At the end of my last post about our Cayman Islands trip, we’d just been left hanging by our in-country contact and had almost two hours to burn until we’d be able to do the cave tour we had planned for the morning. I was feeling hopeful that we’d find something interesting to do while we waited.
Sure enough, right down the road was the entrance to Mastic Trail.
Broad Strokes: 15 Women Who Made Art and Made History (In That Order) by Bridget Quinn, illustrated by Lisa Congdon, came along with me on my recent trip to the Cayman Islands with the Chaplain. I read most of it sitting at a couple of pristine stretches of beach on Grand Cayman, and those times were some of my favorite parts of the trip.
What made the book a great beach read?
When we got off the plane on Grand Cayman, we were greeted at Customs by lines of white people, wearing beachy clothes and smelling of laundry detergent and sunblock. Lots of families. At least one person in each family group had a shirt touting a destination from a previous vacation. These were professional tourists. The kind that go on vacation to the Caribbean.
I go on vacation in the Caribbean, too. But I’ve never done it as a stranger. Our many trips to Trinidad and Tobago have been met with family at the other end, and our trip to the Cayman Islands was no different.
Since the Chaplain’s friend had arranged our accommodations, we didn’t know the address of the place where we’d be staying – something you need to provide at Customs. The Customs Officer called the Chaplain’s friend on his cell to find out the address, while we waited at the counter, hoping the friend would answer a call from an unknown number.
I’ve made five pairs of pants using the Arenite pattern, and I saw on Instagram that Meg of Sew Liberated had made one of her pairs of pants into shorts. I was looking for a couple of quick makes before our trip to the Cayman Islands, and this Arenite shorts hack came together in just a few hours.
Doubles are a street food you can get in Trinidad and Tobago. It’s a flat bread wrap full of channa, which is potato and chick peas in curry sauce. The first time I had it was the only year we were in T and T for Carnival.
We left to go back to the States Carnival Monday or Tuesday, and had a few hours in Port of Spain, Trinidad, to walk the streets before our flight. That year, we had three kids, and the youngest was a baby. Soca music was pounding. There were crowds. I was concerned about the kids losing their hearing with the music blasting from every direction.
The day was a little overwhelming, but I had two favorite moments:
