Fasten your seatbelts ... after a lot of work, a little celebrating was in order!

In January, I found myself feeling a little lost and unfocussed.  The end of my grad school journey was somehow anti-climactic and downright depressing. Mostly because I kept waking up each morning programmed to research, proof-read, type, read, process, analyze, churn out reports ... well, you get the drift.  I was struggling to shake off the invisible yoke that had me in a choke-hold for almost 2 years, and unable to really move forward, because I didn't have a full-time job to slide back into, as most of my classmates did.   Moving forward was what I had yearned for so many long months, but it seems it was, and still is, hampered by the fact that the actual graduation ceremony is not until June 14th of this year.  That's a long time to wait, especially when a big celebration is in order.  Getting my Masters Degree after all this time, is indeed cause to celebrate in my book.  So, debt worries aside, I found a way to combine work and travel.  In truth, I just needed to get out of gloomy Toronto and into some sunshine and warmth.  True, we have had a mild winter this year, which means I didn't get to put "Big Red" to work -- my brand-new, shiny snow-thrower;  but we seem to have been dealing with a record-breaking run of cloudy, sunless weather.  Not good for those of us who suffer from vitamin D deficiency! 

Big Red, sitting pretty - and lonely - in the garage.  Ain't he shiny? 

So, a little shuffling and re-jigging of plans and priorities resulted in a last minute gig lasting 12 days in my favourite part of the Caribbean, and a celebration launched.  Not content to wait till June to celebrate my achievements, I took my work with me, and flew down to the one place where I knew I could re-charge my engine, replenish my depleted energy stores and re-connect with some good friends to boot!

It doesn't matter what airline I take, or how many times I fly into St. Kitts, the views as our plane prepares for landing never cease to take my breath away!

Here's Queen Nevis from the air - complete with her crown of fluffy clouds

How beautiful is this scene, as we prepare to land at Robert L. Bradshaw International Airport?  Every time I land at this airport I can't help but remember my first very first trip to this island, when the airport was surrounded by sugar cane fields, and the tarmac wasn't much more than a gravel landing strip.  How things have changed.  It was called Golden Rock back then, and the name reflected the sleepy quality that this small Caribbean island still posessed at the time.  Things have changed, and the cane fields are slowly disappearing.  The silhouette of the island is still beautiful, although on the ground one sees a few more buildings, businesses, homes, a few more cars, and often more than one cruise ship in the harbour. 

The tarmac is looking a lot better too, with a freshly paved top-coat every year.  The terminal though, is still small and not too totally different than it was 24 years ago! 

I had a list this time, of things that I wanted to do during this trip ... one of them being, to take more pictures than I have in the recent past.  But, true to form, my latest little camera has more pixels, but also more settings, so I screwed up a lot of shots.  I took some photos of the front of the terminal as we were de-planinging, but they disappeared.  I do have a few shots of the other side of the airport - ok maybe this is actually the "front" ... looking across to the parking lot.  

Well, front or back, you know that once you are on this side, you will be very close to starting a most marvelous visit ... as mine indeed was ... 

... with plenty of this type of stuff: 

South Friars Bay looking NW

ShipWreck - strangely quiet.  Must have been a rare non-cruise-ship day!

Sunrise from my condo (mine for 11 days, that is ...)

... and this type of stuff ... 

Road needing repairs after rock slides - taxis still risk it - you should see the detour road!

every year I take a few shots of Nevis from Lion Rock on Cockleshell Bay

... and a lovely day of this ... 

with more than a few happy hours overlooking a view of this ...

Well, this is just a little taste of what I got up to, as I treated myself to some much needed respite from crazy times in TO.  

More later, as I will be back to share a couple of tales of how I managed to strike a few agenda items from my "bucket list."