Scrapbooking Cruise

I went on a scrapbooking cruise with my sis-in-law, Tresa, earlier this month and had a blast. Tresa has been on about 7 previous cruises and was an old hat for all the tips of cruising. This being my first, I overpacked clothes, overate, definitely overpacked scrapbooking stuff, thereby making my luggage overly heavy. Somehow it was harder packing it all back up than it was originally (funny how that works). I tried "power sorting" before I packed, but to no avail, I ran out of time (we had only been planning this for about 6 months). So I ended up taking more than I needed, which made my "Big Bertha" rolling cart very heavy. Anyway, Tresa and I drove her car to San Diego to catch the boat, which was an all-day drive (whoowee).

We had a blast. We had a 5-day cruise to Mexico, with stops at Cabo San Lucas and Ensenada. We met some fun n'crazy scrapbooking buddies (Colleen, Dana, Pam and Cookie), there were about 30 or so that were in our group of scrapbookers. I put my ear patch on about 4 hours before we left San Diego, and at dinner time started feeling a little woozy. Someone at dinner asked me if I got seasick, and I told her I had a patch on, just as I touched the back of my ear, and discovered it had fallen off. Well, no wonder I felt sick...so I put another one on after dinner, and all was well the next day after I slept off the sick feeling. So in Cabo on Monday we saw the sights. So many booths with all the same stuff; beautiful sterling silver jewelry, some ceramics, clothing, refrigerator magnets, etc. Every booth had the same type of stuff. One guy actually said "Come in my shop, I will rip you off just as good as the others." We laughed. We met up with Colleen and Dana and had a drink with them on a sidewalk bar and watched the peeps go by. Had a picture taken with lizards on my head and shoulder (they were cute) and collected some free jewelry from a couple of shops that cater to the cruise crowds. Got plenty of pictures of the local sights, and headed back the boat, to scrap some more, visit some more, eat some more, discover some more.

In Ensenada we got off the boat and boarded a bus to take us to town. Once we got off the bus, we rounded a corner and were confronted with probably 15 militia with guns. They looked like they were guarding something, but we just walked on by (Tresa got a photo from the other side of the street) and wandered into the shops. Same kind of shops, same kind of jewelry. But we found this one shop that had original artwork by a lady who was 4th generation of ladies that created this type of art picture from a copper plate where she engraved her design, then painted it, then pressed it onto damp paper, and it imprinted a beautiful picture. She then framed and sold them. They were georgeous, so Ms. T did her duty to support this artist. We then went to lunch at Los Amigos and shared fish tacos (yum), nachos, and the most heavenly Mango Margueritas I have ever tasted. They were probably 16 oz. and wonderful. Then we mozied back to the ship. That night we had dinner then drinks with all our fellow scrapbookers, and exchanged email addresses. Overall we had a great time.

I heard one of our fellow scrapbookers (Cookie) is in charge of organizing the next cruise, which T and I might consider. Maybe we can make it a regular thing. At least it was nice taking a vacation with Tresa, we both love scrapbooking, and it is nice to be with someone you like...sure makes the memories much better!