Final Post from Barbados!

We had a full day yesterday. We took the hotel's shuttle service into downtown Bridgetown. They were 45 minutes late -- typical island schedule (pronounced shedule!) in picking us up, but I discovered what Tom has been telling me all week, the Hilton property is the prettiest on the island.

Bridgetown is the capital of Barbados and is very crowded. I was recommended to go to two stores: Cave Shepherd (their largest department store, see picture) and Columbian Emerald Int'l. Cave Shepherd carried everything imaginable. I would compare it to three levels of unairconditioned Super Walmart. There were some cute things though - can you tell I love to shop?

Of course, my favorite was looking at the beautiful Duty Free jewelry at CEI. Tom surprised me and told me he wanted me to pick out a charm for my bracelet that would commemorate the completion of my book! Yea! I picked a gold flip-flop, but it's not like others I've seen for it has the imprint of a foot in the bottom of the shoe. This represents the journey I've been traveling for such a long time -- a well worn path, that has become enjoyable like a favorite pair of shoes.

The biggest surprise was when Tom had me look at other pieces of jewelry as well. I obliged him, of course! :-) He ended up buying the prettiest yellow and white gold bracelet - I was shocked and thrilled. He is so kind to me. His response was that he loves spoiling me, and he wants to celebrate this huge accomplishment in my life. He has done that our entire 29 years together, and God has blessed me way more than I deserve.

We had lunch at a place the locals recommend. It was called Muncherz and you had to go up a narrow staircase (also no a/c) to get to it. I must admit that we both weren't sure if this was going to be good, but once we opened the doors we found the cutest, brightly decorated restaurant. And yes the food was good, really good. We had a hamburger and fries, but they served it with their famous hot mustard sauce - it's hot and good.

We spent our final afternoon out on the beach reading. Tom's reading "Deception" by Randy Alcorn, and I'm reading a new book by Fannie Flagg, "Can't Wait To Get To Heaven".

Last night we were supposed to go with a guy Tom met through his work at the prison to a local street festival. He and his girlfriend were supposed to pick us up at 9p for dinner. That was late for us, but we decided it would be fun to experience. Well, they didn't show up by 9:35, so we walked to the Lighthouse Terrace Restaurant (part of the hotel's restaurants) when Tom went to see if they had left a voice mail in our room. When he was walking back to our table, he saw him in the lobby at 9:45 looking for us. He felt bad and apologized for being late. Tom said there's a chance he may be returning to do more work (without me next time) and could he take a rain check.

So, that's how we spent our last starry night on this little speck in the ocean. We are ready to be home. Our Delta flight leaves here at 3:25; we have a two hour layover in Atlanta and then we arrive in Orlando at 12:01a. If you go to Delta's web page and click on the "Flight Status" link you can follow our progress home. Flight #658 from Barbados and #608 from Atlanta.