Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Infrastructure week. at last.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

I really should read my own blog.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Today’s GOP: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

You are here: Home / Photo Blogging / On The Road / On The Road

On The Road

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On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.

From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.

Submit Your Photos

Good Morning All,

This weekday feature is for Juicers who are on the road, travelling, etc. and wish to share notes, links, pictures, stories, etc. from their escapades. As the US mainland begins the end of the Earth day as we measure it, many of us rise to read about our friends and their transient locales.

So, please, speak up and share some of your adventures, observations, and sights as you explore, no matter where you are. By concentrating travel updates here, it’s easier for all to keep up-to-date on the adventures of our fellow Commentariat. And it makes finding some travel tips or ideas from 6 months ago so much easier to find…

Have at ’em, and have a safe day of travels!

 

Should you have any pictures (tasteful, relevant, etc….) you can email them to [email protected] or just use this nifty link to start an email: Start an Email to send a Picture to Post on Balloon Juice

Please hold on to your pictures for now as we’re about to launch a new submission form to improve this whole process. Thanks for your patience.

Today, From Mary G, a great story with pictures.  Thanks Mary – do send more!

Last week I took my first vacation in probably 12 or 15 years when my housemate, Karla, invited me to go on a Carnival Cruise with a large party of her relatives, representing four generations, and some other friends. The first picture is of our ship, Miracle. It left from Long Beach right next to the Queen Mary. I hadn’t seen the QM since right after it came to California and remember it being huge, but it was dwarfed by the cruise ship. I was going to pay extra for a single cabin, but she said no, they had a bunch of doubles all on the same corridor, and six of the younger members would triple up so that great-grandpa and I could both be solo. My handicapped-accessible cabin was huge, with room to store both a foldup manual wheelchair and a scooter, and a large bathroom full of bars to hold.

 

Our first stop was Cabo San Lucas, where there is no pier for a big ship, so you have to go ashore on these littler boats called tenders, and you must be able to walk to get into it and can only bring a folded wheelchair. When we got there, the bay was full of jet-skis and parasails and it looked like fun. I was doubtful about the tender, but the next morning the point was moot, since the remnants of a hurricane somewhere had arrived and the beaches were all closed and the sea was high. All the Carnival excursions were cancelled. Some of the family ventured out on the tender and took a glass-bottomed boat trip to Los Arcos, pictured, but they all were horribly seasick and I was glad to stay safe on the big boat. This rock formation is gorgeous.

 

I am probably a snob, because I wouldn’t have chosen this for myself, but I enjoyed it tremendously. The employees were beyond helpful and I spent my time on the adults-only deck looking at the ocean and listening to audiobooks and music and getting pampered in the spa. Every day the steward leaves a different towel animal in your cabin.  The food was mostly not great, except for the sit-down dinners, but there was always fresh fruit, and great hamburgers and omelets made to order.

 

We also stopped at Puerto Vallerta, where I did get off the ship, but didn’t go far. I saw a mall, two casinos, a WalMart, and a Sam’s Club, and then the curb cuts stopped and I went back on board for a facial. The last picture is me, on my scooter, with Karla and her parents, looking at the ocean. There were dolphins playing in the bow wave, but it was too crowded to get a good picture. The cruise passengers were thoroughly diverse, with nary a Maga hat in sight, yay Californians.

 

 

Just wonderful – thank you for sharing the pictures, but especially the story!

Folks, I’ve got a lot going on, so that’s it for today. Tomorrow’s post will be like today’s, but I’ll get to more substantial posts later in the week. We’re going to launch a form for submitting pictures, so please hold off until we that going, again, later this week.

Reader Interactions

25Comments

  1. 1.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Lovely story and wonderful photos, Mary G! Towel animals made me laugh, that rock formation made me gasp, and the photo of you and your friends made me smile. Thanks for a nice start to the day.

    (Well, not really a start — it’s 5:00 a.m. and I haven’t managed to fall asleep yet; have lain in the dark with thoughts and fears and despairs and hopes and plans all chasing each other around my brain like so many thought-hamsters. Am going to give it another try now. Maybe the dulcet tones of BBC announcers will do the trick.)

  2. 2.

    Peter H Desmond

    where can i submit “tag lines,” the way i know to describe the short sayings that appear at the top of the page when one first logs in? is there an easy link to it?

    thanks

  3. 3.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    Please hold on to your pictures for now as we’re about to launch a new submission form to improve this whole process.

    I’ve got a least 2 sets ready when the submission form is ready to go live. One old(Yosemite) and one new(Joshua Tree & the Milky Way).

  5. 5.

    raven

    Great shots, did you stop in Ensenada?
    I’d like to take one of those fishing trips where they go down to the Sea of Cortez for a couple of weeks.

  6. 6.

    Barbara

    What a great friend, and it sounds like the spirit of generosity has been transmitted across the generations.

  7. 7.

    OzarkHillbilly

    The corpse flower is blooming at the Missouri Botanical Garden. Just in case anybody is interested.

    ETA: Too late started yesterday and “most only stay in peak bloom from six to 12 hours,” I thought it was a little longer.

  8. 8.

    Manyakitty

    Glad to hear about the picture submission form. I’m preparing the report from my cruise to Key West and Havana, and wondered about that.

  10. 10.

    OzarkHillbilly

    In other travel related news: US teenager survives bear attack after waking to animal ‘crunching’ on his head

    The 19-year-old woke up at around 4am on Sunday to a “crunching sound” with his head inside the mouth of the bear, which was trying to pull him out of his sleeping bag as he slept outside at Glacier View Ranch 48 miles (77km) northwest of Denver, Colorado Parks and Wildlife spokeswoman Jennifer Churchill said.
    ….
    Black bears are not usually aggressive but have attacked several people in the western US in recent weeks.
    …..
    Black bears will defend their young and have been known to paw and bite tents with food inside. After the Colorado attack wildlife officers did not find any food that would have attracted the bear so they have set bear traps in the area and plan to continue a search with dogs on Monday.

    The bear’s behaviour was so atypical that any bear found in the traps in the next few days will likely be euthanised and officials will test later to see if it was the same bear involved in the attack using DNA evidence, Churchill said.

    All these black bear attacks are just another Chinese hoax.

  14. 14.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Another travel destination: America’s other Austin: city celebrates Spam’s 80th birthday

    America’s other Austin isn’t an artistic hub, but a meat-processing one. This small midwest city of 25,000, around 100 miles south of Minneapolis, is famous as the home of Spam. Eighty years ago this week, George A Hormel & Company – whose plant still hulks on the river’s east side – introduced its spiced meat in a can for a post-depression American eager to eat on the cheap.

    “The meat of many uses” went on to sell to roughly 30% of all US households, keep GIs on their feet and allegedly help win the second world war, as well as being immortalised by a certain British comedy sketch troupe.

    The pink paste has also been an uncanny barometer of American labour relations: the company brought in pioneering salary packages that anticipated New Deal benevolence and became embroiled in a bitter 1980s strike that caught national attention and ushered in the era of inequality.
    …
    Spam-related celebrations are already under way, centred around the Spam Museum that has just been moved on to Main Street just south of Mill Pond. The anniversary follows hard on Hormel’s 125th birthday last year.

  20. 20.

    Starfish

    @SiubhanDuinne: We were in a National Park, and the lady cleaning our room did this. I was so confused by it. There was a bear and a dog and some flowers, but I did not photograph them.

  21. 21.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    What a sweet, happy time you had! I’m glad you got to experience it.

  22. 22.

    Laura

    Way to go MaryG! So glad to hear that your getaway provided pampering for the body and soul. The ocean photo is stunning and the friends photo looks like everyone having a grand good time.

  25. 25.

    John

    Just want to note that there is something on BJ that makes my screens flicker badly. I blocked the video on the right and I still get flickering.

Comments are closed.