Amazon & Carnival Explorer Cruise - Home

Wednesday, March 27

There was no rush to get up this morning as we wanted to visit my Dad on our way home.  He is 93 years old and in very bad health, and his health had gotten even worse during our cruise so we were fortunate we could stop and see him, and as it turned out it was our last visit with him.

Since my body was still on East Coast time, I couldn’t sleep in and was up before 8:00, but Val had no such trouble so I let her sleep on.  Janis had already left for work so I didn’t see her, but I did get a chance to talk to my brother for a while before he had to leave for work.  Val finally made her way downstairs fully rested and ready to hit the road so I started loading the car, but unfortunately we ran into a glitch.

We had left our car with my brother while we were gone and he had parked it in the street in front of his house.  I decided to drive it into his driveway to make it easier to load our luggage, but when I tried to start the car, there was nothing but clicks, the battery was dead.  Doug had driven it several times, but evidently that wasn’t enough.  I called the Auto Club and within a half hour they had arrived and given me a jump start and we were on our way.

We made our stop to see my dad which was very sad for both Val and I.  My dad has lived a long and good life, but he has had severe dementia for quite a while and over the last year it has escalated so it really was his time to go, but it is still hard to see, and left us both shaken and emotional when we left.  As we drove north we talked for a while about what a good life he and my mom had, and what great parents they were. 

After a while we were both getting hungry, we decided to stop at our favorite Mexican Restaurant, Los Arroyos in Camarillo.  After an excellent lunch, it was a straight drive home and we were there by 3:30.

It was great to be home and everything seems to be in good shape despite us being gone for almost two months.  We did some unpacking, but decided to leave everything else for tomorrow and just relaxed for the rest of the afternoon and evening.  The last two times I have come home from a long trip, I have turned on my computer and have had something fail, but this time it worked fine and I am sitting here tonight finishing up the blog.  All I have left to do is write up my final thoughts and then I can get to our photos and start publishing the blog.