The Panama Canal Cruise - Part 7 - Los Angeles to Las Vegas

 With only two days remaining in our long awaited voyage through the Panama Canal, things change. Slowly, at first, but the change is no longer subtle. People are missing from dinner, and more and more people are coughing and wheezing. 

Kids and their addiction to their cell phones

As we cruise north toward Los Angeles, California, into grayer, cooler and damper weather, I begin to feel a little light headed at times. I’m becoming more and more tired. Something is a little off with me but I don’t know yet what it is or how serious it is. We’ve had our COVID shots, but we both know that does not make us immune. 

My symptoms do not seem to be those of the bane of all cruise ships, the notorious, common and always present Norovirus. That's the virus common on cruise ships that causes “stomach flu,” if you could graciously call it that. I have no doubts there are those on-board suffering from the ill-mannered actions of a few as far as the infamous Norovirus goes. Washing your hands constantly and avoiding the open grill restaurants and serving area becomes absolutely necessary to avoid the illness that much resembles Montezuma’s Revenge. It is now a familiar disease with all cruisers, but I appear to have a respiratory affliction of some sort instead.

My wife and I have avoided crowds as much as possible, but just before we reached Puerto Vallarta, I was joined in my empty elevator traveling between decks by a woman who actually coughed in my face. I turned away, but I knew then if she was infected, she had hit me with a full blast of ignorance and stupidity. Too late for face masks, I foolishly didn’t have one with me.

We spend the last day at sea packing and just strolling around the now somber ship. The weather on deck is already cooler and the overcast sky does nothing to perk people up. We’ll land at San Pedro at daybreak, and we should be off the ship by 10:00 am or so, plenty of time to pick up our rental car and drive leisurely, we hope, to Pasadena.

We have only carry-on luggage so we have everything with us as we disembark. I start coughing in line as we head through the arrival process in the terminal. After a short bus ride to the rental car agency, we pick up our white, non-distinguishable Hyundai. I feel like I can hardly keep my eyes open.

We stop at a drugstore nearby but they are out of COVID test kits. By now I have constant coughing and all the symptoms that go with possible COVID. We buy the standard cough suppressants and cold meds, but we are now faced with a very serious dilemma. I have to get tested. If in fact I have contracted COVID, we certainly don’t want to infect the friends we will be staying with here in Pasadena. Ilse gives them a call and they chat about what should and shouldn’t be done as we drive up Highway 110 right through the worst smog I have ever seen in my life.

The entire city of Los Angeles is blanketed dirty gray air. It looks like a scene in a dystopian, futuristic movie. The problem is I recognize the cars. This isn't the future, one can only imagine how bad that will be. I can only imagine what my lungs would look like if I had to breathe this on a daily basis.

Ilse finds a walk-in clinic in Pasadena and they tell us they do COVID testing, but there will be a wait. We eventually find the one-story clinic in a suburban neighborhood and find they understated the wait time, their waiting room is jammed. We checked in and were told it would be an hour or so, maybe more, so we decide to look elsewhere for testing. 

By this time I’m convinced that whatever I have is not something I want to share, so we reluctantly inform our hosts we will have to come back to California some time in the future. We start checking availability and costs of hotels in the area and are surprised at the unavailability of rooms and of the cost of what is available. We called the hotel in Las Vegas where we had reservations and asked if we could do an early check-in, like three days early. No problem, come on up. 

At 3:00pm we decide to head for Las Vegas, 285 miles away. I’m not worried about driving as I’m pretty sure we can find hotels outside of LA if I feel too tired to drive. Getting out of LA was a task in itself, but it is all multi-lane, divided, limited access freeways.

We make it 85 miles to Victorville and I’m exhausted. We found a walk-in clinic that saw me immediately, and yes, I tested positive for COVID. We found a motel and checked in while we waited for my Paxlovid prescription to be called in the Walmart pharmacy across the street.

After waiting patiently for an extended time, we called the pharmacy and found no prescription had been called in. We called the clinic to find out why and started a five hour long battle with the clinic that eventually involved the California Medical Board when I filed an official complaint against the clinic when I finally got home. I eventually got my Paxlovid just before midnight, only because my daughter had to get involved from Athens, Georgia! 

The entire evening was spent in multiple trips to the clinic and waiting for prescriptions that were not only not called in, they were never written in the first place! I do not recommend stopping in Victorville unless you have no other recourse. 

By morning I felt like a weight had been lifted from my chest. I certainly didn’t feel like dancing, but driving was no problem. I knew it was a matter of hours before Ilse would also be subdued by the virus so I didn’t expect her to do any driving. We stopped at a couple of rest stops, one that would have had a fairly pleasant vista of the Mojave desert if someone had bothered to clean up the old tires that were tossed over the perimeter fence. Shades of Puntarenas. 

It’s a long, Interstate drive, but it is different and I did enjoy the change of scenery. I’ve never driven that far before without seeing trees. I took it easy, staying in the right lane and doing the speed limit along with many others. Not like I-75 or I-95 in Florida.

See if you can find the "Welcome to Nevada" sign

Welcome to Las Vegas

We pulled into Vegas mid afternoon and immediately found another clinic, where Ilse tested positive as well. The difference was Ilse had her Pavlovid in hand within an hour. 

The famous Las Vegas Strip

Another Las Vegas anachronism reflects a storied and distant culture

We decided to take a tour of the famous strip and lo and behold, the sun came out just for us. It was still in the 50’s. So it wasn’t exactly cruising weather but it certainly beat the doom and gloom since we got off the ship.

Somehow appropriate reflection of the contemporary United States

While sitting at a stop light on the return trip through town, we looked at each other and we both knew this wasn’t for us. Las Vegas is a huge, magnificent homage to consumerism, or even mass manipulation, but it isn't worth our time or money. Even if we had felt great, we would rather have been back in the desert, watching the sunset. 

Spaceport on Mars?  No, The Las Vegas Airport.

After two days in the hotel with just side trips to drive-in fast food joints for food, we finally got up the steam to drive to nearby Hoover Dam. 

OK, we saw Hoover Dam. I shouldn’t casually dismiss the world famous dam, we did get to see two world-class engineering marvels in one trip, but the weather again turned rainy and cold and it wasn’t fun to stand outside. We didn’t even get out of the car to photograph the two Winged Figures of the Republic, the massive art deco figures mounted on the roadway that crosses Hoover dam when it was dedicated by President Delano Roosevelt in 1935. They were obscured by a fence barrier anyway, part of ongoing repairs and construction. Somehow fitting for the weather.

Winged Figures of the Republic, 

On the way back to Las Vegas, we took the first turn off the main highway we could find and took a local two-lane road round and about into Vegas the back way, so to speak. We’ve seen all we need to see here, time again to pack, we are ready to go home.

As we sat jammed shoulder to shoulder in the absolutely filled Airbus for the flight back to Atlanta, we reminisced about a really great cruise and a wonderful vacation, the last six days not withstanding. We both wore our masks the entire time we were there. Ilse was still struggling with the effects of COVID, so the flight was not easy for her. Coughing on the airplane was as bad as on the boat. 

Fellow Passengers

While we scratched Las Vegas off our must see list, maybe someday we’ll do the Panama Canal cruise again. Maybe we’ll start in LA and end up in Lauderdale or something like that. Now, it’s time to catch some sleep. Time to go home and see if the heater works.

Previous post: Puerto Vallarta - https://piddlepaddler.blogspot.com/2024/11/the-panama-canal-cruise-part-6-puerta.html

A 20 minute video of the blog is at: https://youtu.be/YxsUGPWMkxU

The Panama Canal Cruise - Part 6 - Puerta Vallarta

We depart Huatulco in the late afternoon and spend the next day at sea. Our next port of call is Puerto Vallarta at the southern most point of the Gulf of California. The three thousand mile trip from the Panama Canal to Los Angeles is a revelation in geography. Mexico takes up about two-thirds of the trip. The seas have been placid, our wake being the most disturbed water we’ve seen the entire trip so far. 

The pods of dolphins have been a constant amusement, but we have yet to see any whales or blow-spouts. A dear friend of ours from New York told us to have our cameras ready while sailing into the Bay of Banderas at Puerto Vallarta. It is famous for the Humpback Whales that winter there.

Puerto Vallarta

I’m up early, as usual, and again I’m fascinated by yet another purple sunrise as we slowly cruise into the bay. The bright city lights of Puerto Vallarta are quite a change from the otherwise dark coast we’ve seen since leaving Panama, but the purple sunrises have been common ever since Cartagena. I looked up what causes that phenomena, and of course, there are conflicting answers but I take it to be some sort of pollution, even way down here in Central America. We’re not exactly in the coal belt, or within hundreds of miles of heavy industry or dense automobile traffic, but in Florida, we are affected by Saharan dust storms over five thousand miles away, so I know the cause of the phenomena may not be local. If the purple colors were only here, I would assume it is from Mexico City - with a population of over 22 million people only 450 miles away - but it has been prevalent for the last thousand miles or so. The purple color is specifically caused by high-altitude diffusion or reduction of the visible spectrum, ie shorter light wavelengths, such as violet or purple, commonly caused by forest fires and volcanic eruptions.

Just as I turn to head back to the cabin, a Frigatebird glides silently by and all is good with the world.

While we were sitting in the Bar and Grill having breakfast, we overheard two women who were excited about their upcoming shopping at Walmart for their upcoming voyage around the world. They plan on stocking up on toothpaste and all the other commodities that they believe will be in short supply on the other side of the planet. I thought they were talking about the docking in San Pedro – Los Angeles – but they are talking about Puerto Vallarta. “There’s a Sam’s Club right next door,” one says to the other. Sure enough, right across the busy, four lane boulevard from our mooring is the huge shopping complex that brings warmth and security to American tourists. With the huge Galerias Vallarta Shopping Mall complex adjacent to the Walmart and Sam's Club, Puerto Vallarta is the other end of the economic spectrum from sleepy Puntarenas.

Whale Watching tour boats

We check out the Walmart and spend an hour or so enjoying the modern mall.  There is a Chili's, a Starbucks, and a Haagen Daz, among others, so there is no reason on earth to think you are in Mexico. Well, perhaps except for the beautiful red SUV, a  Chiery Tiggo 7 Pro, a Chinese made car available pretty much world-wide, except in the United States. 

We are somewhat startled, and amused at the same time, at a courteous, but obviously required reminder of pet etiquette mounted in the center of the mall. We are amused because the sign is not translated into Spanish. Apparently the Mexicans do not take their dogs shopping. If they do, they obviously don't need to be reminded of basic civil behavior.

As we leave, we see the Norwegian Bliss slowly approach the dock just across the street, beautifully painted with the beautiful sea-life artwork of Robert Wyland. Being from Florida, we are not only familiar with his galleries in Sarasota and Key West, but his colorful shirts, along with Jamaican artist Guy Harvey's line of apparel, that are now carried by practically every department store. I remember the ship was designed a few years back for the Alaska cruises, but like the humpback on her hull, she is seeking sunshine and warmer temperatures this January.

We stroll around for awhile, but decide we would rather have lunch on board, so we head back to the ship. While we are sitting in the lounge mid ships, enjoying a piano player who seems to know all our old favorites, we’re approached by a couple, somewhat younger than us, who ask if they may join us. They turn out to be a couple on the full world tour and won’t be back to Ft. Lauderdale until the end of April, three months away. We all have similar backgrounds and we enjoy each others company so we agree to meet for dinner. They ask if we would mind if we are joined by his brother and his wife who are also on the cruise. We all hit it off and we spend time together for the rest of our part of the cruise. We later kept abreast of their world cruise by social media and have become good friends.

The ship slips silently away from the mooring so effortlessly and silently one would not notice we are moving if you weren’t watching the surroundings. We pass whale watching spectator boats of all shapes and sizes as we head slowly into the pristine blue bay. We have our cameras ready, and it only takes a moment or so before we see whale spouts not too far off.

The Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise is anchored in the bay and as we pass by, I capture a video of a whale spout just a few feet in front of the iconic, world famous converted icebreaker. Occasional blow-spouts appear around the ship and I can’t help but think how appropriate it is to have her anchored among the families of whales that seek refuge from the cold Arctic winter. I have no doubt that many of the whales here are a direct result of Green Peace’s persistent and impactful actions for the environment. Probably a far more significant number than anyone realizes.

We try to get photographs and videos, but they are too far away to be distinguishable. We watch at least three different whales, or pair of whales, as we head out past the last anchored boat, and then, as if a command performance, we have two whales do a fin waving routine right beside the ship as we sail past. Apparently the females use this water slapping tactic to attract males during courting season, and since there were two whales together, oblivious to our huge ship, I imagine that assessment is correct.

As we pull further and further away from the mainland, the man-made, mostly automobile pollution enveloping the area becomes more and more apparent. Time to head for the open seas at least one more time before Los Angeles.

Next: San Pedro, Los Angeles to Las Vegas - https://piddlepaddler.blogspot.com/2024/11/the-panama-canal-cruise-part-7-los.html

A 20 minute video of this blog is available at:  https://youtu.be/yIsgVSP2gFU

Previous; Huatulco - https://piddlepaddler.blogspot.com/2024/11/the-panama-canal-cruise-part-5-huatulco.html