Brief!  But I did get a workout in nearly every day.  I was on a Royal
Caribbean cruise and they had a very different running track than the
Carnival Cruise I was on last year.  Last year the track was way up high
in the wind and a pretty short circuit, like 8 laps for a mile and
downwind you were being blown and upwind you were fighting wind.

This one was the entire way around deck 7.  But they had puzzling signs
up and ropes across it saying you could only run after 10 am, as if most
runners prefer to wait until the middle of the day to run in the hot
sun!  Add to that the fact that the port side was considered the smoking
section for the main lounge and you've got a running track that is
covered with ropes across it AND smokers.  Hmmmm.  I ran anyway.

I got in a couple of dumbbell workouts too.  I tried using a swiss ball
but all the swiss balls they had were seriously under-inflated.  I ended
up getting the sense that absolutely no one had ever attempted to
exercise on their ship before.

The food was okay.  Not good and certainly not great.  In fact, every
time I heard someone exclaim how good the food was I just wondered how
awful must their cooking be.  For example, they had a mozzarella and
tomato salad that was made with mushy flavorless winter tomatoes.  I
just couldn't figure out what the point was of having that on the menu
at all if you didn't have good tomatoes.  I'm not much of a foodie but I
found much to be distainful about in nearly every meal.  I suspect that
my years of dieting eating mostly fresh foods has changed my palate.

In contrast to the ship, we ate lunch at a restaurant on Key West and it
stands out as one of the best meals I've ever had.  It was at the Conch
Republic Seafood Company on the HarborWalk.  A local had referred us to
it and it was absolutely perfect.  I had a salad with blackened tuna
that was out of this world: the dressing was light and delicious, the
tuna was cooked perfectly, the greens were fresh and flavorful... and we
had a stuffed mushroom dish as an appetizer that was far and away the
BEST crab-stuffed mushrooms I'd ever had.  Then we had key lime pie for
dessert and - shockingly - it had real creme fraiche, tart limes,
absolutely no corn syrup and it wasn't overly sweet.  I think the
filling must have been tapioca rather than corn starch, too.  It was the
absolute best key lime pie of our trip and I made it a bit of a project
to taste a lot of key lime pie.  :-)

To continue my "restaurant critic" theme, I had to fight tooth and nail
not to get fried food with every meal when we got off the ship.  I was
visiting my in-laws who treated us to dinner nearly every night.  My FIL
likes to order "family style" which means fried fish, french fries, and
mayo-encrusted cole slaw for all.  I caused a bit of tension at one meal
when I insisted that I get a tuna platter (i.e., a chunk of tuna on a
salad.)  No, I don't have a huge thing for tuna, it just turns out that
tuna from a can is one of the safe things to eat in the deep south!
(Yes, it was oil packed tuna, duh.)  I tried to get a tuna salad
sandwich at one point but it turned out to be a mayo-smear on potato
bread with a smidgeon of tuna mixed with the mayo.  Sigh.  I really hate
eating in the south!

Our favorite part of the trip was bike riding around Key West.  The
wide, padded velo seats were comfortable, the wide-tired bikes handles
well in the sometimes-sandy paths, and the flat island was perfect for
biking.  I had a great time on our tour.  We had two beach days in the
Bahamas, too, and I came home with a nice tan and a renewed appreciation
for life and cheap rum.  :-)

Oh, and a weird thing happened with the cruise pictures.  We look
younger this year than last year and WAY younger than two years ago.  My
MIL had a picture from our formal night from last year and we replaced
it with one from this year because we looked so much better!  (Who ages
two years and looks younger?!?)  I wore all size 14 clothes (though they
are noticeably tight this week!) and felt svelte compared to the
lumbering masses of tourists I was with.

If you're still reading this far, I have one more point to add.  We flew
home on Sunday and I didn't work out that day.  On Monday I had plenty
of opportunity to workout but I just laid around reading a book.  I
tried to interest myself in going to the gym but nada, nope, not gunna
happen.  I worried a bit about my lack of motivation.  It just disappeared.

But this morning (Tuesday) I woke up and had a full schedule in front of
me and managed to get 20 minutes on the NordicTrack before my shower.
Phew.  I thought I had lost my dedication for a minute there.  It scared
me how easily it could get lost.  I resolved to come back here last
night, though, and I think that got me back in gear this morning.

Dally