2025 NE Cruise - Boats in Boston Harbor / Brainless YouTube Commercials

Some boats of interest in the harbor...the police, a pilot, and what looks to be a tug based out of New York.

I watch YouTube a lot...probably more than I should.  We don't subscribe to the premium, which means we are stuck with watching at least the beginning of a lot of brainless commercials.  As a result, I hereby refuse to listen to any commercial, much less buy their products, if it contains any of these words:

     brilliant

     NASA

     revolutionary

     by storm

     trick

     experts agree

     cutting edge

     incredible

     genius

     doctor

     obsolete

     game changer

     magic

     everybody

     nobody

     Did you know...

     You need to...

     secret

     shocking

     ...don't want you to know

     (any bad word)

2025 NE Cruise - Boston Harbor Lighthouse

...and what would New England be without lighthouses?  The first of many encountered on our cruise, this guy was captured toward the end of the Harbor as we sailed north.

Caught this second peek-a-boo shot just a little further out:

2025 NE Cruise - Old Building on Boston Harbor Shoreline

Zoomed in a bit to capture this old building along the shoreline; full composition below.  In the pic above, note how some space was cut between two sets of windows.

2025 NE Cruise - Boston Harbor Shorescape

Thanks to the large sensor of the Bigger Cahoona, coupled with its high-resolution of 48 megapixels, cropped-in shorescape pics like this can resemble much larger panoramas.

2025 NE Cruise - Boston Harbor, Infrastructure Circles

The first official morning of the cruise was August 30th.  We endured the check-in process and boarded in time for a quick lunch before sailing.  We had a balcony cabin, and stood there to watch the world go by as the ship slowly made its way through the harbor.  I've always been intrigued by the infrastructure of major seaports, and these circles caught my eye...

2025 NE Cruise - Boston Cityscape

The wife and I went on our first cruise to explore New England.  We'd been on many in the Caribbean, which got boring (we're not beach people).  One in Alaska, which was great and one that we'd like to repeat and expand on later sometime, Lord willing.  And now for the first time we're in New England.  Started out in Boston, flying there the night before the cruise departed.

And what we saw was surprising.  While the population of the city itself is almost 700k it retains something of a small-town feel.  Must be because of the large number of colleges and universities there.  At any rate, I was pleasantly surprised at the coziness and positive vibe we experienced in the city.

Did not take the Bigger Cahoona out for our exploratory walk that first night, but did consider the photo above, captured with the iPhone 15 Pro Max, to be a keeper.

First Visit to Phoenix - Giveaway Chair in Chandler

Saw this on a neighborhood walk...

And this is all for our first visit to Phoenix.  Our objectives were met during the 5-day visit there - we scoped out the lay of the land, explored some of the sites nearby, and experienced first-hand the infernal heat that everyone talks about.  Now we are a little more prepared for our next, more extended visit in September when, Lord willing, we'll be here to help out with Allison's NEW BABY!  Meanwhile, between now and then there's a 10-day New England cruise to cover in the blog.  By the grace of God we've been allowed this travel time during our early retirement years, and are looking forwarded to share those adventures with you.

First Visit to Phoenix - Salt River Fishing Trip, Saguaro Looking East

Once down the road a bit we stopped and, looking east, saw this scene.  It would have been easy to remove the holes and blemishes on the saguaro, but most do in fact look like this so decided to keep it natural.

Well, what the heck...here's the same with a somewhat cleaned-up saguaro.  On a larger screen, click on the photo and use your arrow keys to swap back and forth for comparison:

First Visit to Phoenix - Salt River Fishing Trip, Silhouette Looking West

We decided to head back toward the end of dusk when, looking west, I saw the opportunity for a silhouette featuring some saguaro on the hilltop.  There were some electric lines cutting through the middle of the scene, but the newest version of Photoshop took care of that with two clicks of the mouse.

First Visit to Phoenix - Salt River Fishing Trip, Shoreline Reflection Shot

We were hanging out on the riverbank, sort of hoping that wild horses would emerge from the vegetation on the opposite shore for a drink, when I saw this opportunity for a reflection shot.  No horses, but think the pic turned out OK...