Day 9 Mahon Menorca Spain
Not much happening in this port town. It seems like a really small place that is only operating because of the tourism brought in by the cruise boats. That is the way with many cruise stops. These are not my favorite type of places. We wandered aimlessly for a few hours. There are some extremely nice shopping areas and great scenic vista points. We found one geocache during our mindless meandering. We got back on the boat about midday for another restful afternoon of almost nothing.  I mean nothing but napping. Wifey tripped and fell over her own foot today. She hurt her ankle but luckily a hospital visit was not necessary. In my opinion that is such an amateur holiday injury. Today was leisurely and relaxing. Nothing major to report, like many other cursing days. Barcelona stands out like no other cruising days. Tomorrow we are back in France.
There are always things that happen that are so hysterical at the time, but get lost as the brain has to push out old memories to make room for the new ones. Here is a list of fun things that we need to remember: Two Zoltans, Enda the poon hound, Dag Dagerstein the Captain that only fits the suit, big man waiting in our bed after dinner, and Esther: Lamont Sanford’s mother/father.

Day 10 Porte Vendres and Collioure France
Today turned out much better than expected. What we expected as another typical port day became quite an awesome adventurous day. We took a ride on Le Petit Train to Collioure, France. It was a beautiful drive along the coastline to Collioure and then back inland through all the vineyards and mountains and views of the sea and harbor. We found 4 geocaches while out and about today. Thank you geocaching for the hike! We went on a hike that we never would have found without geocaching. We ended up in places that no tour group, maps, or cruise guides would have taken us. We ended up in beautiful spots that were truly only known by locals. One spot was an amazing scenic viewpoint at the top of a hill with the harbor on one side and the sea on the other.
I dropped Wifey back at the boat, and had about an hour until the boat departed. There was one more geocache that I wanted to try and grab. I jogged all the way to the top of a hill. It was the opposite direction away from the harbor that Wifey and I had explored earlier in the day. This hill was again between the harbor and the sea with a great scenic view. Another place not on the tour maps. I found the geocache and made it back to the boat with time to spare. It was quite an exhilarating feeling that a boat might leave me in a foreign country because I wanted to go find one more geocache. There is no feeling like I might get left behind, the clock is ticking, Wifey awaiting my safe return…like an episode of 24 running through my head. Jack Bauer has nothing on me.
The Maître D’ tricked us tonight into having dinner with two other couples. They knew we were solo loners and hate everyone else. We turned down dinners the first couple nights so they stopped asking/inviting us. We had quite a pleasant time. We need to remember that we don’t actually hate everyone else no matter how much we insist that we do. Our dining companions were couples from the UK and Louisiana. She was beekeeper, which is a real thing.  The old man from Louisiana told us the rumors that some of the boat staff got pick pocketed and beat up the other night while out on the town in Barcelona. We later confirmed that this was both true and false. It happened, but the story was not nearly as interesting as the old man passed along. This old fella also told us a story about a cruise he was on in the past that also finished in Monte Carlo. He said there was a big hold up because several of the people on the cruise were not cleared to enter Monte Carlo. That got me worrying, since I recently had troubles simply entering Canader, I wonder what Monte Carlo will think of me. I sure hope they let me in…

A select few pictures here.