I hope you like the new name of my blog!  I didn't want to change my domain but thought the island girl part of my blog name needed to go.  I'm not saying I will never visit another island again, but the type of travel I will be doing is likely to change at least for a while.  You can read my previous post to see why I have become disillusioned with visiting tropical islands especially if the UV rays are very high which most are.  I live in Florida as it is so I get more than enough UV rays already! 

 I haven't written any new posts on my blog for quite a while.  I have at least 100 excuses why and I'm afraid only a couple of them are good ones.  I haven't felt really well in the past couple of weeks which has made writing and editing photos difficult.  I've also had some health issues which I have written about previously.  The main problem I am having has to do with a precancerous skin condition.  The skin condition is called Actinic Keratosis which I am likely to continue having from time to time throughout the rest of my life.

Here is the post I wrote about my first scare with a precancerous skin condition: 

Island Girl's PSA: Tanning is OUT and Your Skin is IN!!!

The above photo was taken in Kauai at an area called Queen's Bath

 Going on a Mediterranean cruise was at the top of my bucket list this year.  My choices were to leave from Rome, Venice or Athens.  I chose to leave from Venice as I knew I would want to spend some time there once I got back.  I had only been to Venice for a couple of days a few years ago and it rained the entire time.   

I also wanted an itinerary that visited the Greek island Santorini.  Although I visited there two years ago I was very sad while I was there.  I learned that our Black Lab named Shadow, who was around 16 years old, was extremely sick as my plane was boarding in Athens.  I could not have made it home on time to say goodbye to him.  It would've cost $3500 for a one way ticket to get home. 

I did think about just going home as I felt terrible that my husband was alone.  We knew shadow had been very ill for a long time, but I really didn't think anything (or hoped) nothing bad would happen when I was so far away. 

                                                          Here is the post I wrote about what happened: 

What Do You Do When a Tragedy or Emergency Happens at Home While Traveling?

I was so happy in the above photo because during our week in Phuket we dealt with a lot of weather like the below photo.  Those spots of water are not on the lens of my camera - the rain drops for really that big!  The good thing is it did not rain at night there and we were able to take a trip into the city of Phuket which I will write about later and I thought was extremely beautiful and interesting!

I decided on a short excursion during our last stop in Cozumel Mexico while on the the seven day Caribbean cruise I was on aboard the Norwegian Star.  I chose to do an easy shore side snorkel adventure because I am not an experienced snorkeler.  This excursion only cost $35 for an adults and $25 for children 13 and under.  It only lasted two hours which was fine because I wanted to explore Cozumel a little bit and buy some last minute souvenirs. 

I realize the truck that was "stranded" on the beach has nothing to do with snorkeling, but I thought it was quite picturesque and interesting.  I've shown it to people since I arrived home and I think it's their favorite photo of my cruise.  It is a 1932 Ford.  I have no idea if it still runs are not!

One of the main reasons I did not want a long excursion in Cozumel was because I was reading a book that I had borrowed from the ship's library and still had 250 pages left to read.  I included a picture of the book below as I thought it was excellent.  This was the first novel I have read by Nora Roberts that I enjoyed.