Last year my mother dragged (really, almost kicking and screaming-dragged) me on a cruise.  Not a sit in the sun and see amazing new tropical countries kind of cruise, but a boat full of really old people kind of cruise.  I had the BEST time!!  We were celebrating her 80th birthday and this was on her bucket list.  I made all sorts of new friends and discovered she makes a great wing-woman.

We went up the Mississippi River from St Louis to St Paul on the American Queen, a real honest-to-goodness paddlewheel.  The food was good and the wine was mediocre (good thing I had brought a good stash of my own).  We went through something like 26 locks, saw bald eagles, a church with a huge collection of Tiffany windows, and explored Hannibal, MO, home of Mark Twain.  One of the last days of the trip, Mother wasn’t feeling so hot, so I left her with a cup of tea and I trekked out on my own.  I didn’t want to go too far, so I just went on one of the short excursions to an antique mall.

Boy-oh-boy was I in hog heaven.  Room after room after room of pyrex, milk glass, and depression glass… I could have spent every dime I had and then some.  I restrained myself and limited myself to just a few things.  I got both a milk glass and a green glass reamer and these darling milk glass tea cups.  One of these days I will go back with a uhaul and shop like mad.

I could go on and on about all we saw and did that week, but they have a brochure for that.  I will say the evening entertainment on the boat was outstanding.  I’m just delighted to have gone and seen and experienced what I did.  It was truly an extraordinary adventure.

In response to The Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: “(Extra)ordinary.”