Whisked Away to Splendor

***Under construction - come back to see pictures and videos. Also scroll down - Baba has one more blog entry she's working on***

A few days before our trip, Dan called Sandals to ask a question, they told him once we got to St. Lucia, we'd fill out a form and then they'd whisk us away to splendor. Sounded good to me!

We left early Tuesday morning (kissing my sleeping kids good-bye was rather difficult) for the airport. Everything was good. Dan got himself breakfast and me a cup of hot chocolate. I bought us trident pina colada gum to "get us in the island mood." We boarded the plane and had an uneventful ride to Puerto Rico. As soon as we landed and people started getting up, I noticed Dan checking his pockets and then searching through his backpack. I wouldn't say he was frantic, but definitely was urgently searching. My stomach of course dropped to my knees as I asked him what he was looking for...HIS WALLET. Oh no...yes, indeed, his wallet was missing and we could only guess that it was somewhere in the Baltimore airport with $60, his credit cards, his military ID, driver's license, bank cards, the kids social security number...you get the picture. I will admit to having a slight panic attack and freaking out on him a teeny tiny bit (Do you feel the need to comment on that, Daniel???). We had enough time on our layover to cancel all of his cards and call TSA in Baltimore - no wallet turned in. The lost wallet definitely put a damper on the beginning of our vacation.

We made it to our hotel - being whisked away to splendor didn't have quite the effect it was supposed to on me. Once there, we discovered our calling cards wouldn't work from the hotel and in a moment of sheer stress, I made the executive decision to just use our cell phones and pay the phone bill when it comes (I'll update when it shows up). The kids and my parents made it through their first day (and the rest if you've read Baba's absolutely hilarious entries). After calling home and having the first of many fruity adult beverages, I was able to calm down and made a decision to deal with whatever came with the lost wallet after we got home. We were on vacation and needed to enjoy it.

And enjoy it, we did! The first night, we got dressed up and had dinner at a restaurant called the Pier. The food wasn't very good, which surprised us. We had a chance to walk around the property and take pictures on the beach. We also scheduled tours and outings for the rest of our trip. The Halcyon resort was beautiful. It was kind of bungalow style (where the other resorts felt more hotel-y). I loved all of the beautiful tropical plants and it smelled so good when you were walking around. The stress just kind of melted out of me as I took in everything - or maybe it was my 2nd pina colada :p. I loved the atmosphere of the resort - no kids, all couples. It was laid back and everyone stayed to themselves.

Wednesday morning, we had breakfast delivered to our room. We ate on the patio overlooking gardens and the ocean. Next, we headed to the gym and actually exercised. It was only about 20 minutes on their machines, but I could feel it the next morning. Don't worry, that was the only day we were crazy. We never saw the gym again - I had been feeling the wallet tension and needed to work it out. Then we lathered on the sunscreen and boarded a bus for the marina and snorkeling. St. Lucia is a beautiful island. It was more mountainous (or maybe hillier) than I was expecting. I loved the tropical plants everywhere. Things that we have to pay tons of money for and work hard to keep alive were growing wild everywhere. We saw poor areas like you would think of seeing in a third world country, but we also saw very wealthy areas with huge houses built on the hills overlooking the ocean. The snorkeling trip was great. I haven't been snorkeling since our mission trip to Key West in college. They took us on a 20 minute boat ride to Rusty's Cove. I loved the ride. We sat up top with the wind in our faces. The water was cold when we jumped in, but I quickly warmed up. It was beautiful and so peaceful looking under the water. I saw black sea urchins with nasty, poky spines. There was lots of Nemo and Dorie type fish. I saw 2 squids and a couple of long thin eel looking fish. We didn't see anything too exciting like sharks thankfully. They let us stay down about thirty minutes before taking us back to the resort. I took pictures with an underwater camera. Maybe I'll remember to take it to Walmart to get the pictures developed one of these days.

Back at the resort, we decided to learn how to sail a hobie-cat. The instructor took us out and showed us the basics. He sailed it out for us and then let Dan sail it back in. I LOVED it. From there we took turns sailing it in and out to the end of the cove. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be. Keeping the rudder straight was a challenge, but I've been exercising you know, so my muscles were up for the challenge :p. I loved the feeling of flying over the water. It was a little scary when I was in charge and we got going really fast, but oh the thrill. Our only trouble was turning around. The first time on our own, it took us several tries to get the silly boat to turn. Once we got it figured out, we didn't have any more troubles, but there for a second, I thought we might be stuck in the middle of the cove forever. At least we didn't tip it like someone else we saw. I managed to spend an hour or so on the beach after sailing, but you'd never know we'd been on a tropical island for 4 days by looking at either of us now. For dinner that night, we ate at an Italian place. Marios was much better than the Pier.

Thursday was by far our busiest and most fun day. We slept in Thursday morning and had breakfast at their buffet (which was great - the fresh fruit was unbelievable). We left at 10 for a "Rain Forest Canopy" tour. We drove for about 45 minutes to get there and saw more of the island. The zip line wasn't exactly what I was expecting. I think I've spent too much time watching Diego. There was a movie a long time ago called the Medicine Man with Sean Connery. I think I was expecting to be in an undeveloped rain forest where we would see exotic plants and animals. Instead, we got a theme park type tour of a rain forest canopy...which was fine because it was a load of fun doing the zip line. We did about 8-9 different lines and had a couple of rope type bridges to cross. It was a little scary at first for them to hook you up to this wire and send you sailing through the jungle, but after the first few times, I was able to relax and enjoy the ride. We were at the end so one of the guides took our camera and followed us taking pictures for us. I love the last video he shot.

After our tour, as if we hadn't done enough exciting things for the day, we took the shuttle bus from the Halcyon to the Grande and spent the afternoon there. After lunch (pizza and another fruity adult beverage - I drank more diluted down drinks over those 4 days than I've had in the rest of my life), we left the resort and went to Pigeon Island - which really isn't an island and just involved a 5 minute walk. We hiked up a large hill to Fort Rodney which is a military fort that protected the island eons ago. In the states, there would have been steps and guard rails and the areas that weren't safe would have been closed off. Not in St. Lucia. We could go in any of the old remains we wanted to. The view from the fort was breathtaking. From there we hiked even further up to Signal Point. It was a good hike and even involved some climbing where I needed to use my hands and feet. The view from Ft. Rodney was nothing compared to Signal Point. You could look out into the ocean (or Caribbean Sea maybe - I don't know) and see the curvature of the earth. It was really cool.

On Friday, our last day in St. Lucia, we scheduled a shopping trip and snorkeling. I enjoyed the shopping and we needed to do it to bring back souvenirs, but I would have been fine without seeing the market and shops. If you've been on a cruise and gotten off at a port, that's what the shopping and market was like. The only interesting thing to mention is Scary Bob who was scary and crazy. He enjoyed harassing the tourists trying to sell them palm frond woven bowls. Dan actually had a small conversation with him because he wouldn't leave him alone and he was too polite to just turn his back or walk away like I did. Another couple from our tour had to get a cop to help because of an incident with Scary Bob. They went home with a funny story to tell.

Unfortunately, our guide and other shoppers were late getting back to the bus on our 2 stops so we were late getting back to the resort. We missed the snorkeling tour by about 5 minutes. Our silver lining was the hobie-cats that we had been debating about - Did we want to go snorkeling again or sail a hobie-cat??? We were totally bummed to walk down to the beach and learn the red flag was up and the water was too rough to take one out. I spent the rest of the afternoon on the beach reading a book, but not getting any sun because of the overcast skies. That night, we went to the Regency Resort for dinner at Kimonos - Hibachi. They had a fancier name for it, but it was Hibachi. The food was excellent and my favorite meal of our entire trip (well except for maybe at Michele's the next day, but that was all about the company). Anyway, our cook didn't put on a typical Hibachi show. He was kind of boring actually, but I didn't mind because the view of the water and sunset behind him was plenty of show.

We flew home on Saturday which I'll write about in another entry. All in all (if you forget about the wallet incident), we had a wonderful, relaxing escape. Thank you, Mom and Dad, for coming and doing such a great job of taking care of the kids. Special thanks to you, Mom, for keeping my blog updated. I was laughing so hard, I was crying when I read your entries. I can't wait until you have your blog up and running to follow the adventures of your traveling lake house!