Travel down from Chicago through Miami was uneventful.

Met Lesley Bruce from Kenny's Car Rental at Juliana, and just as everyone reported, we were driving out of the parking lot in less than 10 minutes. Thanks Lesley, and thanks to J.D. for the referral. I screwed up one evening at the hotel and left the lights on...Lesley was there within 45 minutes, all the way over from the Dutch side, to give us a jump. Great service, fine car, we'll definitely use Kenny's again.

Stayed at Alizea on Mt. Vernon, and we were able to get the remarkable "Contessa" rate from Philippe, so thanks to Contessa. We never did meet Philippe though, but Franciose provided fine service, and Sushi is a great watchdog. Very nice room on the top floor, with a spectacular view of Orient, Little Key, Pinel, Green Cay.

Good lunches at La Croissanterie (twice), Friar's Bay Beach Bar, Lotiere Farm, Cheri's, and the little deli in the Old Street mall in P'burg which was excellent and way cheap. Great BBQ chicken with rice at Gus’ on Rouge Beach.

Fine dinners at Le Taitu (best of the week), La Petit Auberge des Iles (changed my mind, this was the best), Poulet d'Orleans (nope, this was the best), Mai the Vietnamese restaurant in Marigot, and Le Ti Coin Creole in Grand Case (Chef Carl is a riot).

We passed on the “event” Tuesday night 2/10 at BBB, and chose instead to stroll Grand Case Blvd for the Harmony Night. Lots of fun there, with several quality bands playing, street vendors, and some good home cooked food out for sale. We had a dinner of chicken sate, with some rice and also spinach lumpia from a local Indian family. We also stopped at the table of an Antillean woman and bought some simply wonderful home made peanut cake and potato bread.

Lotiere Farm looked great. As has been reported previously, much effort to keep the island looking cleaner, and we saw a number of crews out picking up trash from the roadside during the week. Overnight rain almost every night made the island look very green, and more lush than we’ve seen it in a while. Spent time on Plum, Rouge, Friar’s, Petit Plage, and morning walks from Mt. Vernon to Pedro’s and back. Cameramen observed a few times on the rocks next to Pedro's taking photos of bare butts.

We went to the residence and studio of Antoine Chapon in Cul de Sac, on the hill overlooking Little Key. What a beautiful spot. Antoine and his wife are very nice folks and he is a remarkable artist. We bought a few prints, beautiful and reasonably priced. Information on Antoine is at http://www.chaponartgallery.com/index.html.

No socializing this trip as we decided we wanted this to be a nice, quiet vacation for two. Long early morning and late afternoon strolls on the beach, evenings on the balcony at Alizea after dinner. Very nice…we loved it.

One dark note: the trip back on AA was a mess. The plane was a hour and a half late leaving Juliana, and then sat on ground in Miami for over 30 minutes while AA tried to figure out which gate to put us in. The attendant crew out of SXM was of absolutely no help in getting us any information on connecting gate assignments, and misinformation about customs and immigration was given to several passengers. The crew told us that there would be AA personnel at customs available to help us get to our connecting flights and there was no help there either. Many of the monitors on the concourses show only flights leaving from that concourse and have no information on other departures. Of course we had to run what seemed like miles through the labyrinth that is Miami International, and we got to the gate less than five minutes before the plane pushed back. No time to stop to buy a sandwich for dinner, but we got extra pretzels. If we had not carried everything on and had checked any luggage, we would never have made it.

Oh...and the situation with the USD/Euro exchange is a real pain although many restaurants are offering 1 for 1.

Outside of that…a very nice trip number 10.