Basking in Memories

It all started with this....

I have collected coffee mugs from our travels through the years. I'm sooo glad that was my souvenir of choice!  This one that I selected for my coffee this morning says "Coral Princess Inaugural Season."  I couldn't remember which cruise it was, so I turned here...

and here...

Now this is almost embarrassingly over the top O.C.D., but I promise it's my only extreme behavior!  I have 33 of those photo albums, one or sometimes two from each cruise Jack and I took together, and some from our land trips.  The first thing I did when we got home was get to work on the trip album!  The folders contain memorabilia from the trip, including all daily schedules.  Therefore...I can reminisce with great detail, and that's what I've been doing this morning.

This trip on the Coral Princess in 2003 was primarily a Panama Canal cruise.  It was not only new, it was a beauty of a ship.  I called it "the ship with blue eyes."

Looking back this morning, there are a couple of things about this cruise that make it particularly memorable in hindsight.  We always requested a "table for two by the windows," even before Jack was diagnosed with Alzheimer's.  Here we are.  It would seem we got our wish.

However, there is a drawback to this table for two.  See the glasses in the right hand corner?  Well...that's the corner of another table for two which is very close to ours, making this virtually a table for four!  See?

Although this is just September of 2003, only about three years after Jack's diagnosis, he was already having enough memory problems that he could not remember a thing Frank and Josephine had told him the previous nights.  That gave me the job of attempting to cover for him, defeating the purpose of the table just for us!  Not a major problem--but a reminder to me this morning of the progression of the illness.

Another memorable event is surprising in the other direction.  We liked to take pictures of each other on our balcony when the ship was in a port.  Here is Jack's picture of me.

And here is my picture of him.

The amazing thing about this is that first, Jack was still able to go down to the pier and back to our stateroom by himself.  Second, you will notice that he zoomed in on me (this was actually his second shot.)  Not too many trips later he was unable to take my picture at all.

I must include this shot of us in Puntarenas, Costa Rica, with the beautiful Coral Princess in the background.  We had to tip a guy in the shoreside market to take it for us!

Last, here is a picture of my "pack mule," I lovingly called him.  This was a two week cruise, and we were the best dressed people on the ship!  (Or if we weren't, we certainly should have been!)  Don't you know Jack would have been relieved when the airlines began limiting checked bags?!  But he was always good natured about my excess baggage!

Oh, my!  What wonderful memories.  Thank you, Lord, for enabling us to see the world together.