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As I was working on editing some photos from 2017 - I am finally catching up - I got a call from Marleen.   She was thinking that having Grace pick me up at 4:15 am would not be early enough and would it be all right if Grace came at 3:15 am.  My first response to the 4:15 am had been, ""in the morning?"  So, it was in the morning, early, that a car stopped on the dakened street in front of my house, a man got out and asked me if I could tell him how to get to Perth NY.  Now this is not exactly what I was execting and I was rather dazed and confused.  It was, after all, 3 am and I had just had about 4 hours sleep - for which I was extremely grateful since I don't usually go to bed until after 1:30 am.

Grace drove to Marleen's where she said goodbye to Tom (the mysterious man asking how to get to Perth) after he helped transfer bags from their car to Marleen's,.  We got into Marleen's car and off we went.  I thought Marleen was very brave to drive to JFK but since our flight left at 10:40 am, we did not have a lot of options.  The drive was pretty good - it was Saturday so we missed rush hour traffic - and that was good.  We only had one problem:  when trying to cross over from NJ, there was a detour and the GPS was taking us around in circles.  Grace wisely decided to d deviate and we headed to I-95.  After we crossed, the GPS wanted to take us to 178th street but we deviated again and continued on I-95 until intersecting the highway that would take us to JFK.  To save lugging bags from the long-term parking lot, I got dropped off with the bigger bags and waited for Marleen and Grace to get back.   We checked our bags amid a very confusing kiosk process where we had to stick on our own baggage tags - Grace helped me do mine after getting tech support for hers.

We all had TSA precheck, but they made us take off our jackets and scarves anyway. We went to the gate and waited until the flight was called.  Not a lot happening there.  Marleen had wanted to get a better seat for her back and managed to switch rows.  At first there were only 2 seats available but then the Jet Blue lady called Marleen over and switched me as well.  Once we were seated, I got a poke from behind me.  Marleen's seat didn't move back - the whole reason for the change - so I switched with her.  I don'tthink I managed to sleep much, but maybe I did because I never got my complimentary drink.

We landed in st Lucia, walked down a ramp gangway into the breezy tropical temperature on the tarmac.  There was a long snaking immigration line.  I filled out an immigration form front and back which was not easy because I didn't t try to get out my reading glasses, but I did it!  We ended up toward the end of the line. When it was my turn, the immigration officer asked for my front sheet - which I thought I gave him.  Apparently the front sheet usually has a copy with it and a separate back sheet - somehow the airport had a whole bunch of defective copies - Marleen had filled out a one-sided sheet and had to redo hers.  So I had to redo mine - which took extra time because I had to squint at the words and then fill them in - most were outside the little boxes.  But finally we made it through - among the last of our flight - picked up our 3 checked bags - which we found in a little circle of four and headed through customs where I was panicking about my cheese.  The customs form had listed dairy products as items of interest.  I told the officer that I had cheese, she made me fill in my blank space on the declaration form and then told me I could go and to enjoy my cheese.  I had eaten  half of it in the line so I wouldn't have to waste it all.  It was a good thing that it was not confiscated because it provided me with lunch now for two days.

We were worried that our driiver would have left by now, but he was waiting for us.  He pointed us to the ATM and exchange counter where we all picked up some local currency and then brought his car to the curb and off we went for our 1 1.5 plus hour drive to the opposite end of the island where our air bnb was.  Our driver Erland pointed out that we would drive along the west Atlantic coast before turning into the rainforest in the centrral part of the island, then would head around the capital Castries.  Today it was their Independence Day and there were some detours so we did not go through the heart of downtown Castries or near the harbor, but we could see a huge cruise ship parked there.  Erland also told us that motorcyclists come from other nearby islands and drive around St. Lucia in groups with their national flag colors to help celebrate this holiday.  We then drove up the Caribbean side of the island to Rodney Bay - the largest touristy town - on the north side where we stopped to get some grocery supplies and some dinner at the food trucks there.  It took us a while to sort out what to order - we ended up with various things and all ordered sweet potato fries but I think they were really plaintain fries. 

We were a little worried that we might not be able to get into our place since Marleen had not packed her larger folder with all the info about getting in, but our driver called his boss Robinson who called Simone - the BnB renter - and everything got straightened out.  We picked up the key at the entrance gate and the driver brought us all the way to  the sidewalk nearest the apartment.  We were quite relieved because now it was around 7:30 pm and we were all tired and didn't want any hassles.  The place is modern and comfy.  Our only problem was figuring out the lights and a/c.  Marleen and Grace had to get out the videos on their phones for us to follow the instructiions.  I had wondered why Simone went to such lengths explaining the light switches.  Now I knew.  Once settled, we broke out the little bottles of beer we had bought at the gas station convenience store and sat down and began to enjoy our stay.  We may have made it until 9:30 or 10 pm and then went to sleep.  Now, keeping cool is more the aim than keeping warm.  How wonderful is that!