What an awesome feeling waking up in Jamaica on Thursday morning! On last year’s reach I had met a couple of sisters (mid 70’s maybe) that have been coming to Negril every year for 5 weeks for the last 25 years (they are timeshare owners). They walk every morning at 7:00 from their end of the beach and by 7:30 they are going by Treehouse. Today they have a bunch of family with them. I am excited to join them again and to catch up with everything going on in each of our lives. I want to BE these ladies when (IF) I grow up! What great attitudes. They are from Michigan and truly enjoy their time in Negril each year. I love knowing that I can count on them to get some exercise every day. They are as consistent as the sun rising. I drop them at Alfred’s (that’s there breakfast spot) and head back to my end of the beach. I really love these walks every morning. Fewer people on the beach, a lot of runners it seems at this time. There are slightly fewer hustlers to fend off. I just tell all of them that I got to keep walking and to have a blessed day – that seemed to work for most.

Today I managed to attract a guy in all white with dreads that claimed to be a High Priest. Could not seem to shake him but was pleasant enough until I stopped to hug one of the “Captains” that run a boat out of a hotel. This angered Mr. High Priest who told me that this Captain was a batty boy and I should not have anything to do with him. I told him that I believed he was wrong about him but that he was being “Gascist” and I wouldn’t tolerate that among my “friends” which he had been telling me he wanted to be. Now, I have been on the Rock enough times to know their views regarding homosexuality but this guy was being a total a*s*s. I ended up telling him that until he opened up his mind I couldn’t speak to him again and to leave me alone unless he did this. Because of this, the walk was a little rough but the water was even rougher this morning. Someone said there was a storm near Cuba that we were getting some waves from. The waves were so big that I joked that I had gone to bed in Negril but woke up back in San Diego (where is my surf board?)

Then back to the hotel for a lovely breakfast with that picturesque view from the upper deck. Today the Birthday Princess arrived early in the day (JD) along with a friend of Tom & Geri’s, Marv, later in the evening. We decide to assume the position – lay flat on a lounge chair – for the day. JK had a rough night and her coughing was a little tough on everyone. We did manage to get a cake ordered for JD’s birthday (carrot cake – always better in JA it seems) and jello shots made for tomorrow’s birthday party at some point during this day. We bring the jello and plastic condiment containers down with us so we just have to ask someone in the kitchen to store them for us in their refrigerator. That’s never a problem either – another reason I love Treehouse. This won’t even be an issue in future trips because of the new full-size refrigerators that the Ocean front Suites are being upgraded with (more on that later!) We can keep the shot in our own refrigerator then.

During this day we managed to meet a lot of great people – Steve & Susan from Calgary, Stuart from Chicago, ex-pat Steve w/ dog Kia, Kristen and friend from CT? (damn memory), Lisa & Laura from NY & CT. Most of our group ate food from Allan- Treehouse’s “Rockstar” Chef. He has very good jerk and was entertaining as usual. About 10 of us ended up on the porch for sunset and by the time we knew it we had kind of missed the dinner hour so instead of going out I ordered a large ham, pepperoni, and pineapple pizza and a medium vegetarian pizza and salads from the hotel. They were a huge hit. I don’t remember their pizza being this good previously but we were all truly impressed and really enjoyed them. We kept the porch party going until about 11ish and then called it a night. We may have had a little rain this day – seems like I remember some vaguely.