Countdown

OK. Here we go. Less than 12 hours.

I always feel like a kid on Christmas Eve the day before any vacation. Won't be able to sit still most of the night, and there is every chance I won't sleep, at best nodding off around 2:00 in the morning. That does't give much of a rest as we have to be out the door to meet the limo at 3:30 am.

To make sure we don't oversleep, I have set the Blackberry, the television, the alarm clock and even have the Limo driver calling; all for 3:oo am. But, it doesn't usually matter, I will wake up 1 minute before any alarm sounds. Just the opposite of my daily routine where it takes me three tries to drag my tired arse out of the sack in the morning.

The past few evenings have been spent doing all those last minute things; packing and unpacking and repacking, getting sunscreen and bug spray, looking at the weather in Mexico and Belize a dozen times, cleaning the bathrooms and compiling all the financial information into one spot for the kids, just in case we don't make it back (we are going through Mexico by car afterall). The kids always tease me about that, but it will be alot easier for them if they don't have to run all over the place to find the money they will have coming. Jeff said on the weekend, with a grin, " don't go getting kidnapped down there, that's just no good for anybody".

Now, to make sure this trip goes as smooth as possible I am checking over my travel tip list from previous years. Some key ones include:

• don't take any white underwear.


• don't forget the Toronto Maple Leaf hat. It is perfect for flushing out the Canadians ( as in citizens not Hab fans) wherever you stay. The responses range from " can't believe you have the guts to wear that" to simply bowing of the head and saying "42 years", but wearing it works every time.


• No need to bring half the library with me. One book is plenty as the odds of reading more than a chapter or two before falling asleep on the beach is slim to none.


• You can never have too many Tommy Bahamma shirts with you. And no, they are not only for gays and big fat party animals (not that there is anything wrong with either of that).

I am committing to keeping the blog up on a daily basis, unless we end up somewhere with no wireless on a given night. I will also commit (but not necessarily promise) to not write any drunken blogs, which if you have been on the recieving end of a drunken email or text in the past, will understand why. I should have daily pictures downloading from my camera to the web book nightly, and will probably put a few up on Facebook as well.

Finally, I am dusting off my Caribbean hat. It is a simple beige (or it was at one time) ball cap with no logo, that fits perfectly. I purchased it for our first trip to the Caribbean, with Gary and Diane way back in 1999, and it has made every subsequent trip with me. Starting to look a little ragged and stained, but then again, so am I.

OK. I guess that is it until tomorrow night. I will try and improve on these each day.