sat down to a wonderful dinner and a Mystery Dinner Theater presentation “Murder on the Carnivore Cruise.”

The title of the play was pretty appropriate considering Joan and I just got back from our own Carnival Cruise.

The cast was funny, but I missed figuring out the murderers were by a country mile. It was a fun night, but everyone was pretty exhausted from the early morning wake up and the room cleared fairly quickly following dinner.

Joan and the bamboo tunnel

In the morning we said our farewells to my shipmates and started the long trek home about 8:30 a.m. from Mobile. More and more shipmates from my time on the ship have been coming to the reunions which makes it very nice for me as I have gotten reacquainted with a number of guys I was friends with at a critical time in my life.

George, who is the association secretary, has done a great job of collecting memorabilia (including the ship’s flag from our 66-67 cruise that I saved for 40 some years before donating to the association). Each reunion brings more and more memorabilia from the cruises and George has done a great job of assembling photo books from nearly every era of the ship’s history.

Sadly, this reunion was the first where none of the World War II sailors aboard the Cogswell were able to attend. They were sorely missed.

Storm clouds on the way home

A few miles outside Mobile we drove over a long series of bridges that traverse several rivers. It was an interesting road project, one like we had never seen before.

With storms crossing the country we found ourselves driving through several squalls. Traffic was slight and we breezed through Alabama and Tennessee and when I realized we were approaching Louisville just about rush hour we decided to stop and have dinner at a Texas Roadhouse Restaurant just outside Louisville to let traffic clear out before finishing our trip.

We finished dinner a little after 7 p.m. and breezed through Louisville landing in Clarksville, Indiana about 7:30 p.m.

One sad fact we noted that the further we got north the higher the gasoline prices. We topped off in Alabama for $3.11 a gallon. By the time we got to Indiana it was more than $4 a gallon and it got worse as we drove into Michigan.

We had some nice weather on the trip

We heard they are blaming some refinery fire. I have this picture in my mind of the oil company executives sitting around their conference room laughing and pulling notes out of a hat to come up with an explanation of why they are going to gouge us this time.

"Hey, let's pull out the old standy excuse that we had a refinery fire. That always gets 'em," the executive says. It would be more refreshing if they just said they want to fleece us. At least that would be honest.

The Best Western was nice and we got a good night’s sleep before the final leg on Thursday.

More rain followed us home to Lapeer but we arrived about 4 p.m.

More reunion photos

Joan and the bonnet at Bellingrath Gardens

A shipmate of mine and his wife at Bellingrath Gardens

More of the gardens

One of the many beautiful flowers in the green house

Joan in the greenhouse

More greenhouse plants

A greenhouse grasshopper

One of the beautiful walks in the gardens

Part of the gardens outside the house

Inside the boat on the river cruise

A small portion of the Bellingrath home we toured

Joan on the Bayou Boardwalk

The scenery from the Bayou Boardwalk

Heading home and into the rain

A 'real' hotel wake up call, and a couple good tours

Our reunion's 3:19 a.m. wake up call at the hotel

It’s hard to start a post about a fun day you had on Monday, when a false fire alarm in the hotel woke you up and caused you to walk down six flights of stairs at 3:19 a.m. on Tuesday.

We are staying at the Admiral Semmes Hotel in Mobile, Alabama for our Navy reunion. At 3:19 a.m. (About two hours and 20 minutes ago as I write this) a loud alarm and woman’s voice came on in the dark in our bedroom announcing, “Attention, attention, an emergency has been reported in the hotel, you are to evacuate the hotel immediately. Use the stairs, do not use the elevators.” This continually repeated.

My first reaction was to look out the window and seeing very little action outside ignoring the whole thing. But we thought better of it and got dressed and walked down six flights of stairs (which is not easy for Joan with her bad knee). We did take a couple minutes to get dressed first.

Aboard the USS Alabama



The stairway took us to a back exit of the hotel, out through the pool area and onto an outdoor sidewalk where we found many of my Navy reunion folks.

As we walked to the front of the hotel a Mobile fire truck was driving off. False alarm. Unfortunately, the man working the front desk had no idea how to reset the alarm and make the elevators work again. We decided trying to walk up the six flights of stairs with Joan’s knee might result in an actual emergency so we waited in the lobby, with a lot of other elderly folks, for more than an hour for the security guy to arrive at the hotel and reset everything.

The most distressing part of the whole adventure was hearing the desk clerk tell someone, “it happens all the time.”

So the incident did raise a few obvious questions. One, if it happens all the time, why don’t you fix it? Two, if it happens all the time, why at least don’t you know how to reset it? And most confusing of all is that if you have a hotel with hundreds of rooms on 10 floors why are 80 guests scattered from Floor 6 to Floor 10 and not being housed on lower floors?

Joan and me on the USS Alabama

Tonight, on the last night of the reunion, we are supposed to have a “Mystery Dinner Theater” event. Trying to lighten the mood downstairs while we waited for security to fix the alarm I said: “Maybe this was part of the set up for tonight’s murder mystery.”

One of my crusty old shipmates responded quickly, “If that’s true, then someone is definitely going to die.”



I took a few photos of us all standing around in our mixture of night clothes and other hastily assembled garments.  We finally got back to our rooms about 5:15 a.m. and knowing I would never get back to sleep started writing this post.

Another of our guys mentioned to the clerk that perhaps some accommodation should be made to take tonight’s stay off our bill.

“I’ll talk to the manager,” he said.

“Well, talk to them REAL good,” my shipmate said back.



Lunch in the wardroom

Generally people were in pretty good humor about the whole thing, but we’ll see how much sleeping goes on today as we drive on our tour bus around town.

OK, back to yesterday.

We left the hotel at 8:30 a.m. headed for Battleship Park where we spent several hours touring the USS Alabama Battleship, which is now a museum ship. After getting our fill of touring the ship we had a catered dinner aboard in the ship’s Wardroom, which is where the officers ate when it was an active Naval vessel.

Usually officers eat on fine china, but they served the dinners on the divided metal trays more common to the crew’s mess on a Navy ship. Those of us who were enlisted men offered to show our officer members how to eat off the metal trays.



A cannon demonstration at Ft. Gaines

Following the battleship tour our bus took us to Ft. Gaines on Dauphine Island. The fort, which was first built and occupied in 1819 was part of the Confederate defense of Mobile Bay during the Civil War. It was also an integral part of the Battle of Mobile Bay in 1864. This was the famous battle in which Admiral Farragut uttered the words, “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.”

In those days torpedoes referred to underwater mines, one of which had just blown up one of the ships in the Admiral’s fleet.

The park’s ranger fired off a musket and a small cannon for us (loud noises always amuse sailors) we spent some time visiting the various rooms and museums on the site.

On the way back to the hotel we got a tour of downtown Mobile, including driving near the site of the annual football “Senior Bowl.”

We went to dinner in the hotel and then spent a few hours in the hospitality room visiting with old friends. I’m collecting stories for our next newsletter so it was gold mining for me. Joan went back to the room a couple hours earlier than I did, probably after we had retold the same stories four or five times. I will say that some of the stories are ripening with age.

We went to sleep about 10:30 p.m. and then at 3:19 a.m., well that brings us back to where we began.

Caribbean Cruise post - Part II

Heading into Cozumel on Friday

It’s Monday morning (early) and I’m up and getting ready to head out on my Navy reunion tour bus here in Mobile, Alabama in a couple hours. Joan is still sleeping so I thought I’d finish up the cruise post and give you a couple photos to look at.

In backwards order we arrived back in New Orleans on the Carnival Conquest early Sunday morning and were docked by the time we got up from bed. During the night during one of my several bathroom breaks I was up and peeked out the port to see the passing Louisiana towns along the Mississippi River.

As I mentioned previously it takes about 6-7 hours to cruise up the river to New Orleans. Kind of cool to get up in the night and have that as your scenery.

The huge and beautiful Carnival Magin

Reveille was early as we had to be out of our stateroom by 8:30 a.m. So we got cleaned up and had breakfast in the main dining room about 7:30 a.m. and came back to our room, finished our packing (our main suitcases were picked up for shore delivery Saturday night) and headed to the lounge to wait for our debarkation number (26) to be called.

It’s always fun to walk by the guest service desk on the last morning of the cruise and hear people arguing about their large onboard bill. “I don’t remember ordering three Mimosas at the bar last night?”

“If you would like to see your signature on the charge slips we will be happy to provide it for you,” the nice receptionist said.

Almost at the dock

They had a video playing of our cruise on the big screen and it was nearly two hours before we were called to leave the ship. It takes a while to debark 3,000 people one-at-a-time. We were in no hurry as our next adventure didn’t start until 5 p.m. in Mobile, Alabama which is only a two-hour drive from New Orleans.

Finally we checked off the ship, collected our luggage and headed to our roof top parking spot where we loaded our luggage (mostly full of dirty clothes) into the Tahoe and headed to Mobile.

We arrived in Mobile a little after 1 p.m. and checked into the Admiral Semmes Hotel, which is a beautiful and classic old establishment. Some of my shipmates were already here and we sat in the hospitality room and visited until the start of the business meeting at 1700 hours (5 p.m.).

I met a former Cogswell sailor that I served with who was attending his first reunion and later we went out to dinner with him and his wife. All in all a wonderful start to the reunion. By the way he’s aged a lot, glad I didn’t.

During our earlier sitting, we washed some clothes in the hotel laundry so we now have enough clean clothes to make it home to Michigan on Thursday.

Joan heading to her Salsa and Salsa class

On Saturday, our last full day on the cruise I took the “Behind The Fun” tour which is an inside look at the ship. Joan would prefer to have her fingernails pulled out one by one than see all the inner workings of a cruise ship so I went alone.

We toured the engine control room, the backstage of the theater, the crew’s living area, the food storage areas, the various galleys on the ship and my favorite, a tour of the bridge. Because of security concerns we had to go through a metal detector and surrender any cameras and cellphones before the start of the tour so I have no personal photos of the adventure. The ship did take a photo of us on the bow (not accessible to passengers normally and with the Captain on the bridge, but I’ll have to scan them and put them up when I get home.)

It was a great tour, lasted more than three hours and they gave me a free hat, so what a great day.

We again ate in the main dining room for dinner and then went back to our stateroom to complete our major packing as your luggage had to be picked up between 8-11 p.m. outside your stateroom door.

Joan tiene mucho Margaritas

We went to the family friendly comedy show in the Degas Lounge and then went back to get some sleep.

On Friday we went into Cozumel, but only Joan really went ashore. She signed up for a “Salsa and Salsa” class where she learned out to make varieties of salsa, learned some salsa dance moves and how to make a Margarita. I think she drank a few too, judging from the photo. The tour included “All you could drink Margaritas, and I think Joan drank all she could.

Joan was back early and glad of it as when sailing time came the line up to get back on the ship was down and around the end of the pier. They will leave you behind if you are not back on when it is time for the ship to leave, but I think everyone made it back.

We had to take on a pilot for the short trip in and out of Cozumel, but the pilot was only onboard for about 10 minutes each way. I took a picture of the “Piloto” boat, which means Pilot in Spanish and it is posted in a separate post below with some more cruise photos.

Joan said she is ready to whip up some mean salsa from our vegetable garden with the knowledge she picked up during her shore excursion.

This is a little abbreviated as we have to get ready to head out on a city tour here in Mobile. I will write more reflections on the tour and Navy reunion later.

More photos from our cruise

Another towel animal

This is the "Piloto" boat

Approaching Cozumel

Royal Caribbean's "Freedom of the Seas" (not the one that burned)

Approaching the dock next to the mammoth Carnival Magic ship

The line up for the late arriving "Magic" cruisers

The "Magic" sails into the sunset

If you look closely behind the long line waiting to get on the ship you will see the "Piloto" boat

A huge line waiting to get back on board from Cozumel

Everyone's aboard and we are gone

One more towel animal

Connected at sea, but not for long...Enjoy!

The New Orleans church (before service)

We are still at sea and no, it was not our ship that caught fire. This time Carnival was not involved and for that we are very, very thankful. We did feel sorry for those folks on the Royal Caribbean ship stranded in the Bahamas and remember that it was just a couple cruises previous to that one that some of our family was aboard that very ship out of Baltimore.

This will be the one and only post from our cruise time. I will post again (hopefully) on Sunday night after we arrive in Mobile for the rest of our Navy reunion trip.

So far we are still working on house money as this cruise was a result of our credit card points that resulted in pretty much a free cruise plus about $400 onboard credit. Love to spend other people’s money.

Leaving New Orleans

On Sunday we arose at the hotel in Slidell, got cleaned up and headed back to the First Church of the Nazarene in New Orleans. This is the same church that I made five truck driving trips down and back during the relief effort.

Perhaps the most memorable of the trips was the one that I made in March 2006. Our daughter-in-law was expecting her first child and it wasn’t due until after I got back. Joan predicted that my venture south would likely cause the child to arrive early. You can guess who was right.

Almost on cue as I pulled into southern Mississippi, about an hour out of New Orleans, my cellphone rang and it was Joan telling me that I was a grandfather again. Anxious to get home to see my new little granddaughter I pulled the truck up in front of the church, turned the keys over to the crew that was working there and told them I was going upstairs to a quiet room to take a nap.

Joan in the main dining room

They were to unload the truck, fill it with gas and then wake me after I had 6-8 hours sleep so I could begin the 20-hour drive back home. I had left Michigan on Friday night, arrived in New Orleans on Saturday morning, left New Orleans Saturday evening and was back home in Michigan by Sunday morning and visiting my granddaughter early Sunday afternoon. I went to bed and died after that.

Anyway, back to the church, Joan and I arrived at the church in the middle of Bible study and stayed to worship with the congregation at 11 a.m. We had planned to leave about noon to get to the ship, but the worship was such we just couldn’t leave. Pastor Gilmore’s message was inspiring and we are so glad we stayed.

We departed the church about 1 p.m. and made the short drive to the Port of New Orleans arriving and unloading our baggage about 1:15 p.m. We parked in the garage next to the ship and made our way through the boarding process and we were on board and in our room about 2:15 p.m.

Our cabin

Over the years (this is our 7^th cruise) we appreciate the changes the cruise line has made in the boarding process which makes it much easier and simpler that it was earlier. Much of the work is done online before you even arrive so there is little waiting once you are there.

As the ship departed New Orleans we spent about 90-minutes on deck watching the sights as we cruised leisurely down the Mississippi River. It take nearly six hours to navigate the inland waterway before you arrive at the Gulf of Mexico and trust me, we were long asleep by the time that happened.

The Carnival Conquest is another beautiful ship and we enjoyed the first night’s meal in the Monet Restaurant. I had linguini with Italian sausage and Joan had the Chicken al Grecque. For an appetizer I had a bowl of gazpacho and a Caesar Salad and Joan had Caesar Salad and a salmon appetizer that she really enjoyed.

Have to include a towel animal

On Monday we enjoyed a quiet day aboard ship. Having cruised before I knew that they might announce a back scene tour of the ship, which includes a trip to the bridge, engine room, galley, crew area, etc., but it always sells out quickly as they limit it to just about two dozen people. So I inquired first thing Monday at the excursion desk and they said, yes they would have the tour on Saturday on the last day at sea and that only 32 tickets were being sold. I snagged mine. They announced the tour about 10 a.m. and it was long gone by noon. Experience pays off once again.

I spent some time on deck reading my book “Fields of Honor,” a Civil War book by Edwin C. Bearss about the great battles of the War Between the States. Joan spent some time trying to dwindle down our onboard credit account at the floating slot machine parlor.

Winston our tour guide at the Croydon Plantation

It was “Elegant Night” on the cruise so I put on my suit and Joan her gown and we headed to dinner where she had lobster and I had prime rib. For an appetizer I tried “Alligator fritters,” which was really, really good. Joan had a Greek Farmer’s Salad. As always the service and food quality was wonderful.

Even before we went to dinner we sat in the lobby and listened to some good live music and then got a chance to meet and shake hands with the Master of the Vessel (we call it Captain in the Navy). Of course, this was the one time I forgot to have my camera with me.

We went to the early performance of “The Brits” which was live singing and dancing to the tunes of the Beatles, Bennie and the Jets, the Who and a bunch of other invaders from the 1960s.

After that we checked on the score of the Detroit Red Wing hockey game. At the time they were leading 2-1, but we learned on the 10:30 p.m. news that they lost 4-3, so I guess it’s all down to a Game 7 in Chicago Wednesday night. By the time I post this I will either be happy, or sad.

Joan with the plantation owner

On Monday and Tuesday I got up early went to the fitness center on the 11^th deck and got in a good workout both days. On my way back I picked Joan up a cup of coffee and then we went and had brunch in the Renoir Restaurant. We are being careful of what and how much we eat as a cruise can really throw a monkey wrench into a weight loss plan.

 

OK, so I’m sad. It is now Thursday and I caught the highlights (lowlights?) of Game 7 at the cruise ship sports bar, but I guess my consolation is that the Red Wings did a lot better than I thought they would.

Getting back on the ship in Montego Bay, Jamaica

Anyway back to the cruise. On Wednesday we arrived in Montego Bay, Jamaica about 8 a.m. and after breakfast Joan and I headed to our guided tour to the Croydon Plantation in the mountains above Montego Bay.

We really didn’t know what to expect, but it turned out to be an enjoyable tour, which included an interesting drive (translation: white knuckle, anxiety producing journey in a small bus hurtling along a narrow two-lane road with our driving taking his half of the road out of the middle.) But we made it up and back in one piece although I’m sure we all had a few more grey hairs after we got back to the ship.

The Plantation was very enjoyable and educational as we learned about and saw a great number of the agricultural products produced in Jamaica. One big surprise was that towards the end of the tour we were greeted by the owner of the plantation, who was a down to earth Jamaican native who talked to us about his vision and plans for the property, which he purchased back in 1980.

His original plan was to remove the massive bamboo growths from the acreage and replant it with pine trees (building wood is in short supply on the island and is imported). With a 30-year maturation date for his pine trees, he decided to plant other crops so that he would have a “weekly income.”

The marching band performs on the dock

He grows a wide variety of pineapple (previously I only thought there was one kind of pineapple – Dole) and we got to sample all six types that he grows on the property. He also grows coffee beans and a number of other local fruits, which we had a chance to sample.

The grounds of the property are impeccably kept and at the end of the tour we were treated to a traditional “Sunday Jamaican dinner” of jerk chicken, rice and beans and a green vegetable that looked a lot like spinach, but had a different name.

Our tour guides (we had one for the bus trip up and back and another for the plantation tour) were very interesting and we learned a great deal about Jamaican culture.

The country is desperately poor and you can see that in the buildings and number of people who seem to have no jobs or anything to do. Our tour guide said that the unemployment rate is officially reported at 15 percent, but the real numbers are more than 30 percent.

Joan at the sailaway from Jamaica

Gas is more than $6 (US) a gallon. The prices on the gas station are listed at $122 Jamaican dollars per liter, so you can see their dollar is not doing too well. Crime is high, but better than it was before the local police departments started getting help and training from US and Canadian police officials our guide said.

Everyone was very appreciative of our tourism and urged (make that begged) us to all come back soon. Tourism is the biggest economic factor in the country.

Back on the ship Joan and I did what we always do during port calls, we stood on the outside decks and watched as the drunk and tardy ship passengers struggled back to the ship, some of them with only moments to spare before they were left on the dock.

A local teenage band performed on the dock for donations and many of us wadded up bills and threw them down on the pier after they played the American National Anthem. Smart kids and I hope they collected a lot of money.

One thing good for me on a cruise is that compared to about 60 percent of the passengers I’m a pretty small guy. Not that I’m small but compared to this floating audition for “The Biggest Loser” I’m looking pretty fit.

It’s amazing to watch people who are clearly north of 400 pounds loading up plates (plural) with food at every meal and then trying to squash into chairs with arms so they can consume all this food. I’m guessing that by the time the ship arrives back in New Orleans the passengers collectively will leave the ship with an extra ton or three.

Joan and I have learned from previous cruises to moderate our eating. We eat lots of fruit (there is plenty of fresh fruit aboard) and we have a reasonable dinner and skip the chocolate buffet later in the evening. We usually do pretty well by the end of the cruise. I also make sure I walk at least four miles a day on the treadmill and jogging track on the ship.

The amount of drinking that goes on is pretty startling too. Sometime I can only imagine how huge the liquor locker is on this ship. I’m sure it is how the cruise ship makes most of its profit as the drinks are very expensive, but no one seems to care. Well, not until the last day when the purser slips the bill under their door.

Last night we ate in the main dining room again. This time I had a shark appetizer (very good) and the beef stronganoff. Joan had seafood newburg.

We spent part of the evening listening to our favorite live music group on the ship – Gentry – and then we retired early.

On Thursday, the ship pulled into the Port of Grand Cayman in the Cayman Islands, but Joan and I had already decided to stay aboard and skip the tours as we have been here previously and done the tours.

Turned out to be a good choice as it rained literally all day. We felt badly for the folks who had booked beach excursions as it would not have been a good day to sit out on a beach. The folks that opted for the snuba and scuba expeditions probably did a lot better. If you’re going to be wet it might as well be underwater looking at fish.

Thursday night was the second of two Elegant nights on the ship so we dressed up for dinner. Later we sat a listened to Gentry again. I had Chateaubriand (yum!) and Joan had a Greek dish that she likes in Greektown back home, but I’m not even going to try and spell it. It rhymes with cornucopia. It has pretty much everything I don’t like to eat in it.

I’m posting this on Friday while Joan is in Cozumel taking a Salsa cooking class. So I don’t know if she enjoyed it or not, but I’ll let you know Sunday when I post again from Mobile, Alabama. Hopefully she will take some nice photos there.

Internet rates on the ship are ridiculous so I’m putting this up and then getting off (75 cents a minute for Internet access). I'll put up more photos of the cruise Sunda night.