San Diego Round 2

 Jen here to begin this next blog.

So, as you just read, we were in Los Angeles when we learned we wouldn’t get to go to San Francisco for the weekend.  It was terribly disappointing since we’d hoped to stay overnight with Becky and she had already acquired tickets for an outdoor concert of the Santa Rosa Symphony.  Sigh.  You probably remember that the first “leg” of the cruise finished at LA and the second began.  The ship had about 180 new passengers and as their first night on board started, the captain announced that we’d be heading to San Diego rather than to San Francisco.  The newbies had no idea that we had just come from San Diego, and were surprised when we mentioned this as a backtrack.  Not wanting to burst their bubbles or dampen the joy of their arrival (horror stories of airports and weather delays), we put on our best faces and helped the crew welcome them with excitement.  Of course, we were all ecstatic that the trip was continuing…no matter which direction.  The loudspeaker also assured us that this next leg of the trip to Hawaii and then to Tahiti was a definite “go.” Cheering could be heard everywhere.

I’ve had my eyes opened about yet one more Covid affect:  the cruise entertainment industry.  There was a once-smooth worldwide industry of sharing entertainers between cruise ships.  Singers, instrumentalists, comedians, etc. had easy transport, great lodging, and even better meals as they would disembark at one port and load up onto another ship perhaps the same day with as little as a suitcase.  This industry is jumpstarting, but I’m sure that the various vax requirements has muddied the smoothness.   We have had talented entertainers almost non-stop, though, and every single one of them has mentioned how grateful they are to perform in front of a live audience once again.  Our ship has its own string quartet, a foursome of singers and its own live band—all of whom are just now coming out of isolation as they had Covid.  We’re not immune here on this floating Utopia, but we feel well protected and safe as the news is filled with burgeoning Covid numbers everywhere.

A full sea day was needed to get us from Los Angelos to San Diego where The Midway aircraft carrier once again welcomed us to the pier.  Sharing this pier and just about a block further is San Diego’s version of a maritime museum: a network of five ships on the water arranged as if one was playing the Battleship game.  Since we had two full days in San Diego, we decided to go to the zoo for the first day and to the maritime museum on the second.  IN order to get to the zoo, we used Uber.  Now for some of you who are reading this, contacting Uber would be effortless as you already have it loaded on your phone, have an account lined up, and are aware of the GPS efficacy and the notification of the car type and even the name of the driver.  Huh.  I had Uber on my phone from a dozen years ago with no memory of my password; Jerry had never used Uber.  I am eternally grateful for the electronic expertise of my intrepid hubby.  We had a ride in record time once he figured it all out.  Our driver marveled at the quick transit—it was about 9 on Saturday morning and much of San Diego was still slumbering.  Some of you have visited the SD Zoo and can attest to its design and occupants.  We found many small families with little children already there pushing strollers and bribing with kettle corn and painted animal faces.  As the day progressed, dads carried stuffed koalas, moms wore tiger ears, and kids were sound asleep in wagons or carriers.  We marveled at the two baby giraffes and the baby hippo.  Our memory of the zoo from 40 years ago on our honeymoon was the joyful splashings of the polar bears.  This trip the two adolescents stayed out of the water, seemingly content to play follow-the-leader with their massive daddy.  We spent about five hours at the zoo, saw many animals we had never heard of, watched some cute babies, saw many endangered species, and had a very enjoyable day.  (Jerry is finishing this blog) Our favorite was the aardvark which was brought out for a close encounter.  They are so rare to see that one researcher spent his entire career studying them without seeing one in the wild.  The aardvark was kind of funny snuffling around the stage and eating live meal worms from his handlers.  We had an Uber back to the port drop us at a drug store so we could do the shopping we were supposed to do with Becky in San Fran, then we walked back to the ship.

Please note the picture that is not an animal.  This is showing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere from about year 1750.  The chart not shown goes back a couple thousand years showing the CO2 remaining in a fairly narrow band.  Please note the nearly straight up line from the industrial revolution until now.  There is no argument about the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere.  There is not much of an argument about what more CO2 in the atmosphere does (heats up the atmosphere).  There is no argument that humans continue to pump tons of CO2 into the atmosphere each year raising the parts per million exponentially.  Why is there an argument about whether global warming is happening, and whether it is caused by humans?