Jamaica 2005 best vacation ever!

[Scarlett]

The 3rd annual Feat Fan excursion to Jamaica was incredible. How could it not be. Great music, great place, great weather and great friends. That's what it's all about. Can't get any better! Except maybe next year!

It was great to see friends I made at last year's excursion and hoyhoy digesters I've met over the last year, as well as those I just met for the first time.

Highlights for me:
-The music, of course
-The rum drinks: hummingbirds, rum creams, pina coladas, etc.
-The wonderful company of friends
-Spending time on the beach, in the ocean and the hottub
-Dancing and watching from backstage (my first time!)
-Meeting (and hearing) Coco Montoya
-Walking along the beach at midnight under the moonlight (now that's Jamaica)
-Sleeping late and having room service for breakfast
-Great pineapple at almost every meal
-Jamaican coffee - ya mon!

I'm sad it's over, but oh so happy to have such great memories.

Scarlett

[mdtomato]

It was by far my best vacation ever too! My first Feat excursion, but certainly not my last...Scarlett, its me Jenny from MD. It was great meeting you, hope to see you again soon!

[vtshag]

Feat Excursion III was fabulous as usual. Story time.

So just the two of us (Nancy and I) are on the bus Monday returning to the airport at 4:30 AM going through one of many small villages at 50 mph. All of a sudden the bus driver stops the bus in the middle of the road. Then he starts backing up. He backs up about 200 yards. He puts the bus back in gear and angles the bus across the road so he could see what only he saw the first time.

There's this (drunk?) guy lying in the middle of the road in the Negril bound lane. We didn't know if he was a road kill, a drunk or an ambush. Once the drive hit the high beams, the guy moved and we got out of Dodge in a hurry. I guess the thing that cracked up my worped sense of humor was this. While a drunk slept in the middle of the highway, a dog sat on the shoulder safe and sound.

About a mile later, two cars passed us heading toward Negril. I don't want to know what happened next - alligator bait in the Looziana bayou.

Nancy and Jim "Shag" Schaughency
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;D

[Scott Hays]

Helen and I thought it was a great vacation, too. To think, we were so damned "responsible" to our students that we chose NOT to attend the first excursion at Braco ... now we know that the trip rejuvenates us and makes us better teachers. Hah!

Jim ... Helen and I had a bit of an adventure, too, so I will share the story with you. I shared it on the hoyhoy list, so if you read it there, I apologize for the repetition. I know others who read this thread don't subscribe to hoyhoy.

On Friday, we decided to take the day and do some exploring. We booked a driver through the hotel and took off for the southcoast town of Sav-la-Mar, about 45 minutes from Negril. When we got there, the driver became increasingly frustrated with the traffic, the one-way streets that seemed designed to keep him away from the main drag, and the fact that he wasn't clear exactly what it was we wanted (and that he was supposed to provide for us). When we got to the open-market place, the road was blocked off and he turned down a small one-way street, that also dead-ended. He made a u-turn and went back up the street we had come down, only to encounter a woman cop on foot who made him stop. Almost immediately they got into a shouting match, but he parked, as she instructed. Shortly after that, a police van (lights flashing) pulled up and a burly, large male officer got out. He and the driver began discussing the situation again (to us, this seemed like a problem, not just a situation), and it quickly devolved again to a shouting match. The cop wanted the driver to get out. He refused. In fact, he rolled up the windows and locked the doors. In retrospect, if he had gotten out, he would have been cuffed and hauled away and we would have been left sitting in a hotel van in a strange town without any knowledge of how to get ahold of the hotel. In the end, he said he would drive to the police station, which he did. Once inside, they arrested him. We weren't too sure of our status, but since no one asked us for an ID or to make any kind of statement, we just sort of made ourselves home out in the central courtyard of the station ... hanging with the hookers, criminals, plain-clothes officers, court officers and anyone else who happened to drift through. We waited for an hour before a man from the hotel showed up to vouch for the driver. They let him loose and we went back to Negril with him.

All-in-all, a pretty exciting adventure without any real cost to us ... but enough adrenalin to last the next couple of days.