About This Blog (revised January, 2023)

 

 *These are the voyages of Rick & Mary Bader.  Our continuing mission:  to boldly go where we have never gone before!*

                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

          *Note: Menu Button At The Top of the Page*

     If you are reading this you probably already know that the “About This Blog” button will always bring up this post, in case you want to review the itinerary or the instructions for using the blog. There used to be two more buttons at the top, but it seems those are no longer permitted on this blog’s template.  Workarounds:

       * If you want to return to the most recent posting just put “www.baderjournal.com” into your web browser.

        * If you want to see where the ship is at this minute put “www.seascanner.com/ships-position-[ship’s name] into your web browser, with the actual ship’s name (eg. Zaandam) substituting for the brackets at the end.

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     Welcome to Bader Journal, the travel blog of Rick & Mary Bader.  That’s us, pictured at the top, in old travel pictures that will rotate randomly each time you open the blog, but have nothing to do with the content of the post appearing below them.  This blog was created primarily for our family & friends but anyone who is interested is welcome to view it.  We last set sail October 10, 2022 on a 71 day circumnavigation of Africa on the Holland America ship Zaandam.  Here is a map of our itinerary:

 

   

       Our posts typically contain a lot of pictures & text so they take some time to create.  This can only be done on sea days, when we are on the ship & have leisure time.  In addition, internet access on a cruise ship is very spotty & slow.  During this voyage were unable, because of technical issues, to upload  any postings to our blog.  So we continued to compose blog posts as we went along (at a time when we could still remember fairly clearly what we did & what is in the pictures) but did not post any before we returned home at the end of the year. 

          If you want to be notified when new posts appear, read Part B below.

 

   **One general caveat:  please don’t take what is written here about the places we visit as authoritative.  We do our best to be accurate but really we are mostly repeating things we have read or been told.  You may sometimes note a skeptical tone when we tell you something we have heard but don’t necessarily believe, though even things we do believe sometimes turn out to be inaccurate.  So, caveat emptor!

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     What follows is an outline of instructions for using the tools built into the blog.  Use anything that is helpful to you & just ignore the rest.

 

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 A. Subscribing To Email Notifications Of New Postings:

     If you scroll to the very bottom of your computer screen you will find several “widgets” in 4 columns.  In the second column from the left (next to the calendar and above the orange RSS buttons) is a button to subscribe to email notifications of new postings.  If you sign up you will receive an email right after a posting is published with a link to the new blog page, so you won’t have to waste time on the internet looking for one that isn’t yet there.

 

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       B.  Navigating the Blog:

     1.  Google:  The easiest way to find a particular post is to use Google.  If you google “Bader Journal” & the place in which you are interested, the posting on this blog should be one of the first results listed (e.g. “bader journal rome” will bring up our posts about visiting Rome).  If we have visited that place more than once, all those visits should appear in the google results.

     2.  Blog tools:  At the  bottom of your computer screen you will find several widgets (probably overkill) that may (or may not) be useful in navigating the blog:

             a.  In the left position is a calendar on which the posting dates of blog entries are blue.  Click a blue date with your mouse and that day’s post(s) should  pop up to the top of the blog.

             b.  Next to that is a section with three items.  The first is the email subscription described above.  The middle one has two orange buttons for subscribing to RSS feeds of the posts and/or the comments (We have no idea how well – if at all – those work). The bottom one is a search function that should allow you to find a previous posting by searching for a particular word or phrase in the text (e.g. “camel” or “Peru” or “Alhambra”).

             c.  In the right hand position is a list of the 5 most recent posts; click on one to bring it to the top.

             d.  Second from the right is an “Archives.”  After the name of each month is the number of postings during that month. Click on a month to bring up that month’s blog postings. This is probably the easiest way to access all of one of our previous voyages on this blog, which I will list here as a sort of table of contents (note that the dates indicated are when the posts went up on the blog, not when we were sailing on the cruise): 

 

       — First South America & Antarctica Voyage posts can be found at December 2011 through March 2012:

           — Grand Mediterranean Voyage posts can be found at March through October 2013:

          — Southern Caribbean posts can be found at April through May 2014:

       — Voyage Of The Vikings posts can be found at July through September, 2014:

 

         — First World Cruise posts can be found at December, 2015, through July, 2016:

     — Alaska Cruise costs can be found at August, 2017:

     — Second World Cruise posts can be found at January through September, 2018:

     — Second South America and Antarctica posts can can be found at January, 2019 through January, 2020:

     — Caribbean Journey posts can be found at June and August, 2022:

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      C.  Viewing Picture Captions

     The pictures posted after 2021 have captions, but they are not visible in the Blog’s text. (Earlier pictures had captions too, but it appears they aren’t accessible any more).  If you hover your mouse cursor over a one of these picture a caption should pop up that will contain some identifying information and sometimes more substance as well.  The popup is temporary; if it closes before you finish reading it just move your mouse away and then back over the picture and it will pop up again.  This works on a computer browser using a mouse, but we don’t know how or whether it will work on a tablet or phone or RSS feed.

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       D.  Comments

      Last, but far from least, at the end of each posting is a small blue text button reading “Leave a reply.”  If there have already been comments posted it will read “[number] responses,” but you can still click on Leave a Reply to add yours.  Comments are heartily welcomed!  If you want to leave a public comment (this blog can be found on Google & has, to our surprise, been viewed by many people from all over the world) then use the “Leave a Reply” button & your comment will become part of the blog (and will also be sent to Rick by email).  But if you would rather communicate privately with us – about the blog, about something else, or just to say hi – then you can use our regular email addresses.  When on a cruise we read our email semi-regularly (depending on our schedule & how well the internet connection is working) so a response (if one is called for) may take a while. 

December 15, 2015 | Categories: Mediterranean cruise | Leave a comment