Up, Up and Away

I'm going to Saint Lucia Monday morning at 6 A.M. I can't believe it. I feel so lucky to be joining other writers on a culinary press trip to the island. An editor friend of mine was invited but had to pass--it on to me. I call that a true act of grace.

If I write about it, I guess it will become more of a reality, less of an unbelievable stroke of luck. And when I get out my suitcase [actually, a pink Hadley Pollet Overnight Totebag] and start filling it, I bet things will really start falling into place.

The last time I was invited on a press trip, it was cancelled, so I've tried to contain my excitement this time. I guess I've contained it long enough.

I think H. feels a little bad, though, that I'm going to a tropical island without him. He won't admit that, but since our 19th wedding anniversary just passed, we've been remembering how on our Hawaiian honeymoon, we thought we'd go back there again for sure. Back then, we didn't have a crystal ball. Who knew that by 2010, we would have developed almost personal relationships with the people who call regularly from our mortgage, car loan, electric and phone companies?

That's changed, though, with the arrival of the check for H.'s latest book. And I see this press trip as a bend in the road toward better, brighter things. I'm picking up more assignments, and the urge to nap is waning.

I haven't flown for 10 years, since Figgy was four, almost five, and the two of us were invited on a press trip to Disney World. [Again, an act of grace--a busy editor passed it along to me, and my editor approved me going.] Fig was in her Tinkerbell phase then, and wore her costume a lot. She walked around one rainy night at Disney waving her wand to make wishes come true. "Will you grant me a wish?" at least one adult asked her. And she lifted and dipped that little wand. She took her job as Tink quite seriously. Strangely, so did the people around her that night. Did they really think a New Jersey preschooler in bright green tulle could bestow their fondest wishes?

A beauty press trip I went on even before that was sponsored by a cosmetics line, and it involved a weekend at an inn and spa in Montauk. Let's just say it was not all I hoped it would be. I found some of the beauty editors superficial. A couple of them were comparing their legs on the special beauty bus, talking about whose looked better, and why.

"You have that line along your thigh, from working out," one said. It was oddly disturbing. We also played a beauty question game over a lobster dinner. I think I got the one about nail polish right.

This trip will involve visits to a cassava bakery; a tour of the Caribbean's only drive-in volcano; a trip to a cocoa plantation [yum]; a sail through Marigot Bay; and more. I'm hopeful.

And I simply can't wait to stay in a hotel. When H. and I had more money, or spent more money, we used to go to hotels a fair amount. We went to the Inn at Isle au Haut, a charming bed and breakfast [with no electric lights, just candles] in a converted lighthouse keeper's home. We went to the fancy Boca Raton Resort. We stayed a night or two on Nantucket, and Martha's Vineyard. We got engaged at a lovely B&B in Cape May. We even went to the Short Hills Hilton.

Now I don't think we've stayed in a hotel since two years ago in July, after our niece's beach wedding, when we spent a night at a nicely appointed inn in Camden, Maine that takes dogs [we always travel with Sugar, another reason we take road trips].

H. flies, and stays in both elegant and ordinary hotels, when he reports on medical conventions, or is hired to write one-minute novels for fancy events. But my route has been solely via highway, bridge and rotary for the past 10 years. It hasn't held me back--I've been to Vermont, Maine, Connecticut and Cape Cod many times in that decade. I love them all, and car trips bring an immersion, a measured experience of distance from home that plane trips do not. Also, a stunning view of mountains, ponds, sky, farms and trees, with time enough to contemplate them at any hour of the day or night, as your car sails by.

Anyway, my little red flowered Vivienne Tam designer HP Mini and I plan to blog from St. Lucia. I can't say I'm not nervous about the complications of flying, about arriving on time at the airport and packing things in tiny bottles and being cramped on a plane.

But I'll keep you posted.