Beautiful Barbados

Our last full day here.

I had a lot of trouble sleeping last night. Even with the AC on, I was very hot and I finally got up and rested on the sofa under the fan. I started writing this at 3:30am after tossing and turning.

It looked like it rained outside again, otherwise I might have tried to sleep outside. Maybe my non-sleep will make me tired enough to sleep well on the plane on Saturday.

Yesterday they had fogged for mosquitos like the do every Tuesday and Thursday evening but last night's seemed heavier than usual. Still, some mosquitos survived and managed to bite me, one on the arch of my foot. I can't imagine he got anything out of my foot.

When I woke up at 6am after getting only 2.5 hours of sleep. Tom had opened up and there was a nice breeze. He was off, trying to get sunrise pictures. When he got back, I was sitting with my legs in the pool, trying to cool down the burn from the mosquito bites. They reminded me of a time we had been in Hilton Head and I accidentally stepped into a nest of fire ants.

We got yet more pictures from the deck. I saw that heron again but he was still too fast for me. It looks like there's another storm out at sea somewhere. I hope nothing big happens between here and Miami tomorrow while we're flying home.

Turns out there was no storm today. The whole day was beautiful. We went over to the Carriage House again for lunch. I got several “heron pictures” but none that really show him/her to best advantage.

Yesterday I'd ordered a tossed salad with lunch instead of fries. Fries arrived. Today I figured what the heck and ordered fries. My salad came. Hmmm..

There was another wedding and we got pictures of the setup and all. This one had a steel drummer playing the wedding march. I tried to get a little video but we were too far away. The wedding took abut 5 minutes. The pictures afterward took about 45.

At some point, I was resting on my elbows on the side of the pool, just lying still, thinking, and a bird swooped down and touched my chest. I think he was as surprised as I was that I wasn't a fish.

This is the last entry until we get home. Tomorrow will be a long, difficult day. We get up and pack, then check out of here by 10. We have to be at the airport by 12:40, then lines for tickets, baggage checks, security, customs, duty-free stuff. Then at Miami we go through immigration, US customs, then wait for several hours until our next plane. We get to DC about 12:35am on Sunday, then get a cab for a 45 minute ride home. Then, sleep! Our son should be there when we get home and that will be so nice.

Then, we pick up our dog later on Sunday and...back to real life. Work, doctors, volunteer stuff, medical testing, webwork, house cleaning, laundry, calls to make, emails, rehearsals. Real life.

In 50 weeks we'll be back! I'm already counting the days.

We took 177 pictures today just in case we missed anything over the last 2 weeks:

Yet another lazy day. I'm turning into a sloth! More of the reading/napping stuff. Today's big news is that I finally got on Facebook. I got nearly through the identification of the avatars, mainly by guesswork, then I came to one that I got entirely by accident. Thank you Becky B for using your yearbook picture with the tiny name written underneath!

Sandy Boone, former assistant pastor at my church had gone out on a leap of faith to start a new waterfront ministry in Baltimore. She sent me a copy of her new website for review/critique and that made me feel good, to be trusted to have possibly-useful comments and thoughts. :) The new site is supposed to go live today or tomorrow. Sometimes these things take a while to propagate, though. In case it's today, the URL is http://www.watersedgepartnership.org/ . We miss Sandy terribly at Pender UMC but I'm sure that her Waters Edge Partnership will exceed all expectations. When I go to my doctor appointments at Johns Hopkins, I'll be able to check this out, too!

Tom came over to Reception while I was doing my daily online routine. He had sent me some PDF files that he couldn't open. They were all financial reports about The Crane, some sent by a new man named Mel. While we were reading, Mel came over and introduced himself.

On the way back, we stopped at the village branch of Cave Shepherd and got that bathing suit Tom had wanted from the first day but didn't come in his size. They had sent one in the right size from another branch.

We were out of some basic stuff again, so it's off to Emerald City for shopping. I always feel like my name should be Dorothy when I mention or write about this store. LOL

Back home I was reading (or napping) outside when suddenly a huge rain cloud rolled in from the ocean. I don't remember seeing if there was a hurricane at sea or not. I thought the next one wasn't supposed to be until the 30th but one could be sneaking up. I went to get my camera but by then, it was really coming down.

About 10 minutes later I got these great rainbow pictures. I don't know if it will show up but the rainbow goes all the way into the sea.

I have a special “thing” for rainbows. Way back, we were in Florida, on the beach. My dad was terminally ill with his second bout of colon cancer. I was feeling guilty being on the beach while my mom was taking care of him in their home. Tom and our son were in the water and I was on shore praying for my dad, that everything would work out ok. It was a beautiful sunny day but all of a sudden there was the most glorious rainbow. I called to Tom and Michael so they could see it, too, and to prove to myself that I wasn't seeing things that weren't there. They both saw it too. I really felt that this was an answer to my prayers, that things were going to be ok. Since then, I've always looked for rainbows :)

No surprise but Tom spent a lot of time at his local “office”.

We went over to the pool area and all the pool chairs were wet from the storm – just like they were at our place. We went in the jacuzzi instead of one of the pools. The jacuzzi is in special location. Way, way back, when this was a hotel, the jacuzzi area was a stable. When my friend was here in the 1990s we were exploring and the stable was abandoned, with all kinds of junk in it and overgrown weeds and stuff. Nowadays, thanks to Paul's vision, it has been expanded, the roof removed and it houses a huge open-air jacuzzi where you can sit out and gaze at the stars.

The expansion – it was about doubled – looks so natural that no one would know. There are 6 large open window cuts on the shorter sides and 6 plus doorways on the longer sides. I'm guessing that the coral stone removed to make these open areas are what was used to make the expanded section but I'm not sure. However it was done all the coral stone looks to be the same age.

Similarly, the old carriage house has a new incarnation as the Carriage House Bar and Grill where we had lunch the other day.

Immediately after dinner I feel asleep on the sofa again. I don't see how I can sleep so much when I'm not doing anything!

The weirdest thing happened. I had been needing a nail file since we got here but I always forget when I'm in the store. Just after we paid at Ganzee the other day, I noticed some with souvenir pictures right near the cash register but I didn't want to start a new transaction. Then, I remembered in the jacuzzi.

When I went to bed, there was a brand new one, not in any packaging or anything, on my side of the bed. Tom didn't put it there – I'd never even mentioned one to him. I supposed that housekeeping maybe found it somewhere and assumed it was mine but I would have thought that they might put it on the bedside table.

Cue Twilight Zone music...

Today's pictures.