Dinner on Day 21 was a choice of Beef Wellington in the Garden Cafe buffet, or whatever they have on the menu sit down restaurants.  We picked Manhattan, and had our third best meal of the trip.  Something about the waiter, his aides, food, talk, and length, plus a lot of Dewars White Label and Jack Daniels, plus Chardonnay, helped.  First a plate of Tostadas. I had a corn soup with Caesar Salad. The fried chicken was really good.  But the corn, mashed potatoes and biscuits added. My lowest walk day so far, only 1617 steps. Day 22.  We arrived in Miami. The city of Miami has a population of 6.14 million, but a core of 442,241, 70% Hispanic/Latin. 300 high rises, 61 exceeding 491 feet in height. The cruise port is the busiest in the world in both passenger traffic and cruise lines. Second most visited city/metropolitan area after New York City. Named after the Myaimi River. Only major U.S. city founded by a woman, Julia Tuttle, a wealthy local citrus grower from ...

I knew  Honolulu International Airport did not rank well  compared to the rest of the world, but just saw that it is ranked fourth from the bottom.  We are better than Philadelphia International Airport, Montreal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport, and St. Louis Lambert International Airport.  And that's good, for we were second worst in 2023, 2022 and 2020.  So that person to the left is wrong.  We are not the worst.  The best is John Wayne International Airport of Orange County. Started our journey in our usual Hawaiian Airline executive lounge.  But they refused to admit us, because ours were DOMESTIC business class ticket.  Were told to go to their other lounge, which had no food and only coffee and water.  This room was actually full.  Through negotiations, the person at the desk gave us two premier coupons to go back to their better lounge.  A few photos showing beer, wine, minestrone soup, pork sandwich, etc. N...

The story of the day is Hurricane Milton, now a Category 4 at 145 MPH, with a track that has moved further south and the eye projected to make landfall just south of Sarasota.  Good news for Tampa, which is 73 miles north.  Milton will crash into Florida as a Category 4, and is huge, so a lot of problems can still be expected in Tampa Bay with storm surge.  If the eye had crossed into the state just north of Tampa, the damage would have been catastrophic.  Milton is a fast-moving storm, currently at 17 MPH, so as bad as the rainfall will be over Florida, again, a blessing.  The eye will make landfall around 10PM EDT today, and will move into the Atlantic Ocean north of Palm Bay Thursday morning. My first trip to Seattle was in June of 1962 just after I graduated from Stanford University.  Caught a bus. Was called the  Century 21 Exposition .  Also the Seattle World's Fair.  10 million joined me on a six-month run.  My first. These a...