Back in Tucson

Back? Yes! We left on January 12, headed toward Los Angeles, boarded a cruise ship, and sailed to the Mexican Riviera. The trip was really great. Before the cruise even started, we drove up to Phoenix, visited IKEA, and stayed at a hotel in Goodyear. We drove on Saturday over to Quartzsite, where there is a gigantic RV and gem show every year for the last 2 weeks of January. We were only there a couple of hours, but we certainly walked past LOTS of stuff!

We drove on to Carson, CA, which is just north of Long Beach, near the San Pedro dock from which we were to set sail. At Carson, we looked in the Yellow Pages for a Presbyterian USA church. We found one right between Carson and San Pedro, at Wilmington, CA. The church was a Filipino church, though everyone spoke English. Great service, neat people, and we left there feeling loved and cared for.

And we arrived on time to get checked in for our cruise adventure. It could not have gone more smoothly, with the Royal Caribbean staff handling us and everyone else with phenomenal grace.

More cruise news tomorrow. Today we went to the best party ever at Harold and Kathy's. It was a 70th birthday celebration for both Harold and Mick. I made a chocolate-peanut-butter trifle, which was, if I may boast a bit, fabulous! This one contained chocolate cake, toffee peanuts, whipped cream, Reeses' cups, Hershey's syrup, and a chocolate/peanut butter sauce that I made with chocolate chips, cream, peanut butter, and a little corn syrup. This is the sort of dessert that dreams are made of.