Posts from — January 2009

It must be St. Martin Island Time, we don’t really care what time it is. More highlights of St. Martin: This morning it was road traffic from hell….. but Whatever, french pastries are as good as it gets, waistline is expanding, waves and surf, constant warm wind, a trip to Phillipsburg which is the Dutch side Capital of  St. Maarten (there is shopping for very high end jewelery, watches, clothes), hilly roads, washed out roads…… it’s all part of the Island charm. More on our next update and maybe even some pictures.

Well it’s been exciting to say the least. Goats on the road, very narrow and twisty streets, but the hightlights so far are: Orient Beach at our doorstep, the view from our Condo of Orient Beach, Turquoise Water, Pellicans, 10′ Oleanders, Bouganvillia, Big Surf, Happy Bay Hike, Luxury Yachts, Cheap Beer (6.75 for 4 bottles), inexpensive and very tasty French Wines and warm weather 24 hrs a day.

Au Revoir……….. Bon Nuit………. Larry and Brenda

Happy belated 86th birthday to Grampa………. we got our days mixed up and forgot to send it earlier. Hope you had a great day.

Well we have finally arrived and are set up in our Condo at Mt. Vernon. The view is spectacular and the weather has been fabulous. Now, if you happen to discover any typing errors it’s because they do not use the stqndqrd querty keyboard……. it is a French keyboard. Beach is fantastic…………… parasailing, kiteboarding, jet skiis, etc, etc. This keeps it very busy, so tomorrow we are headed off to a quieter beqch called Friars Bay, if we can find it. Roads here qre interesting to say the leqst, we’ll attach pictures later. Must run our time is up.

Well a real quick update. We made it………. we’re here. We arrived in St. Martin on time and on schedule. Louis and Sebastien from Automax picked us up at the airport and drove us to our condo; which is exactly like the Web Pages show. This morning we got up early and drove to the local airport in Grand Case to catch a 9:00 a.m. to St. Barth’s were Dean and Judy are staying. The word fantastic does not describe the place they are staying. It is called Villa Manon, just check out this web page; more pictures at a later date; it is happy hour (happy two hour)so not much is not getting done. Tonoght dinner is on the deck looking out at multi-million yachts. Fine Wine, Fine Family, Fine Food…… it just can’t get any better.

Well in a couple days we are off to the Caribbean Island of St. Maarten (Dutch Side) or St. Martin(French Side). It is an area of the Caribbean commonly referred to as the French West Indies and it is the smallest island in the world that is governed by two Countries – Netherlands and France. We have a Condo Rented for one month that is just a few steps from Orient Beach. It is part of the former Mt. Vernon Hotel complex. The units have been sold off to private owners and have been renovated for rental or they are being lived in by local residents. The unit we have rented is called SXM Studios and is owned by two brothers Amaury and Thibault. They also own a restaurant in Grand Case that is called Bistrot Cariabes. Hopefully our plane connections will work out as we fly out of Kamloops overnight in Toronto, we are then up real early and fly Toronto to Charlotte N.C. and then from Charlotte direct to St. Martin SXM. We have neighbours and good friends looking after our house and of course we have our tenant downstairs who lives here so that combined with our Chubb Security monitoring system all should be okay on the home front.  We hope to provide weekly updates on our Web Blog however that all depends on us being able to access an Internet Cafe. This trip has been in the planning stages since early last year and so we are both really excited to get going. We can’t wait to experience the beaches, the french pastries/food and of course the warm sunny climate. We both have 5 to 6 books to read and lots of sun tan lotion. If all travel plans work out as expected the morning after we arrive we are hopping on a short commuter flight to the Island of St. Barth’s. Brenda’s brother and his wife have a Villa rented and have been there for almost 2 weeks, so may be able to catch them on their last night in St. Barth’s. They have been to St. Martin a number of times and have been great resources in helping us plan our month long stay. Most of their planning tips involve beaches, french food and vanilla rum……. sounds tough doesn’t it? St. Barth’s is the vacationing hot spot for movies stars, royalty and those rich enough to own a mega yacht, so it should be interesting and eye opening to say the least. Also, during the last week of our stay in St. Martin my sister Donna (Gilligan) and husband Bob (Captain Bob) are arriving for their annual vacation aboard their sail boat SV Bergybit. It will be good to meet up with them and learn from their St. Martin experiences. Check out the link to their Web Blog in the right hand column

Well it’s no longer a secret. We’ve started a Rock Band and it’s called “Lindsay and Grampa Rock Band”. Attached are pictures from our media kick off and just click on this link to hear our 1st Big Release Hit Single. The video quality isn’t the greatest as we are just starting out and on a pretty low budget. However the music is excellent, especially Lindsay on lead guitar. Now, some of you may say that this sounds and looks like another somewhat famous band, but we are currently in negotiations to get rightful ownership of this song. We’ll keep you all posted, until then……. WE ARE   HITTING THE ROAD!!!!!!!!

Last night we called up our friend Rick P. and asked if he would like to go snowshoeing at Sun Peaks, he was game so off we went to Sun Peaks this morning. It was snowing lightly when we left Kamloops and a little harder up at the mountain. But, overall the conditions were excellent. There has been quite a bit of snow since our visit a week ago (get ready Lindsay, Jeff, Kevin and Tamara for some great skiing/snow boarding at the end of February). Once we arrived we got suited up and headed off on one of the many trails. Part way along we stopped to take a group picture by resting the camera on our day pack and using the self timer. We had no sooner taken a picture than this lady comes jogging down the trail wearing small snow shoes. No Kidding, she was jogging along. We got her to take another group picture. I’ll get these two pictures attached and others once Jeff (a.k.a. Low Paid Tech Support) fixes my weblog picture link issues. The trees along the trail are really getting covered with snow and if you accidentally bump a tree or branch it will dump a load of snow on you. Well, poor Rick is that slight bit taller than us and a couple times when ducking under hanging branches he moved the tree limb enough that he got completely covered. He has the greatest sense of humour and the greatest most memorable laugh even when getting snow covered. We did a loop of about 4km and headed back to the Sun Peaks Village to have our lunch at Bento’s Day Lodge. After lunch we headed home and by now it is really snowing. Got stopped in a traffic back up because somebody put their car in the ditch and the tow truck driver decided the best way to pull the vehicle out was to block the main road…. not thinking I guess. We finally made it home but the road conditions were a little slick. Great companionship, great conditions and a great day……… we’ll do it again.

This post is a little late, but what the heck. Anyway, Jeff and Lindsay had decided to go snowboarding at Sun Peaks as part of their visit to Kamloops at Christmas. So, Brenda and I tagged along and took our new snowshoes for a day in the snow. Once we arrived and got dressed etc. we left Jeff and Lindsay at Bento Day Lodge with plans to meet up around lunch. At the start it was pretty cool as there was a bit of wind. As the day went on the conditions improved and snow shoeing was excellent. Lots of snow and well tracked trails, the sun even peaked out for a bit (no pun intended). Brenda and I took the opportunity to search out the Condo we have rented at the end of February for a family ski vacation, more on that after the vacation. We did have a picture taken (with our phone camera) along the trails by a passing couple, however I forgot to save it prior to closing the phone. Our new snow shoes are great, they fit well, track well and are easy to use.

As far as snowboarding, Jeff and Lindsay had a great day on the slopes. The weather warmed up as the day went along and after lunch there was 3″ to 4″ of new snow. They were pretty wiped at the end of the day, but we managed to capture a phone picture, this time I saved it.