After the first of the year and the election of Donald Trump, we both became more active in local and national politics. Below Marlene stands in the rain outside of our local Republican Representative's office, to let her know how we feel, even though the Representative never showed up. Oh, and no one paid us to do this.
By the end of February we had a great break from the rain and cold, for a week long trip to Florida, and on to Mexico. This was our third annual "Blues Cruise" hosted by Joe Bonamassa with a large number of other Blues artists. This year the cruise started from Tampa, rather than Miami. We spent an enjoyable day seeing the sites before we set off on the cruise. We especially liked the old town area of Ybor, and had a wonderful lunch in the oldest Spanish Restaurant in America, the "Columbia" shown below.
After our day in Tampa we boarded our ship and sailed on to Costa Maya Mexico, a smaller and somewhat nicer resort area than Cancun, where we went last year.
We enjoyed a little shopping before we went on a bus ride to see some of the nearby Mayan ruins .
The Ruins were amazing, and they had not even been discovered until the 1970's, being totally covered in jungle.
But during most of the trip we were occupied by listening to almost continuous music onboard ship from morning to late at night.
The highlight of the cruise was 3 Bonamassa shows.
The week went quickly, but we were happy to see the girls again.
and they seemed happy to see us
The wet weather continued after we got home, and the Washougal River was the highest we have seen since we've lived here.
Finally some encouraging signs of spring
