I have decided to write a lengthy blog about my vacation with all the pictures, so anyone who actually cares to hear all about it can do so. I’ll try not to talk too much about how romantic it was. But let’s just leave the romance to this: On night number 2, when we were talking down the beach, hand in hand, and I was telling Mat all about my deep feelings of love and respect, he stops for a moment and I think he’s so moved by my beauty and understanding that he can’t even take it. I think he is about to ravish me on the beach, when I realize he’s actually whipped it out and is peeing into the beautiful waves that are lapping onto the shore in front of our room. It was so sweet and heart-felt…that I didn’t even feel the need to express anymore of my devotion…I think he’d fully-grasped it.
The first day we had to get up early. Mat had the minutes timed out to know exactly what second I would need to get up to stay on his schedule. He asked me “How long will it take you to get ready?” I said, “About 25 minutes”. He said “Let’s make it 37 since you’re going to have to pack your stuff. That means you need to get up at 3:23.” I didn’t even bother setting an alarm, since I knew my hot schedule Nazi would make damn sure I was up when I needed to be.
Our flight left OKC at five-something, and we made it through security without any delays. I’m trying to remember if we ate breakfast or not. I had taken an ambien the night before and was still hallucinating well into our 2nd flight. No, now I remember. The breakfast places weren’t open yet, as no one was awake except God himself. (I don’t know what this is supposed to mean, but it sounded really intense). I think we got cookies on the flight… I seriously don’t remember. But clearly it didn’t involve bacon or sausage, because I would sure as hell remember that.
We landed in Atlanta and only had about a 40 minute layover. I decided the number one thing a Caribbean bound medium-sized girl in white pants needed at 9 in the morning was a giant hot dog drenched in nacho cheese. I also decided against napkins, because I was too excited about getting Doritos, too. By the time we rushed onto the plane, I couldn’t wait to sink my fake teeth into a weenie. There was a 15 year old kid sitting next to me on the plane that I really didn’t want to witness my hot dog domination but that was just going to have to be a necessary side-effect. I took one bite of the dog when it squirted cheese all over my hands and pants. I asked Mat to go get me some napkins….he looked at me like he does 87% of the time, like he doesn’t understand my brain but thinks I’m pretty. He left and came back with 2 squares of toilet paper that he had gotten from the bathroom. By this time, I had sneezed and had snot on my face and fingers and the 2 single-ply toilet squares had to go towards that shittastrophe. (Has anyone noticed that I like using that word?) Then I decided I was going to throw away my hot dog because there would be no eating it without ruining my cute new jacket. I asked him to throw it away, cue Mat’s special Mary look, and he disappears again…leaving behind a hungry, snot-infused wife, with a cute jacket
We were so excited there was to be a movie on board, since the flight from Atlanta to St. Thomas was over three and a half hours. The movie ended up being “Chronicles of Narnia”. I hate to be picky on an in-air flight, but I would seriously rather watch a documentary about my Great-Grandfather’s penis than a movie about a lion that lives in a chest of drawers. I ended up reading my kindle and asking Mat for compliments, which got my hungry little self through the flight.
When we landed in St. Thomas, I was overly excited and enthusiastic. I was calling a lot of attention to myself I think, because I was getting a lot of stares. I was walking too far ahead of Mat, and I hear him yell at two 106 year old men with cataracts and canes….”THAT’S MY WIFE”…and not in a proud way. In a “I’m going to rip out your blueish colored eyeball and poo on it” kind of way. This was not the first time something like this would happen. The island was full of old women tourists, and the local women were all strange-bodied and looked like they didn’t think showers were fun. Like, they all had toned legs from running after donkeys, but giant bellies from eating too much…tuna? Yeah, that doesn’t make sense. I don’t actually know what the hell they were eating to make them so disproportionate. But I embrace any ugly woman that makes me look better. Anyways, so we got our luggage and we were met by Mat’s boss and another lady he works with. They took us to a private lounge to drink rum punch and wait for the bus that would take us to the ferry that would take us to St. John. His boss insisted we sit on the top of the boat for the 40 minute ride to the island. (Mat just interrupted me to tell me the ferry was 20 minutes, but I refer you to caneelbay.com where it specifically says 40 minutes. Mat can suck it.)
His boss may as well have stabbed me in the arm with a needle and hooked me up to an IV full of alcohol, because I didn’t plan on drinking, but every time he was around, I found myself drunk and still with all of my money. The top of the ferry was so windy, and without anything to eat since the Bush administration, two rum punches were making Mary a dancing ferry donkey. (I keep using donkey because we saw so many of them, they’re the only animal I have in my head.)
Mat is mad at me for posting this picture, he says he looks like a cancer patient. But I look cute, so I had to find somewhere to post it.
Whenever we get close enough to the island, Mat’s boss points out to me where our room is. It was so unbelievable, that I wasn’t really thinking. So when Tom (Mat’s boss) asked me what the first thing I wanted to do when I got there was, I blurted out, “probably have some sex” without even hesitating. Thankfully Mat didn’t fire me from being his wife, and Tom asked what I wanted to do ten minutes after that (haha).
We arrived to St. John and Cynthia took Mat to find a bathroom and Tom took me to get our snorkeling equipment and take me to the bar to buy me another drink. He has to be the alcohol-generous vacationing man in the history of mankind. After Mat finds a bathroom, he finds me at the bar with Tom and says “Excuse me, I need to borrow her”. You really can’t hear the explicit sexual tones in this statement, but they were there. Poor Tom was probably thoroughly confused by all this inappropriateness, but walked us to our room quickly and promised to only stay for a minute. He did, and this is what we had:
The inside was amazing, of course. But the pictures don’t do it justice, what was the most impressive part was our amazing view. I realize, in all my vacationing, I didn’t actually know the meaning of “ocean-front”. We were literally 6 steps from the water. The most beautiful water you’ve ever seen.
Tom had told us he wanted to take us on a “filthy-expensive” dinner that evening. I’m always up for anything filthy or expensive so I was in. We played in the ocean for about 2 hours then had to get ready for dinner. I was already a snob about our room. When I saw other people playing on my beach, I wanted to ask to see their room passes and 2 forms of ID. Everyone I looked at the resort, I was thinking to myself “I’m sorry you’re 75, your husband is ugly, AND your room isn’t as nice as mine”.
We went out to dinner that evening with Tom, his wife, their 2 kids, whom I always love being around, and Cynthia. Tom went all out, bought 2 bottles of the most expensive champagne, every appetizer on the menu and even splurged on an amazing waffle brownie that made me moan inappropriately. We went home and went to bed at 9:14. It was a great first day.
The next morning Mat woke up at 4:45 to go to the gym. I’m not being funny, he really did. Then he woke me up at 7, which I only allowed him to do without him getting roundhoused in the face because his labor was providing this amazing trip and we only had 2 days. I got up and got dressed and we ate the resort’s breakfast buffet, which we did every day we were there, that was quite a bargain at $31 dollars a head. It was my favorite meal of the day, I think. It had everything you could want for breakfast, and had the best Eggs Benedict I’d ever experienced!
We decided to go on into “town”, which was the main bay called Cruz Bay. They had an adorable shopping area there, and we were possibly wanting to get a massage at a spa in the area. Since we had woken up before Jesus, we got there at 8:20am and the shops didn’t open until 9:30. So we just walked on the road for a while, Mat having to pull me out of the way every 10 minutes or so because I wouldn’t be paying attention and would almost get hit by passing trucks. (They drive on the other side of the road!)
The last picture is a shot of Caneel bay from a taxi on our way to Cruz bay.
We did a little bit of shopping, mostly for the kids, then made our way back to our room so we could have some beach time. On our way there, we saw donkeys. Donkeys were allllllll over the island, they just roamed free. I really wanted to pet one and ride one, but this is as close as Mat would let me get.
We ate lunch that day with one of Mat’s co-workers, Trey, and his girlfriend. They asked us to go snorkeling on their beach, Scott beach, which was named one of the top ten beaches in the world. It was beautiful, but our beach on Caneel was better because there were no rocks, and they were a lot further from the ocean than then we were. We snorkeled until I started thinking about sharks and pirates. I could tell Mat was disappointed I wouldn’t let him swim to Quebec. I put snorkeling on hold until I could get back to my phone and google “shark attacks and pirate happenings in St. john”.
Turns out pirates don’t really exist and the only shark attack in history happened in 1963.
We got back to our beach and I laid in the sun covered in Crisco, while Mat did some more snorkeling. That evening we ate dinner with Trey and his girlfriend, and another coworker of Mat’s and his wife and their eight year old son. (Who was so cute. His mom got mad at him at dinner because when I asked if he spoke Polish like his mom, he said “My ass stinks” in Polish. Hahahahaha). It was my first time to try duck- I’ll stick with steak from here on out. It tasted like it was trying to be chicken but with the texture of poor kids in a third world country. It was also kind of purply blue in color. Oh, and our waitress had a big belly and a sweat stache. Go figure.
The next morning we ate at the delicious buffet again. We put on our swimsuits and Mat got us a kayak, which I was apprehensive about. This is how our conversation went:
Mary: I’m scared. What if we fall out?
Mat: Then we’ll get back in….
Mary: But what if the waves take our kayak and we can’t back to it?
Mat: Then we’ll swim to shore…
Mary: But what if where we fall out doesn’t have a shore, what if it’s a cliff?
Mat: Baby, really? Have you seen any cliffs? Do you even know what you mean by “cliff”?
Mary: What if I get speared on a rock?
Mat: Then you can just stand the hell up if you think that’s going to happen! If we get close enough to shore for you to get your ass speared on a rock, then you’ll be close enough to stand up.
Mary: But what about the cliffs?
Mat: I already overcame that objection. Get in the kayak
It ended up being beautiful and not scary at all. We passed a boat that had “Connecticut” on the side of it, and I called to lady reading on board if she had sailed all the way from Connecticut. She had, and when Mat told her we were jealous, she told us to start saving. She clearly doesn't know us.
I ended up getting a horrible stomach ache and sleeping much of the rest of the day. Mat enjoyed snorkeling without my whining, and went out further than I would’ve been able to see/whine about if I had been awake to watch. He saw a stingray while he was alone, and together we saw a sea-turtle, a bunch of squid, and lots of coral and fish.
That evening we went to dinner at The Equator. This is where I was looking forward to eating the most. The restaurant is in old sugar mill ruins and is so odd-looking and unique and beautiful. I knew the food was supposed to be amazing too.
I had veal for the first time…it was so delicious I didn’t even think about or care that it was a little baby cow. Yum!
We went to bed at 9:30, again. This place is for retired people and people who get up at 4:45 while on vacation to go to the gym. (my husband. ahem)
The way home the next day was uneventful. We each weighed about 20 to 23 pounds more than when we left. We were grumpy, our trip was too short, and the guy in front of us on the plane sounded like he was coughing up a sick baby.
If you ever have the opportunity to go to Caneel Bay on someone else's dollar, knock down your Grandma to take it. It was the most beautiful place I have ever seen/will ever see.
