Good morning folks
It is humid around the Delaware valley this morning and we are expecting showers and thunderstorms at some point during the day. It is 80 F now with a high of 92 F expected. My son is supposed to have his first football scrimmage tonight, so hopefully the rain will hold off.
I finished weathering the trucks on the seven tank cars I started before vacation. Now I need to weather the bodies.
Speaking of vacation this is the first chance I have gotten to post something since we got back Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. We went to Curacao, Netherlands Antilles. We had great weather. The food was great and the locals treated us nicely. We did a bunch of snorkeling and swimming. We also toured the island and were amazed by its diversity and contrasts. The city of Willemstad has some outstanding architecture and beauty. It is currently undergoing a massive restoration project. We visited various natural wonders such as the underwater caves at Boca Tabla, the beautiful beaches such as Knipbay. Since the island is very arid there was plenty of cactus everywhere. We visited an ostrich ranch and the Curacao Liqueur Distillery.
The only bad thing I can say about the vacation was regarding air travel. The flights to Curacao were uneventful. The one problem we did have was with TSA and their checking of our checked luggage. They basically destroyed all of our shampoos, soaps, sunscreen, toothpastes. It appeared that tested everything which I can understand. Lucky for us we had things in Ziplock bags which they sprayed or squeezed everything into. I would recommend that anyone travels to pack extra Ziplock bags to replace the ones that are filled with various soaps, sunscreens, etc. Coming home the flight from Curacao was Okay except once we got to Miami we sat for about 40 minutes on the taxiway waiting for a gate. Going through Immigration and Customs was relatively easy since we had all our documentation filled out before hand. Once we got to the terminal that our flight was leaving from we found that they only had one eatery and the food was outrageously expensive, even for an airport. My wife bought 2 sodas, 2 sandwiches, and a bag of chips and spent $22.00. Also the people running the establishment were as friendly as a pit of angry rattlesnakes. My son and I had to go through two other terminals to find better food which we did and brought back to my wife and daughter. We got 4 personal pizzas, two orders of breadsticks, one hot dog, and two sodas for $23.00. Our flight was supposed to leave Miami at 8:45 PM. It was moved back to 9:10 PM. We did not begin boarding until 9:45 PM. By the time we landed in Philadelphia and got our luggage it was close to 1 AM and it was about 1:30 AM when we got home. If all had gone according to schedule we should have been home well before midnight. If we travel that way again I will try to avoid the Miami Airport like the plague. We have been through there three times now and each time it got worse than the time before.
Sorry for the rant and I guess it is time for me to pipe down.
I hope everybody has a good day.
Count me in for supper!!! I don't eat breakfast that often.
