It had been several years (3) since Sharon and I had been on an anniversary trip. All our vacations and trips can be found on this blog at Vacations. Several cruise companies had been running some specials. Matt and Ashly love to cruise as does my sister. Miss Sharon and I said what the heck, let’s try one. We live 4.5 hours from Galveston, so we decided on a Royal Caribbean cruise to Cozumel, Gand Cayman, and Jamaica. I was afraid I would feel stuck on the ship with 4,300 of my closest friends. So we booked excursions for every port. I was a little torn if I was going to take a DSLR or just go with my trusty iPhone. Ended up taking a DSLR and a tripod only because we booked a trip to Chichen iIza to see one of the 8th wonders of the world.
Sharon does not travel well. She gets car sick so we were worried going in. By day two she was so sick she got to see the ship’s doctor even though she had patches and sea bands.
Needless to say she missed the first port of call. So I went solo to Chichen Itza.
I felt bad that Sharon miss the excursion, so I bought her a local hand made silver necklace and earrings.
Didn’t take the DSRL off the boat the rest of the trip. Sharon was a new person by the time I got back to the boat and was up for the next excursion. A day of shopping in the Caymen’s. We had a wonderful lunch at Jimmy Buffets, after a morning of diamond shopping. Sharon scored a new wedding mount and two new wedding bands. I was worried about them switching out our diamond. They made the mount, and I watched them like a hawk mount our diamond. It has it GIA number lasered onto the griddle, and I was able to verify it was still our stone.
New Mount
A comparison shot of her old mount and her new mount.
All in all we had a great trip but we are not cruisers, and I am guessing this was our first and last cruise. I needed to get this post out so I could get onto the owls I have been shooting.
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Life is good and I am blessed.
Kent
So just in front of the tree line where the above photo was taken in spring of 2013, I found my first decent sized whitetail buck. As soon as I pulled over and broke out the big glass instant deer jam. Big glass, brings big crowds. I felt bad for giving his resting place away, as after I took my photo there were several camera phones headed into the flied. Not a great capture but I like the purple hue of the grass he is hiding in.
Sharon still not feeling great only checked out a couple of the building / cabins. Traffic was bad for a Thursday and the loop took about an hour. We had just a little usable light left and Sharon said I could start another loop and use Spark’s lane.
The ranger thanked me, and asked me if I had seen any wild life. I told him nothing worth photographing and that I was interested in bears, river otter, and bobcats. He told me where a bear was and has been for the past 5 days. On the back side of the loop I saw a smoke phase or leucistic turkey. no good place to stop and raining harder so no photo proof.
Back to the hotel to check on Sharon and get some breakfast. She was up, dressed and feeling much better. Ate some breakfast and we were off to explore the parkway shops. Then off to check on the bear. I was really hoping he would be down out of the tree so Sharon could see him. When I got to the tree, the traffic was backed up forever and knew he was still in the area. As soon as we found a safe pull off to park we starting walking towards the front of the stopped cars. He was on the ground and he wanted to get back to his nut tree but cars and people were in his way. I sat up to photograph him when some idiot went into the woods and cut off his escape route. That turned him straight towards me and Sharon. The bear stopped just before I was ready to start making some noise and waving my tripod around. Perfect photo op a full frame black bear photo that made eye contact with Miss Sharon.
On the way back we stopped at the famous sign to get our picture taken. I was still packing the big glass when another couple agreed to take out photo if I would take theirs.
Then we headed back Roaring Motor Fork. Showed Sharon the cabins, saw the leucistic turkey again, too much traffic to stop for photos. Showed her the tree I hit back in 2012 when we found all the morel mushrooms. He favorite part was the babbling creek that runs down the entire backside of the loop. I am not a landscape photographer, but did take a tripod and a wide angle lens, so I setup in the rain to try my hand at a cascade photo. I thought it turned out pretty good and one of Sharon’s favorite from the trip.
That night we ate at 
Had to put the big rig away and get my second body paired with the 100-400 to fit a full body shot in. He was tired and didn’t do much, he just laid down and never bugled. He was a royal buck 6 X 6. 
I wondered if it was the same 6X6 I saw in the same meadow in 2014 shown below.
Looped the interstate around back to Pigeon Forge and ate at Farm Kitchen.
They start lining people up 30 minutes before they let you board the boats. They check your ticket three different times before you finally get to board. One of the other guys I was traveling with did the tour on Sunday and he was telling me all about the plant life and the succulents that grow on Alcatraz. I always thought San Fran is cold and rainy but there were cactus and succulents everywhere. 
Finally time to board and the tours were running three boats that day. I would guess each boat took 300 people at $38.50 a head every 30 minutes. That is a lot of money. Alcatraz is part of the Golden Gate Bridge National Park.
It was a little foggy but could still see the Golden Gate Bridge on the ride out.
One of the guard towers
One of the park rangers giving the do’s and don’ts and where to get your audio tour headsets.
One of the original cannons from the military fort.
Part of the old mission style fort.
The buildings are showing their age from the weather and salt air. It looks like they had started to repaint the cell block and stopped.
The walk up the hill was not bad, but is comprised of a set of switch back ramps. There is a tram for the handicapped and people who could not make the trek. The tour starts in the cell block building.
The tour starts where the new prisoners would begin, in the showers and then to processing to get their clothes and bedding.
The tour is narrated by four previous correctional officers and inmates.
The incoming inmates were then paraded nude down “Broadway.”
The cells were super small. 7 foot by 9 foot by 7foot.
If inmates were on good behavior they got time in the yard. 
Some of the more famous inmates, include Al Capone and the Bird Man.
Cell block D was for the worst of the worse and also contained the six cells where all light could be shutout. “The Hole”
The prison library,
Guns and Keys were never allowed in the cell block. They were kept on either end of the block called the Gun Gallery. In 1946 inmates distracted a guard and over powered him, and one inmate climbed the gun gallery to the top and used a homemade bar spreader made in the local machine shop to spread the bars, and over took the guard with keys and a gun. They held the prison for 3 days. The photo below in from the explosion of hand grenades that were dropped by the army. Several inmates and 3 guards died during these 3 days.
C/D street
There were only 4 visitation booths.
Guard uniform, the inmates called them red ties.
Great view of San Francisco from the warden house end of the island.
The Golden Gate Bridge from the other end of the island.
The lighthouse
The Administration Building
What is left of the Warden’s house. Only 4 different men served as warden at Alcatraz.
I didn’t take any DSLR equipment on this trip . Everything was shot and documented with my new iPhone XS Max. I am impressed with the portrait settings as used in this selfie.
The escape. Two adjoining cells used spoons from the kitchen to tunnel through the concrete.
They have opened up a panel in the wall to show the space in between the cells where the inmates climbed the pipes to get out.
Not all tours every day do the “Sounds of the Slammer”. I was lucky enough to get to be there during this demo.
So my last post before this was almost 1 year ago. I came close to not renewing my blog this year. I made a promise to myself I would try to get back to doing more photography and posting more. So time will tell.
Headed up to Page Arizona for the night.
At first I thought Sharon was just being a good sport. But about 10 minutes into the tour she was getting incredible shots with her iPhone. The first 30 minutes in the canyon was super nice as we had the canyon to just us 5 photographers and Sharon. Then the madness came and 250 to 300 people flooded in. I messed up a couple camera settings about half way through and got frustrated. 
All in all, I am super happy with my results, but a little bummed. The light beams only happen during the summer. All the more reason to be going back in June to capture the light beams and also do the night tour while the Milkyway is over the canyon. 
So I over came my fear to get the money shot. I hope after that build up my humble offering isn’t a let down.
I felt amazing to be back in the field with a camera in my hand, We both truly enjoyed this trip!