Surprisingly No Rain Today

We were expecting today to to be a complete washout, so when we woke up to the natural light seeping in through the window around 7:30 this morning, we bounced out of bed and went out to take advantage of it. We weren't sure if it would soon storm again or not, so we figured every minute was precious. We walked down to the old pier again, since Nicole didn't have her nice camera last time. While the water is always a nice color, the pickings are slim for actual photogenic scenery since it's just you know . . . a beach.

After returning to our hotel, we had breakfast and went for a swim. Sea life is very sparse since there's no reef, but I did spot a crab and a starfish, as you see here. After spending a decent amount of time at the beach, where Nicole finished her thriller novel and I continued reading a thriller of my own -- the trials and tribulations of an American contract pilot flying in China. Scary stuff! After beach time, we walked toward the "town" to do some shopping. Almost everything was closed. Many had signs that said, "Reopening in November." Apparently we are here in the offseason. I got a deal on our hotel (relatively speaking) since it normally goes for well over $300 a night.

And that's the crazy thing about these islands. Who has the money to afford places like this during the "on" season? We walked through a few other resorts which go from $600-$800/nt (during offseason). And yes, they look really nice, but I'm not sure how one can really justify that price in exchange for some more topiaries and a nicer pool. But I suppose some folks like to go big or go home when they go on vacation. Now the bizarre complaints to staff about the rain make a bit more sense. I can picture some big wig from New Jersey yelling, "I just paid $800 a night for this! Can't you make the rain go away?!?!"

We thought we might find an alternate place to get lunch, but everything was closed. We ended up reversing course back to a place called Seven Stars, the same resort we had lunch at a few days ago. If we're going to pay $50 for lunch, we better at least get friendly service. I suggested a boycott of our hotel's restaurant/bar since they always seem to either lie or have attitude. After lunch, we discovered that that the Seven Stars had a bocce ball court and nobody really enforces or restricts access to such things (take that $500/nt hotel!). Nicole, being the Italian that she is, was drawn to it like a bee to a flower. Next I knew we were tossing large balls toward a small ball. A simple game, indeed. The sun was still shining, so now we proceeded back to our hotel and decided to check out a standup paddle board. Neither of us have ever done standup paddle boarding before despite it being quite popular in our area. And you can't beat free, so it was the perfect time to try it out. The people who checked it out before us were struggling, so we thought perhaps it was more difficult than it appeared.

Now not to toot our horns, but both Nicole and I were able to stand up immediately without incident. Perhaps our backgrounds in skating or surfing helped. It was a fairly relaxing activity as well, though I couldn't really get anywhere fast. You are sort at the mercy of the waves/current. I was trying to take pictures of Nicole doing it and she just sort of sailed away to the west in search of new trade routes or something. Tomorrow we face the daunting task of flying American Airlines through Miami to get back to LA. Wish us luck.

Well at Least We Have Yesterday . . .

Today was overcast and rainy the entire day. You can't win them all, though. We were fortunate to have some unexpected sun throughout most of yesterday, so I suppose it's fair. It wasn't particularly rainy in the morning -- just very grey, so we borrowed some bikes from the hotel and rode over to the eastern edge of the island which took less than 15 minutes. We locked the bikes up at a resort nearby and walked around. The place was virtually deserted. We bought a few food items at a nearby market and biked back to our place. We went to the beach (also deserted as you see here).

We did some reading and crosswords even as the rain began to pound down hard. We had an umbrella open over our loungers, so it really made no difference to us. Eventually the wind started pushing the rain into us despite the umbrella, so we sprinted back to our room where we continued our reading and I did one of my training modules for the airline until it was time for dinner. With some bagels and a can of soup on deck, we thought we'd try the happy hour downstairs believing that they had 2-for-1 appetizers and drinks. When we went down, we inquired to confirm that this applied to appetizers and the man nodded.

But as seems to be the case everywhere on this island, people like to say what they think we want to hear until we get the bill and feel like we've been swindled realizing that this 2-for-1 appetizers deal is nonexistent. So we ended up paying $40 for a couple appetizers, a beer, and a bottle of water. We knew the island was going to be expensive before we got here since it's like the playground for A-list celebrities. (After all, we are Bricole, everyone's favorite celebrity couple, but even we try to live like the commoners to keep ourselves grounded). Oh well. It is what it is. It looks like tomorrow we will have that soup and bagel after all.

First Full Day on Turks . . .and Caicos Too

Fully expecting to wake up to rain, we were surprised to find the sun poking through some cloud cover. After a breakfast of bagels and donuts purchased from the grocery store, we went out to the beach in front of the hotel. After a bit we decided to go into the water. It was a comfortable temperature. Not really much in terms of sea life to look at with the exception of an occasional lost fish, but it was nice and clear. We were at the beach for a while, but for whatever reason, my nose started draining uncontrollably from the salt water, so we went back in to take care of me.

After regrouping, and blowing my schnoz a few times, we set forth again to explore the other areas down the beach from our hotel. We had walked about a mile down the beach when I turned around and pointed to rain in the distance that appeared to be about two miles away. I told Nicole we should find a place to eat lunch or get out of the rain should it strike. I assumed we had a few minutes, but I barely finished my sentence when it started pouring. An employee at the nearby resort was sprinting to gather up towels and beach equipment while yelling, "It came too quick!"

We found refuge at a prime ocean view spot at the bar & grill. We split an $18 club sandwich and I tried a Turk's Head Amber beer. The waitress said that everyone has been complaining about the weather. I was thinking that we had gotten lucky with the weather so far. By this time, the rain had already stopped. It had poured for all of maybe three minutes and the place was practically deserted. Now don't get me wrong -- I was concerned about getting rained out, but I realize now that this week the weather may be like Hawai'i, where it does technically rain everyday, but it's not a washout. I assume these folks who are complaining are from the east coast because they need something to complain about.

After a relaxing lunch and finally meeting people who were actually friendly toward us, we continued down the beach beyond what may have once been a pier and for another 1/2 mile or so before turning around. The wind on the beach is quite strong, but it's almost a necessity because the sun, heat, and humidity is extremely strong. The weather online said it was a feels-like temperature of 109º Wowzers. This was making us quite parched, so we walked back to our place where I mixed some ginger-ale with some fruit juice we bought at the grocery store. Gin and Juice if you will.

Finally Arrived in Turks...and Caicos Too

Well if you read the last post, it was considerable effort to finally reach the Turks & Caicos. I caught maybe 30 mins of neck breaking sleep enroute from Atlanta, but woke up in time for both biscotti and this view out the window. The water was a nice turquoise blue as you can see. Though, if you look on the horizon, there's a fairly strong thunderstorm cell building up as well. This was to be expected as we are not the brightest and chose to go to the middle of the Caribbean at hurricane season's peak. After landing, the hot and humid weather was a welcome relief to the aircraft's cold cabin. We breezed through customs and immigration and got a "taxi" to our hotel.
Now, I should explain something about transportation on the Turks & Caicos, and that . . . there isn't any. No buses or traditional taxis to speak of - just shared ride vans that charge PER PERSON. Four people in the van all going about 8 miles from the airport? That'll be $80. Uber needs to get in here. After the disheartening "taxi" fare, we received a less than warm welcome at the hotel, where our room was not yet ready.

We got some lunch in the meantime, which was good because I was getting cranky. I just really hate being in 90 degree heat while wearing pants. Nobody likes pants. Finally we got our room and I could take my pants off. Yay! Speculating that we will get rained out for the next four days, we went straight to the beach to take advantage of the sun before it goes away. Soon enough, some storm clouds started rolling in and we were forced to flee the ensuing downpour. After it rained itself out, we walked to a grocery store down the street which is comparable to Whole Foods. You see, everything on this island is quite expensive.

Our hotel is almost like a condo since it came with laundry, a toaster, some dishes, and various utensils, so our dinner tonight consisted of bagels and cream cheese washed down with a local beer called "Turk's Head." It will be interesting to see what happens tomorrow because everything is so weather dependent. With any luck, we will find some gaps in the rain and the storms so we can go out and play.

NonRev Adventures to the Caribbean

Recently my parents faced a bit of a challenge trying to get to Santa Fe, New Mexico. You see, it can be a challenge to get to some of the less popular airports due to fewer flight options and one has to change planes somewhere and "Two-Leg It," as I say. Over the course of about 12 hours, I changed my parents' flights three times and had them going to a completely different airport in the end. Needless to say, this was a bit stressful for them. All the flights kept getting oversold at last minute when they had 40 seats open just the day before.

This same airline, which shall remain unnamed (let's just say it rhymes with schmamerican), caused Nicole and I issues just days later. The checkin process was archaic, requiring that we wait in line to speak to an agent who types furiously for a few minutes before issuing a paper ticket straight out of 1992. And despite entering Nicole's TSA-PreCheck number, she was put in the commoners line. Despite boarding a flight with more than 50 open seats, the gate agent issued us tickets that were rows apart from each other. And despite an online listing system that showed 12 seats available for our final leg, the company's own website wouldn't allow tickets to be purchased for said flight -- indicating that in fact that were no seats. In the nonrev world, 12 vs none is a pretty big difference. Why the discrepancy? So as we walked by a lineup of slot machines at McCarran International Airport, we figured that flying Schmamerican was too much of a gamble. How did we end up in Vegas? Well . . .

We were planning to go to Turks & Caicos in the Caribbean, which does not have direct flights. Our first, and most direct option, was to go from LA-Miami-Turks, but then the Miami flight was filling up rapidly because 20 people randomly decided they were going to go to Miami that day. There was a workaround that involved flying from LA-Las Vegas-Miami, so we tried that. Once in Las Vegas, all flights from Miami to Turks looked sketchy at best, so we went Las Vegas-Atlanta on Delta. Now bear in mind that we arrived in Atlanta around 5:45am and hadn't slept, so we wanted a place to rest. We each had some United club passes that we get from our credit card company, but we didn't have a United boarding pass. Ah, but wait! I listed us on a flight from Atlanta to Houston on United, scanned the pass at the desk and immediately canceled the booking once we had our foot in the door.




Now some might say that is cheating, but the boarding pass rule is bollocks as far as I'm concerned. Refueling with hot oatmeal and some Otis Spunkmeyer muffins, we prepared for our third leg, which would (hopefully) take us to Turks & Caicos, and into a tropical depression. Not like emotionally depressed, but the low pressure system kind.