Hey Blog Fans!
It's been a while, and it's a new Year, and time for a new trip. In fact, I'm at 3-1/2 new trips. But we'll start at the beginning.
It's February in Laramie (as I guess it is most everywhere else), and although it hasn't been a horrendously awful winter so far, still, it seems like a good time to get out of town and get warm. And what better way to do it than a Caribbean cruise. But this one is a little different than my other cruises because I'm not going on Princess. I decided to go small this time, so I'm taking a Windstar cruise, the Classic Caribbean, seven days from St. Maarten in the Dutch Antilles to St. Lucia and back. And I'm adding a few days on both sides, so I'll be gone two weeks.
I set the flights up so that I would arrive and depart in St. Maarten at convenient times (3:00 and 5:00, respectively) which means that they are terrible times in Denver and worse in Laramie. My flight down departs Denver at 12:43am to Miami and the flight back arrives at 11:44pm. And with the late arrival and not wanting to fight sleep or snow, I decided to take the Groome Transportation shuttle from and to Laramie. Leaving Laramie was at 4:00 in the afternoon, which got me to the airport at 7:00 for my flight 4-1/2 hours later. Which is ok. Better to be there earlier rather than later. Judy picked me up at 3:30 so I was at the Hilton at 3:40, ready for my 4:00 departure...except..... THEY DIDN'T SHOW UP AT 4:00. When I called at 4:30 and asked about the shuttle, they hemmed and hawed and finally admitted that they had screwed up and there wasn't a shuttle scheduled to come to Laramie. They arranged to have another at 7:40pm which would get me to the airport at 11:05pm for my flight at 12:43am. Well, it's an hour and a half before the flight, which Erik would say is plenty of time and I would say it's barely acceptable, but I didn't have much other choice. So, I'm writing this now at Chipotle's for a nice leisurely dinner... and waiting to get on the bus and get out of here.
And right now, I'm hot-spotting off my phone when I need to conserve power, so I'll log off.
But, to use mom's expression, "Like a bad penny, I keep coming around."
....................
OK, I'm back at the Hilton Garden Inn and the driver should be here in 45 minutes.
Back to the trip.
Where is St. Maarten? It's east of Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. It's where the Orange marker is located, in the far Eastern Caribbean, the Dutch Antilles.
The cruise starts in St. Maarten, and then goes to Nevis, Dominica, St. Lucia, Guadeloupe, St. Kitts, St. Barts and back.
I know absolutely nothing about any of these islands, but remember as a young nerd that I would like to go there someday. Kinda like going to Oz. So the islands were a part of the call. The other was the ship.
Yeah, those are sails! OK, it is powered by diesel, but when the winds are favorable, they unfurl the sails and add 2-3 knots to the speed. And instead of 3,450 of your closest friends on Princess, there are 345 passengers. And its not 17 stories tall. And you can go into the bridge and talk to the captain and crew and read the charts. I don't know, it just sounded like everything I was looking for. (Not entirely true, they have other ships with 194 people. But not on this route.) And I only had to move two doctor's appointments over that two weeks. And one of those was with my Urologist, Dr. Pierce. And that was significant because....
On January 12, I started passing a kidney stone. My eleventh, and first in over 30 years. The pain became intense on the 13th and I checked in to the ER so I could get some significant pain relief, and verify it was a stone. It was, and the morphine felt great. And then it sat there and didn't move, at all.
I met with Dr. Pierce and he scheduled a lithotripsy on February 8th, 5 days before I was leaving. He was able to reschedule to Feb 1, which was much better. During that entire time, there was no pain and obviously, no movement. After the lithotripsy, I was in pain again and hit the hydrocodone pretty heavy. But it wasn't from the stone. He placed a stent in my ureter from my kidney to my bladder and was painful the entire length of the tube. And the loop in my bladder irritated it and made me want to pee constantly. Like every 30 minutes. It got better over time, but never more than 2 hours. At my appointment on Feb 9, we agreed to pull the stent with the understanding that he might have to put another one in after the cruise. X-rays have shown that the lithotripsy reduced the size of the stone from 5-6mm to 3mm. Hopefully it will pass much easier now, but I've got my pain arsenal with me if it does.
Back to my travel from Laramie to the airport. Groome came through for me. They were at the Hilton at 7:40 and pulled out at 7:45. It was no surprise that I was the only passenger, so I stretched out on the back seat and got a nap on the way to Fort Collins. When we got to Fort Collins, the driver to DIA came 5 minutes later and since I was the only passenger, we left immediately. We got here at 10:10. And it was a good thing. It took almost 40 minutes to get through TSA. But I'm here and the plane is boarding, so it's off to Miami!
Oh yeah, it's after midnight, so Happy Valentine's Day everyone.
I'm ready!
The Miami Airport is no great shakes, and the concourse is about a half mile long. So I walked it twice for exercise and to check out the food choices. I finally settled on a Cuban sandwich, which seemed the closest I could get to Caribbean food. The plane left within 20 minutes of the correct time, and we got to St Maarten right at 3:05 local. I had arranged for a group shuttle to pick me up to take me to my hotel. However, we got shuffled into the "wrong" line, and it took almost an hour to get through customs. It was really ridiculous, flights that came in after us got through ahead of us. But it was a good reminder of "No Problems, Mon", the Caribbean version of "What, Me Worry?"... except if the "group" that I was shuttling with was in the "right" line, they could have been waiting in the van for 45 minutes, which wouldn't have been good. As it was, I was the only passenger on this run, so "no worries" was correct.
The traffic was incredible, It's about 5.5 miles from the airport to my hotel and it took well over 35 minutes to get here. And the roads are old and narrow. And it is very scenic. It's mountainous, which I didn't grasp before.
I'm staying at Alicia's Inn, a very locally owned hotel with 9 rooms total. And it's very nice. I should have taken pictures when I walked in before I started unloading the duffle bag I brought. It is in "downtown" Philipsburg and is a block and a half from the beach. It is also Ash Wednesday, and I looked for Christian churches that may have services. No Lutheran churches (which I thought was odd for a Dutch colony). I walked by four churches, two Catholic and two Protestant, and no one had a sign indicating a Wednesday service. So I went to eat.
Interesting Flactoid, most restaurants here close at 7:00. The tourists are gone. Just a few of the "fancy" places are open later. One of them that I had read about was the "Green House" on the east side of the beach boardwalk. So, I moved south one block to the beach and walked that way.
This is Great Bay and Great Bay Beach, the largest stretch of beach in the south of the island.
The Dutch Blonde windmill is a landmark. Dutch Blonde is a locally made beer. Note the hotel on the left.
The Sint Maarten Courthouse. It was built in 1793. The top of the spire is a pineapple. It is shown on the St Maarten flag.
I got to the Green House at 6:00. I had read rave reviews of their Bang Bang Shrimp, so I ordered that as I sat down. When I opened the menu, I saw it was an appetizer. And since it was the middle of Happy Hour, I ordered an island drink, a Pina Colada. The first one was good, the second just got sweet. And the shrimp was really good, like Sweet and Sour Shrimp with just a tangy coating. And as I sat there after I finished and watched the sunset through the masts of the ships in the harbor, I decided to have another, only this time with a margarita. By the second one of those, it still tasted good, but was having a slight tingling effect. And I was full of shrimp. And tables of tourists began to fill around me. It was time to go. So as I walked back to my hotel, I passed an Anglican church that I had checked earlier, and it was full. And so was I, full of the spirits, not "the Spirit." So I went back to the hotel and crashed. It had been a long day and very little sleep.
Glad you made it there safely! I looks amazing.
ReplyDeleteJaye