Sittin' in Miami airport

That means I'm almost home .... YIPPPPPEEEEEEE! One more plane ride and I'll be in beauuuuuuuuuuuuuutiful St. Croix .... hallelujah ... yabba-dabba-dooooooooo and woooooooohooooooooooo!

Sittin' in another airport

I'm sitting in the DFW airport, patiently awaiting my next flight to Miami. No place to plug in, I better keep this one brief.

It was a good flight from PDX to DFW, I caught some good Z's and I bet I'll be catching some more between Dallas and Miami. I've got time for breakfast, I guess I'll wander around and see what sounds appealing this morning. Caffeine would probably be a good thing right now, I don't want to fall asleep in a corner and miss my flight, KWIM?

Alrighty, tallyho!

Sittin' in the airport

I'm sittin' in the PDX airport, on the floor, plugged into an electrical outlet ... my laptop, not me. It's very quiet here, a good time of day/night to be flying. I'm looking forward to a nice long nap on the plane.

It was a really great visit here, it's always a little sad when I say goodbye to my Mom & Dad when they drop me off at the airport. They'll be coming to St. Croix for their annual visit in March, so it's all good.

I just called Rudy, to see what he's doing ... it's about 2:00 a.m. there, and he's sleeping! I hope he gets back to sleep easily, he did sound pretty sleepy. I can hardly wait to jump him in the STX airport and give him a big huge hug and a big ol' kiss. OH BOY!!!  Alrighty, time to put my stuff away and get ready to board the plane. Zzzzzzzzz ....Zzzzzzzz.

Time to head back to STX

It's almost time to jump on the plane and head back to St. Croix, the time has passed so quickly here. I've REALLY enjoyed spending quality time with my Mom & Dad ... we do have fun together; we spend a lot of time laughing .... at anything and everything ... GOOD TIMES!

Time to head for the airport ... more later

Beautiful weather at the Oregon coast

8th Annual Mother/Daughter beach trip was lots of fun. More details to follow ... later

Brrrrrrr ...

Nuff said!  

Dateline: Paradise in Portland, Oregon

Yahooooooooo ... I'm in Oregon, enjoying the gorgeous fall colors, and cool autumn temperatures ... Note to self: buy some big warm socks today.

 

I arrived yesterday, after an overnight stay in Dallas, TX. It was nice to break up the flying into 2 parts. It was sooooo nice seeing all the beautiful fall colors as the plane descended in PDX ... very pretty. I noticed, as the plane taxied up to the terminal, all the airport staff on the runway area were bundled up in big, heavy, warm clothes ... not accustomed to seeing that! Glad I found my supply of winter clothes; I like wearing warm, fuzzy sweaters and jeans. I'll adjust to wearing shoes vs. sandals ... that's something my feet don't care for, they really prefer to be bare or not suffocating in closed shoes for long periods of time.

 

Today my Mom and I will go by my house and take a little peek; ensure the current tenant isn't tearing the place apart ... not worried about that. Then perhaps we'll do a little shopping. Yesterday we ventured out and I drove and never once did I find myself driving in the left lane ... not even once. My mantra: stay to the right, stay to the right, stay to the right.

 

So the weather here is cool and crisp ... but feels downright   cold to me, I'm enjoying the change. Back in my other paradise, my Honeybunch said there was a HUGE thunder and lightning storm last night .... louder than ever! And rain aplenty, with more to follow. I just hope they don't have a hurricane without me.

 

Time to hit the shower and get the day started. I'll take some pictures of the pretty colors and other stuff here in PDX and post them later, it's really green and pretty here.

 

I miss my HoneyBunch!

Happy Friday the 13th!

It's a great Friday in paradise! We started off the day by turning off the alarm and snoozin' for an extra hour and a half or so ... WOOOOOOHOOOOOO and HUBBA HUBBA ! Normally we're up between 4:30 and 5ish and exercising at 5:30. This was a much better way to start the day.

 

This weekend HoneyBunch and I will probably continue our mission to make a habit of going to Full Moon Beach Bar for eggs benedict. YUM!  I'm hoping we'll get to the beach and soak up some rays, but there's a little tropical wave/blob thingie on the radar coming our way ... looks like rain, and that's ok, too. Probably not a good weekend for diving .... DARN!!! I know we'll think of something fun to do.

 

I'm gonna start throwin' stuff in a suitcase tomorrow, gotta find my warm winter clothes for the trip back to Oregon. BRRRRRRRRR!!! I can hardly wait! I'll get to spend some quality time with my Mom & Dad and family ... I'll be taking PLENTY of pictures, so be prepared and stay tuned.

Happy Columbus Day!

 

It's a Federal holiday, which means a day off work for me ... YIPPEEEE! Speaking of Columbus, here's a bit of island history:

Christopher Columbus visited St. Croix on November 14th, 1493 on his second voyage to the New World. Columbus named the island Santa Cruz (Holy Cross). The explorers anchored off a natural bay west of Christiansted, known today as Salt River. Some two-dozen armed men from Columbus' fleet went ashore to explore. These men were met by defensive arrows to which they retreated. The Salt River site is the first and only positively documented site associated with Columbus' exploration of the New World on what is today a U.S. territory.

Perhaps today I'll celebrate the holiday by lounging in the pool. I did a little pool lounging yesterday after our dive, very relaxing. As I was drifting in and out of a restful slumber, I noticed the clouds drifting by ... and of course I thought "Hey, I should take a picture of those" ... but I didn't. I think today I'll snap some photos of the view from the pool, from my air mattress, maybe a video.

Perhaps I'll go downtown and do a little shopping, wander around Christiansted and see if I can find anything I absolutely can't live without. There's always something! It's a cute little town, maybe I'll take some pictures.

 

Perhaps I'll go have a pedicure, it seems like a good day for a little pampering.

 

Perhaps I'll change the ring in my navel. I had it pierced probably 6 or 7 years ago and I've never changed the ring. Possibly because it makes me queasy to even think about it! I have a really cute dolphin ring, and another with pretty purple stones .... feeling queasy ... I think I'll skip this one.

 

Perhaps I'll finish taking pictures of the rest or our cat family, there are many left to be snapped in a Kodak moment; some are pretty camera-shy.

 

Perhaps I'll take some pictures of our puppies, they LOVE having their picture taken. Zoe prefers no flash, it's too much like lightning and makes her head for the closet.

 

Perhaps I'll go jump in the pool now and get my day started; it's gonna be a GREAT day!   ENJOY!!    

Ants in my pants?

Nope, but I did have an ant farm in my BCD (Buoyancy Control Device) .... EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.... HOLY COW .... YUCK ... WTF? ... GROSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!! 

WE FINALLY WENT DIVNG TODAY .... "WOOOOOOHOOOOO", as my HoneyBunch would say! It was a great day of diving, the water was 86 degrees, so many fish it was mesmorizing, and pretty good visibility. We spent about 50 minutes under water at Cane Bay, doing a shallow dive today ... I prefer staying shallow when I haven't dived in a while, plus there were so many fish and critters at that depth, it was phenomenal. I'm hoping this will be the beginning of our new habit of diving ... 1 down, 10 to go and it will be a habit! 

After the dive we had brunch at Cane Bay ... YUM ... Juevos Rancheros ... really, REALLY good. I'm ALWAYS starving after we go diving and this is such a nice way to follow a dive; so relaxing to sit and watch the ocean and the blue sky and the clouds and the people .... I can hardly wait for next time.

Sooooooooooooo ... to follow up on the ant farm incident, we haven't been diving since February ... lots of excuses. This morning we packed up our gear and were putting it on and I noticed some ants on my BCD. Rudy mentioned he had some ants on his and I thought I'd just brush off the ants on mine and we'd be off into the wild blue yonder. I opened the pocket of my BCD and pulled out my gloves and there were a bunch of ants. OK, I've been stung NUMEROUS times all at once by fire ants, but these were just the small ones that don't sting or bite or whatever they do, so we brushed them off, sort of ... but I was somewhat concerned. I pulled out my weights from my BCD and HOLY SHIT ..... there were thousands of ants and ants with eggs and ants-a-plenty! Not one to FREAK OUT ... but I'm not wearing a BCD that's also an ANT FARM ! I rented a BCD and we went out for a really nice dive. I guess to prevent this from happening again, we need to go diving more often .... lesson learned!

I'll add a couple of pictures from when we were getting geared up and ready to dive ... didn't get pictures of the ant farm. Also, some pictures of the really cute goats on the way to-and-fro the dive site. AND our pineapple farm .. it looks just like a regular little pineapple now, but it's sproutin' some weird growths out at the bottom.

Today is it!

This is it ... October 7th .... Happy Birthday Dad and Brian! I hope you both had a most excellent day! My brother, Brian, was born on my Dad's birthday! 

Tonight we took Brian, the birthday boy, out to dinner at TuTu Bene .... YUM!!! The food was fantastic as usual.  

Tomorrow, we're going diving! YIPPPPEEEEEE!

 

  

Happy Catmas!

Happy Catmas everybody!

These are all pictures from my cell phone, so the quality is not so great.

And these are only a few of the bunch, there's more where these came from .... stay tuned!

HAPPY FRIDAY ... AND IT'S A 3 DAY WEEKEND!

I'm really ready for a nice long weekend, it's been one hellacious week. Plenty of insomnia, thunder & lightning, wind and rain, dogs hiding in the closet ... I'm ready for winter! It's been too freakin' hot here. Not one to complain, but HOLY COW, it was really hot and humid this morning ... just another day in paradise.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD & BRIAN

I might not make it back here tomorrow, on your birthday, so here's your wishes a day early! We'll be going out to dinner tomorrow night to celebrate Brian's birthday. Dad, I'll be seeing you and give you a big belated birthday hug on the 17th, I CAN HARDLY WAIT!!!! Oregon, here I come ... YIPPEY-YI-YO-KAI-YAY (sp?) .... get along little doggie!!!

Gotta get ... more later!

 

 

Beautiful sunset

Here's a pretty sunset, as viewed from our front porch last night ... but I think the picture is bigger and prettier here ...

http://stormcarib.com/reports/current/stcroix.shtml

A view from paradise

Testing the video thingy

Breakfast in paradise

Yesterday HoneyBunch and I went to Full Moon Beach Bar for breakfast, 8 more times and it'll definitely be a habit! Once again, we had eggs benedict and it was most excellent. I took pictures of our breakfast, my Mom requested that; she's famous for taking pictures of her meals. She's not the one that's taken a picture of every single meal for the last 27 years, but she's a contender. It's TOOOO cute! When they come to visit in March, we have most of our meals documented and it's a wonderful thing. It's nice to be able to look back on our culinary delights, there are many when she and my Dad and Aunt Jan come to visit. GOOD TIMES.

 

I also took some videos of the restaurant, and driving on the left; the drive along the North Shore is gorgeous. I'll try to post the video here, and if that doesn't work I'll put it on YouTube for your viewing pleasure.

 

And now we've gotta go to the store and refill our water jugs. Later I'll tell you about the water situation here, it's very different; cisterns and 5 gallon water jugs are very important!

 

 

Note to self ...

I've been pondering, as I so commonly do, about what to share next. I was almost listless ... NOT! I've made a list and my list is growing and growing! I see so many sights and things that are noteable ... at least in my mind! However, I'm quite easily amused and for that I am very thankful! So, before I forget, here's the partial list of things I'll be telling you about later:

Driving on the Left: HOLY COW ... I'm hoping I can provide some video clips, it's a freaky sight to be coming through an intersection on the left and have the traffic on the right ... no longer a heart-thumping experience for me, but it's quite a sight when you're not accustomed to it.

Cat-A-Log (catalogue) ... I brought one cat, Mr. Stinkers, with me when I moved here from Oregon. He's an indoor cat and was probably at least 112 years old then, five years ago. He's still alive and living a happy life as our only indoor cat. Outside, that's a different story. When we moved here we found a couple of cats residing here, one we call Pootsie-May and another we called Tiger (now called Tigress, she's a girl!) which now lives with our friends, Rich and Lisa. Pootsie-May is still here and she's a sweetie; I think she was abandoned by the previous tenants (nasty word goes here). Now, for the somewhat shocking part; we have approximately 10-15 other "feral/I've named, tamed and love them/had them fixed, " cats that have adopted us and live outdoors. It's a long story, so I'll save it for later, and provide a "Cat-A-Log" of all our feral friends. Quick note: we haven't had a dead rat in the pool since our furry friends joined our family ... YIPPPPEEEEEE!

Ok, that's it for now!

Eggs Benedict, Pretty Clouds, and baby horses

This morning my HoneyBunch, Rudy, and I went to Full Moon Beach Bar (formerly Cane Bay Beach Bar) for breakfast. YUM!! This is the 2nd consecutive Saturday we've dined there for breakfast, I hope it's becoming a habit now. Although I think it's after 11 times that something becomes a habit, isn't it? I digress. I wish I'd taken pictures, the view there is beautiful; the ocean is right across the road from the restaurant. The food is good, too, we both had eggs benedict ... YUM. Next week I'll get pictures of all of it: the view, the beautiful ocean, the beach, the eggs benedict ... YUM again!

 

On the way back we drove along the North shore road, stopping to take pictures of all sorts of lovely sights. I found myself intrigued by the beautiful clouds today ... I couldn't stop snapping pictures of them ... you'll see. I LOVE pictures of pretty puffy clouds. A little further along the road we passed 2 young boys on horseback with a baby horse following ... awwwwwwwwwwww ... I'm such a sucker for baby horses, and baby goats, and baby lizards, and baby cows, and baby kittens, and baby puppies ... do you see a pattern here? I snapped a picture as we drove past the boys, then Rudy stopped and the little boy with the baby horse following came back so I could take a picture ... how sweet is that? Bless his little heart, he was so cute, and so determined to get the horses positioned for a picture. This had to be done rather quickly, as we were stopped in the middle of the road for this brief photo shoot. That's very common here, people stop in the middle of the road for all sorts of reasons; to talk to someone they know driving in the other direction, to talk to someone they know walking along the road, to talk to someone on their cell phone - the list goes on and on ... and once again I digress. So I finished taking pictures of the little boy and his equine and baby equine; we gave him a couple of bucks, since he was so thoughtful and determined to help us capture the "Kodak Moment". The really, really sweet part; his eyes just lit up when I offered him the bounty .... SOOOOOO CUTE!!!! He happily accepted the offering and said "Thank you, now my friend and I can buy a cool drink" ..... awwwwwwwwwww, bless his little heart. It's moments like that, that just tickle me pink! KWIM?

Lizard Under Glass

Have you ever opened a kitchen cupboard and had a cute little lizard (think Geiko, only not quite as cute) jump out and scare ya til ya scream? That happens routinely here, and I've gotten to the point, sometimes, where I don't even let out a scream anymore; it's more like a small yelp. Getting more brave and strong every day!   

 

I have a process for capturing and setting free the little rascals, as they're much happier outside, without all the screaming! I quickly place a plastic cup over them, scoot a piece of paper beneath them and very carefully transport them outside. They look so very happy running off into the wild blue yonder, little lizard smiles ... precious!