Jim Dickens February 12, 2024
Usually, I do a lot planning for vacation trips, but for the past month I let go of the reins and found out how great it is to go on the agenda of your trusted family and friends. I’ll be 70 in 8.5 years so Lori and I continued on our quest to have two summers a year. We are south while Northern Illinois does winter.
Our old friends Denise and Darrin invited us to stay with them at their condo in San Jose del Cabo, Mexico. Denise is a master planner and I just let go and went with her agenda. It was marvelous. We played a wonderful golf course, toured the local Bay of California waters, and went to really cool restaurants for dinner. Learning what is happening as it happens instead of researching and planning to know ahead of time was new and differently enjoyable. Almost like getting happy surprises.
The four of us were on a boat out in the water sitting on the bow when a large humpback whale breached completely out of the water some 75 yards away. When I say out I mean tail and head out at the same time out. After seeing whales maybe 30 times, this was the most spectacular event I’ve witnessed. Lori and I kept following others plans as we stayed south.
A week after returning from Cabo we went south into the Caribbean Lesser Antilles to St John Island for two weeks. Two other couples joined us for the first week and our children with partners joined us for the next one. We had a nice villa on the hill looking over Cruz Bay to the sunset.
Our old friends, Ron & Cris and Tim & Kate planned our first week. Kate and Cris arranged for a sunset cruise, Lime Out, hiking, beach visits and dinners out. Ron and Tim did geography, history and politics lectures. It was excellent to experience the island through their viewpoint.
On the sunset cruise, our eccentric captain, Jason, served us his own version of the local cocktail, a Pain Killer. Not sure what amount of alcohol and other drugs were in them but they had an immediate and significant effect causing Tim to do creative photography, Ron to lead a dance party back at the villa and me to get into a rare and confusing disagreement with Lori. The cruise was both a rose and thorn of the trip.
Daughter Emily and partner Zak are both practicing engineers and they built a precise schedule of events carefully researched. Luckily the agenda had little overlap with the previous week so new interesting stuff. Son Jack and wife Shelby came from their home in England. Their role was to be calm and carry on despite jet lag.
St John has very popular snorkeling and the popular areas have gotten worn out. Hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017 have left a mark that still persists. However, Zak’s research uncovered that Salt Bay has a fresh reef a quarter mile off shore but in calm waters if you are willing to make the trip. We did and it was a highlight of the trip. I now have a great shared memory with Jack of our adventure together.
Letting go and trusting family and friends to set the agenda without interference is highly recommended. You gain new perspectives and do new things. So excellent!
R1T Tour 