mike-jacque-c-the-world

We made it. Now is our time to see the world. We invite you to come along for the ride.

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04/05/26 - Lago Vista, TX - EASTER SUNRISE - WOW! Glad we got up early this morning to catch this spectacular and beautiful sunrise. Next up, a little quiet time and a cup of coffee before the grandkids get up and all the Easter morning excitement starts. Life is good!

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04/03/26 - Lago Vista, TX - NAP TIME - It’s Easter weekend and several of the grandkids are over. Here’s the youngest taking a nap with her babysitter mid stream. Yes, that’s our modern world for you.

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03/28/26 - College Station, TX - PROUD PARENTS - We are here to celebrate our nephew’s White Coat Ceremony at Texas A&M’s renowned School of Veterinary Medicine. This ceremony is the formal rite of passage marking his transition from academic/classroom study into clinical training and ‘large mammal’ care which is what he’ll be doing his last year of Vet School. It’s not just his parents that are proud; his aunt and uncle are too. Well done Dylan!

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03/15/26 - Lago Vista, TX - DEER GATHERING - Can’t get enough of our backyard. Never ceases to amaze us that we can spend a couple nights at any of the nearby State and County Parks and not see any wildlife and then, when we’re back home, we get to see this on a daily basis. Maybe our backyard view will become more idyllic when the new and improved holding pond in the background fills up with water later this year.

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03/13/26 - Atlantic Ocean - CAN YOU TELL? - We’re on our way back to Florida and enjoying the last night of our cruise. For some unknown reason, we’re the only ones at our dinner table tonight and if you look around, pretty much in the whole dining area as well. Doesn’t seem to matter to us: can you tell? Just one of life’s simple pleasures: sharing a humorous moment with the one you love. Doesn’t get any better. Life is good.

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03/11/26 - Fredericksted, St. Croix - SHELTERING - Somehow, a beautiful sunny day onshore in St. Croix became a raging rain storm. I took shelter at a small outdoor table on the sidewalk outside a cafe with an overhang. I think this chicken and her brood had the same idea but they were a little late and already a little rain soaked and bedraggled. Oh well, the chicks don’t seem to mind their little adventure with mom.

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03/10/26 - Charlotte-Amalie, St. Thomas - THE 99 STEPS - What a beautiful day to be in such a beautiful place: the Capitol of the U.S. Virgin Islands. It was about a 30 minute walk from the pier into town along the waterfront. It’s like we’re in the middle of a postcard no matter which direction we look. Higher is better when it comes to views so of course we walked up the famous 99 Steps on our way to lunch at Blackbeard’s Castle. After a restful time there, we took a taxi up a winding road to the top of the island for a banana daiquiri and even more amazing views. We had fun even though we were doing the usual cruise ship tourist thing. Hard to believe that this little island gets 1.5 million cruise ship passengers a year. The thing we will remember most is the sheer beauty of this place.

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03/09/26 - San Juan, Puerto Rico - WEAKNESS FOR COLOR - What a beautiful and brilliant sunny day to be in Puerto Rico. We had a great time here and San Juan definitely has made our list of places to come back to and spend more time. Lost count of how many beautiful pics we took today. This one was taken from the ship as we were entering the port and won out because yours truly has a weakness for color.

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03/08/26 - Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic - UMBRELLA STREET - We’ve been all over the world and haven’t seen this before. Love the colors which look cool despite the cloudy and dreary day. Just goes to show that we need to stay curious and keep traveling to new and unfamiliar places. Let’s go!

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03/07/26 - Caribbean Sea - SUNRISE OVER THE OCEAN - Today is an ocean day: we are on our way to the Dominican Republic. It’s very windy out and the boat is rocking. Hopefully, the non-drowsy Dramamine does the job. After breakfast, went to play pickleball which was almost impossible due to the high winds but still fun once we started adapting to the conditions. Then it was off to the gym to do a kettlebell workout. Hopefully, we’ll have some good entertainment options tonight. What I like about cruising on a big ship is that generally, there is something to do for everybody. Looks like that will be true of this cruise as well.

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03/06/26 - Port Canaveral, FL - ANTICIPATION - It won’t be long now: in a couple of hours, we’ll be out on the open water headed towards Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic; San Juan, Puerto Rico; Charlotte-Amalie, St. Thomas; and Frederiksted, St. Croix. This was supposed to be a Sisters cruise but for some unknown reason, they decided to invite the husbands this year. Hopefully, we don’t mess things up for them and I’ll adapt to playing pickleball on a rocking ship.

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03/01/26 - Lago Vista, TX - HOMETOWN BIKE RACE - Our little town has been hosting the 2-day La Primavera at Lago Vista Bike Races for over 30 years. One day, I hope to race in it. I ride the 5.5 loop at least once per week when training and know the difficult course well. I would probably be the oldest guy in the race and have difficulty keeping up with the guys in the 50+ age group. But I don’t care; it would still be fun. If I can qualify for next year’s Senior Games in Tulsa, OK, the 2027 La Primavera would be a nice test of my early season fitness. My plan, if I race it next year, is to also be a race volunteer which means my entry fee would be waived. Yes; let’s make that happen.

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02/26/26 - Lago Vista, TX - WE VOTED EARLY - It’s more important than ever to make our voices heard. Today, it’s just the state primaries. We left nothing to chance by voting early. Next are the runoffs in May and then the big one in November where we will have the opportunity to be part of the change back to normalcy, and the long process of building back what was ripped apart and even more importantly, regaining respect from the rest of the world. Can’t wait.

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02/12/26 - Silverthorne, CO - BREAKFAST VISITOR - It’s been awhile but we’ve finally made it back to Silverthorne to go skiing with Sheen, Barbara and friends. I’m a little nervous about staying above 9,000 ft and skiing at even higher elevations as I’m just now starting to feel good again after a tough battle with pneumonia last month. So far, so good: no problems breathing. This morning, while waking up over coffee and breakfast, we started the day off with a surprise visitor behind our condo. He was gracious enough to give us plenty of time to get some great pics. Thank you handsome Red Fox: we appreciate you.

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01/31/26 - Austin, TX - BUSY BROTHERS - A lot of people are concerned about ICE because they aren’t held to the same standards as the rest of our U.S. law enforcement agencies and because they are consistently ignoring the constitutional rights of both U.S. and non-U.S. citizens alike. We are too and that’s why we’re here today to make our voices heard. There were quite a few prominent speakers this afternoon but the one who impressed me the most was U.S. Congressman Joaquin Castro seen pictured alongside his brother. It wasn’t so much what he said but rather what he did immediately afterwards. Putting words into actions, he flew down to South Texas to pick up five year old Liam Ramos from the Dilley detention center and by the next morning, he was on TV in Minnesota having escorted Liam and his father back to their family: a good day’s work if you ask me. It’s only one small step forward back to normalcy, but for now, we’ll take it.

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01/27/26 - Inks Lake State Park, TX - KEEPING WARM - We keep the Airstream in covered storage when we’re not using it. Because of our relatively mild winter climate here, we don’t winterize it to prevent damage from freezing pipes. Instead, when freezing temperatures are in the forecast, we drive over to the storage facility and set our gas heater to come on at 45° which is enough to keep the pipes warm. This is made possible by the Airstream’s lithium batteries: we expect we can go three or four days without running them down. However, this ice storm threw a big wrench into our plan because of all the unexpected road closures which meant, for almost a week, we couldn’t get back to the trailer to turn off the heat and take it somewhere to plug in and recharge the batteries. We fully expected the batteries to be fully depleted when we finally got to the storage facility and were surprised to find out we still had 40% remaining capacity. Still, we needed to take the Airstream somewhere to plug in, recharge the batteries and keep things warm for the next wave of freezing temperatures which start tonight. We took the Airstream to nearby Inks Lake State Park and plugged in there to recharge and stay warm. We’ll go back to get it in three days. In the meantime, here’s to staying warm and no more freezing temperatures.

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01/26/26 - Lago Vista, TX - SOLID ICE - Uh oh! We’re stuck in our house. Why? The roads in our little town and highways connecting us to neighboring towns are covered with ice making driving pretty much impossible. In our case, we can’t even get out of our sloped driveway. The good news is that the sun is out. Now all we need is some prolonged above freezing temperatures to get the big melt started.