BLOG VACATION

Hey, sorry about taking a couple days off! My brother and his wife Sarah have two kids, Cyrus and Tessa and we've all been keeping each other pretty busy. They left on vacation mid-December before we'd even conceived of joining them along with my parents in St. Lucia. So we decided to make it a surprise. I think it worked. They met Mom and Dad for drinks at a casual bayfront restaurant on Marigot Bay and that's when they found out we were joining them for the St. Lucia segment of their trip. It has become something of a family tradition to meet up somewhere in the world...at a restaurant. Their's always a view involved, and usually pizza!

Since we arrived Saturday, we have dined outside for almost every meal. We've splashed in the pool, by the beach, and in the open sea. Debra had a "blast" on the mini-sailboat and says taking a sail was "worth the whole trip". We had fun with neon rings and night swims, rum punch, and driving on the lefthand side of the road (not all simultaneously, of course). All Caribbean with a British infrastructure and French names. The megayachts moored in the harbor our hotel overlooks (where the old Dr. Doolittle was filmed) are floating bastions of excess. Each one is staffed with multiple servants, have complete bars, glass walls that slide away automatically to open living rooms up to the decks, and are four stories high.

It's been nice to see my family. They are all very smart, kind, and loving. The hard part has been being so far from friends and family that have been having trouble because of the harsh winter weather. We get sketchy reports about 10 year lows that only now seem to be easing up a bit. There's been breakdowns in our furnace and pipes have burst while we've been away. So that never feels good. It's the one downside of going away.

LESSON EIGHT: You can't escape reality just because you escape. Travel electrifies you. Responsibility grounds you. No matter how spontaneous you are, you can't just disconnect.