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The plane doesn’t leave until 10pm (ugh). Leaving us all day to worry about whether we got everything we needed/wanted. But we didn’t get too crazy. On the plus side, the Eagles were playing for the NFC conference title, and I didn’t have to miss it. (And woohoo, they won big!) And, as an added bonus, we had time to see the Chiefs/Bills game, which was great. Except for the Chiefs winning yet again. We had a full day and *then* it was time to go the airport for a 30+ hour set of flights.
We didn’t want to bundle up too much since we knew we wouldn’t need any coats once we got there. (And the bags were all full to the brim already). We, of course, just missed the parking lot bus. So we had a cold windy wait.
There weren’t many people at the airport. There were only a handful of flights leaving that late. But, I ran into a problem at the TSA checkpoint. I have a new passport as of May of last year that I hadn’t used yet. There’s a new format for the bio page and the TSA guard was unfamiliar with it. There was a holdup while he got confirmation I had a legit passport. I was thinking, oh great, we’re going to get there and end up in immigration jail. Or at least I am. The TSA folks had a conclave, and better trained folks confirmed I was legal. But now I get to worry that the folks on the other end might not like it.
For the moment all was well. Except, in all the excitement, the guy didn’t give me my ‘pre-check’ card, so they wanted me to take my shoes and belt off. I talked them out of that. But I had managed to put my not quite empty water bottle in my backpack while packing, while checking to make sure everything was going to fit, and got flagged at x-ray. I thought it was because of all the equipment in my bag (camera, cables, CPAP machine). It’s packed to the gills (I could barely close the zippers, let alone lift it) and I’m afraid he’s going to make me unpack it. It took 15 minutes to get it all in there. But no, just a ‘hydration error’ and getting to look like an idiot. I’m still a bit rusty at this travel stuff. Thanks COVID.
I had stocked up on e-books for the Kindle. Since there was going to be lots of time on airplanes and in airports, I wanted to be sure to have enough reading material. I downloaded 5 or 6 e-books from the library. But Marion couldn’t find any she liked and wanted something more specifically about the area we were visiting. The library had the James Michener ‘Caribbean’ book, but it was checked out. We ended up buying it on Amazon. We both started it on the plane. Marion abandoned it fairly quickly, but I got into it. And ended up reading it (and only it) the whole trip. (In fact, two weeks after the trip, I’m still reading it. Despite Wikipedia claiming it’s 672 pages, it appears to be infinite. And the Kindle thinks it’s 880. No one seems to know. I believe Michener is continuing to write chapters and downloading to my Kindle as I read.)
The plane was on time, the connection was on time and 10+ hours later we found ourselves in Saint Lucia. Neither of us got much sleep on the plane (I never do) but a little adrenaline works wonders. But what’s this? It’s raining. Really? And, of course, exiting the plane was to the tarmac, not a jetway. But it was only a light mist and warm so no big deal.
There were no issues at customs with my passport. Just some fumbling around to find the name of our hotel and the name of our boat. After what seemed like too long of a wait, our bags finally came out. The bathroom in the baggage claim was out of order and the only other one we’d seen was back before customs. So the ideal time to use it had passed. I assured Marion there’d be one after we exited. She was skeptical.
Next stop, finding our ride. Marion spotted the driver, and a few other Smithsonian folks too. They’re not on his list so they’re trying to work that out. We *are* on the list but, he says, we’re supposed to be on the flight from Charlotte. Are you f*cking kidding me? After I don’t know how many flight changes and Marion telling them 2 or 3 times what our new flights were you still have the original?
But, no worries, they should have room for us. And for the other folks who weren’t on the list at all (They, of course, get to worry if the *hotel* knows about them). The only problem is, in all the commotion, we haven’t yet found the bathroom. It’s a 2+ hour drive to the resort. And we definitely don’t want them to leave without us. Our new friends we just met tell us there’s a restroom at the other end of the sidewalk. And they offer to watch our bags so we can both rush off and go and we get back in time. Whew. As we’re pulling out, I remembered, and reminded Marion, that we should always watch them put our bags onto whatever vehicle we are leaving in, and we hadn’t. But there weren’t any suitcases left on the sidewalk so we figured we were good. But still shaking off the travel rust.
The driver is friendly and answers a few questions. But then “annoying guy” starts asking a bunch of questions. What seafood do they have? Lobster? Yes, but it’s not in season. Oh, so then you have it frozen? No, he’s saying they don’t have it. The guy isn’t listening. What are your major exports? What’s your primary industry? He refers to him as Mr. Chauffeur Man. It shuts down everyone else and the driver loses interest. So it’s a quiet, albeit a bit exciting drive up the side of the island.
The island was French and British (7 times each apparently!) but ultimately ended up British. So it’s right hand driving. The ‘highway’ was mostly a twisty-turny single lane, pot holed road that everyone drives on as fast as possible. Passing each other when the person ahead is going too slowly, whether there’s oncoming traffic or not. Nobody hit anybody (that we saw) but it did elicit a few ‘OH’s’ from Marion.
We got to the capital city of Castries (where the big cruise ships come in). And everybody on the island was there trying to drive through it. Or so it seemed. It was interesting to see the town, although I was in the middle seat and couldn’t see that much. But it probably took as long to get into, through, and out of town as the rest of the drive. After all the island is only 27 miles long. It took close to 2 hours to make the journey.
We finally got to the hotel. It’s very nice and the people are friendly. They use wrist bands as room keys. They, of course, want to take our bags to the room. We, of course, don’t want them to. We like to manage things ourselves. It’s all on wheels or already on our backs anyway. Plus, we have no small bills for tips. The Smithsonian lady explains all tips have already been paid so we reluctantly let them take us, but still feel bad.
The room is very nice but it’s on the ground floor and faces some new construction. And they’re still at it. Apart from a crappy view, we’re concerned about getting to sleep (which we’d like to do VERY SOON). Not to mention being woken up early by it tomorrow morning. We booked a year ahead. WTF? Marion went to speak to them. They say they don’t have any other rooms. The Smithsonian tour person offers to swap rooms with us but she can’t until tomorrow because her room hasn’t been cleaned. We’d have to stay in the room the first night, unpack and repack again. We have no interest in repacking these suitcases, so we decided against that. Plus, we didn’t want to do that to her.
But it turns out we can get a room with two ‘single’ beds. Yes, please. We can manage separate beds for a few days. It’s on the other side of the hotel and facing the pool. And it turns out by ‘single’ they mean queen beds. Much better. We are now ‘those people’, but Marion will have a private balcony with a decent view and no construction noise, and she also MUCH prefers not being on the ground floor. Plus, the tour people have probably already flagged our names since every time (yes, many) they sent us confirmation that didn’t agree with the last thing they sent us, Marion asked them to reconfirm. They have not impressed us. The room was in an older part of the hotel and a bit more ‘lived in’ than the first one, but that didn’t bother us too much. Except for the fact that the dresser drawers wouldn’t stay closed. Like the room was on a tilt or something. We propped up shoes on the bottom drawer to hold it closed. But never figured out a solution to the upper drawer. (I’ve added masking tape to our travel list.)
We had a quick look at the pool (very nice) and the beach (very nice) at sunset, and went for dinner. We had been told we were going to have a separate space for the tour people. But no, that’s tomorrow. Dinner is included but we’re handed menus with prices and told some things are included, some things are additional. Is dessert extra? Who knows. Just get what you want and pay later if asked. And of course, are we supposed to tip? Gah. The food was good but not fast (1.5 hours) so we were pretty exhausted
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