TRIP REPORT - September 22, 2000 --> September 30, 2000<br><br>First of all, I’d like to say in total amazement that all 4 flights - going and coming: SFO-JFK, JFK-SXM, SXM-MIA, MIA-SFO all left on time, and all arrived early. For the first time in ages, AA did good...<br><br>Arrived at PJIA around 11:30 AM grabbed our bags, and headed outside. Alain’s AAA Rep<br>met us outside, and by 12:10 I was already drinking my first Heinie from 7-Alive on our way over<br>to Oyster Bay Beach Resort (OBBR). It is customary to make that stop, so I can pick up a couple<br>of baby road brews, and a Ting or two for Charlene. (I call her Chuck, so if I use Chuck in this report, it refers to my wife Charlene, no, I am not ...) Knowing that the fridge at OBBR would be<br>empty upon arrival, it was necessary to stop at Food Center for more Heinies, wine, cheese, bread, milk, etc.<br><br>Headed over to OBBR via the “new road.” A couple of months ago, someone on this board asked if that new road was lighted, and the answer is yes and no. There are light poles in place, but I never saw them come on, and we did many trips in/out in the dark. If you are interested in seeing pictures of this road, look at: http://www.value.net/~rja/sxmpix92000/island/new_road.jpg Once you reach OBBR, you make a right hand turn up a hill which is one of the more horrible roads on the island. If you drive really fast, you won’t have time for the tires to actually hit the bottom of every pothole, so it will be a smoother ride. Check-in was easy - had to wait about 10 minutes for the room which isn’t bad considering how early we arrived. They were mopping the floor, but let us stuff the fridge to give maximum cooling time for those beers. Went to the pool, cashed in on the two free drinks given to us for checking in, and breathed that sigh of relief “ahhh.... We’re finally here.” Did the clean-up thing, and headed over to Bistro Caribes to meet Eric, Carol, Gerald, Cindy, and at the other table: Contessa & The Sword, Jan, Tom, Flora and Jim. It was a fine meal and evening - I won’t go into that here, it’s been reported upon several times recently. The only thing I will say is that I had a steak which was wonderful - I don’t eat seafood, nor any form of bait! Headed back to the room for some much needed sleep. Taking the Red-eye from the West Coast is a good idea if you like to arrive on the island while there is still daylight, but if you get a plane full of morons who yack all night, you’ll be exausted by the end of your first day, as was the case with us...<br><br>I would stay at OBBR again, but after the construction is over with. Will they ever fix the road that leads up to the resort? Sure, after they fix the one to Club O! Our one bedroom was very bright with a balcony directly over the ocean. It was so close to the water, you could easily throw an ice cube from your drink into the drink, and watch it melt. The bedroom also had a door which opened up onto the balcony. The layout allowed for perfect C/O use. All the appliances seemed like new, and everything functioned perfectly including the two A/C units. The head had two sinks along with one of those boot cleaners. <br>My picture page/directory tree has many photos taken from this balcony, along with a few others from the resort. Once Chuck gets the regular film developed, I’ll scan those in, and add them to the list.<br><br>Sunday AM was a lasy, yet wonderful beginning to a new day. The view out the balcony was, well, see for yourself: <br>http://www.value.net/~rja/sxmpix92000/resorts/view_from_balcony_at_obbr5.jpg<br>We eventually packed up the cooler, and spent the day at Orient. This time of year - no problem getting chairs and , even at our noontime arrival. By the time dinnertime came around, we packed it up, and by the time we reached Talk of the Town for “A Plate of Food”, the skies opened up for about 5 minutes of nasty hard rain. “A Plate of Food” is a menu item there consisting of ribs, beans & rice, cole slaw, and for a buck or two more, some chicken. I think you can get it with seafood as well, but, not me! Headed back, cleaned up, and headed out to be cleaned out. Casino Style. Went to check out the rebuilt Casino Royale, LOST, went over to Dolphin, LOST, and finally went to Port de Plaisance - yep you guessed it - LOST. I play blackjack. Not sure what they were playing. I think it was called “DealernevergetslessthantwentyandBobgetsfifteen”.<br><br>Monday arrived. I tried real hard to wake up early to get a sunRISE picture, but it was too cloudy. In general, it was a very cloudy week. No hurricanes, but one passed to the North, and one to the South, and clouds were everywhere. My best sunset shot:<br>http://www.value.net/~rja/sxmpix92000/sunrises/damned_clouds.jpg<br>Pretty lousy - eh! There are other shots in that directory that you can look at if you wish.<br>Chuck had a bit of a sunburn from the day before, so we decided to go into Philipsburg for at least the morning, as I also had to finish off the deal with Caribbean Gems for the banner ad you now see on a daily basis. A terrific source of free beers! (We discussed the meaning of “free” in this context a couple of months ago.) It was getting to be lunch time, but I knew better not to have a big lunch. I had a surprise waiting for Chuck that evening, which she knew nothing about, so a simple bite to eat was in order. What’s wrong with P’burg? There is nothing even close to a Talk of the Town there. Wouldn’t it be great if, right near the pier, there was a ribs stand you could grab a quick lunch. It would be more in the island tradition than booger king... I confess, I was starved, so I popped my head into McDonalds as we were in that area when by stomach said “NOW”. Grabbed one single burger, and a beer from a street vendor. I noticed something on the<br>wall on McD’s that was a little disturbing. Take a look at this picture:<br>http://www.value.net/~rja/sxmpix92000/random/I_have_a_story_to_share.jpg<br>Look at that picture. It was drawn by what appears to be a St. Maarten schoolgirl. Maybe I’m crazy, but that picture shows nothing of what is St. Maarten. It’s all USA/fashion/Hollywood/MTV/MTV attitudes/etc. Is this a good thing? Probably not. I just care about the island so much, and want it to preserve it’s own character, not take on the crap that is rotting the minds of our youth... Anyway, it wasn’t a great beach day in the first place, so we went back to the room and started happy hour early.<br><br>It was time for the surprise I had secretly planned for Chuck. She still had no idea what I was up to. That morning, before heading to town, I had to sneak down to the beach, and talk to someone for the final arrangements. I published this mini-report last week, so I won’t repeat it here, but yes, you know me and my love for links, so if you haven’t read about the “Night to Remember”, I invite you to do so now:<br>http://www.value.net/~rja/sxmpix92000/A_Night_to_Remember.html<br><br>Tuesday was beach hopping day - Cupecoy, Mullet, and Maho. Had to check out the newly opened Royal Islander Club as that is where we normally stay in April. There are some pictures<br>located at http://www.value.net/~rja/sxmpix92000/resorts. There was more sand at Cupecoy than there was in April, also alot more clothing. It was a terrible sight... Grabbed some<br>lunch off one of those trailers you see parked on the side of the road around the island. Nothing like a meat pie and a cold Heinie! Had dinner at the Greenhouse - excellent as usual. Didn’t stick around too much as I wanted revenge at the casinos. Took my bride in our white little riceburner over to Dolphin and, no, you didn’t guess it - I WON! Got all my $$$ back from two nights previous back, and then some. I think we closed the place.<br><br>Wednesday wasn’t a very nice looking day outside. It rained off and on... Went to the beach at Club O, but didn’t stay long - the skies were pretty nasty looking. Headed over to Pedro’s for ribs. Went back over to the beach after that, and stayed for a little while. There was zero wind. The bugs were out. At one point I looked at my arm, and there were about 30 of these things on me. I was afraid to look elsewhere, so I bee-lined into the water. These little pests basically drove everyone off the beach. It was terrible! Another early happy hour back at the ranch. Didn’t feel like driving, so we stayed at OBBR and had dinner since it came with the famous King Beau-Beau dinner show. If any of you have heard of his “Dollar Dance” contest, well, I don’t think I should go into the details of that here, but Chuck managed to win a bottle of wine, and the winner ended up with her dress somewhere up around her ears... It was an amusing evening...<br><br>Thursday was a reasonable beach day. Starting to get nervous now - running out of days and nights in paradise. After the beach, we ended up at Sunset Beach Bar - finally got to meet Neil. Neil didn’t want his picture taken, so I did not, but he didn’t say anything about his camera, so here’s what his camera looks like:<br>http://www.value.net/~rja/sxmpix92000/island/neilscamera.jpg<br>Not a good night for sunset pictures - I was skunked this trip - not even a bad picture was taken! This was to be the third and deciding night in the casinos, and we’ll leave the results to your imagination.<br><br>Friday we met some friends in P’burg to help get them a good deal at Caribbean Gems. We were in the mood for burgers, so we went to the Holland House which is right across the street. Great view of Great Bay, and the burgers are fine as well. Headed off to Orient after lunch, another cloudy day, but the water was fine. Had dinner at Ms. B’s - nothing fancy or romantic this time, just a couple of plates of ribs.<br><br>Saturday, I got up early, and headed over to Orient for one last AM walk on the beach. You know what Saturday means - an appointment with the Princess. Princess Julianna. I was not looking forward to seeing her again. Checked in early, and went over to Turtle Pier for lunch and a reasonable number of beers. Headed back over to SSBB, two more beers, before surrendering the little white thing with 4 little 13 inch tires back to AAA. The rest of the trip wasn’t much fun.<br><br>It was a fine trip even though it was the lousiest weather we’ve ever experienced in SXM. Glad this happened in September instead of April - living here in California, we haven’t had any rain since last April or May, and plenty of sun, so we weren’t starving for sunshine, just to get away and be on the island. Our rainy season is from November thru April, so if this was the April trip, it would have been rather upsetting.<br><br>There are more pictures from this trip than I set links to in this report - check out the picture page at:<br>http://www.value.net/~rja/sxmpixpage.html<br><br>[color:blue]Bob!</font color=blue><br><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Administrator on 11/13/00 11:42 AM.</EM></FONT></P>