Another hurdle passed on the road to Round The World:  CIBT returned our brand new 52 page passports with visas for China, India and Brazil.  Oceania also sent us forms for Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia and Australia that we need to fill out before we board.  And have lots of passport photos to go with them.  And once we get going, there are a bunch of other countries that we'll handle as we get to them.  Good thing we got the fat passports with lots of room for visas.

Thankfully, Oceania included the visa costs in the RTW package.

Staples just called.  They have finished printing the 500 page briefing book that Cynthia has researched over the last 6 months.  We will be prepared, at least as measured by the volume of paper that we take along.

We've also gotten our shots and prescriptions.  Yellow fever (only took 4 trips to the clinic to get the proper paperwork), Hepatitis A, Polio, Typhoid, Malaria and seasickness.

We've booked about 60 ship's excursions, along with 5 overnight trips away from the boat.  We'll get to schedule our specialty restaurant visits early in November.  By my count there are 76 sea days and 104 port days at 91 unique ports.  We've chosen ship's tours where we want the security, guarantee of getting back to the boat on time, and they are going where we want to go.  We have maps and walking tours for the ones we do on our own in an attempt to see everything we can.  Places like Hong Kong and Sydney we'll do entirely on our own, with the help of the local Hop On Hop Off tour bus.  We have bus schedules and routes.  We have ferry schedules.  We have 500 pages of notes.

We have T-Mobile phones that should work in about 2/3 of the places we visit.  Maps.me provides maps and routing without a data connection.  We have Magellan Triton handheld GPS units and have done maps for every port and excursion.  We have about 600 waypoints or points of interest added to GPS.  We've even marked MacDonald's in many ports (we'll say that's because Mac's usually has good WiFi, but after months of Insignia's food we may crave a Big Mac.)

Here's the map of our trip.  Oceania's Insignia is the vessel.  Departs Miami on Jan 4, 2016 and returns there on July 1.  Unfortunately we're traveling the wrong way around the globe, so we'll have 24 days of 23 hours, and one day added in crossing the Date Line.  I'd rather do it the other way, but then I'm not driving the boat.

Around the world cruise

More to come as the time nears.  Just redid the blog layout to make it more user-friendly.  I hope.

Tues - Thurs 9/30 - 10/2  Tucson

Up early for the sunrise.  From the rim right outside our room.  Walked down to the Lookout studio and Kolb studio and the mules gearing up for the morning ride to Plateau Point.   A short walk down the Bright Angel trail was enough.  Lots of people had done rim to rim walks the previous day.  A mere twenty three miles with a five thousand foot elevation loss and gain.  Maybe next  year.

In the San Francisco mountains on our way to Tucson we continued with the theme of this years travels.  A bear wandered across the road in front of us and went into the woods.

On Weds we toured Tucson.  First stop was the Mission San Xavier del Bac, more than 300 years old.

Next up was the Pima Air & Space Museum, much less than 300 years old.  But full of neat planes.

Thursday was the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum.  Had breakfast (and lunch) at Beyond Bread, a small chain of bakery/eatery places in Tucson.  The one we ate at on Ina at Oracle, is in the shopping center where Gabby Giffords was shot. 

The museum is full of desert animals and plants.  Very different from our native east coast.

 Parrot

 Coyote

Mountain Lion -- Puma

 
 Hidden Mickey

Javelina

Cholla

Grey Fox

Bobcat, not very active

 Otter

 Hummingbird

 Female Harris Hawk

 Male -- smaller, about 2/3 size

Mon Sept 29 Grand Canyon

When planning the trip we added the Grand Canyon late.  We had originally planned to leave from Sequoia and drive back to Chapel Hill, I40 all the way.  But passing by that close I just had to stop at GRCA.  So off we went.

The road out of TwenyNinePalms was straight -- little left-right deviation, but a lot more up -down.

The Mojave desert looked pretty green.  Ranger at JOTR told us there had been a big rain a couple of weeks ago, and that probably had something to do with it.  Lots of dirt across the roads where the water had rushed across.

Any idea what this is?  Nice long staircase to get to it.  Wasn't a tourist thing -- no signs out front.

We did drive along part of historic Route 66, and then arrived at the Canyon. 

This stone was placed by a CCC mason in the '20s to woo a waitress at the El Tovar hotel.  No idea if it worked, but it looks cool.

C was able to change our reservation at the Maswick into a Rim View room at the Thunderbird at the last minute.  That meant we could enjoy the sunset right outside our room.