A big, fat, fantastic trip

This is long. No apologies.



I always got snarky when people posted stuff about their tropical vacations. I will now be one of those people and if it makes you feel snarky, I totally understand and will not be upset if you don't read this. I have a relatively serious case of Adventure-itis so if an opportunity comes to get out of dodge, ya know I'm gonna take it. And if the opportunity comes to see a certain someone from a certain LDR (your acronym for the day for long distance relationship), ya know I'm gonna take that, too.

March ended up on a super, extremely crazy note. I had to finish my student teaching portfolio--a collection of reports and forms summing up my student teaching experience. In addition to teaching, grading, etc, we also had to do 11 projects involving IEP meetings, testing for academic ability, and working with other teachers and staff. I finished that beast up on Good Friday and celebrated by throwing it across the room. Then turned it in. Easter Sunday and the next Monday and Tuesday were consumed with my uncle's wedding. Family, family, family. It was really beautiful.

FREEZING cold and windy that day. My eyes were watering down my face during this picture.

So all this got wrapped up on Tuesday, and I left in the middle of the night for Grenada. I left my kids with my sister and mom and a reluctant ex-husband. 

My mind is still in Grenada. My heart is there too. 

I got there at night on Wednesday after the sun had gone down. I stayed in a hotel right on the beach--a private beach with a private dock. I never saw anyone else there during my stay and pretty much had the whole thing to myself. Here are a few views of this:

Standing on the patio looking out--

On the dock looking back at the hotel. This is one of my favorite shots of the whole trip--

I look at this and think I must have been in a dream the whole time. It was right out of the movies, those romantic ones where nothing goes wrong and you know life can't possibly be that good--

I have to include some crab pictures. 

On the dock in the morning and at night, black spotted crabs would crawl all over the stairs. They are extremely sensitive and would run away if I got close.

Here's a white crab that blended right into the sand on a beach in Grand Anse. They are SUPER fast.

The first day was spent relaxing and hanging out with the medical student who had a test the next day. Med students study for hours and hours everyday and still feel like they will fail the test. We'll just go ahead and call him The Brat, because anyone who lives on this island is just a BRAT. And I told him so. 

I woke up with the sun one morning and watched the sunrise on the dock with crabs. I think it was here that the stress of the semester and all the angst I'd been feeling kind of oozed out. 

Here's a stock photo of The Brat's university. I hung out on campus Friday morning during his midterm. I couldn't help but walk around with my mouth gaping open. The campus is beautiful and the view is STUNNING. I walked out on a little trail to the peninsula that you see on the bottom of the picture. It was another moment of sit and let the world swallow you up. I watched crabs and got blown away by the wind and scenery. 

After the test, I felt a bit antsy to do something adventurous, so we got in the car and drove into the rainforest to hike to some waterfalls. It took a bit to find the place--nothing in Grenada is clearly marked. Hardly any signs or anything, so to find the place you drive and ask random people on the road for help.

It's recommended that you hike this waterfall with a guide. The trail is super rocky and rough and sometimes hard to find. This little guy was just finishing a group, so he agreed to help us find the place. He kept holding my hand and when we stopped for a picture, he got, uh, affectionate. Also he was deaf. 

He pointed out different trees and plants to us. Nutmeg and cocoa beans grow everywhere here. 

The Brat and I swimming in the falls. You can swim right underneath it! The water was sorta warm and very clear. I coulda stayed in there all day. 

I sport those white legs proudly...

The next day was all about snorkeling. Yay!!

Desperately trying to wear glasses with snorkeling gear--

Looking extremely cool in an oversized tshirt--

So excited to go snorkel--

Which turned out to be VERY fun, once I figured out how the gear worked. I submerged the hose right in the beginning and swallowed a gallon of sea water. It tastes really super terrible, by the way. The guy that drove the boat out there kept yelling at me in the water, "That's not how ya do it!" Once I got it all to work, I really enjoyed myself. We swam around an underwater sculpture museum and a reef. We swam with a big school of fish moving kinda fast and saw lots of different kinds of fishies. So, so, so fun. 

Here's what the sculptures look like. We saw about 6 or 7 of them--

This is out of order but I wanted to put in a funny sign. Someone had drawn stuff on it--hair, 'club foot', and a fart cloud. 

Clearly, I couldn't get enough of this water. I'm gonna have to go back. With kids.

This is one of the prettiest places and is just down the street from The Brat. They have some yummy greek pizza and a nice public beach.

Sunday morning, we had a General Conference breakfast with some of the LDS members in the area. I chatted it up with one of the families and they invited me to come back and stay with them next time I'm in Grenada. Do you like how I said, "The next time," because people....there will be a next time. With kids.

In the afternoon, we drove up the island to the northern-ish part to a place called Belmont Estates. They have a chocolate making factory. I don't mean like Sweets where you watch big machines churn sugar around, I mean fresh picked beans on slabs of wooden drawers in a greenhouse. There is a restaurant that has an incredible view of a rainforest-y valley and the ocean in the background. I couldn't stop looking at it, soaking in the view and feeling like I just stepped into Romancing The Stone. 

Tuckered out med student--

This is the view from out table but it's not showing the ocean part. Those buildings in the background are part of the chocolate tour--

The biggest town on the island is called St George's. It's packed and colorful and loud with people everywhere. A bit overwhelming and we didn't stick around too long. When cruise ships come, they stop here and the cruisers can walk around. 

Right before leaving. Very, very sad--