Beautiful Barbados

... And falling literally but more of that in a bit.

Here it is Tuesday and I'm already falling behind.

Sunday, Tom got back from his meeting about 11 or so. Within 5 minutes some storm out to sea blew in a lot of rain at such an angle that it flooded about half the living room floor.

After getting that cleaned up we headed over to Emerald City to do our first grocery shopping of the trip. On Sundays they close at 2:00 so we wanted to be fast about that.

I had decided to get some nail polish but they were out of most colors. Only blue, yellow and green were left. I considered doing 1/2 blue and 1/2 yellow as a form of Cushie solidarity or something but decided against that. I got the blue. Looking at my hands now I'm hoping I don't get rushed to the hospital. They might think I have cyanosis...

In addition to other stuff we got tutti fruitti milk and salt bread. I think I could live on a diet of just those 2 items for quite some time. I'm uploading a picture of salt bread. It's more what we would call rolls, not salty at all but d that to distinguish it from sweet bread. It also has a sliver of coconut leaf on the top.

The rest of the day was uneventful. We went swimming about dusk and into the huge open air jacuzzi. We decided to have dinner by the pool at the Carriage House.

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Monday morning I woke up early and went outside to take sunrise pictures. I also got a little video and some starling and lizard pictures while I was at it.

We got some more rain but not as bad as Sunday. I guess it's Hurricane Irene out there we can see something out to sea but only the weather channel can identify some of these storms.

I was closing up the bedroom doors and slipped and fell. I hurt my hip pretty bad on the floor and my shoulder on the edge of the TV cabinet.

I spent most of the rest of the day not moving too much and so I finished book #1, Requiem for a Gypsy by Michael Genelin. Ive read all his books so far. I started the series because it takes place mostly in Slovakia and our son had spent a summer there teaching English so I feel a connection, however tenuous.

I started (and finished) book #2, Death by Honeymoon which I got because it was cheap and because the main action takes place here in Barbados.

I started reading book #3, Still Life: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel by Louise Penny. I've read several in that series and will probably complete it before long.

Dinner at home while watching American Ninja Warriors.

Life is good!

Early, early wake up time.  We have to be at the airport by 5:00 am so we were up at 4:00 am.  We got things we had taken out repacked - mostly electronics we wanted charged.

Checking out, we were able to get free "breakfast to go" bags that included cereal bars, juice, bananas and muffins.  Pretty good.

The Holiday Inn had a 24/7 shuttle so we got on that within 5 minutes.  It was only about 8 minutes to the airport.  It was a good thing we were there early because the line to pay the departure tax was pretty long.  Luckily, we had gotten a porter to move our bags because he was very helpful in showing us where to go for the departure tax and how to fill out the forms - then where to check in.

We got through security in plenty of time and I got a few pictures of the mountains outside the departure gate.

I ate the banana and the muffin.  I should have had the juice since it was confiscated in a final security just before getting on the plane.  The bottle was all sealed up but they took it anyway.  Oh, well.

I was very happy on the plane.  They showed the movie Water For Elephants.  I had read (and shared with everyone) this book several years ago.  I was glad to be able to watch the movie but it did cut into my naptime.

We arrived in Atlanta on time and went through the whole Customs/Immigration ordeal.It wasn't as bad as some places we have been through.  All our luggage arrived and that's a good thing!

We stopped for a real meal at T.G.I.Fridays, then on to our gate.  We were there about 30 minutes, then the gate changed so we dragged our stuff up the hall to the new gate.  Boarding was pretty easy, then we taxied out for takeoff.

Then, we stopped.  The pilot said that there were storms in the DC area so we couldn't land there.  He figured that the storm was colser to Reagan airport and those flights were probably diverted to Dulles (our airport) and Baltimore.  Whatever.

We sat, with the engines off, on the field.  No engines, no A/C.  They passed out ice water and told us to close the window shades to keep it "cooler".  Right.

Finally, we were able to take off.  Although I could see that we passed through some thunder storms, the flight was fairly smooth.

Into Dulles, got one suitcase.  The big one is nowhere. Finally, that showed up and we got a taxi for home.  Then off to get our dog ant the trip was over.

There will be more pictures later from Tom's camera plus the ones we took with the waterproof carmera in the Rainmaker rainforest.

Fairwell to 

Thanks for reading!