Beautiful Barbados

We have been to Barbados many times. While I am rebuilding this blog post-hackers I will try to remember some of these past trips and post about them here

The year of 911 my mom and my son had been with us for the first week. My son had to be back at college so on Sunday he shepherded my mom through the airport, customs and all and got her back home before he headed back to UMass/Amherst on Monday. Thank goodness they got back before the mayhem started!

On Tuesday we were out on a 4X4 with our favorite guide, Zario. Zario is a fun guy and and very knowledgeable about Barbados and world events. We were very happy to have him again because it was the "luck of the draw" which driver/guide we got.

I remember that morning being kind of stressed already - I was having trouble with one of my contacts and I was just grumpy.

Zario picked us up first, one of the benefits of staying at The Crane - everyone picks us first for everything and drops us off last. Then he picked up another couple from New York City who were staying at Bougainvillea.

The tour started off through the fields, down cliffs as usual. Zario had the radio on in the background. When we got to the first stop he told us that there was a "problem" in New York. That it seemed that a plane had hit a building. We thought that there was going to be a punch line somewhere. There wasn't.

As the tour went on, the news got worse. The couple from NYC was very worried about relatives.

By the time we got to lunch and met up with the other 4x4s everyone had heard. We were in a little chattal house restaurant, the TV was on CNN and everyone was just watching in silence and horror. Usually this lunch is very festive and fun. Not a care in the world. Not today.

We left the New York off at their hotel and went "home". The TV was full of New York news, then Pentagon news. We know people who work at the Pentagon. The news just got worse as we went along.

When Saturday came we had no idea if we could go back to the states or not. But we had to try.

We were able to fly to Puerto Rico with no idea if we'd be able to leave there or not.

Eventually, we were told we could fly out on American Airlines, on the first plane to get clearance to fly back to the states. We were flying into Dulles Airport, outside Washington, DC.

The captain and crew came marching up the corridor with huge American flags and everyone cheering wildly.

When we settled in, the captain thanked us for flying American - like we had a choice! - and more cheering.

When we got back to DC airspace we were met by two fighter planes, one on each side. There may have been one behind. The captain tried to tell us that they were there for our protection but I was sure that they would shoot us down in a heartbeat if we tried anything funny.

While we taxied both out of Puerto Rico and into Dulles the co-pilot held that flag out the window. Wild applause when we finally landed safely.

A very memorable trip!