KBLovedDisney
Well-Known Member
Have you ever toured a paper mill? Smells like a happy skunk just dined on some rotten vegetables and had some happy little gas there.
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The Chit Chat Chit Chat Thread
- Thread starter The Mom
- Start date
Goofyernmost
Well-Known Member
As a teenager I remember traveling though Rumford, Maine. They had a huge paper mill there and the small in the air was awful. I believe they found a way to clean that up now, but, before.... Wow! The small city I grew up in also had a paper mill, but, it made wax paper if I remember right. It did have an odor, but, it wasn't all that offensive. What was offensive is that they dumped their waste in Lake Champlain right near the municipal beach. There was a massive clean up required to keep the beach open.
MySmallWorldof4
Well-Known Member
No construction going on right now in the southern part.
MySmallWorldof4
Well-Known Member
NJ DevilsThat’s creepy.
Ours kills children.
View attachment 353123
Jersey Devil - Wikipedia
en.m.wikipedia.org
Of course, they teach us about this in grammar school.
MySmallWorldof4
Well-Known Member
Yes, went to Yellowstone, Fort Laramie, Cody, and other places. Saw the Buffalo Bill museum.
MySmallWorldof4
Well-Known Member
Dh informed me that we may get 1-3 inches of snow overnight tonight. We need to ban the groundhog.
MySmallWorldof4
Well-Known Member
Best of luck! Sounds promising.
Rista1313
Well-Known Member
Dh informed me that we may get 1-3 inches of snow overnight tonight. We need to ban the groundhog.
Old Phil needs to retire...!
12in12
Well-Known Member
You really make it sound attractive.
KBLovedDisney
Well-Known Member
My inner hippie is ultra loud today. Went all Bob Ross there.You really make it sound attractive.
93boomer
Premium Member
Oh noo! @figmentfan423 needs to take care of this once and for all! Please Figgy!! Set that trap out now!Dh informed me that we may get 1-3 inches of snow overnight tonight. We need to ban the groundhog.
donaldtoo
Well-Known Member
Trip Report Part 11:
St. Maarten
Before we were getting closed (the day before) we rushed to the tours area to try to get one of the BUS tours that go around the island so my sister and her sons would get to see what the city as to offer.
but the horror!
all was sold out!
the only available was one of these "accessible" minivans for people with disabilities or mobility issues.
So we decided to get that, then the classic moans of "arggh no money, etc..etc.." my mom and I paid for their trip, problem solved.
Then my mom and I went to the mini tour of the island plus the submarine. As we were not a fan of the other tours that are mostly active, more boats or jetskis or more shopping crap
So .. the next day we got up kinda early.. the ship arrived at around 8 am and when we finished eating, we were already approaching and getting into the pier.
The ship was surrounded by ships this time.
View attachment 351896
On our left, it was the first Viking Ocean cruise ship, the Viking Sea.
On our right, it was full with the big Royal Princess, then the P&O Azura, then the Aida Diva which arrived later on...
View attachment 351888
First a Panorama of the Phillipsburg bay.
View attachment 351893
Some of the ships...
View attachment 351894
Then the Allure of the Seas and the Viking Ocean.
Then one of the beach where we arrived to get to the submarine.
View attachment 351889
The trip itself wasnt very eventful, we woke up, went to eat our pancakes, etc.. at Windjammer.
Then once we successfully arrived and the doors opened, we went downstairs to get in line for our number of tour.
Thankfully every area was very well positioned and the signs visible. We found our group rather easily.
Then once the time was up and the counting, we moved from the pier into the Sint Maarten bus section and we entered a tall.
Now the thing is.. we got the MOST HILARIOUS AND SASSY Tour lady.
She was constantly joking around and throwing real sass to his exhusband (the driver lol) and telling everyone she's the boss in the bus.
It was so funny and made lot of expressions, think of her as a very large lady with dreadlocks teacher and we were the students.
Anyway, the tour went in a quick way from the french side first, doing a mini tour of all the place thru the road, we had no stops until the beach where the submarine/boat was and then to Marigot for shopping mementos and stuff.
Unlike the other tours which stop at various places, including L'Orient Beach.. a lot of the places were also cut because they were unavailable thanks to the hurricane damage.
It was pretty sad but the visuals of the damage were still clearly around. Full of houses, hotels and restaurants still demolished or severely damaged. The heaviest hit seemed to be in the popular zones of the french side. With Marigot losing huge chunks of beach properties AND even full blown bridges.
View attachment 351897
On the submarinebeach area, there were only 6 restaurants operating out of the 20+ (I think she said 30?) and a lot of buildings were barely started to get fixed in this area. so it was yeah, pretty bad.
The submarine itself was pretty simple, its a medium sized (small yatch) sized boat, around 6-8 meters long, which had a small pressure hatch with stairs which leads down the lower part of the boat, which is full of glass on both sides, and seats that you set up after entering. They had AC on that made things very tolerable temps wise.. And you then advanced towards the reef and protected area.
Inside you could see a ton of fish in the rocky area.. then a scuba dude would go down and feed the fishes, causing a huge flurry of fish go around the windows. Also the windows had a big increment , like a magnifying glass or loupe. so you could see the details.
By the time the tour was ending, we passed the "grassy" area which was full of algae and there were a few turtles (pretty big) laying down and eating grass.
View attachment 351903
Once back up (the whole thing was like 1 hour and half).
We took the bus again and went towards Marigot, the interesting part was the huge monstrous clouds gathering on the french side of the island (towards the L'orient beach). It looked like it was going to rain hard.
But despite very strong winds on the first minutes, it barely chipped some tiny amounts of rain.
Which was hilarious as we were shopping, buying some stuff to gift our family back home.. and then everyone was scattering to cover their products, we went running back to the bus, where the tour lady asked if we went to the "world famous public Marigot restroom"... ??? XD
After that, we went the fastest way out of Marigot, as some of the main bridges were taken down by the hurricane and were still not available.
After that we went towards Philipsburg. Where you could drop off to make shopping or eat.
So we went down to eat something and pass the time. as We still had 3 hours left before we had to embark. And also the other problem was.. NOONE OF OUR PHONES WORKED.
It seems Marigot and Phillipsburg lost their North America compatible network signals and were using foreing (EURO?) and noone of our cellphones could get signal at all ( I had signal last time I was there if I remember correctly).
So we were wondering how we would find each other (remember I was with my mom and my sister with her sons on the other tour).
View attachment 351911
Anyway we had some food at the local restaurant by the entrance of the bay beach zone.. and we then decided to walk back.
The differences in Phillipsburg were clear as day.
When we entered the bay via the BUS from the opposite side of where the pier was.. one of the famous hotels made of wood.. was completely demolished.. and a ton of houses were lacking roof or severely damaged.
Also the Marina area was completely new and lacking all the vegetation that made the zone special.
View attachment 351912
Continued in Part 12
Your tour guide very much reminds me of the tour guide we had in Cozumel on our first cruise, Sylvia!!!
She was hilarious, too...
She kept reminding us to make sure to pronounce her name correctly: Seeeeeeelvia, and pointed out that she had a beautiful "taco body"...!!!!!
We even ran into her again on Playa Uvas during our last cruise when we were on a different excursion...absolutely wonderful lady...!!!!!
Cesar R M
Well-Known Member
Trip Report Part 13:
San Juan PR
After getting a nice sleep, we woke up fairly early as our Cruise arrived at 6:45am to the San Juan's pier.
And we had booked a private tour from Carlos and Carlitos. Who we had traveled before and had very good service.
So we went wild on the breakfast while we enjoyed the view as we approached old San Juan.
Thank goodness we arrived early because the maneuvers to settle down the giant Oasis class took quite a bit of time. And last time we had to wait additional time because the big Carnival Magic was about to dock right after us.
It still took around 40 minutes to finally open the doors. Our tour guy was already waiting and worried because we forgot to analyze the difference of hours between the ships's local time AND Puerto Rico.
What was funnier is.. that he forgot which ship we were on.. and when we were finally going out.. there were 3 ships docked already on the old San Juan's pier (and 4 others in the piers around the small airport)
We found our guy waiting for us exactly in the place we agreed to.
He also told us that its a nightmare to be in San Juan's center area because of the festival that was going to happen tonight. So everything was getting closed with barriers and they would be completely stopping the traffic to anything but Taxis and Buses.
So we immediately went to take our trip around San Juan.
It was good because while we took the usual route.. we visited more things that were closed down when we visited last time.
Like some Museums.
So we agreed on a different plan to use as much hours as possible.
Our tour was going to be 4 hours, with an additional hour for us alone before having to board the ship.
So we would be going around San Juan, Old San Juan, New San Juan and not so new San Juan to check all around the place before returning and getting dropped at the Fort of Castillo de San Cristobal.
The US Embassy in San Juan
So we took off near the piers and we moved towards the old US embassy building then towards the famous PASEO DE LA PRINCESA.
The Old Prison and the City Walls. Also the famous "tiny house" (the yellow strip above, which was a minuscule 2 story home build supposedly by a homeless person over the years)
There were stores of arts and crafts just opening... and We also entered some areas like the old Prison. Which had some Masmorras(dungeon) still open.
After that we walked to the famous fountain, which had taken quite a bit of a beating (a lot of damage on the walls and barriers by the hurricane)
There were even chunks of the lightposts and even stone areas completely removed by the waves.
The worst damage was to a 300+ year old historic tree. Which had to be cut down because it had lost all its support branches and was tipping over. On the good side, the Tree survived and is regrowing again.
The Old Walls and Murallas were still standing strong like they have been for centuries.
Decided to pick up my badboy big lens and took a photo of the Fortin of the other side. The Fortin (with 1 big canon and 2 smaller canons) along with the impressive Castillo de San Felipe del Morro (with its 3 tiered batteries) defended the entrance to the San Juan's bay.
Now something funny, when I was using my big lens, there was a lady who was gasping at the size (lol). She had a smaller compatible camera. So I gave her tips where to purchase a similar and how far she could see with one of these.
She thanked me and then apologized as everyone was screaming to me to hurry up.
Here is what the "big boy" looks when extended...
Anyway, we proceeded towards the grand door "Puerta de San Juan". The last remaining door that passed thru the walls of the city. reaching an impressive 6meters of deep of pure rock.
This area was heavily damaged, lost its small pier thanks to the hurricane and there were warning signs everywhere so the tourists didnt get too close and fell to the sea floor (which was full of rocks and metal debris of the destroyed pier).
We took a few photos of the area.. then headed towards the Casa Museo Felisa Rincon de Gautier. One of the most commemorated women in history. Serving for a total of 22 years as Mayor of Puerto Rico. (more info http://www.museofelisarincon.com/biografia.htm )
Funny thing. While we moved around this area, we were surprised by the insane amount of cats roaming around. It turns out they are protected and fed by everyone as they sweep clean of pests that caused havok a few times by rats.
Some had taken residence in the house of Felisa Rincon. Who gave zero f**s about anyone and took their well deserved naps anywhere they wanted.
After visiting the house/museum, we went upwards to see the top of the wall, as well getting the view of the infamous La Fortaleza ( The Governor's mansion)
Very good climate, cloudy, not so hot, very little wind and perfect view after an early rain.
We took also family photos of the Garitas and some of the Bastions near the Plazuela of La Rogativa.
Where our tour guy (Carlos) told us a very funny history of deception and faith. That a bunch of girls women and priests took the streets with torches in hope god would protect them from the incoming enemy fleet that was about to attack San Juan.
The troops commanded by Sir Abercrombie had taken control of the city via a naval blockade. The Governor ordered the "rogativa" or prayer, the women led by the bishop marched at night singing hymns, carrying torches and bells. The British mistook these torches as a huge reinforcement army sent to protect the city and its forts. They then guessed they were heavily outnumbered and Abercrombie's fleet abandoned the city never to return.
More of this history: https://sites.google.com/site/sanju...gend-of-la-rogativa-la-leyenda-de-la-rogativa
Continued in Part 14
San Juan PR
After getting a nice sleep, we woke up fairly early as our Cruise arrived at 6:45am to the San Juan's pier.
And we had booked a private tour from Carlos and Carlitos. Who we had traveled before and had very good service.
So we went wild on the breakfast while we enjoyed the view as we approached old San Juan.
Thank goodness we arrived early because the maneuvers to settle down the giant Oasis class took quite a bit of time. And last time we had to wait additional time because the big Carnival Magic was about to dock right after us.
It still took around 40 minutes to finally open the doors. Our tour guy was already waiting and worried because we forgot to analyze the difference of hours between the ships's local time AND Puerto Rico.
What was funnier is.. that he forgot which ship we were on.. and when we were finally going out.. there were 3 ships docked already on the old San Juan's pier (and 4 others in the piers around the small airport)
We found our guy waiting for us exactly in the place we agreed to.
He also told us that its a nightmare to be in San Juan's center area because of the festival that was going to happen tonight. So everything was getting closed with barriers and they would be completely stopping the traffic to anything but Taxis and Buses.
So we immediately went to take our trip around San Juan.
It was good because while we took the usual route.. we visited more things that were closed down when we visited last time.
Like some Museums.
So we agreed on a different plan to use as much hours as possible.
Our tour was going to be 4 hours, with an additional hour for us alone before having to board the ship.
So we would be going around San Juan, Old San Juan, New San Juan and not so new San Juan to check all around the place before returning and getting dropped at the Fort of Castillo de San Cristobal.
The US Embassy in San Juan
So we took off near the piers and we moved towards the old US embassy building then towards the famous PASEO DE LA PRINCESA.
The Old Prison and the City Walls. Also the famous "tiny house" (the yellow strip above, which was a minuscule 2 story home build supposedly by a homeless person over the years)
There were stores of arts and crafts just opening... and We also entered some areas like the old Prison. Which had some Masmorras(dungeon) still open.
After that we walked to the famous fountain, which had taken quite a bit of a beating (a lot of damage on the walls and barriers by the hurricane)
There were even chunks of the lightposts and even stone areas completely removed by the waves.
The worst damage was to a 300+ year old historic tree. Which had to be cut down because it had lost all its support branches and was tipping over. On the good side, the Tree survived and is regrowing again.
The Old Walls and Murallas were still standing strong like they have been for centuries.
Decided to pick up my badboy big lens and took a photo of the Fortin of the other side. The Fortin (with 1 big canon and 2 smaller canons) along with the impressive Castillo de San Felipe del Morro (with its 3 tiered batteries) defended the entrance to the San Juan's bay.
Now something funny, when I was using my big lens, there was a lady who was gasping at the size (lol). She had a smaller compatible camera. So I gave her tips where to purchase a similar and how far she could see with one of these.
She thanked me and then apologized as everyone was screaming to me to hurry up.
Here is what the "big boy" looks when extended...
Anyway, we proceeded towards the grand door "Puerta de San Juan". The last remaining door that passed thru the walls of the city. reaching an impressive 6meters of deep of pure rock.
This area was heavily damaged, lost its small pier thanks to the hurricane and there were warning signs everywhere so the tourists didnt get too close and fell to the sea floor (which was full of rocks and metal debris of the destroyed pier).
We took a few photos of the area.. then headed towards the Casa Museo Felisa Rincon de Gautier. One of the most commemorated women in history. Serving for a total of 22 years as Mayor of Puerto Rico. (more info http://www.museofelisarincon.com/biografia.htm )
Funny thing. While we moved around this area, we were surprised by the insane amount of cats roaming around. It turns out they are protected and fed by everyone as they sweep clean of pests that caused havok a few times by rats.
Some had taken residence in the house of Felisa Rincon. Who gave zero f**s about anyone and took their well deserved naps anywhere they wanted.
After visiting the house/museum, we went upwards to see the top of the wall, as well getting the view of the infamous La Fortaleza ( The Governor's mansion)
Very good climate, cloudy, not so hot, very little wind and perfect view after an early rain.
We took also family photos of the Garitas and some of the Bastions near the Plazuela of La Rogativa.
Where our tour guy (Carlos) told us a very funny history of deception and faith. That a bunch of girls women and priests took the streets with torches in hope god would protect them from the incoming enemy fleet that was about to attack San Juan.
The troops commanded by Sir Abercrombie had taken control of the city via a naval blockade. The Governor ordered the "rogativa" or prayer, the women led by the bishop marched at night singing hymns, carrying torches and bells. The British mistook these torches as a huge reinforcement army sent to protect the city and its forts. They then guessed they were heavily outnumbered and Abercrombie's fleet abandoned the city never to return.
More of this history: https://sites.google.com/site/sanju...gend-of-la-rogativa-la-leyenda-de-la-rogativa
Continued in Part 14
Last edited:
Cesar R M
Well-Known Member
Trip Report Part 14:
San Juan PR , Some photos before we continue the text wall..
Infront of the Fountain..
The Fountain's back. Looking towards downtown old San Juan.
A walled door in one of the walls that lead towards La Fortaleza. With a resident local cat doing what cats do best.
Old San Juan with its old ancient cobblestone.
The statue commemorating the "miracle".
The old tree slowly recovering.
The view, note the tree and the pier damage..
Here is an older image so you can see the differences.. including destroyed lightposts.
Continued in part 15.
San Juan PR , Some photos before we continue the text wall..
Infront of the Fountain..
The Fountain's back. Looking towards downtown old San Juan.
A walled door in one of the walls that lead towards La Fortaleza. With a resident local cat doing what cats do best.
Old San Juan with its old ancient cobblestone.
The statue commemorating the "miracle".
The old tree slowly recovering.
The view, note the tree and the pier damage..
Here is an older image so you can see the differences.. including destroyed lightposts.
Continued in part 15.
FutureCEO
Well-Known Member
Parma ham in Italy.
That is like candy to me, if only it wasn't so expensive.
Figgy1
Well-Known Member
MySmallWorldof4
Well-Known Member
Ha ha!My inner hippie is ultra loud today. Went all Bob Ross there.
You are so right! Just reread it to myself using Bob Ross’s voice.
Figgy1
Well-Known Member
Goinsey devil
Figgy1
Well-Known Member
Thank you for sharing I miss PR sooooooo muchTrip Report Part 14:
San Juan PR , Some photos before we continue the text wall..
View attachment 353265
Infront of the Fountain..
View attachment 353266
The Fountain's back. Looking towards downtown old San Juan.
View attachment 353267
A walled door in one of the walls that lead towards La Fortaleza. With a resident local cat doing what cats do best.
View attachment 353268
Old San Juan with its old ancient cobblestone.
View attachment 353272
The statue commemorating the "miracle".
View attachment 353271
The old tree slowly recovering.
View attachment 353270
The view, note the tree and the pier damage..
Here is an older image so you can see the differences.. including destroyed lightposts.
Continued in part 15.
Figgy1
Well-Known Member
Dh informed me that we may get 1-3 inches of snow overnight tonight. We need to ban the groundhog.
Belive me, I'm trying one to 3 tonight and we may get slammed Sunday night which means my dh and boys will have from tomorrow until Tuesday off. It's a good thing I checked the weather after my meditation today