St. John -- This time I took my husband

Just got back from a warm weather get-away with Mike. We hadn't been on a vacation like this for quite a few years (maybe even decades). Usually when we go somewhere it is for a family occasion like a wedding, reunion or a funeral. I usually go on tropical vacations with my niece, Bobby. Bobby and I are very similar in what we find enjoyable compared to Mike and I. Bobby and I are beach bums and the most work we do on a vacation is working on our tans! So I figured I needed to give Mike a chance so I booked a villa in St. John and a flight. I knew this was post-hurricane but since I had been there before when it was BEAUTIFUL I wanted to see what it was like now.

Mike and I headed up to Minneapolis on Friday night as the flight was scheduled to leave at 6:05 a.m. -- notice I said "scheduled" to leave. Everything was going pretty smoothly, I got through security but Mike had a bag that had to get searched, apparently he had a bottle of something or other that wasn't 'travel-sized' so he had them just throw that away. We get to the gate and everything's going great. We board the plane and all get seated and the captain announces that during inspection one of the tires was a little low so they were going to get someone over to look at it. Don't you think they could have noticed that while it was sitting there for 2 hours before we oarded? Well...half an hour later no one had been there to look at it per another announcement. Fifteen more minutes go by and they announce that the tire needs to be changed and we all need to de-board the plane but they tell us to stick around because we will be taking off as soon as the tire is changed...in about an hour or so. Those of us with close connecting flights started to panic. They announced then that they made a plane switch so we were to run to gate E2. Boarded that plane and took off, knowing that we were probably going to miss our flight to St. Thomas out of Miami.

Upon landing in Miami, Mike looked online and our flight number was "In Flight". All my years of flying and I wondered what those poor people did that missed their connecting flights -- now it was my turn to find out. After standing waiting for the American customer service rep to come back to the counter from lunch, we were given a room a nearby hotel and vouchers for lunch, dinner and breakfast. Of course the meal vouchers a) did not pay for alcohol -- of which we needed greatly at that point and b) were only good at airport restaurants. So we ate a big mid-afternoon meal at TGIFridays and bought ourselves a couple of drinks and headed off to the hotel.

The next morning finally came and we brought our 'not so fresh' selves to the gate that she told us to the day before -- only to find out that that flight was going to Bogota. So we had to find our real gate and then go find some breakfast. We were on 'stand by' which made me more than a little nervous after the previous day's luck, but we got on the plane and it really was a good flight. Landed in St. Thomas where our fears and suspicions were confirmed...our luggage did not follow us. Off to the lost baggage office we went. She quickly located our luggage right there in Miami and said that it would come on the flight that arrives the next day at the same time we arrived that day. They would send it with their rep over on the ferry to St. John.

With that, we got a taxi to take us over to the Red Hook Ferry. The ferry leaves every hour on the hour and luckily there was a bar there to pass the time. So we had a couple of drinks and some hot dogs while waiting for the ferry. It was a short ride to St. John where we got off and walked to the car rental company and we picked up our shiny red Jeep. While we were there the owner of our rental called and he was just a block away. He lead us to our villa which was an interesting drive to say the least, one which we would get to know very well.