Hello from US Airways flight 1515 from Charlotte to Phoenix. Today has been a long travel day; it began when the alarm went off at 6:30 Eastern time. If you were to have been in room 312 of the Olde Yard Inn on the island of Virgin Gorda, then you too would have heard the alarm. Next you would have heard me make some surprised sort of noise, since I wouldn’t have expected to see you there.
The British Virgin Islands are wonderful and I highly recommend a visit to them, especially if you need a vacation for the day-to-day doldrums of, say, a cross country motorcycle tour. And they are a particularly good destination when nearly fifty other people are gathered to celebrate the wedding of close friends. When Farrokh and Becky invited me to their mid-May wedding, I had already made plans for the May-June-July motorcycle trip. It took only a few minutes to realize that I could do both if I were to fly to the wedding from some point along my route. And since I hadn’t seen my aunt Alice since long before she moved to Phoenix a couple years ago, the obvious answer was to visit her and park the bike at her house for a few days while I traveled. A perfect break for both bike and rider.
Among a few friends, the observation has been made that the most direct route from Washington DC to the Virgin Islands does NOT involve a bike ride to Arizona.
From Phoenix, I enjoyed a flight in another counter-intuitive direction, northeast to New York City. Then down to Puerto Rico, where it seems that most flights from the states stop on their way to a main BVI island of Tortola. The airport on Tortola is named “Beef Island” – I’m sure there is a good reason why. From Beef Island, I caught a ferry over to Virgin Gorda.
The visit to the island included many good friends including my girl Anna and friends Jon and Carrie with whom we shared a room. And of course Farrokh and Becky.
With the wedding a couple days away, we busied ourselves with things such as running, snorkeling and testing all available beers and rums.
Farrokh rented a high occupancy vehicle to carry us around in – with over forty people in attendance, this took a few trips!
We also set and ran a hash run. A lot of people turned out and very few complained – we’ll try harder next time!
To be sure, the prominent event was the Saturday’s ocean-side wedding: well-planned, thoughtful, beautiful.
It feels strange to have said goodbye to my friends for a second time in two weeks. But now it’s back to Phoenix where I’ll hop back on the bike and head west.
1 comment:
nice write-up and photos! glad you made it back to your trip in one piece.
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