Joe Jr did our flight books, Kuau booked the hotels.
Saturday 4/18. Joe
and family got to our house at around 8:30 pm last night. Emmie, whom we had not seen for a couple of
months, was very happy to see us, so she stayed up way past her bedtime.
This morning I had to wake up at around 6 am so we could
be ready to leave our house at 7 am. Things
went pretty smoothly, although traffic in the terminal area was heavier than I
expected. And the line at TSA pre-check
was quite long, the machine beeping everyone contributed to the delay. There is talk that TSA wants to charge
passengers now for the privilege, and they want to enroll a lot more people in
the program – I am not sure these objectives are consistent with a more
efficient screening program. In any
case, I was in the terminal before 8 am, so there is really nothing much to
complain about (and this includes dropping the car off at EZ Way Parking.) The other folks, meanwhile, were in the
United Lounge.
The plane was packed, with perhaps one or two vacant
seats. After considerable musical
chair-playing, I ended up in the same row as Ellie, Kuau and Reid (lap infant),
and Anne was in a middle Exit Row seat.
We were a bit slow to take off as the pilots were delayed getting in
from Boston. The plane landed on time,
and we got our first experience with island time: both immigration and customs
were slow, even though there didn’t seem to be any problems.
A short but rather expensive ride got us to Villa Del
Mar. As our rooms were not ready yet, we
left them in the lobby and went to lunch across the street.
Emmie, Reid and their mothers got into the pool for a
rather long time while Joe and Kuau went grocery shopping. Anne and I also went to pick up some
meat. Things are expensive as this is
both a tourist place and (I suspect) a lot of stuff is flown in. A box of clementines costs about $5 in New
Jersey; here it is $15. Salmon is about
$8 a pound, $19 here. For dinner we
grilled the steak and hot dogs on the BBQ provided by the hotel.
First dip into the pool.
View from our room.
Accommodations: Villa del Mar, Room B301, 4 nights.
Sunday 4/19. Morning was spent on the beach. While I enjoy sea views much, I am not a
seashore, suntan type of person – the motto I invented was “no sun, no water,
no sand.” Both Reid and Emmie had a great time, and they mostly didn’t mind
sand all over their bodies (in Reid’s case including his face.) We babysat Reid as Ellie and Kuau went out to
lunch. They brought back these huge
hamburgers for us, not cheap at $18 each.
Dinner at Coco Bistro, considered one of the best restaurants in
town. I ordered the wahoo since I never
had it before; the dish turned out okay, but not much more than okay.
Grandpa is not that much into sand ...
Relaxing by the hotel pool ...
or on the beach.
Panoramic view of Grace Bay.
Monday 4/20. Well,
I went into the water for 20 minutes or so today. Not having swim in the sea for a while, I was
surprised at how salty the water tasted, and how buoyant it was.
Lunch was with Joe, Jess and Emmie at Seaside Café. BBQ dinner of chicken drumsticks, steak, and
hot dog.
Tuesday 4/21. Kuau
picked up lunch today. Anne and I
finally got cabin fever, so we checked out a rental car from Caicos
Wheels. Rent-a-Wreck is probably a more
appropriate name for the outfit, our car was a Honda Fit with about 75,000 km
on it (the island itself is only 20 or so miles wide.) But it did the job: we drove to the eastern
end of the island where some really huge yachts were docked, and then to the
southwestern end. Chalk sound has this
nice blue color (from the limestone deposits?) and Chalk Sound Road is on a
ridge that constitutes the southern rim of the sound (cove.) We also drove by some local areas; the
outside of the houses looked okay, but we have no idea what the insides are
like.
Deciding if we wanted to go into the water.
Cousins having fun playing in the sand.
At this time apples cost less than a dollar a pound in NJ.
Wednesday 4/22.
This car rental works out great financially also. Taxi service is $16.50 per person, counting
the children. So we saved quite a bit
even though we had to make two trips to get everyone to the airport. Gasoline is $5 a gallon, yet the fill up
before car return cost only $19.
Check-in was a breeze. There was security screening, but
no immigration. Anne, Ellie and I all
got upgraded, but I gave my seat to Kuau so he and Ellie and share in
Reid-tending duties. The boy actually
cried quite loudly for a while – he must be asleep now (this is about 1 hour
into the flight.)
