This took place just after 9/11/2001
OK, so we drive up to BWI on Friday night and spend the night. Uneventful.
We were suppose to get to the airport 3 hours prior to our departure time of 7:00 AM but since the AA ticket counter did not open up until 5 am they said show up at 5:00. We showed up at 4:45 and the line was way, way, way, way long. Down the terminal, down the hall, turn a corner and down another hall,...etc. Get the picture yet? Well, when the ticket counter finally opened, the lines moved fairly quickly but when we got up to the counter at about 6:20 the lady said that the flight was "delayed" due to a part on the plane being broke. Wonderful I said. Plane did not leave until noon. Try to occupy a 2 yr. old for 7 hours at an airport... where is the Bar ?
OK so now we are on the plane. (The broken part turned out to be the flight navigation computer, so I am glad they got it repaired.) Naturally we miss our connection in San Juan, so more waiting at an airport....Are we having fun yet ?
Got to St. Lucia at 9 pm (were suppose to be there at 2 PM). Dark, can't see crap. The next day, Sunday, a tropical depression envelopes the island all day. Great, what a smile I have on my face ! Monday the weather clears up enough around noon to hit the beach. OK. Finally Heinekens poolside. This ain't so bad. Paradise. The resort is beautiful.
Let's take a land and sea tour of the island on Tuesday I say. OK, cough up the $180 for the both of us (Dana is free, gee..). Tuesday is bright and sunny, and sunny, and sunny, and sunny and HOT! Must be about 95 with a heat index of 105. We climb aboard a small van with about 6 or 8 others and we decide to sit in the back where there is more room.
Bad Idea # 1.
The trip is suppose to go by land for the first part of the day, then we transition to a catamaran for a ride back to the hotel. In anticipation of going on a boat Dawn decides to take some motion sickness medicine.
Good idea #1.
We take off and it soon is apparent that there are no straight/level road on the entire island and furthermore, the A/C unit in the van is woefully inadequate! I start to get a bit woozy and look over at Dawn and she is turning green but did not want to say anything since she is pre-supposed to motion sickness to begin with. Well, I speak up to the tour guide mentioning that we are getting a bit ill back in the back and to crank the A/C up on full. It already was on full. Uh-ohhh.
HOUSTON, WE HAVE A PROBLEM!
About 5 more miles and buckets of sweat later, Dana decides she has had enough. Up comes the Banana she ate about an hour ago, the milk she washed it down with and the Amoxicillin she was taking to combat a cold she was getting over.We stop the van and disembark to a shady spot on the side of a mountain that only a mountain goat could love. We strip Dana down to just a diaper and try to cool her off while Daddy tries, unsuccessfully, to cleanse the van of Dana's deposit.
Dawn carries plastic bags in the diaper bag so we put all the puke filled dirty clothes in there to keep the smell down !!
Good idea #2
Dana seems OK now so back in the van we go.
Bad Idea # 2.
I request different seating arrangements and to open the windows to get a draft going across Dana to keep her cool. Another 5 or 10 miles of the Bob Bonderant school of high-performance driving and Dana decides to see what else she consumed for breakfast.. Lovely. Are we continuing to have fun yet? I take my T-shirt off to catch the Exorcist-like emanations from her mouth whilst yelling "STOP!" at the top of my lungs. We pull over to the side of the road, this time, luckily in something that resembles a town. We decide to bale.
Good Idea #3.
The tour guide calls us a taxi and we head back to town. The tour bus keeps going without us. At this point, I am beginning to think that with the smell, I don't want to be in that bus anymore, anyway.
RETURN TREK, PART I
So. We are headed back to the hotel, windows down, plastic bag under Dana's chin, life couldn't be better... 10 miles down the road and a strange sounds starts to emanate from the front of the vehicle. What's that I wonder as we charge head-long down pikes peak at a blistering pace? It seems that the left front tire has decided to depart this world for a better one. A flat.... Geez. We stop near the grazing cattle and dung piles in a hairpin turn on the side of the mountain and attempt a tire change. Interestingly the hydraulic jack used to jack the van up won't fit under the Van. I decide to see how Dawn and Dana are as they have moved away from the cattle seeking shade and a clear dung-free puking zone. I spy Dawn holding Dana horizontally, mouth pointing downwards, as Dana imitates the "human water faucet". Can this get any better? Yes, it can. Keep reading.
RETURN TREK, PART II
Off we go again. How did he get that jack under the van? Anyway, we continue and about another 10 miles or so I again hear a weird sound from the front of the van. Could it be? How is that physically possible? What are the astronomical odds of that occurring in anyone's lifetime? Had I bet on this, I surely would have lost the bet. But....NNNNNNOOOOOOOO not today, not in our state of being, not in our state of greenness. Another flat ! Same place, the left front, except this time the driver keeps on driving ! Does he not know that we have a flat? Is he just hoping this nightmare will end just as we are? Hmmmm. We pass a rasta-man on the road and the driver yells something incoherent out the window to him. Yes he reply's, you do have a flat. He jumps in and we head down the road with more weight and a tire that is still flat. We have no spare... What to do? We drive on the flat with what surely is a spectacular display of fireworks as the rim races down the asphalt road showering pedestrians with sparks. OK I am exaggerating here a bit but really, we just keep going ! Finally we get to an auto shop, the tire gets repaired, we get some alka-seltzer stuff (called Eno) into Dana and we are again on our way. Of course, Mr. Rasta-man is "sponsoring" a group of kids to go to some neighboring island for a soccer game (or was it Cricket?) so he hits me up for some sponsorship money. I hand him my wallet and say "I don't need the gazillion dollars in here, you take it". OK, he is happy. Now he hits me up for lunch money since he "helped me find the Eno" in the grocery store next to the auto repair shop (he did let me wear his shirt into the market since I was now just in swim trunks and tennis shoes. The locals are quite modest. Refer to previous paragraph for reason why I had no shirt on). I assume that this is some sort of shirt-rental fee and again turn over my wallet.The rest of the trip home was uneventful. Dana was much better as soon as she hit pavement that was not moving.The rest of the trip was spent poolside or on the beach. We got to see very little of the island. I did go on a mountain bike ride thru the "rainforest" which turned out to be quite disappointing.Oh well. I guess I will be calling the pediatrician and asking about motion-sickness medication for Dana before our next big adventure. Poor kid.....
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