Ronnie and Donna Tutt

I know I missed last week’s blog. I was on a slow boat to Rome, Italy from a start in Barcelona, Spain, ending back in Barcelona, and had no internet. You can imagine how frustrated I was not being able to write and get it published in time. The cruise was the TCB Cruise with Dennis Jale as host. Priscilla Presley was on board, Jerry Schilling and his wife, Cindy, were there. James and Louise Burton, Ronnie and Donna Tutt, Glen D Hardin and were included in that lineup. We flew to Barcelona, Spain and did a concert there the first night. The next day, we boarded the ship and set sail for Naples, Italy as our first stop. We arrived there the next morning where we exited the ship and took a taxi to visit Pompeii and Mt. Vesuvius. That was an amazing story. The city was hit with an earthquake in 62 AD and it did much damage to the city. As they were in the process of recovery, Mt. Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD and the eruption was so quick and complete that people were actually buried in volcanic ash before they had a chance to escape. There are actual corpses there to prove that. History records that the city had become very carnal and wicked and though they don’t link it to God’s judgment, for those of us who are Christians, it’s a distinct possibility this was from the hand of God. He’s slow to anger but if He is provoked long enough, He will act. Human nature without God in their plans always devolves to a lower state of moral depravity.  It seems Pompeii was just one more example of that. From the ruins of Pompeii, we took the cab back to Naples where we found a little pizza shop and got online for about an hour. I had so many emails I couldn’t even get to them all. And the pizza wasn’t even that good!

The next day we had a whirlwind tour of Rome. We took a bus to the train for an hour’s ride into Rome. From there we took a guided two-hour tour of the city. We passed the Vatican so quickly I didn’t even have time to say hello to the pope. The tour had to be fast as we had two shows to do that night so we had to get back on the train, and the bus back to the ship. Two shows that night and weary from a long day, we fell into bed that night. It seems the wind from the open touring bus caused problems for my sinuses and I got a very bad cold the next day. I was so sick I didn’t get to explore the next stop in Cannes, France. Tina got off and said it was the most beautiful spot of the tour. It must have been as she came back with several purchases.

The next stop was Palma de Mallorca, Spain. By this time I was better so Tina and I debarked and visited the shops. This town is known for its pearls and so we purchased a necklace for Tina and earrings for Leah, our daughter. We had to get back to the ship as that night was the gospel concert night for us. Priscilla came, Jerry Schilling was there, and James and Louise Burton were there. It was a great night.

Finally, after six days at sea, we arrived back in Barcelona, where we had to get off the boat at 6 am for the trip to the airport. We left Barcelona for JFK airport at 10 am and arrived in NYC just in time to miss our connecting flight home. AA rerouted us to Dulles in Washington and then we got to our final destination around 9 pm. After the luggage was retrieved, we arrived home about 11:30 pm. That meant, counting the time changes,  we had been up for 24 hours straight with no sleep! So how was YOUR week?