We had two sea days on our way to Phillipsburg, St. Maarten. The ship left two hours late, because it took a long time to load all the provisions for our voyage and the ship, having just arrived in the US, had to undergo a series of inspections before the loading could commence. The captain went a little faster the first night and morning to make it up. A few small whitecaps and partly cloudy over the next two days made for a pleasant start to the trip.

We flew to Ft. Lauderdale two days before the cruise departed because airfares were much cheaper, saving more than the cost of an extra hotel night.

Donna had scheduled us on the ranger led tour for Little Jerusalem Badlands State Park this morning. If you are not on the tour, you are limited to the two trails on the top of the park. The two-hour ranger led tour goes down between the hoodoos.

We drove to Lake Scott State Park in the morning, and arrived just before lunch. It was supposed to rain, but it only amounted to a few drops. The drought continues.

We drove out there in the morning, and arrived at Quivera National Wildlife Refuge around 2 pm. We knew Western Kansas has been in a drought, but we didn’t realize the extent of the drought.

We have seen quite a few street cats in Turkey. There is a movie Kedi about the street cats of Istanbul.

Today we tour around Izmir. We start at the Agora of Smyrna.

We took the optional tour to Pergamon which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Some others had their fill of looking at old city ruins and stayed in Izmir.

This morning we tour Hierapolis which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It’s been famous for soaking in the travertine pools since antiquity.

Today we start with a couple hour drive to Aphrodisias which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.