A remarkable end to vacation
The family vacation on St. Croix came to a close yesterday, the afternoon flight giving time in the morning for me drive into Frederiksted to conduct an interview at Polly’s at the Pier (I’m working on an alumni profile for Duke Magazine). Then I returned for a last 30 minutes to string up my hammock under the sea grape trees at Sprat Hall Beach. It is my favorite place, and I savored the moment.
We packed up the car, shuttled the family and my father to Rainbow Beach, ate lunch (mahi tacos with the spicy aioli), shuttled dad back to the house, and then headed to the airport.
We were early and quick through TSA, so sat in the steamy STX concourse-under-construction calmly reading our books even when the flight was delayed so technicians could apply supertape to a running light damaged by a bird strike on the incoming flight, but eventually we were away from an amazing week on island. We landed in Charlotte late at night, and still had a two-hour drive home to Chapel Hill.
I was driving and couldn’t find any music I could enjoy and that would keep me awake and let the others sleep. Then I remembered that Dave Winer had posted a link to Guy Kawasaki’s Remarkable People podcast and the episode featuring his conversation with Dave. I drove on, wide awake as I listened to Dave and Guy. Even though I’ve been following him for 20 years, I learned yet more detail about Dave’s development of outlining, blogging, RSS, and podcasting.
When the episode was finished, Erin — who I thought had been sleeping — spoke up: “That was interesting.” We talked softly about Facebook and my American Tobacco Trail and NYC biking adventures with Dave for the last 10 miles until we were home. Quickly everyone fell into their beds. I closed my eyes, observed how the dead silence inside our solid brick house was so different than the last week’s sleeping with the constant sounds of St. Croix — chirping tree frogs and barking dogs through the night and doves and roosters at dawn — coming through the louvered windows, and I fell asleep, the motion memory of that hammock near the Caribbean Sea gently putting me to sleep.
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See my Wan Smol Blog for photos and short posts from the vacation. A longer post to come here in Zuiker Chronicles in the next day or two.
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© Anton Zuiker