Dominica

The say "Dom-n-eek-a", we say "Dom-in-eh-cuh"
either way.....this place is soooo cool!!!

We arrived to a very muggy, rainy, humid island, and left
with a whole new respect for the people of this great place.
Our tour guide was awesome.
The island was awesome.
The food was awesome.
I *heart* Dominica.

And now, what you've all been waiting for.......

PICTURES!!!!!
Meeeee!!! Peering out over our balcony.
(We were soooo lucky!! We always docked on our side of the ship!!)Cool doorway. That's all.
And it rains. Every day. All day.
Might not be able to deal with that forever.
An amazing old Catholic Church. We didn't get to stop. :o(
I love old churches.Mom, this one is for you! If you click on the picture
you can see the graveyard in the lower left.
It was sooooo cool. I don't know why it's cool
.....but we took the pic for you.
Apparently anyone who's anyone is buried there.
So the townsfolk are outta luck!! :o)

How cool is this thing???
It's called a Banyan Tree.
Basically the limbs grow into roots,
and make new roots....and more roots.....
click on Banyan up there and you can read about it!!!
I title this picture

"Your day didn't suck as bad as mine!!!"

The story goes (I think I remember it right).....
Dominica gained their independence from Britain
(go ahead, google it...let me know if you find it!)
and as a gift, France gave them a school bus.
The VERY NEXT DAY, a tree fell on it!!!!!!!!
They left it there, and now it is a tourist attraction!!
Nobody ever rode on the bus. How bad does that suck???
But such a cool pic, huh???Us in the rain forest, wondering why we bathed that day!
This is the college in Dominica. Awesome, eh?

I'm sure some of you are looking at that going,
"I wish my campus was that small. I could make it all the
way across and not break a sweat!!!"
Hahahaha!!! That was funny. :o)So next we headed up through the rain forest to
Trafalgar Falls. (more on those in a bit....)
On the way up....we saw TONS of these guys.
E decided he needed to play with one.
Got bit.
Serves him right.
Nuf said.
:o)
I love that man!
The view walking up to the falls. E and I hike all over north
GA looking for amazing falls........nobody told us
we had to go to the Caribbean to find it!!!!
This is the Daddy Falls of Trafalgar Falls.
There are 3 falls.....guess what they are called????
Mama, Daddy and Baby.

:o)

Ok....this is a long post.

I'm tired. Going to bed.

The rest of Dominica in a minute.......

St. Thomas

St. Thomas was the first stop on our trip through the Caribbean.
It was also the first day of "real" vacation. No alarm. No computer. No cell phone.
No email. No Facebook (*sigh*). No crackberry. Nuttin'.
Best day ever. In fact, it could have been in tim-buck-two,
and it wouldn't have mattered to me. I was so happy.

This is what we woke up to on Monday morning.....

Eric opened the curtains to the balcony and this is what he said.....

"Oh my gosh. You have GOT to see this!"

To which I (begrudgingly) obliged, as I was soooooooo cozy in bed....."ok..."

No explanation needed. I said to E,
"um, we went to sleep in San Juan and woke up in paradise!"

We then threw some clothes on and went exploring.
It didn't take long to figure out we were still tired.
We got the obligatory t-shirt (I think???)
and marched our cute butts right back on to the ship.

Here is what we got pics of......This was parked next to our ship. It was a mini ship.

People still have money. Obviously.

Riah said
"Mom, it's the yacht off of Fool's Gold!!"

Smart Girl!!! Looks just like it.This is the Hilton at the bottom tip of the island.

Ok, the next clip warrants an explanation:

The night before at our muster station, we were chattin
it up with the crew. We asked them how often the rescue boats get
tested. They said "every trip out to sea. The coast guard requires it."
We said, huh? Cool. Never seen it done before.
Guess what we saw the next morning?

Insert SHORT video:






Cool, huh?

Levi, don't laugh. It's not nice.

Ok. That was St. Thomas. We enjoyed the ship that day! :o)