Rather than give you a full grocery list of our trip, I thought I’d give you the highlights.

1st, our trip down. Our 6:30 departure from ORD began to taxi away from the gate with only a reasonable delay. The plane stopped about 50 feet from the gate and stayed there for almost 15 minutes when we realized that all the ground crew were laughing, pointing and taking cell phone pictures at something toward the nose of the plane (which we couldn’t see because we were in that last row of seats that wouldn’t recline, in front of the bathroom-yuck). A few minutes after that the captain came over the loudspeaker and announced that our plane had been hit by a runaway bus! A driver of one of the jetway service busses had jumped out of his vehicle before making sure it was all the way in park and the bus had taken itself across the tarmac and under the nose of our plane!
I had planned a night at Maria’s in Roadtown before catching a ferry in the morning to Anegada, but this now looked to be in jeopardy as the captain announced we would need a new plane. Hats off to United though, we had a new plane, were seated and in the air within 90 minutes! They made up some time in transit and we were late by less than 45 minutes. The situation could have been much worse in retrospect.
Made it to Roadtown as planned, with dinner at Capriccio d’Mare- for me, out of this world pizza! I make my own and rarely do we order out, and I have a new recipe to “steal”. The Capriccio pizza has fresh mozzarella, shrimp, sun dried tomatoes, and basil- mmmm. I had that on both visits.

Anegada (5-4 to 5-7)- I think the co-highlight of our trip. The best in no particular order- Drinks with Vernon at Neptune’s each night before dinner (It doesn’t take much to get him talking, and it really is a treat when he does- Vernon settled a bet between my wife and I one of those nights. I was convinced that a particular bright star my wife had spotted was actually Venus. She went to Vernon and asked what star that was. His answer (with a hearty chuckle), “Honey, that’s a ship’s mast”. Yep, Magellan I ain’t.
Cow wreak- beautiful beach, the best conch fritters we had the entire trip (and I tried at least 12!), the best host (Belle), and the best entertainment (Belle’s grandchildren).
Neptune’s- great food, great accommodations, fantastic hosts, we couldn’t have booked a better place to stay for our 1st visit.
Running into fellow TTOL’ers. Met George, Kimmers and her husband the first morning we arrived. Enjoyed meeting and with talking with ezeddy and his wife (thanks for the coffee!). Had dinner with CapeCodder’s at Potter’s. It was really great to have some acquaintances on island to run into, and it really enhanced out trip with all the useful information we received.
Beaches- remote, white and pristine. We really enjoyed walking some that we got to right off the road. Watched the pelican's dive for breakfast each morning. Enjoyed the remoteness and the solitude- this place will definately be visited again.

I have two weeks of lawn maintenance to catch up on so Tortola 5-7 to 5-14 will be the next installment, with all the pic’s.