Sorry if you're getting tired of me rehashing my trip... I'm trying to get all these posts done in a row...and sometimes photos upload faster than others...so it's taking a while. I do have a couple other posts to get to after this, so hang in there! :)
Anyways, on Monday, we docked at Grand Turks. This was our first glimpse of the island from our balcony:
Hanging out before getting off the ship.
(Hi mom and dad!) :)
SO. We had two pretty different types of people in our group. One group wanted to explore everywhere. One group thought they were crazy and wanted to just relax on the beach for the day. I somehow got roped in to exploring...which involved doing this:
...across the entire island. Grand Turks is 1.5 miles wide and 7 miles long. We docked at one end and heard that there was a town and a lighthouse at the other end. And it all needed to be explored. All 7 miles of it. So that's what we did. Rode 7 miles to the lighthouse...and 7 miles back. That would be 14 miles total. On an ancient bike with no gears. (You know...like a mountain bike has gears to help make hills easier...) It wasn't really all that hilly on the island...but you felt even the slightest hill on those bikes! Funny thing was we passed islanders riding around on "real" bikes...Ha.
This was the *very rusty* old lighthouse we rode 7 miles to see. It was life changing. (ahem. j/k.)
I was loving all the gorgeous views though! That water!! Looove it!
Then followed the obligatory "take a picture of us with the water in the background!" photo session. :) (And I mentioned before - the wind on this trip! Sheesh! :)
My guys. :) Known both of them for forever. They're great at putting up with me...! ;)
Love horses. :)
'Nother beautiful view on the ride back from the lighthouse.
This was where you could ride a horse on the beach - and even swim in the water with it...except a storm coming was making the water too rough evidently so they cancelled it...thus no one was around. Except for the donkeys...
We decided these were guard donkeys! :) They saw us peeking down at the horse barn area and followed us back up to the main road, keeping a very close eye on us. They made Anita nervous. She was convinced they were going to attack us. lol I had seen some other people stopping to pet them earlier - and Michael had pet them too - so I wasn't too worried about them. :)
Sigh....I wanna be back here. :)
(I wish I was there...! teehee...)
So on the way back, Anita and Eric decided to ride into the little town and explore some more, while Michael and I decided to head on back to the boat/beach/shop area. By this time I was pretty tired (it's been years since I rode a bike...and I even used to be used to the TN hills...but not anymore!) and would have loved to jump into the back of any truck that drove by! The only thing that kept me going was the thought that the beach area was where I could get a bottle of water!
We finally made it back! And met everyone else just in time to go to Margaritaville for lunch. I could have cared less about food at that particular moment...alllll I wanted was water. I'm sure I looked juuust lovely too! lol
This picture has a looong story behind it! lol This is Erin's "tall, dark, and handsome" waiter, Robert. He decided he would keep Erin on the island as his wife. Tee hee!! During the whole conversation Erin kept getting more and more flustered...which just made the whole thing funnier. It started with plastic bags and ended with something to do with a wheelchair...bahahaha!!!! Oh man...we were laughing so hard! :)
LOL!!! For some reason, these are two of my favorite pictures!! I cannot explain why. They just are. They make me smile and laugh every time I look at them. She took the one of him...he took the one of her. They were sitting at opposite ends of the table. And his eyes really are that blue.
After shopping for a few souvenirs, we all hung out on the beach for a little bit before heading back to the ship.
The "small" cruise ship (it really was huge...just looks tiny next to our even more huge ship!), we found out later, belonged to the prime minister of Qatar. It had a heliopad on top. There were a couple ladies standing outside on deck when my parents went back to the ship and so my mom greeted them in Arabic and they answered...probably quite surprised to hear a random American walk by and speak to them in their language! :)
Catrina and Eric discussing life. :) One lady came around at dinner one evening taking pictures of each table and assumed these two were married...I guess since they happened to be sitting next to eachother?? lol
Cutie. :)
Love it. :)
Some guy found this shell and let the girls have it. Lauren is trying to hear the ocean...standing right beside the...uh...ocean. mmhmm... :}
Another "take a picture of us by the water" picture... :)
These were the chocolates left for us each evening. They were waiting for us when we got back to our room on this day.
Just one of the many beautiful sunsets we saw this week.
So this was us at dinner...heck, this was us most of the time on the cruise!! We know how to have a fun time together!! We were very often doubled over in laughter. I don't remember the last time I laughed that hard that much in one week!! :)
Just an example of the menu. Actually, usually there were choices on both sides. This one just had a section about the main chef on this night. The blue arrow is pointing to what may or may not have been the only other main course item I had other than the salmon that week. The pink arrow is pointing to what I had for dessert...picture below...
Menage et Trois. The pick stuff was flan. It was...interesting. The other two I don't know the names of...but they were waay good.
One of my favorite pictures ever!! This was our view out the window behind our table in the dining room. I was farthest away from the window this night so Michael grabbed my camera and took this picture and I just loove how it turned out!! I love how the water looks like a painting! So beautiful. It might be hanging on the wall in my living room now. Just sayin'...
Impromptu dance session by Catrina and Anita in the atrium after dinner! My mom and dad were sitting close by reading books and didn't even notice them! lol Must have been some pretty good books! :) There was live music (on that white piano I loved...!)...thus the inspiration for dancing... :)
Hanging out in one of the lounges for a few minutes.
Another view from the top. Behind me is the Sanctuary (See the night time picture from the other day.). This pool was the "quiet" pool area in the evenings. Mostly everyone who wanted to hang out around a pool went to the one in the front of this one - the one with the movie screen. That's where we hung out. :)
Just a couple days left to cover! Then on to a happy homecoming and an amusing HL moment....!
