Selling Gold

Last week or so we received a card in the mail saying that a company was coming to our area and they would buy any gold, sterling silver, old hockey cards, old coins...that sort of thing.  The card also said they pay better than other companies...true or not...who knows????  Anyway I didn't have much time to sort through stuff but we did have some stuff hubby found with his metal detector a few years ago.  There was a broken up, squashed ring, a small bent up gold band and one earring and a couple other things.  We weren't busy Friday afternoon and that day the sale was stationed at the hotel in the local casino, so off we went.  We were told a couple of the things weren't gold, but the 2 rings and earrings were and they said they'd pay us $90 for them.  We hadn't expected that much so thought it was a good price, so we took it.  Went down to the casino and I won a 2 for 1 buffet (to be used at a later date), then we played the slots and I was up $10.  Hubby was down $15 or so but then played another machine and won enough that he was only down $2...not too shabby for a afternoon's entertainment!!!!  Now I'm going to be looking through some old coins to take the next time they're in town. You sometimes hear of people finding an old original painting in their attic.  Wouldn't it be nice to find a real treasure??? 

Blood Moon

We were camped at our park in Birch Bay and I managed to get these pictures of the Blood Moon/Eclipse of the moon.  I really had to zoom in on it so that's why it's blurry.  Overall, I thought it was pretty good for my little "aim and shoot" camera... Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of the full moon after the eclipse was finished, but the moon was really big and bright!!

 

Our Stateroom

Here are some pics of our stateroom.  We always book the lowest inside cabin as close to the center of the ship as possible...that way if the seas are rough, there's not so much "rocking and rolling" in our cabin.  Cabins are quite small, but I was amazed at the amount of closet and storage space and the safe was easy to program and use.  The room wasn't as yellow as the pictures indicate...the closet is a better image of the colour.  One of the channels on the TV was a "bridge cam" so we could see where the ship was going and what the weather was like.  Another station had the "report from the bridge" telling you the distance sailed from embarkation, or the last port, air temperature, sea temperature, sea condition (rough, moderate, slight, or calm)...all that sort of fun stuff.

Because this is Princess' 50th anniversary they had a TV station with all the re-runs of the "Love Boat" on it.  There were also TV stations with news and movies on them.

From San Francisco to Hawaii, Ensenada and back to San Francisco we travelled 5448.3 nautical miles = 6066.2 statute miles = 9769,3 kilometers.  From San Francisco to Vancouver is an additional 862.5 nautical miles.  We were on board the ship for 17 nights.

correction

It was the end of April that we were in San Francisco.

San Francisco

The end of May we flew to San Francisco and stayed 2 nights on Fisherman's Wharf then boarded the Star Princess and sailed for 5 days to Hawaii.  Stopped in 4 ports then sailed to Ensenada, Mexico, San Francisco then on to Vancouver.  Didn't think I'd enjoy SF because we'd been there a couple of times before, but it was really neat to stay in a hotel on Fishermen's Wharf and go out exploring.

The hotel had an area map on the wall and up on the ceiling.  It was handy to watch the news and look up where the places were.  It also had a really neat magnetic dart board....no holes in the walls!!!


It was also really neat watching the bakers make all the neat shapes of bread loaves...the teddy bears and alligator were the best!

                                                                                                                                                                                            

Spare Room

While we were putting in the new bathroom we decided to re-vamp the room next to it.  The previous owner had used it for a candle making room so we took down all the shelves and counters and made it into a spare bedroom.  There were 2 fluorescent lights in there that hummed and drove me crazy so one day we were at Costco and found an LED light fixture that could be hooked up to a dimmer switch so we got 2 of them, then went to Home Depot and got the dimmer switch and hubby installed them.  On full power they are soooo bright, but really nice when dimmed.  Since I also want to put my knitting machine in this room, the very bright lights will be wonderful for that!  We also put in a new wood floor...now we just have to move the rest of the bedroom suite in there!

On the right hand side of the first picture you can see the end of the hallway and B's workshop, which used to be the fellow's "train room".  It's working out really good as a work shop and there's a door on it and a really good dust collection system so the dust doesn't come into the other rooms!

New Bathroom

When we moved into this house there wasn't a bathroom downstairs.  It was a pain to be downstairs watching TV or playing pool and have to come upstairs when nature called....so we hired a contractor and got a bathroom put in.  We were going to have a full bathroom but couldn't justify the cost so opted for a "powder room" instead.  It turned out really good and it is so handy!!