Unfinished Business - Day 2 - "I Shall Return"

5/17/15, “I Shall Return”

Taos, New Mexico (Taos Pueblo)

This is it, my big white whale, the WHS I have been trying to visit for over a decade now, and it has always been waiting just around the riverbend.  It was definitely worth the wait, now that I’m finally here.  It is perfect, and I love it here.  I don’t want to leave.  Just one small problem.  Reader, remember the Stamps and Plauqes I mentioned yesterday.  Well, the stamper is broken, and the plaque isn’t the Official one.  What do I do?  Do I mope about the fact that I can’t get my stamp and plaque, or do I forget about all of that and enjoy being where I am.  Of course, I chose the latter.  This is, I believe, the oldest living Native American community in the country.  For over 1000 years, Native Americans have been living in this little village, living much the same for the entire time.  As I sit in front of the river, smoking a pipe, in view of the Great House, listening to “Just Around the Riverbend” on loop, the magic is not lost on me.

This trip has been almost entirely about visiting Native American ruins, but this one stop is not about ruins.  It is an active community, a living village.  For a modest fee, we are invited into their home, to see how they have lived for over 1000 years.  To the best of my knowledge, there is nothing like it anywhere in the world.  Reader, do you see where I am going with this?  No?  Well, what I’m saying is two-fold.  First, I can forgive them for an unofficial plaque and a broken stamper.  Second, I shall return.  What are the odds that I do not come back to New Mexico at some point in the next two years?  It is my favorite state south of the Mason-Dixon line, by far.

This trip will leave a few NPS that I haven’t visited in New Mexico and, quite literally, a blank space in my WHS passport.  I shall return, and, by then, they should have a new stamper, but I want to return.  I want to return during one of their events to see more of their culture, to visit the other sites I couldn’t visit this trip.  New Mexico is called The Land of Enchanment, and it is a well-deserved title.  We got a slow start in the morning, but, in the end, we were at the site only a few minutes after they opened.  The fee was steep, even with the nominal student discount.  I asked if they had a stamp.  They did, but it was broken.  Fuck!  Couldn’t I just try to use the stamp manually?  No, but they had some stickers.  They would only give me two.  One for the passport, not sure what to do with the other one.  Of course, the simple answer is that I shall return.  Maybe she’ll write the date in my passport, that would be a good placeholder until I return.  If my mother was here with me, I’m sure we would have figured it out, just as we have figured it out so many times before at so many other WHS.

Again, I shall return, and, next time, I’ll call to make sure the stamper is working before I visit.  We walked around a bit, taking lots of pictures, and I was in total awe of where we were, the beautiful mountain in the backdrop.  Then we saw it.  The river.  We started quoting lines from “Just Around the Riverbend,” Connor being just as much a Disney fan as I.  It wasn’t long before I put the song on, which I have been looping for the past hour now.  I also found the perfect souvenir, a little big, but perfect, the replica of the Great House.  Connor’s brother was in the area, so we agreed he’d meet his brother for an hour while I came back here to do my writing.  That was exactly what we did.  I found a nice bench with a view of the river and the Great House, still looping “Just Around the Riverbend,” where I lit up an Ardor and proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close so that I can write something in my personal journal and finish this pipe.

Santa Fe, New Mexico

My time in New Mexico is coming to a close, but it does with the firm knowledge that I shall return.  Whether in a month or three or a year or two, I shall return.  Here I am in Santa Fe, the famous, historic capital of New Mexico, and, instead of writing from the Capitol building as is my wont when I write in capital cities, I have elected to write in front of the iconic Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi, the most famous landmark in Santa Fe, perhaps in all of New Mexico. I have found the northern half of New Mexico to be no less enchanting than the southern half, and this trip was far more enjoyable, my previous trip marred by personal issues, but I think I’m finally clean.  Reader, if you don’t catch that reference, well, I don’t think I want you reading my Travelogue.  Just kidding, it’s a Taylor Swift reference, and it has nothing to do with drugs or rehab.  What will my next trip to New Mexico entail?  Where will I be in my life?  Who might accompany me on the trip?  I have no idea, but I know that I shall return.  The next trip might even allow me to say New Mexico Complete, but that is not a necessary goal.  Another interesting turn of events is that one of my Instagram followers might be meeting us for dinner in Albuquerque.

After I closed in Taos Pueblo, I went back to the registration desk and asked about the Official Plaque.  Well, turns out they had it but it wasn’t up for display yet, and she told me they were going to put it up in a month or so.  Well, once the stamper is fixed/replaced and the Plaque displayed, I shall return.  For now, I have enough that I will be able to say in good faith at Glacier, “Mainland US Complete.”  We then headed to Bandelier NM, tarrying a bit too much on the way, cutting into our already tight schedule.  I had wanted an hour at Bandelier and half an hour at Pecos.  It was now looking like half an hour at each site, if we didn’t stop for food, but I was starving.  We didn’t even see anyplace to stop.  Fortunately there was a snack bar at Bandelier.  We spent about an hour there, enjoying the ruins and the views.  Including the time to eat, we spent about an hour there, which meant we were looking at precisely a 4 PM arrival at Pecos NHP, and I was getting hungry again.  I don’t why I’ve been so hungry this trip, having four big meals a day.

I had lit up my smallest cigar, an Aging Room, for the thirty minutes we spent walking around Bandelier NM, and I saved the rest for Pecos.  I called to ask if it was possible to get the stamps like at 3:59 PM and then walk around for a few minutes.  She said they locked the gate right at 4 PM.  Fuck!  We went for it anyway.  It was 3:58 PM when we pulled into the parking lot, which was still filled with cars, a good sign.  I got out of the car and grabbed my cigar while Connor parked.  I saw someone coming out, another good sign.  I then heard a click, a bad sign.  The door was locked, a very bad sign.  She opened the door, saying they were closed.  I showed her the clock on my phone.  3:59 PM.  She let me in, and even let me buy the pin while I got my stamp.  Perfect.  I did everything else that I needed to do to make it Official, possibly making it my shortest NPS hit ever, including relighting the cigar and taking a ceremonial picture.  We then went to leave, but the gate was locked.  Fortunately, someone was coming the other direction.  She let us out.

We stopped at DQ for a very late lunch before we headed to Santa Fe, straight to the Capitol Building, where we took our Official pictures, and I lit up an Opus X.  Our next stop was the Plaza, and Connor wanted to drive.  I walked and, due to issues with parking, got there long before he did.  We went back to the car to get my laptop and headed to the Cathedral, where I proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close so that I can find Connor at the gift shop and get my souvenirs before we head back to Albuquerque.

Albuquerque International Sunport, New Mexico (ABQ)

Here it is, the triumphant airport entry, time to close out the trip.  Well, technically I’m sitting outside the aiport, so I won’t be able to formally close out the trip until I get to my gate, but I can do the reflections here.  I have already done most of my reflecting, but what I have not really reflected on is the joy of travelling with a good friend.  When I last went to New Mexico three months ago I did not know Connor at all.  I had seen him once through our mutual friend, and, within three months, the three of us become “the three best friends.”  The person whom I call my best friend, well he is engaged, and I barely ever see him anymore.  In fact, over those three months I just saw him once.  The other two people whom I might consider to be among the people I call my best friends are the two girls I love like sisters.  There is almost nothing I would not do for either of them, but one lives in Florida, and I haven’t seen her in over six months, haven’t spoken to her on the phone in four months, but we text every day, and that is more than I can say of any of my female cousins or my brother’s fiancée, whom I call “my sister.”  The other girl, we used to text every day, too, but we’ve stopped.  I have brunch with her and her fiancé about once a month, but we never hang out for any kind of extended time.

By most definitions, Connor and our mutual friend would have to be considered my two best friends.  Snapchat would certainly agree by the insane amount of Snaps we send each other.  Reader, do you see where I’m going with this?  In the past three months, my life has changed so much.  I mentioned the Taylor Swift song, “Clean,” and that’s exactly what that is about.  After my breakup in January, I immediately turned to my two female friends for comfort, no, not physical comfort, emotional comfort, which they both readily provided.  They both said exactly what I needed to hear.  One called my ex “dumb and annoying,” the other said I was one of the most “genuine” guys that she’d ever met.  In short, what they were both saying was that I was too good for my ex, and they were right.

However, I was not ready to move on.  One provided me with the emotional comfort I needed and, as long as she was texting me every day, I could ignore the pain that I knew was inches away from sweeping in.  Actually, no, it was not emotional comfort that she was providing me.  It was distractions, texting me every day about Taylor and Disney and Harry Potter and movies.  It was exactly what I needed, a change of pace.  I embarked on my Oscar quest, something to thoroughly distract me.  It worked, for a while, but the pain was always inches away.  While I was in New Mexico last time, it came rushing in, and it almost ruined the whole trip.  My female friends were only able to keep the pain at bay for so long, not that they know what they did for me, and I doubt they are reading this entry.

To truly forget about the pain, to move on, I needed the company of my male friends, and the three of us started hanging out almost every night for about three months, now, drinking and watching movies, mostly Disney movies.  It was truly the change in pace I needed.  About a month ago, I started dating again, since I was truly ready to move on, and things look promising in that regard.  All in all, I have managed to put the pieces of my life together in the past three months, to stop using my female friends as crutches, to develop genuine friendships with my male friends, to look to enter again a meaningful relationship with someone who won’t toy with my emotions.  In other words, I think I’m finally clean.

To that end, what about travelling with Connor?  We had a great time together, all the phone we have together hanging out amplified over the 50 or so hours we’ve spent together, not fighting at all.  We share the same tastes in music and food, and he was fine with my agenda, so we had little to fight about.  We enjoyed hearing each other’s stories, we got all of each other’s jokes, and we played along with all of each other’s pranks.  In short, he was practically the perfect travelling companion.  That is not to diminish the other travelling companions I’ve had, but my mother is never going to ask if I want to stop at the river so that we can take Official Us.

It’s weird, though, we’ve hung together almost every night for like three months now, and we won’t see each other again for six weeks.  Well, here I am at the airport, getting ready to close out this trip.  After I closed in Santa Fe, we headed to the gift shop.  It’s funny, other than airfare, souvenirs were the biggest expense of the trip, more even than meals or the hotel room.  I usually buy things for everyone I know, but I decided not to do that this time, though I might give away some arrow heads.  I just got a notification that my laptop was going to restart in 15 minutes, so I’ll have to wrap up.

We headed back to the car, and I got the text from my Instagram follower, saying that he couldn’t make it and that we’d have to meet up when he was in NYC, great plan (not being sarcastic).  We headed to El Pinto for dinner, the most iconic restaurant in New Mexico and had a great meal, three plates to share, which was actually way too much food.  I was surprised how cheap the total was, since, in my mind, I ate three dishes.  Afterwards, we went to get gas, where I also got my newspaper and headed to the airport, where I proceeded to write this entry while I smoked an Avo.  Connor sat with me for a bit before we said our goodbyes.  On that note, I’ll close, since my computer is about to restart.  I’ll have to formally close out my entry once I get to the gate.

Here I am at the exact same gate I am that I found myself almost three months ago, where I found out a bit of upsetting news that almost brought me to tears.  I will not mention it again, referring my reader to the original entry.  To think about it, it was really very minor, but I was in a vulnerable place, and it upset me far more than it should have.  It worked itself out a day or two later, but I was still very distraught by it.  Once I realized that I would be at the same gate, the memory came rushing back to me, along with the some of the happier memories from the last trip here.  Anyway, Connor called me as I soon as I closed outside, and he told me that I had forgotten my credit card with him when he had gotten gas, but he was stuck behind an accident.  I told him he could mail it to me if he couldn’t make it in time, as I would not need the card again until I left for my next trip.  He made it in time, and I went to check-in, breezing through with now line at security.  I sat down in the same bench I sat down last time and proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close, along with closing out the trip.  Next stop: Sweden, Estonia, and Finland.

Unfinished Business - Day 1 - Stamps and Plaques

5/16/15, “Stamps and Plaques”

Nageezi, New Mexico (Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Culture National Historical Park)

So much of my domestic travel is focused around Stamps and Plaques, visiting the 401 (well, now it’s 405 or 409, I think) units of the National Park Service.  Sure, most of the sites are wonderful, and I doubt anyone would argue the merit of Yellowstone NP or the Statue of Liberty, but, to me, the true joy is collecting the Stamps and Plaques.  However, I often forget to stop and smell the roses, to thoroughly enjoy where I am, to think that I am sitting among Indian ruins that are over a millennium old, as I smoke a Cohiba and listen to “Colors of the Wind” from Pocahontas (oh, the irony).  That is exactly what I am doing now.

After I bought my souvenirs, got my stamps, took my picture with the Plaque, lit up my Punch, took my Official pictures, had a sip of water, did everything I needed to do to Officially check off the WHS, it finally hit me.  The wondrous beauty of where I was made my literally stop in my tracks.  “This is so amazing!” I told Connor with a quaver in my voice.  It is impossible to describe how amazing this place is, and I won’t even try, hoping my pictures will do the trick.  In March, I described the evils of what we did to the Native Americans, how we destroyed a culture, but, if we hadn’t we wouldn’t be here today, being able to explore these ruins, wondering how they might have lived.  It is starting to rain a little, and we have to drive back through on a dirt road, so I’ll be brief.

After I closed last night, my computer died before I published, which I did first thing in the morning.  We got on the road, stopping at Twister’s for breakfast, and it was not long before we lost service.  It was raining, and, recalling what happened on the Dalton last year, I was afraid of the dirt road getting washed out.  It did not.  We made it to the VC, where I took care of the WHS stuff I needed to do.  The main site is where I am, Pueblo Bonito, which was paired with another site.  My plan was to light up my Punch, walk to the first site, take some pictures, walk to the second site, the main one, with my cigar, and then walk around until my cigar was done.  That was exactly what we did, enjoying the sites as we listened to Pocahontas.

I have never been anywhere like this before, well, maybe Mesa Verde, but this was different.  After I finished the cigar, I knew that I wanted to stay here as long as possible, to spend every minute we could before we risked missing the other site.  To that end, as Connor took pictures, I went back to the car to get my laptop and another cigar, ditching the Punch along the way.  I lit up the Cohiba and came back here, where I proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close, as my cigar is almost done, and we need to leave if we want time to stop for lunch.

Taos, New Mexico

Just as my trip with Sokol to Alaska was about more than Stamps and Plaques, so too have Connor have found ways to have fun here in New Mexico beyond Stamps and Plaques.  Whether it was pretending he dropped his phone in the river, singing along to our favorite Disney songs, sharing stories, or making yellow snow in May, to reduce this trip to Stamps and Plaques would be a poor misrepresentation.  After I closed at Chaco Culture we put the Aztec Ruins NM in the GPS, and it showed an arrival time of 2 PM.  I wanted an hour at the site, and it closed at 5 PM.  That put us two hours ahead of schedule, but I wanted to allow for plenty of what I so repeatedly call “Dutch Time.”  We had plenty of that.

Once we got back on the paved road, me having already told Connor what happened on the Dalton, we saw a flatbed truck off the side of the road, with the bed on down below and the cab blocking the entire road.  Fuck!  Our first thought was that the truck careened off the side of the road.  How long would it take for a tow truck to tow the truck away, here in the middle of nowhere?  We soon realized that truck was actually the tow truck, and it was not long before it towed a car away, and we were on our way.  Meanwhile, I was starting to get service again, so I could upload my photos and videos.  I am dead tired, so I will summarize as much as possible, and I am certainly too tired to develop any new philosophy tonight.  I think I really hit on something last night, and I want to work on developing that further.

We stopped at Sonic for lunch, which was right by the Aztec Ruins, and it was 3 PM by the time we got there, but we were still ahead of schedule.  While the NPS treated it as a separate unit, it is still part of the same WHS, much like Glacier Bay and Wrangell-St. Elias.  I, however, for the purposes of stamping, treated it as a separate WHS, and it even had its own Plaque.  We headed to the ruins, where I lit up my Hoyo de Monterrey.  The site was rather underwhelming after seeing Chaco Culture, and a ranger soon told me that I needed to put out my cigar.  The wind quickly extinguished it, and I put it in my pocket before making my way through the rest of the ruins and to the parking lot to finish my cigar.  There was also a gift shop outside the park, which had cheap souvenirs.  Shit, I can’t focus on this, a combination of personal stuff and fatigue, so

I’m really just going to wrap up as quickly as possible.

Connor wanted to go to the river, so we went, and he the brilliant of idea of pretending to drop his phone in the river while I was videoing something and having me then turn the camera to film the splash.  We continued the joke on Snapchat for quite some time.  We stopped again for food at A&W, and now we were on a time crunch to get to the restaurant in Taos before they closed at 9 PM.  Connor wanted to take the scenic route, which turned out to be a mistake.  There was snow on the road.  Mother fucking snow on the mother fucking snow in mother fucking May.  In the end, it only added fifteen minutes to the drive, but we were freaked out, the driving was that rough, telling stories as we drove.

We made it to the restaurant in time, where we had a great meal, a great finish to the amazing day we had.  We went to the hotel, made another stupid Snapchat video, and went out to the porch with our beer and cigars, where I lit up an Aroma de Cuba and proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close so that I can publish it and finish my cigar.

Unfinished Business - Day 0 - A Servant of Truth

5/15/15, “A Servant of Truth”

Aboard B6 65, En route JFK-ABQ

No, not Chicago, but not Sweden yet, either.  Where am I heading?  As the dateline teases, I am heading back to New Mexico.  Why?  To take care of some unfinished business.  More on that later.  It has been over a month since I have last written in this Travelogue.  Due to some issues with work, I have had to cancel my past two trips, and this is the first time in over I month I have left New York.  Alright, so what has happened in that past month?  I have been teasing out this bit of philosophy in my Facebook and Instagram posts all day, but I haven’t really explained what I mean by “a servant of truth.”  I consider the truth to be an absolute, unassailable form of good.  The truth doesn’t have versions.  Something either is, or it is not.  There is no excluded middle.  In that regard, I consider myself a servant of truth.

That is not to say that I’ve never lied, though I think I might be cleaner than Pinocchio for the month since I last wrote here, possibly not even telling a single “white lie” or exaggeration.  Why?  Because every time I utter a sentence that has so much as a word of falsehood, it hurts.  There’s no question of being afraid of getting “caught in a lie,” no, the reason is quite simpler.  I am a servant of truth.  Once you accept that there is only one truth, only one reality, you realize that, when you lie, you sacrifice your sense of reality.  (Note: I am not attacking anyone who believes in other versions of reality, in multiple universes, in higher powers, etc.  I am merely explaining the logical conclusion of my views on truth and reality.)  As Rand would argue, when you lie to someone, you sacrifice your sense of reality in order to “pull one over” on your victim, and you become their slave in that moment.  I am probably plagiarizing here, but this is a Travelogue entry, not a philosophy paper.  Taking it one step further, when you lie to the world, when you pretend to be someone you’re not, you become a slave to the world.

What is the alternative to this form of slavery, to constant people-pleasing?  It’s quite simple.  It’s to become a servant of truth.  Even white lies are not exempt from this philosophy.  There is a flipside to this equation, to be being a servant of truth.  It is not enough just to not lie.  To be a servant of truth, you must also tell them the truth.  If I think someone is pretty, I will tell her.  I do not tell her out of flattery or an attempt to “woo” her.  No, I tell her because I am a servant of truth, and something like that serves truth.  That does not mean I’ll spend an hour on the street corner telling every woman that passes by if she is pretty or not.  It simply means two things.  First, it means that I will never tell someone she is pretty if I do not think she is.  (This could be applied to some many other things, such as intelligence, love, etc., but I think beauty serves as the best illustration of my points).  I will never tell someone she is ugly.  I wouldn’t even tell her she is unattractive.  Hypothetically, if someone pressed me for an answer, I would eventually respond with, “You’re just not my type.”  Even something as mild as “I don’t think you’re attractive” would be too harsh a statement that I would tell anyone.

Why?  If I’m claiming to be a servant of truth, should I not be brutally honest with everyone?  Of course not.  First of all, I do not have a single mean bone in my body.  I am physically incapable of initiating violence against anyone, just as I am emotionally incapable of being cruel to someone who has done me no wrong.  I am thick-skinned, and I can take a joke, but tease me, hurt me, or insult me in malice, and I will not hesitate to let loose, to viciously tear apart my attacker, physically if I was harmed physically, emotionally if I was harmed emotionally (in malice).  You can be a servant of truth without being a servant of the hard truth, let’s call it.

It also means that it hurts to lie, but it also hurts to withhold the truth.  I will expand on this theory with specific examples in my personal journal, but I think my point should be clear here.  I’m about to write a few sentences here that will seem to apply to romantic feelings, but that is not how I intend it.  I am talking about friendships and platonic relationships.  If you think someone is pretty, tell her.  If you love someone, tell her.  Be a servant of truth.

What’s the point in building a friendship or a relationship on lies?  Yes, I know the lies guys tell to get women into bed, and maybe there is merit to taking that approach to life, but it’s never been me.  No, instead, I’m a servant of truth.  Why?  One simple reason.  Imagine, reader, I met someone, and, on our first date, I told her some “white lie,” something to make myself sound more interesting.  Imagine, then, she wanted to go out on a second date in no small part because of that lie I told.  One thing leads to another, and we develop a relationship, a relationship that was built on a lie (or lies, more likely by that point).  I can’t remember the last time I have told a lie to someone I was trying to date.  It is beyond the scope of this Travelogue to go into any further details of my dating life.  Even if I don’t want to see someone again, I take great pains not to lie to her.

I think I have made my point crystal clear about what it means to be a servant of truth, and I have defended sufficiently the merits of it, assuming you believe in absolute truth, in only one sense of reality.  There is nothing more to say about this.  Instead, I will continue on about the title of this trip.  Unfinished business.  When I travel, I plan my trips with precision.  I plan them perfectly, so as to avoid leaving what I dread most: unfinished business.  Sometimes I fuck up and have to return.  It’s why I went to Mexico two months ago, and it’s why I’m going to New Mexico right now.  This summer I will be going to Yellowstone and Glacier NP with my mother.  I want her to be there when I say the words that will bring a tear to my eye, the words we have been working on saying even since before I defined the term: “Mainland US Complete.”

In order for that to happen, I needed to visit every WHS in the Lower 48 states.  Three of them were in New Mexico, and I had been planning that trip for a decade.  I finally went on my “long expected journey” three months ago, but I was thwarted.  Taos Pueblo was closed for a festival.  Fuck!!!  Instead of cancelling the trip, I reworked everything.  I had planned to do one trip to New Mexico in 2015 to hit the WHS one trip to Texas in 2017 to hit the NPs.  Well, I rearranged things a bit.  I did one WHS and the Texas NPs on the February trip, and I hastily booked this trip to do the other two WHS in New Mexico.  It actually worked out kind of neatly, especially because of the present company.

About that.  One of my new friends, Connor, lives in New Mexico, and he is here for school.  The timing actually worked out perfectly for me to fly out to New Mexico with him when he went back, and he would join me on this trip.  It saved money for him, and it saved me the first night’s hotel and the car rental, since we were able to stay with his mom the first night and use her car.  It’s funny, these two WHS, the Indian ruins in northern New Mexico have long been my white whale, and it is fitting that they will be the last ones I hit before my summer trip with my mother.

We were supposed to go one February (or was it April?) a decade ago as a family trip, but we cancelled it because, I think, Taos Pueblo was closed, which I should have remembered when I planned the trip for February 2015.  Then came my grand October 2013 trip, 10 days in the southwest, hitting every NPS in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and Oklahoma.  It was going to be epic.  What happened?  The government shut down, closing all the national parks.  Ironically, Taos Pueblo would still have been opened, but it was kind of pointless just to go for that one site.  February 2015, Taos Pueblo is closed, but I still go to Carlsbad Caverns and the Texas NPs, leaving the unfinished business, Chaco Culture NHP and Taos Pueblo for this weekend.  Along the way, racing between Stamps and Plaques, I’m sure we’ll have some fun.  It’s going to be a great trip.  I can tell.

Alright, so Day 0.  I woke up early, slightly hungover from my adventure last night,  I had to wake up early to get ready and because I needed to be at the office an hour early, since I was leaving an hour early.  The morning was blur.  Before I knew it, it was 10 AM.  I got plenty of work done, by zombie-like state actually increasing my productivity.  Around noon, one of my coworkers, Uncle Frankie I call him, and I went to lunch at Hop Won for my traditional pre-departure lunch.

I was short on time, and I wound up getting to class a little late, sitting down next to the cute girl I’ve had a crush on all semester.  After class, we chatted a bit and made plans to get together after the semester was over.  I walked out, happy both about how that went and that the semester was over.  Well, I still have to revise my final paper, but I could probably do that in the car this weekend.  I lit up a Cohiba Siglo II, the cigar I smoked the first class of the semester, the same cigar that has practically become tied to my philosophy classes at Hunter.

I headed back downtown, saying hi to my friends at the cigar store, and finishing the cigar as I walked back to the office.  I finished what needed to be finished at work and then headed back to the cigar store, where the car would pick us up and where Connor was waiting.  The car was late, and the driver was awful.  He was in the wrong spot, and I had to run him down.  We passed Fifth Avenue, and he didn’t stop.  What the fuck?  Seriously, what the fuck?!?  He said that Google Maps told him it would be quicker to go across 42^nd Street to Broadway, through Times Square, down Broadway, and back across town to the tunnel, all in rush hour traffic on a Friday.  Bullshit!  Bull-fucking-shit!  I told him to make an illegal U-turn.  After some protesting, he did.  If he didn’t we very well may have missed our flight.  I was panicking the whole time, fearing the repeat of the near miss from last time.

We got to the airport with an hour to spare, but the line at security was much shorter and much quicker than last time.  We got through security, but not without me getting a very, shall we say, intimate pat down from the male security officer.  I got some more Chinese food, the fourth time I’ve had Chinese food in three days, but they cooked it fresh, and there was a line at checkout, so I had to wait until I got on the plane to eat it.  Connor and I had chosen the window and aisle seats, hoping no would take the middle seat.

We figured wrong and found ourselves sitting on the opposite sides of a cute Aussie girl.  Connor made fast friends with her, and she posed for all the photos we took, so it looked like the three of us were travelling together.  Soon enough, we took off, and I went to get my laptop.  It was then that I saw an entire row of three seats empty, which I immediately claimed for myself.  I then proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close so that I can take a quick nap before we land.  I would like to publish, but I don’t think the Wi-Fi is working.  If I wait until we get to Albuquerque, it’ll be well past 2 AM New York by the time I publish it.

Albuqurque, New Mexico

Well, once more I find myself writing from Albuqurque, this time under much different circumstances.  My life has turned itself around in the past three months, and I am much happier than I was when I left Albuqurque the first morning of the previous trip.  Like most of my life, the past three months has been a blur, but enough about that.  In the past few hours, I have realized that, like me, Connor is a servant of truth.  While, like me, he can be a jokester, a prankster, but he is always quick with a “just kidding” when he is being less than truthful.

After we landed, we were soon greeted by his parents, who were both delightful.  We stopped at Wendy’s on the way back, and, though I offered to pay for my share, his parents gladly paid for both of us.  We were soon at their place, and his parents showed me the same hospitality that my parents would show (and have shown) my friends.  I played with the puppies and ate my dinner, after which, I went outside, where I lit up an Ardor and proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close so that I can publish (and heavily edit).

Spring Break 2015 - Day 9 - "Time to Say Goodbye"

4/12/15, “A Time to Say Goodbye”

Grantley Adams International Airport, Barbados (BGI)

Well, my travels in the Lesser Antilles have come to an end, and now it is time to say goodbye.  There is a familiar sinking feeling that accompanies each trip, one before I embark on the voyage, worrying about everything that can go wrong, and this one, when it’s time to say goodbye, at the end of the trip.  When I get back to work on Monday, I will make a rational evaluation of this trip, how wonderful it was, where it ranks in my overall list, but, for now, it is merely time to say goodbye, and I cannot but think about how much I will miss it here.  My next trip to the Caribbean will bring me to Jose Marti International Airport, which is in Cuba.  That trip will be epic, but I still do not see how the Greater Antilles can be greater than the Lesser Antilles.  Then there will be Hispanolia to say “Caribbean Complete.”  After that, all that remains is the Bahamas to say, “West Indies Complete.”

Those are future trips.  Now, it is time to say goodbye to Barbados, to the Lesser Antilles.  Here at Grantley Adams, the eighth and final such airport in the Lesser Antilles, each of which has earned their own airport entry, I should feel triumphant.  I pulled off the trip perfectly, yet I just feel empty and depressed.  Is it the other stuff in my life?  The usual doubts returning?  Or is it the fact that I will likely never again return to these so-called Lesser Antilles, or at least not for a decade.  I had trouble sleeping in, and I heard my neighbors making preparations to go to the beach.  I wanted to say goodbye to them, but I wanted more to get an extra hour of sleep.  In the end, I got neither, and they were gone by the time I went to breakfast.

I worked on publishing last night’s entry while I ate, but I didn’t have much of an appetite, the empty feeling already returning.  Again, they tried too hard, some kind of breakfast pizza.  After I finished, I went back to my room, where I lit up my last Winston Churchill and published my entry.  I went outside, enjoying the view from my porch one last time, and that was when the empty feeling came in full force.  I did not want to leave.  I didn’t want to stay here.  I didn’t want to leave.  I didn’t want to go home.  I didn’t know what I wanted, and that doesn’t make for a good song.  I packed as I finished my cigar and then took a quick shower.  On the way to the airport, I lit up my Partagas, and I was told I couldn’t smoke in the car, a first, so I kept the cigar out the window.  We stopped to take ceremonial pictures at the Garrison and the beach.

That was it, time to say goodbye.  He dropped me off at the airport, where I found a bench, relit the Partagas, and proceeded to write this entry.  I have to check in soon, but I can write until the cigar is done.  Hopefully by the time I get to my cool apartment in New York, everything will be back to normal.  For now, I just want to enjoy my last cigar, as it is time to say goodbye.  This trip has been different from my usual trips in so many ways.  First, the pace of it has been different.  Second, I will honestly be able to answer that I have met interesting people, whether it was the waitress in Grenada, the manager in Saint Vincent, my neighbors in Barbados, or P--- and her husband.  I will remember all of them as long as I remember this trip.  Will this be the new way that I travel?  I think not, but I will make more of an effort to interact with people as I travel.  On that note, I close.  It is time to say goodbye.

En route, NYC Taxi 4G57

Well, here I am, back to the familiar, taking a taxi from Kennedy, as I have so often done before.  The sun was setting as we landed in Kennedy, and now the sun has set on my time in the sun.  My coworker was, of course, right that I spent most of my waking hours smoking cigars in the shade.  In fact, I only went to the beach to take a ceremonial picture in my suit with my cigar.  The only water I felt the whole trip was from the rain, and I did not feel the touch of sand.  Yes, reader, I spent a week in the Caribbean, and I did not go to the beach.  I avoided the sun as much as possible, and I stayed away from the tourist hotspots.  I had the time of my life.

I am making my way back home, and I will try to watch Game of Thrones, once again returning to the familiar.  I will be going to Brooklyn to visit my old friend on Wednesday, another return to the familiar.  I got far more work done in the 26 hours I worked remotely than I could have at the office, and I somehow managed to catch up with a large backlog of work, which allows me to return tomorrow with a fresh start.  I usually take this time to summarize and reflect, but I have already done a lot of reflecting.

I have spent enough time writing about the magic of the Lesser Antilles, and I have nothing left to say other than, “Reader, get on a plane and go there.”  Spend at least one full day exploring the city, experiencing the local culture, rather than going to the beach.  If you do, you will never think of the Caribbean as merely a place to go to the beach.  Other than the day of the MIA-GND flight, each day’s entry has had the title of a song.  The non-travel days (where I woke up and went to sleep in the same country) had titles of songs from “Beauty and the Beast.”  I chose “Belle,” “Gaston,” “Be Our Guest,” “Something There,” and “Tale as Old as Time,” the last one since I had already used the proper title of the song as the overview for the Day 0 entry.  Each of those five entries had a thematic analysis of the song, as it related to the movie, to the trip, and to my life.  If you have missed any of those entries, I encourage you to go back to read them.

As for the travel days.  I started to get clever, since I decided I could use any song title.  The titles were “Memories” as I left Grenada, “Journey to the Past” as I headed to Barbados, and “Time to Say Goodbye” for this entry to close out the trip.  It is 2015, and I will be going to Cuba this summer.  I suppose that I should save Hispaniola for 2016 and the Bahamas for 2017, but those are what I call “flex trips.”  Bahamas could literally be done any unplanned weekend between now and the end of August.  Hispaniola would need a three-day weekend to be done together, or I could do it as two separate weekend trips.  I am planning to go to Costa Rica in October.  That’s it.  Those are the only countries I have left in the continent.

What else will that leave me?  Lots of stuff left to do in the US, Canada, and Mexico, plenty of Olympic Stadiums, and various Wonders of the World.  I have been embarking on my mission for almost three years now, and I am in the home stretch.  On paper, I am 63%, possibly even more.  I need to double check my list to make sure it is properly updated.  However, it was not until I said “Lesser Antilles Complete” that I realized just how much progress I had made.  In three months’ time, I will say, “Mainland US Complete,” and I just realized that I wanted to save the last of my Partagas from the box for that occasion.

We are entering Manhattan now, so I will wrap up.  After I closed, I headed in, lost a couple of my lighters to securities, the souvenir ones, not the good ones, and uploaded my photos at the gate.  I got on, and it was a long and boring flight.  I spent most of it playing my game, but I got bored of that, so then I listened to some comedy on SiriusXM.  I snacked a bit, that being the only food other than breakfast I have eaten all day.

When we landed, I realized that it was a new terminal for me.  The Global Entry machines had an issue, but it all worked it in the end, and my bag was already making its way around.  I had no problem with Customs, and I was in a taxi by 8 PM, only 40 minutes after we landed.  I then proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close, along with the trip.  It’s been a great one.  Next stop: Chicago (or the outskirts) for the pipe show, which I might actually cancel.  Otherwise, Sweden.

Spring Break 2015 - Day 8 - "Tale as Old as Time"

4/11/15

Holetown, Barbados

Reader, if you have been paying attention, you know what today’s entry will be called.  It truly is “a tale as old as time.”  Ever since I drove up to Quebec for 26 hours, leaving the country for the first time in almost a decade, I have been making it a point to stop at the local Casa del Habano.  Here I am in Holetown, where the British first landed over 400 years ago, their conquest of the Caribbean a tale practically as old as time, certainly older than the tale I have been referencing all trip (“Beauty and the Beast”).  This is how I travel, and, here at the Casa, I quite literally feel at home.

I have a driver waiting for me downstairs, and as soon as I finish this entry, he will take me on a loop of the island.  Afterwards, I will be meeting the daughter of my first babysitter for dinner, another tale as old as time.  So much about this trip has been familiar, but, here in the “Jewel of the Caribbean,” smoking a Churchill, just as I have smoked ever since I started smoking Cubans, I finally feel at home.  Having time to relax, having nothing planned, not knowing how to spend my time, that’s all new.  Fuck.  I just got a notification that my computer is restarting in 5 minutes, so I might close abruptly.  I will continue the reflections tonight.

After I closed, I crashed outside, and I was woken up at 9 AM by the housekeeping staff from next door who reminded me that breakfast was on its way.  Actually, I was woken up slightly earlier in my favorite way, by a text from my favorite person to receive a text from, but I had tried to fall back asleep.  I went to breakfast, and I was delighted that included a simple plate of bacon and eggs.  After breakfast, I fell back asleep for a few hours, then I lit up a Davidoff as I cleaned my pipes.

I packed for the day and headed into town, where I went to lunch at the local fast food place, Chefette’s, getting the local specialty.  It was packed, and I could see Parliament, but, when I looked around, I did not see a single white face. 

I lit up a Partagas after lunch, and my next stop was the synagogue, established in 1654, it is the oldest synagogue in the Americas.  I walked around some more, took some more pictures, and bought some more souvenirs.

I then hired a taxi and driver for the next three hours, and our first stop was Holetown, the site where the British landed.  We went to the mall, where I found the Casa del Habana, bought a bunch of cigars, lit up a Churchill, took a ceremonial picture, and proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close, as the computer is about to restart.

Bridgetown, Barbados

Well, the sun has set for the last time in my time in the Lesser Antilles.  It will be sunset in New York just as I am landing tomorrow.  After I closed at the cigar shop, the computer restarted before the save could complete.  Anticipating this, I had been saving constantly, so I had lost one or two sentences, tops.  The restart was so that my computer could install Windows 8.1, though I was perfectly happy with Windows 8, but there did not appear to be any way around it.  It took two hours to install this update, and I had to constantly fidget with the computer as we drove.

While I was enjoying the Churchill, along with the views of the island, I knew that I would find no peace until the computer was up and running again.  For a while it didn’t look like it was going to work, and I got an error message saying to choose the proper boot sequence.  What the fuck?  In my inebriated state (having been constantly sipping my small bottle of rum), I had no idea what I was doing, but I somehow managed to press the correct buttons to change the boot sequence and get it running.  I’m not entirely sure that I could have done it sober.  I had all sorts of visions of having to try to find a computer repair shop open tonight or tomorrow morning or writing my entries on my phone.  Nothing about getting my computer up and running again.  Finally, after two hours, and back here, I was able to log in and open up this document.  I got caught up on the news of the day and chatted with the couple next door a bit.  Once the sun set, I proceeded to write this entry.

Now, as for these reflections.  In about an hour I will be meeting with the daughter (and son-in-law) of my first babysitter.  I do not know these people, though they know of me.  Any two people on this island could fool me into thinking they were them, provided they knew enough about my first babysitter and somehow managed to throw in a few stories about me and my brother growing up, yet we have an unspoken bond through the babysitter, the daughter’s mother.  Apparently, she saw my brother and me as sons.  Once my dad remarried, there was no need for a live-in babysitter, nor was there a place for a mother and a governess (think Sound of Music), and it was time for her to retire.  I went through a long string of babysitters and housekeepers.  I have no doubt that I wore them out.  One didn’t even last a whole day.  To me, this tale is as old as time.  I have brief, fleeting memories of each of them, but they all blur together.

Returning to one of my earlier entries (“Belle”), while taking care of a rich (by their standards) family’s children and cleaning their house hardly seems like a dream job, perhaps, to them, it was.  How many people just want to leave this British Caribbean Island?  To them, isn’t getting a good job in New York, a steady job where you are treated properly, the dream?  Isn’t that the “adventure in the great wide somewhere?”  I think it is, and I think so even more based on the email I received from her other daughter.

It is a tale as old as time that people travel to live among the less fortunate while the people in those destinations just dream of living in the big city where the travelers live.  I do not need to give examples of this, but I’m sure my reader can supply his or her own.  There is deep irony to this that someone from England would spend untold amounts of money to go on safari in Africa while the people there would want nothing more than to be a member of the staff in that British family’s home back in England.

Not everyone gets to meet her Prince Charming and live happily ever after in a castle, but happily ever after does not have to be about marrying a wealthy prince.  For every Belle or Cinderella who winds up in the castle, there are dozens, nay thousands of Tianas who find out that having what you need is different from getting what you want.  Sorry, not explaining that reference.  Watch The Princess and the Frog if you haven’t.  It’s too good of a movie not to watch.  While set in more of a modern time than the other Princess stories, the lessons it teaches are still as old as time.

In 24 hours, I will be returning to the familiar, to my normal life.  If my boss offered to let me stay here another week (and paid for my hotel) and let me work remotely while I was here, I’m not entirely sure I’d take him up on it.  There is nothing left here for me to see, and the heat is getting to me.  I’ll be glad to be back in New York.  Alright, my ride will be here in 15 minutes, and I need to get ready.  Well, I need to put on pants, which doesn’t take 15 minutes, but I’ll close.

The past four hours have taken a most interesting turn of events.  My entries this trip have been filled with Disney references, so there is no reason not to continue this trend.  There is a scene (well it occurs multiple times) in The Princess and the Frog where Tiana (or Charlotte in a different scene) wishes upon the evening star.  The same thing happens in Pinocchio, of course, but the manner in which it occurred was very specific in this movie.  Well, last night I saw what I thought was the evening star, so, for fun, I made a wish in the same way that Tiana did.  Reader, you should recall from my previous trip what those wishes were.

I did not expect it to work.  I did not expect that 24 hours later I would realize that not only was Robin Williams on my side but that there’s merit to the phrase “Be careful what you wish for.”  I will go into more details in my personal journal, but I will pull another quote from PatF.  I got what I wanted but maybe not what I needed.  Alright, enough of that.  Once again I find myself dead tired, but the events of this evening need to be recorded while they’re still fresh.

I have developed a policy of no longer including names in this Travelogue, not even first names.  My former babysitter was E---.  Her daughter is P---, and her husband is C---.  That is how I will refer to them for this entry.  At 7:30 PM, I called C--- on his cell.  He was right outside, so I hurried to get ready and meet him there.  When I got to the car, P--- got out and greeted me like I was a member of her extended family, a nephew or something.  She insisted that she had met me when I was a little boy, when my father brought me here.  No, that was my brother.  We went back and forth on that for a minute or two.  Eventually, she believed me that this was indeed my first time in Barbados.

She had actually met me, though, in 2012 at E---‘s funeral.  I did not recognize her, and she did not remember me.  I remember the funeral, though.  My father and I were treated like royalty, E---‘s family so touched that her former employer and his son would make the trek out to Brooklyn to come to the funeral.  E--- practically raised my brother.  There was np question of us not going.  I think there was even talk of my brother flying back from Seattle to come to the funeral.

They first took me to Saint Lawrence’s Gap, the main tourist hotspot.  It was the first time since I left the States that I saw white faces far outnumbering black faces, and C--- was quick to comment on it.  “This is where all the white people go.”  I joked to myself that maybe this was where my neighbors went.  I was right.  As we were driving, I saw two very familiar people smoking cigarettes on the sidewalk.  Yes, it was them.

We continued up to Oistin’s, another popular tourist area with blaring music.  We found a place to sit and order fish.  However, between their accents and the loud music, I found it impossible to understand them.  I did my best.  C--- looked like he’d rather be anywhere but here, but P--- and I made conversation.  She asked about my dating life.  I told her that my girlfriend and I had broken up three months ago.  Meanwhile, my phone was chirping, and kept responding.  When she saw the screen, I pointed to it and said, “New girl.”  She seemed pleased with the idea.  I ordered the flying fish, while P--- got the dolphin.  Somehow the portion for P--- and C--- were much larger, like three times as much fish.  I had a feeling that I was going to be offered extra fish.  I was not wrong.  P--- gave me half of her fish and had trouble finishing the other half.

Meanwhile, they started playing karaoke, and, after dinner we went over to join them.  I wanted to do “Blank Space,” but they only had a few Taylor Swift songs.  I chose “Love Story,” which I rightly butchered.  After I did my rendition, we listened a little more before we decided to call it a night.  They took me back to my hotel, where I continued to text the new girl.  We exchanged a total of 92 messages over the course of the evening.

Thanks, Robin Williams. I got my three flag pins, my three Parliaments, and a girl who won’t stop texting me.  You’ve really been on my team this trip.  If I can get a fourth wish, just fix everything at work, though I guess that’s actually in my power to achieve.  When I got back, I realized that I had forgotten to charge my computer, so I lounged around a bit while I charged it up some.  I lit up a VSG and headed out to the porch, where I proceeded to write this entry, which I’ll now close so that I can sleep outside for the last time.

Spring Break 2015 - Day 7 - "Something There"

4/10/15

Bridgetown, Barbados

Reader, you have been with me long enough to know exactly how and why I travel.  Reader, you know exactly what I mean when I say “Complete.”  Reader, you know the difference between enjoyment and fulfillment.  Reader, you have followed along with me as I have raced from place to place, trying to fit as much in to as short of a time as possible.  Reader, what then happens when I say “Lesser Antilles Complete” but still have over two full days to kill before I have to fly home?  Reader, what happens when I have done everything that I “have” to do and have time to do what I “want” to do?  Reader, what happens when I stop racing around and instead just relax?  Reader, what happens when I learn to travel like everyone else and enjoy myself?  Do I discover that there's something there that wasn’t there before?

Of course not!  I’m as bored af!  I spent the day working, and I’m pretty much entirely caught up.  If there was more work to do, I wouldn’t mind spending tomorrow working, too.  There were more crises that needed my attention, and I acquitted myself beautifully (possibly even better than I would have if I was in New York).  The only problem was that heat was getting to me.  Everything was going well, but my depression was worsening.  Yes, reader, I was lying here in paradise and all the usual things I doubt were all going well.  Ten degrees cooler, and I would have been in heaven.  As it was, I was in hell.

The first time I ever wondered if there was something there, almost a year ago, I decided to be like everyone else.  Instead of evaluating a potential mate based on a list of characteristics (if she's smart, if she gets my jokes, if she can make me laugh, if we share the same values, etc.), I fell in love with someone because of how she made me feel, not because I could objectively point reasons why the relationship would work.  We all know how poorly that turned out, but it was a new experience for me being beholden to my emotions rather than to reason.  I put my arm around her chair (not even around her shoulder) at a Mets game.

All the sudden, there was something there that wasn’t there before.  Just like that.  Five months later, it broke and burned and ended, and I was miserable for those five months, but, for five hours, I was the happiest I had ever been in my life.  For five months before that I had been wondering if there was something there.  All the sudden, in one moment, there was something there that wasn’t there before.

It doesn’t have to be a romantic relationship.  I've mentioned the four women who were in my life last semester, the four girls I loved liked sisters (even if my actions towards one became more than brotherly).  Two weeks later, the semester started, and, instead of heading home after class, I waited with my Cohiba for my two classmates to come down.  We chatted for about an hour.  All the sudden, there was something there that wasn’t there before.  We were like the three best friends, talking for almost an hour after class almost every class.  Talking about everything and anything.  There was something there that wasn’t there last semester.

Then came my coworker.  Well, she had been working there about two months before she sent me a friend request on Facebook.  We barely spoke in the office.  A few weeks ago, one of my coworkers teased me something like, “Steven, I don’t get it.  You text her every day now, but the entire time she was working here you exchanged maybe five words with her.”  If I had met her in a philosophy class when we were both single, I definitely would have wanted to find out if there was something there.  As it was, us both being in happy relationships when we met (and she still now), we definitively and permanently “friend-zoned” each other, but that’s not the point of this story.

Okay, she sent me the friend request.  I barely knew her, but I already knew that I loved her and that I would always and forever.  I sat on the request for days.  Did I trust her enough to report on my activities from Facebook back to management?  Now, I’d trust her with my life, with my darkest and deepest secrets, but, then, I hardly knew her.  I accepted the request, and, suddenly, there was something there that wasn’t there before.  When she left, there was no question of us staying in touch.  Friendship is so weird, how friendships form, the friends you choose to have in your life, why two people like each other.  It’s almost unexplainable.

The fourth girl?  In October, after we had seen each other twice over the course of two months, the first times we had seen each other since the summer we met two years prior, we started texting every day.  All the sudden, there was something there that wasn’t there before.  I now wonder if it was always there but I just never realized it.  That daily texting with her was all I ever wanted with her.  If I had made the effort to keep in touch with her, would we have been texting every day for three years now?

I should clarify, when I first met her, I wanted more than just to have a new friend.  I asked her out a few times, but she turned me down.  Once she went back to Orlando, my feelings towards her slowly and steadily became more sisterly, but we’d only text like once a month.  All of the sudden, in October, there was something there that wasn’t there before, and now I can't imagine what my life would be like without her friendship.  She is the rock that keeps me grounded to reality, that constantly reminds me that, like Spock, I have a human side, too.

As for that human side, well, no, I’m not enjoying travelling like everyone else.  I was much happier to be working today than I would have been on the beach.  Okay, one last example, a male example this time, my new best friend.  He basically followed me home after work one day.  All of the sudden, there was something there that wasn’t there before.  I think one week recently we hung out every night, by that I mean seven days in a row.  It was completely spontaneous that we became friends, but is a friendship that works, and there is a something there that wasn’t there before.

Enough of this.  I was seriously considering today’s entry being a one-liner, in line with King George’s apocryphal July 4^th, 1776 journal entry, “Nothing important happened today.”  I suppose that was true.  Nothing important happened today.  In fact, my brief #NightOnTheTown was the only thing of note, but, of course, I will record every minor detail.

Reader, if you are only interested in the philosophy/reflections, you can stop reading now.  I think I had another cigar after I closed, maybe a Jericho Hill, but I can’t recall.  I slept outside, and I actually slept pretty well.  I woke up and went to breakfast.  It was just me and the couple next door at breakfast.  I thought we were the only ones staying at the hotel.  It was a “four-course” breakfast.  All throughout breakfast, I kept thinking to myself, “They’re trying too hard,” just like the check-in clerk was trying too hard.  The first course was cereal.  I wasn’t interested.  The second course was a fruit plate.  I asked for that to be brought later.  I needed protein, badly.

She brought it out.  It was an egg soufflé served with, get this, grilled spiced shrimp and sweet potato.  They were definitely trying too hard.  That wasn’t breakfast.  It was dinner.  The saltfish was one thing, this was just too much.  I could barely tolerate it on my palate first thing in the morning, but I was starving, so I ate it all.  I would have much preferred just bacon and fried eggs.  The fruit plate, trying too hard, as well.  A bowl of cut-up melon would have done the trick.  Then they brought dessert, again, trying too hard.  Apple tart with maple ice cream.  It was delicious, but, again, they were trying too hard.  A bit of cake or a donut would have done fine.  Actually, I’m going to pauseso that I can go inside and have my donut.  I really need it.

Okay, so after breakfast I lit up a Winston Churchill and got to work.  Did I have another cigar before lunch?  Actually, I’ll need to check my bands.  No, doesn’t look like I did.  I headed down towards the beach for lunch, having no interest in actually going to the beach other than to take a ceremonial picture to send to my friend who always teases me about not going to the beach when I travel to the Caribbean.  The heat was starting to get to me.  I had been told to go to Cockspurs for lunch, but they only serve food when there’s a ship in port.  There was none today, nor would there be one tomorrow.  There was a shack nearby, so I went there.  I got fish and chips and a beer, accompanied by an Aging Room.  The meal was delicious.  I was so exhausted by the time I was done that I forgot to take the ceremonial picture, and the food portion was small, so I was getting hungry again.  I stopped at the gas station to load up on snacks.

Wow, I am dead tired.  I’m going to have to wrap up.  I’m not sure I’ll even have the energy to publish tonight or sleep outside.  Oh, about that, well, when I got back to my room, the housekeeping staff was there.  They were making up the room, and they seemed annoyed.  “He slept outside,” one of them muttered to the other one, as they brought the outside linens and pillows back inside and remade the inside bed with the inside linens and pillows and remade the outside bed with the outside pillows, thereby costing themselves their tip.  Seriously?!?  If I slept outside last night, obviously I wanted to sleep outside again.  Why would they go through all the trouble of making it harder for me to sleep outside again?  “The day bed is only to be used in the daytime,” I would later joke to my cousin.

I finished my cigar as I worked and then I needed to lie down again.  The heat was winning this battle.  I worked for the rest of the afternoon, but I had no energy.  My next cigar was a new one called, “Mr. Sam.”  It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great.  I can’t remember if I bought it or if it was a gift.  There was an emergency proposal revision that needed to go out by the end of the day, and I was the only one who could do it.  As soon as that was finished, I called the front desk and asked for a taxi to be called to take me into town.  Okay, I think I might need to take a short nap before I finish, so I’ll pause again.  Definitely won’t be watching my movie tonight.

Alright, that was a long pause, but I think I’m energized enough to wrap this up before I pass out.  Slightly past 6 PM, I headed towards the reception area to see if my cab was there, as it should have been by then.  It wasn’t.  There was someone else there, someone I hadn’t seen there before.  Actually, maybe I had seen him lounging in the garden during the day.  A cab soon came, but we weren’t sure whose cab it was, mine or his.  We were both heading in to town, so we shared it.  Half the cost, excellent.  The driver recommended that I go to the Waterfront Café for dinner.  They had a great menu, but it seemed overpriced, very much overpriced.  I decided to chance it, since this was going to be my #NightOnTheTown.

I was glad I did.  I ordered the fish cakes as an appetizer and the fish special as my main course.  I also got another beer.  When the fish cakes came, I said to myself that, for the price I paid, they better be the best fish cakes in the world.  They were.  When I finished, I lit up my Partagas.  I was soon told I couldn’t smoke there.  These were the only tables that had been sheltered from the rain.  Oh, right, it had been raining all day, so I took the cigar and walked a little closer to the water with my beer while I waited for my main course.

There was a boating outfit shop, so I asked if there was anyone who could take me around on a boat for an hour.  He said that he couldn’t but recommended a couple of other boats.  My fish plate was soon there, but I started with the sides, fried plantains and potato wedges.  Just the sides were practically orgasmic, and the fish was even better.  It was definitely worth the price.  I got a rum to go with it (“not Mount Gay”).  After I finished, I relit my cigar while I waited for the check, then I walked around the harbor to try and find the boats.  I couldn’t find the boats, nor could I find any boats that were crewed.  There went that plan.

I walked around until I discovered a busy side street with a pool hall.  There were a bunch of arcades with video poker machines.  Long story short, after playing for a bit, I put 8 coins in won, got four of a kind, and got 200 coins back.  The coins weren’t worth much, but I knew to quit when I was ahead, it was enough to pay for my milkshake, my cab fare back, and then some.  When I got back, I lit up my Rovera.  Wondering if I had now smoked a pipe in every country in the lesser Antilles, I looked back at my first few entries.  I didn’t smoke pipes either in Saint Lucia or Trinidad and Tobago, so, no.  I then proceeded to write this entry, pausing as note.  I will now close so that I can crash and save the publication for the morning.