Yes, I'm back. And can I just say, it is GOOD to be home. Good, I say. We had two fab.u.lous weeks in the sun, full of fun and food. You know, I sat down Monday night, and not one single person put a plate of food or a drink with a little umbrella in front of me. Yes, back to reality I am.
For those of you who might wonder where we traveled off to, the first week we were on a cruise celebrating the wedding of the son of one of my adopted sisters. It was great. He married a precious young woman whom we couldn't love more. We were blessed and honored that they wanted us two old folks traveling along on their wedding extravaganza. I've just got to tell you this story before I go any further because it may go down as one of the funniest things I have ever seen in my life. Let me set the scene. We are in one of the bars/lounges on the cruise ship. I guess that's what you call it. All I know was that they were doing karaoke and there was a bar at the back of the room. Anyway, there was a bunch of us and we thought it might be fun to go in and check it out. Well, we sat through some pretty bad attempts with the exception of this beautiful black girl from Atlanta who brought down the house singing Aretha Franklin's "R-E-S-P-E-C-T." She was the crowd favorite for sure. But she must have thought she had peaked and didn't sing another note the rest of the night. So we were all sitting there discussing the pitiful state of the performers when my husband says, "well, Ben, (the groom) let's just go up there and show em how it's done." Excuse me? Since when do you sing karaoke? for a crowd of 200 people? And just for the record, he had not had a drop of alcohol. I thought, this is going to be good. The song selection became top secret and with the addition of one of Ben's buddies, they were quite the trio. Pretty soon, they called their names and these three unlikely performers took the stage. Big stage; bright lights; huge room; lots of people; tough crowd. They had decided to channel their country roots and for some unknown reason, settled on Alabama's "Mountain Music," circa 1982. Honestly, at first, I thought, they had made a mistake. This particular crowd didn't look like they were country music fans, much less fans of the mullet-men from Ft. Payne. But when they started singing, well D was the only one singing, the crowd went crazy. Keep in mind, these fellas are about 30 years old, cute as can be and surprisingly, full of some serious dance moves. Honestly, D could have been singing the phone book backwards with a beat and these boys would have brought down the house. Nothing against my husband's singing because he kept that together by himself but those boys shook it, moved it and rocked it. We were crying we were laughing so hard. It was classic and not a single one of us had a phone or camera to record it for posterity. So D is now denying it ever happened and if it did, that it will never happen again, at least not on dry land.
Our first port was Key West which I loved. Maybe it was because I had a "Cheeseburger in Paradise" at Jimmy Buffett's original Margaritaville for lunch. And you know I am all about what I eat. So when they sat that big ole cheeseburger and those giant fresh onion rings in front of me, I thought that I might have reached some completion of all my food goals. Don't worry, I will set more. But it was amazing and let's just say that Margaritaville lived way up to it's name!
Oh, I've got to tell you this. While we were sitting at the table waiting on our food, I get a text from E. So thinking it might be important, after all, she knows we were on vacation, I look at it immediately. It says something like this: "Mom, Steven Tyler and Carrie Underwood sang "Walk this Way" last night on the CMA Awards! It's awesome! You have got to watch it" Well, see there. It was important. The girl knows me. I don't know if I've told you this but I'm pretty much infatuated with Steven Tyler right now. See he and I go way back to 1975 when I had just turned 16; my new Camaro had an 8 track tape player; and Aerosmith was one of my favorite bands (along with the Doobie Brothers, the BeeGees, Chicago and REO Speedwagon - don't judge me). Well, to be honest, I hadn't given Steven much thought until he popped up on AI this season and oh, the old feelings started coming back. Don't worry, if you don't understand the attraction. I'm not sure I do either. Everyone in my house thinks I'm crazy. I think I'm just a girl revisiting her 16 year old self.
The next stop was Ochos Rios, Jamaica. This is a story all in it's self. Short story: Climbed a rushing, cold waterfall; took a serene ride on a chair lift through the rain forest; and then rode a bob sled down a mountain. Oh heavenly day.
The next stop was Grand Cayman. Our family had visited in 2004 after E graduated from high school and loved it. So since we had seen most of the island, we just did a little shopping and decided to turn the tables on the island. We would take it in from the cruise ship. We parked our rears on the balcony outside our room and enjoyed the view of the island and the water from up there. It was pretty much heavenly.
All in all, this first leg of our trip was fabulous. But there's more . . .
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