St Maarten Trip Report

Sunday AM, Marc drops me off at the airport to meet Vicki. I kiss Marc goodbye and head into the airport, where I find Vicki sitting next to the smallest dog on Earth. I reach down, pet the dog that looked like a stuffed animal and then check my bag (No Line). We make our way to our gate and decide to walk around to find a cup-o-joe. Instead of sitting down with a cup of coffee, we find a bar and decide to have a Guinness. This is actually right before I tell Vicki that I can't drink before getting on a plane, because I don't like going to the bathroom on planes. Oh well, it was 7:00 AM and seemed appropriate. So, there we sit, at the bar, laughing at ourselves for drinking so early. I seriously think the last time I had a drink that early, I was in college. Next thing you know, I look up and see a friend of ours (from Marc's work), John. It was crazy. Just so odd to see someone in the same terminal, at that time of day in a bar. I knew it would be a start of a good trip.

The plane ride was smooth, as was the bus that took us all to the resort. We were with a group of people from the Chamber. What a great bunch of people by the way! We all arrived at the resort safely, then it rains (only for 30 minutes). Vic and I head to our room and that is when the room nightmare started. It had the strongest mold odor EVER! I must of talked to the manager 4 times in the first day. We wanted to change rooms, but they said they were booked. The odor was so bad that were were getting headaches, we then realized that we needed to shower with water shoes on, we had no rugs in our room, the AC barely worked and no remote to the tv. When you have such a bad room, there is only one thing to do--LEAVE. So, we tried to stay out of it as much as we could.

Minus the room and some features of the resort, the vacation was a blast. The weather was nice, beaches were nice and folks were friendly. We met a bunch of fellow travelers and locals.

Some of the highlights of the trip were:
* The Green House tractor and cat
* Cheap drinks
* Cruise Ship Dance-Offs
* DC Dames
* Random Canadians
* Exploring the island
* Bikini Beach
* Bikini Beach Bar views
* Airplane Landings
* Sunset Beach bar
* Tony Two-Times and Max
* Pina Coloadas and Vibrators (not what you think)
* Guinness Foreign Stout and Carib
* Terry Edwards, guitar player extraordinaire
* Folding Napkins
* Nude photographers
* Grape Smugglers
* Crab Olympics
* J5 and J7
* Front Street
* Fruit infused Tequila
* The Yoda Guy

I big 'thank you' to Miss Vic for making me 'plan B'. Thanks to Julie, Greg and Traci for being our traveling/party partners in crime, the Mendoza's for just being the cutest couple ever, Cathy for leading the DC Dames and Steve and Donna for keeping everyone 'on track'.

Now.. back to coats, cold weather and reality.

Check out the pics on the picasa site