Aruba, 2005

We go

We see

We pose by giant cactii

We record for posterity

The Eighth IASTED International Conference on Computers and Advanced Technology in Education (CATE-05) is being held this year, August 29-31, in Oranjestad, Aruba. I am attending to present our paper, "Roles, Culture, and Computer Supported Collaborative Work on Planet Oit" by Brandt, Borchert, Addicott, Cosmano, Hawley, Hokanson, Reetz, Saini-Eidukat, Schwert, Slator, and Tomac. My wife accompanies me.

There are three extra-centric concerns with this trip, above the normal.

First, we are flying into an international crime scene, the Holloway abduction. Aruba has always been a sleepy little vacation island, and nobody I talked to knew that Oranjestad was the capital city there, until this crime made international news. Most people thought Orenjestad sounded like an Asian location, like Khazikstan. Now everybody knows Orenjestad.

I'm planning to be extra observant and solve the thing by finding the clue that settles the case.

Second, we are flying Northwest Airlines on the first Friday after their Mechanics Union has gone on strike. Besides the obvious concerns about top-flight aircraft maintenance, I'm a little worried about crossing picket lines with angry mechanics upset about their livlihood.

Third, hurricane Katrina is traversing the Caribbean and has already crossed the tip of Florida on the way towards the gulf coast area. Early reports are it is a category one hurricane (the weakest on the scale of one to five), and that it will be hitting the Florida panhandle in a day or two. We are going to Aruba and so, obviously, we are also crossing the Caribbean. As much as I enjoy danger and excitement, I want no part of hurricane Katrina, category one notwithstanding. I'm imaginging our flight crew will feel the same way.

Fargo to Houston (Friday, Aug. 26)

There is a storm raging over Minneapolis. We are NOT on the road.

It is fair and mild in Fargo. The sky is blue and the birds are chirping.

However, there is a 'ground freeze" HERE because of the weather in Minneapolis and there are no flights permitted in THERE.

That means we wait.

Meanwhile, flights from elsewhere, bound for Minneapolis, are being re-directed to Fargo to wait out the storm. We are in the gate area, and the only entertainment we get is watching and listening to the Northwest Airlines employees as they discuss the situation and make the occasional announcement.

At one point we see a gigantic Boeing 747 parked outside the terminal. This is a flight from Alaska to Minneapolis that is hunkered down with us, waiting to proceed. We hear the Northwest employees talking about it. There are Fargoans on the 747, and with the weather delay, there was a possibility they could get off the plane here and now, rather than flying to Minneapolis and waiting for their connection BACK to Fargo, which is what they are ticketed for.

They COULD get off, except the big rolling-steps unit needed to get them from the plane to the ground is BROKEN. The steps are broken, so they will wait here, then fly to Minneapolis, then switch to a smaller plane, and fly back here -- and that's that.

The hours drag on. Finally, the storm clears over Minneapolis. Planes will be allowed to land there. But the flights that have been diverted, like that 747 in Fargo, get precedence over regular flights. So we are clear to fly, but now waiting our turn. The hours drag on.

More madness. It is now about 10 AM, and the passengers from our flight to Minneapolis, scheduled for 5:15 AM, plus the flights behind us, scheduled for 7:30 AM and 9:45 AM, are all milling around in the gate area. Maybe a hundred people. We are called to our flight, and I quickly realize there are perhaps a dozen people on our flight, and probably 100 empty seats. We take off and leave all those passengers behind, when it would have been a fairly simple matter, given all the time we have been sitting around, to load everyone and their luggage onto our plane together with us. But no.

We arrive in Minneapolis, and our connecting flight to Houston is long gone. We need to be 're-ticketed' which means going out through security into the 'arrivals' area, to stand in line for new tickets. We have been instructed to stand in the first class line, and there is one stalwart soul manning the station: Phyllis.

Phyllis looks at our paperwork and starts mumbling and sighing. It's like that comedy routine: she types and types and types and types. Then she sighs again, mumbles some more, and types and types and types and types some more.

The problem is, there is only one flight per day from Houston to Aruba, and it leaves Houston at about 1:30 PM. The next flight out of Minneapolis is also at 1:30 PM, so we are going to be staying somewhere overnight: maybe Minneapolis, but more likely Houston. We are not too distraught, we've already made the silent agreement that we're not going to sweat the small stuff on this trip. But Phyllis? Phyllis is perturbed. She is typing and typing and typing.

"How's it going Phyllis?" I ask, "You're not making the happy sounds we're hoping for."

She smiles. She types furiously.
"You're all set," she says, "I've got you booked on the 1:30 PM flight to Houston, your bags are being sent through, and I'm making a notation about a voucher for lodgings in Houston."
She smiles again. She is pleased with her work.

Sherpa at the hotel

Need a Sherpa, at the Houston airport

Waiting for that Sherpa

Got a Sherpa, at the Aruba airport

I'm thinking, "Huh! They don't give free lodging on weather delays, do they?"
But I'm not going to cause Phyllis any problems or question her work. We go through security again (wisely choosing a short line, down a ways, instead of the VERY long line that is closest to us).

We find our gate, dine at McDonalds, and catch our flight to Houston without incident. Phyllis, probably by mistake, because we stood in the 'first class' line, has booked us into the 'first class' section. But we are booked into seats 1-A and 2-A, window seats in different rows.

I walk in talking, asking the guys in 1-B and 2-B to swap with us, so I can sit with my wife.

The wrestler looking guy in 2-B pulls a blank stare, he's not moving, but the Mark Twain looking guy in 1-B gets right up, grumbling, humorously, "A totally unreasonable request," as he shifts back a row for us.Except that he was a little too young, this might have been Kurt Vonnegut. That was the look, and the demeanor.

I say, "we don't really belong up here, we got re-ticketed because of the weather," and Mark Twain says something like, "We ALL belong up here, it's just sometimes we end up sitting back there."

I like this guy.

We land in Houston and start to trundle up the line towards the terminal. We have a lot of carry-on luggage between us, four bags full, and it's a long passage and my legs are starting to bow.

Mark Twain approaches us from behind, just as I spot the $3 luggage carts parked in the cart dispenser to ourleft. He says, "You should get a Sherpa."

"It's funny you should say that," I tell him, nodding to the carts, "I'm just about to hire one now." He laughs and moves past us. I stop and procure a cart for our stuff.

We get to the terminal and debate our next move. We can go down to see about our luggage, which may or may not have been on our plane. Phyllis promised us it would be routed correctly, but couldn't guarantee we'd see it before Aruba. Or we can check in with the Northwest Airlines ticket desk, and see about our lodgings. Rita thinks that is the thing to do, and we do that.

Doug is manning the desk, and he does not like the cut of our jib. I explain our situation, and how we got here. He is not too much on our side, I can tell. He has that casino enforcer look about him - we are scammers to him, and he just needs to sniff it out somehow.

I tell our tale and ask about getting a lodging voucher, and he says, incredulously, "For a weather delay?"

I am ready for this, and produce the piece of paper Phyllis gave us (which she told us was also noted electronically), with yellow highlight pen by her own hand.

"Please," I say, "note the highlighted section," which I happen to know says "IAH ATO PLEASE ACCOMMODATE HOTEL VOUCHER ... PAXS DELAYED 4 HOURS FROM FAR ... THANKS MSP ATO JQ."

Like you reading this, I can only guess at the meaning of the coded message. But it appears to request a hotel voucher for 'PAXS' which might be 'passengers' and turns out to be golden for us, weary travellers.

Doug is on the verge of fuming. Rita tries to explain how it was for us (stuck forever), but Doug is focused on the 'weather delay' component. Besides, he tells us, Minneapolis is supposed to 'take the charge' for a deal like this, not pass this down so his office ends up paying for it. Doug is not happy.

He disappears into the back room, saying he is going to talk to a supervisor. Shortly he returns. I can see he is no less unhappy, but something has changed, and he is going to play ball, however grudgingly.

I see we can afford to make nice, and I say something to him, in a cheerful and friendly voice, one working man to another, like "How's that working out for us here, Doug?"

He warms up after that, filling out a voucher for a night at the Sheraton North, plus $13 each for supper and $7 each for breakfast. Then he tells us we can go down and pursue our luggage, which by now is buried deep in the bowels of the Continental Airlines baggage warehouse, and will take a LONG time to retrieve. Or, if we can do without for the night, we can get a Northwest Airlines 'overnight kit' to see us through. We've got enough carry-on luggage to see us through, so that's what we decide to do -- rough it in the Sheraton for a night.

We go down to the Continental baggage carousel on Doug's advice, to confirm they have our bags and can keep them overnight. We have just arrived there when Doug appears again. He needs to see our vouchers, he forgot to take his copies. Then he barges into the Northwest office and emerges with our 'overnight kits'. No waiting in line, we are set to go.

There is a weird moment where I try to communicate with the shrill Continental baggage woman about our bags staying in their possession. She is telling me they simply do NOT keep bags for people. Then our stuff appears on the carousel. This concept, that our bags are harbored deep in their warehouse, is falling false. I'm tempted to communicate what Doug has told us, but instead we grab our luggage and flee.

There is a relevation, as we sit outside waiting for the Sheraton shuttle bus, where we realize we now have accepted these 'overnight kits' under false pretenses. We have our luggage, after all. Between the vouchers and the 'overnight kits', I tell Rita, we are starting to turn a profit on this trip.

We get a subsidized supper, and a subsidized breakfast the next morning, and a van back to the airport. We are on the road.

Houston to Aruba (Saturday, Aug. 27)

The Sheraton in Houston	We wait for the van to the airport	Houston Airport ...	... waiting for that Sherpa
We wait, by the gate, with a smoothy

I find a free Sherpa, and we press into the terminal.

I have been identified for special treatment by airport security. I know how to do this: with a smile and a nod. So I get 'wanded' and my carry-on gets pulled apart down to the molecular level. I am grateful they do not elect to inspect all of the computer disks in my bag -- that could have taken a real long while. I need to explain an oval packet of mints, and the silver baseball bat charm that my daughter's softball team gave me for coaching ten years ago. "Any bigger," the TSA mans says, "and I'd have to confiscate it." He seems to know this is stupid, but he is unapologetic.

After that we traverse all the way to the bitter end of the gate area. Along the way we stop in the Brookstone store where we buy two inflatable neck braces for the flight, and I finally spring for a wireless mouse for my laptop. It requires 2 AAA batteries, not included, which I forget to buy.

Rita gets a smoothy, I think about buying coffee, but forgo it. A couple ahead of us in line gives Rita a coupon for free headphones, for the in-flight movie. Continental has this egregious scam where you can only listen to their audio with their special headphones. Robber Baron scavengers riding around on the backs of the people. They cost $5/each if you don't have your own. Pay up or shut up, that's the policy.

We are in Aruba. We get off the plane, and wait for our luggage. There is a long delay before our bags appear. In the meantime I find a (free) Sherpa to tote our bags. Then Rita remembers she has left her little plastic triangle (designed to relieve back strain), on the airplane. But by this point we are through all the levels of security and there is no going back. A very helpful airport employee goes to search, but finds nothing.

Orenjestad airport.	Our stuff, waiting for a cab	The Harley in the lobby of the Aruba airport.
Waiting for a cab	The hotel room, finally

Strangely, there is an old Harley-Davidson on display in the lobby of the Aruba terminal. There is no sign explaining what it is, or why it's there. It looks to me to be a knuckle-head (because I know it is not a pan-head or a shovel-head), but I don't know. Nice bike though. I wonder if this will mean there are a lot Harleys on Aruba, but I do not see another one the whole time we are there (and I am looking for them). Go figure.

By the time we get onto the sidewalk, after waiting for luggage and then waiting for word on the 'little plastic triangle' the airport is practically deserted. There are just a few people waiting for cabs, and we join the tiny throng. Amongst this crowed is a silver-haired couple looking like Kris and Mrs. Kringle. I speak to them -- they are waiting for a cab too. They leave before us. But we will find ourselves in line with them again, and again.

At long last we get a cab, with a woman driver, Margerita Kelly, and we load our stuff into her station wagon. She appears to be angry about something and asks if there are many more passengers waiting for cabs. I tell her we are among the very last ones, and this seems to make her angrier.

Finally, Margerita Kelly deposits us at the Aruba Renaissance Hotel and Casino. They take our bags, put them on a cart, and point us to the escalator leading to the front desk.

The carport and lobby area is huge, and all exposed to the outdoors - typical for a Caribbean hotel, we are now learning. I saw the same thing in St. Thomas a few years back. It is weird, but it is nice.

We have a little pause checking in because of our delayed arrival, but soon are in the room, #1638 on the top floor, which gives us a very high, very nice cathedral ceiling. After a little unpacking, we head down to the more-or-less outdoors poolside bar.

I immediately see there is a beer on the menu brewed in Aruba. I always try the local offering. This one is Balashi, with the slogan, "Traha cu awa cristalino di Aruba ... Mihor calidad, Mihor sabor". It is served in a mostly green can, with red and white accents.

The bar is by a pool where the water comes up to the very lip. We are actually sitting below water level. A vast range of people and body types are milling around. There are music videos being projected on a big blank wall overlooking the bar. There is no breeze to speak of, and it is HOT. I'm sitting in the darkened bar in the evening sweating through my shirt.

We are in the tropics, apparently.

We chat until 11 PM when, to our surprise, the poolside bar closes and they steer us down to the all-night casino. We, however, are at the end of our tether and make our way up to sleep. There is a brief digression, as we call down to the front desk to make sure they will pick up our 'breakfast card' for the next morning, and they assure us they will. So we blow 'Taps' and sleep the sleep of the weary traveller.

If you count it up, we have been trying to fall asleep in Aruba ever since yesterday morning at oh-my-gawd 4 AM. So we've been 'on the road' for something like 42 hours (with sleep in Houston, not to over-stress the ordeal). At last we have arrived.

Aruba (Sunday, Aug. 28)

Roberto is an Hispanic man, short and square, appearing to be about 40 years old. He has life in his eyes, though, and he is half-smiling when he asks if he woke us up. It is after 8:00 AM, after all. He has probably been working for hours.

I say, holding the bill, "There is a gratuity on here for you, yes?"
Roberto says, "Yes."
I ask, "Is okay?"
Roberto does not speak.
I nod, saying, "I see." And I add a few dollors to the bill for a tip.
Roberto smiles and leaves. He is our new bestest buddy.

This is our first full day in Aruba, and it's a Sunday. We take a short walk up the street and around the block, where we find a '24 hour' store where I finally get the AAA batteries I need for my wireless mouse. Otherwise we snack and loaf. Rita paddles around in the pool a bit, while I find a nice pool-side table to read. Rita's leg is bothering her, and she takes a pain pill, and a long nap.

We walk around outside the hotel	The streets are pretty empty on a Sunday	The buildings in this area are colorfully painted
The hotel has boats in the lobby	Our room is the one with the towel on the railing (upper right)	The view from the hotel pool/patio	from the pool/patio...
from the pool/patio...	from the pool/patio...	from the pool/patio...	It is a nice spot just to sit, the sun is bright, even in the shade

Our hotel room gets both HBO and Cinemax, plus several U.S. stations, a couple of Spanish stations, and even a station broadcasting in Dutch.

There is an Italian restaurant across the street from the hotel, and we go over for a meal. Our waiter is a 'character' pulling our chain, and insists on taking our picture.

We have clear sunny skies in Aruba.

I find a nice shaded pool-side table and sit down to read. I am a pasty white boy and must be mindful of the sun -- UV rays can cook me if I am not careful. After a while I realized my right forearm is turning speckly red. I am not in direct sunlight, but the sun is beating down and REFLECTING off the white table top. I am getting a burn in the shade.

I take a few poolside photos -- boats leaving, planes arriving, helicopters taking off, that sort of thing.

This hotel has a canal that runs from the bay into the lobby, and so there is a boat that comes right into the hotel.

Aruba (Monday, Aug. 29)

This is the first day of the conference, which starts with morning registration and a 'welcome' speech at 8:30 AM, followed by a key-note address from an eminent NSF scholar. There are many interesting talks that day.

I walk to the conference through traffic

The conference site is over there, not far

I approach the door to the venue

The conference participants crowd around to get their stuff

My day is taken up with talks. Rita reads. That evening we have drinks and snacks in the bar for dinner.

They have boats in the lobby, did I mention that?

This is an action sequence showing the pool, and the zoom capabilities of my camera

This is the same shot, only zoomed to show the water level of the pool

Aruba (Tuesday, Aug. 30)

This is the second day of the conference. I am speaking first, at 8:30 AM, and make the short walk across from the hotel to the conference site in plenty of time. The talk goes well, and there are probably 40 people there to hear it. I attend talks the rest of the day.

That evening is the FIRST INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION OF NON-COMMERCIAL SOFTWARE SYSTEMS, TOOLS, AND PRODUCTS FOR TECHNOLOGY-BASED AREAS, and I want to go.

Rita comes with me, but it is very badly organized. Instead of having each contestant make a presentation on the 'big screen' so everyone can see, they try to have everyone huddle around desktop demos. This does not work at all. The judges are up front, and we are at the back of the crowd, where we can neither see nor hear the presentations.

We bag this and go for a nice evening walk along the beach and into a retail area. Rita buys a nice calendar and I get a set of Aruban coins (florins), while buying more AAA batteries for my wireless mouse.

The weak competition format, judges crowding around a table	The market outside the conference, where florins are at play	A strange scene, a Spanish news feed about the Katrina disaster, with Dutch subtitles on the Dutch TV station on Aruba.	A boat in the harbor, no hurricanes here.
The "Let's go Latin" gymnasts entertain the masses in the mall.	gymnasts...	... and more gymnasts ... they are pretty good.

The Aruban currency is the 'Florin' and we are told it is very stable against the US dollar, trading at .60 -- I get a 5 Florin piece for $3, and so forth. Some of their coins are square, which is cool.

We wander back to the hotel for drinks and dinner. We pause to watch the 'Lets go Latin' acrobats for a while in the mall. Then we stop at the tour directors desk to book passage on the 'Discover Aruba' bus. We are standing in line to talk with the nice lady, and realize we have budged Kris and Mrs. Kringle, who have been patiently waiting in the lobby area behind us. I offer to let them go first, but they are polite and wait for us to go first.

We are presented with the option of taking the 'Xtreme Party Cruiser' which appeals to me, and also the weird 'banana bus' but we opt for the mature choice. The funny thing is, the whole tour of the island takes about half a day, and ANY of these choices would have shown us the same stuff.

Anyway, we elect to take the 'Discover Aruba' tour.

Then we have dinner by the pool and a quiet night in.

Aruba (Wednesday, Aug. 31)

We trundle downstairs to catch our 'Discover Aruba' bus. Kris and Mrs. Kringle have the seats directly in front of us on the bus. We are on our way.

Aruba is only 19 miles (30 km) in length and about five miles (8 km) at it widest point and is 75 square miles (193 km2) in area. In other words, it's a small island.

We have Cambell, our excellent bus driver and bestest buddy, and he shows us everything there is to see. It only takes a half a day to see the whole island.

The famous Aruba lighthouse	Bill Cosby and Ziggy Marley have houses down there	Some strange woman on the scene
The bus drives through the Aruban desert	This might be Bill Cosby's house, or maybe Ziggy Marley's	The oldest house on the island, maybe 400 years old
The Xtreme party bus - looks like fun, yes?	The famous chapel on the hill.	Cactus outside the chapel	A bird sitting on cactus.
Cactus fences are funny	but prickly	The wind blows the trees, which are famous in their own right.

The Famous Aruba Natural Bridge

The Natural Bridge is one of the signature sites of Aruba, and it is one of the most popular tourist destinations - hundreds of people visit daily.

Almost any piece of promotional material about the island will feature photos such as these.

I took two pictures of the famous 'natural bridge' thinking ...

... it has been here for a thousand years, it will be here for a thousand more

this is the 'little sister' of the famous 'natural bridge'

The Natural Bridge on Aruba is a formation of coral limestone cut through by hundreds of years of wave action. It is the second largest in the world, 25 feet high and 100 feet long.

The rest of the island

The Spanish came to the island in 1499 looking for gold. They did not find any. So they rounded up all the natives to work in gold mines in other locations. Eventually the natives are returned to the island. This is in the 1500s, after wihich they live peacefully and without incident. The island has go gold, so who cares about it? Then, in the mid-1800s a sheep-herders son finds gold on the north side of the island.

This gold mine becomes the mainstay of the island for a long time, until it plays out.

The one site on the island where gold was mined	Strange wind-swept rocks	The wind-swept rocks where you can see King Kong if you look hard enough	More wind-swept rocks
There is no natural source of water on the island, they store it in tanks	The second largest desalinization plant on earth is on Aruba	A 'rum shop' I think.

The bus stops at a strange shrine, and we go to 'Baby Beach' which has nice calm water for swimming and lots of little fishes for snorkelers.

The bus stops at this weird shrine	We crowd around	There it is	Then we get back on the bus
The next stop is Baby Beach, where there is snorkeling ...	... and a perfect view of the oil refinery	We snorkel a bit, and then drive away

Aruba (Thursday, Sep. 1)

We stand in line	In order to get on the boat	This is what we see to sea	This is a look back at the ticket booth
We crowd onto the boat	And sail quickly out to the island	There are lizards out there	And people to chase them
The beach is sandy and white	This little girl stood in line with us. She was funny. She wanted to go play, not stand in line. I felt the same way.

We have an underwater camera	And there are a lot of fish, like this big blue grouper	And coral	And snorkelers
The water is very clear, we see all sorts of coral	And other snorkelers	And weird underwater stuff	And other snorkelers

Aruba (Friday, Sep. 2)

We go to catch the submarine	Which is by the sea	With a big cruise ship waiting nearby	And there is our hotel, we have only crossed the road to get here
Boats come to pick us up	So we get on the boat	And it takes us out by the submarine
We wait a while, while the boat docks with the sub	This actually takes a little while	Then we head down the hatch

This is pretty cool. We are taken out to the site in a boat, and wait for the submarine to appear. It does, and those passengers get off saying things like "that was the coolest thing I have ever done." We trundle down the ladder and I take a big bunch of pictures, through the thick glass of the submarine, none of which turn out very well.

We descend through the coral reef and see a couple of sunken ships -- eery, ghostly. We also see a big bunch of fish swimming around, including one big baracuda. The fish don't seem to notice us, and I take pictures through the glass, hoping some will turn out nicely and capture the visuals we are seeing. This does not really work that well. Too much glass, I think.

The high point of the submarine trip, our 'captain' Oscar sees a big sea turtle, and excitedly calls my attention. Oscar does not see that many turtles, I'm guessing. I try to take a picture of this thing (as big around as a car hood), but none of my photos turn out that well.

The inside of a sub is just a little bit spooky - all those windows, all that water	Our captain is named Oscar, he is very strict - you sit where he tells you	Taking photos underwater through double-paned glass is less than perfect	They take us past a sunken ship
Sunken ships are spooky	Oscar is excited, there is a BIG sea turtle in front of us	The sea turtle is the size of a car hood, and in this photo it looks like a smudge in the very center of the shot	This is how your face looks, right after you have seen a giant sea turtle.

Once we are on the submarine, the first thing we hear is that the 'Natural Bridge' has fallen down in the night. We were there on Wednesday, and I took a couple of shots, thinking, "ho-hum, it has been here for centuries, it will be here for centuries."

Little did I know, I was one of the last people to photograph it before it crumbled.

Back to the famous Natural Bridge

We drive to the site, finishing on bumpy roads.

We are in a taxi, driving out the Natural Bridge Disaster, and stop to take a picture of the Aruban 'signature' tree - not the Fofoti, but the other one

These trees are indigenous and wind-swept, the all point to the south

We are on the way to the Natural Bridge Disaster, and I see this earth turned up, and I know this was not the case when we were here two days ago. I don't know what it means, maybe nothing.

We get out of the car, and the disaster is obvious.
"This hurts," says Margerite Kelly, "this hurts."

We are on the site of the Natural Bridge disaster, and I take shot after shot.	The woman with the bright orange shirt is our taxi driver, Margerite Kelly	I try to find the same spot,	so I can record the before/after from the same place
	I go down to the beach to get that angle	That's Margerite Kelly in the orange shirt again	I take this shot because it is the same angle as the one where I caught the Kringles

The "little sister" is still intact. This is the smaller natural bridge to the left of the big one.

This is the lesser bridge

It has survived the cataclysm

But the destruction of the 'famous' natural bridge is total and catastrophic

I stand here, taking the 'big picture' shot	then I zoom in to catch details, first the cut at the center	then the split to the left	then the exposed rock to the far left
This is a re-shot of the scene to the right of the bridge	tourists survey the disaster	the 'little sister' from even farther to the left
the collapsed natural bridge from atop the 'little sister'	zooming in to the cleavage	a sea salt pond at my feet
the collapsed natural bridge from the sea side ...	... shooting past Margerite Kelly's orange shoulder

I realize there are still a couple of shots left on the underwater camera, so I snap them off as a safe-guard against my digital camera failing for some reason. These are the last shots I took of the now collapsed Natural Bridge.

The natural bridge, collapsed

as seen from the steps down to the beach

There is some discussion about what caused the event. Was it an earthquake? We take photos of cairns still standing that make an earthquake seem unlikely.

Behind the scene there is a formation of rocks, seen here from a distance ...

... and seen here in close-up, these rocks have little cairns on top, and none of them have fallen. Earthquake? maybe not

We head home, and Margerita Kelly shows us some sights

This is her new car, Margerite is very happy with it	This is the famous 'Fofoti' tree on the beach ...	... it appears in many Aruba advertisements ...	... it is lean and clean ...
... but vandals have killed half of it ...	... and the dead portion is propped up with a stick ...

Margerita Kelly is irate and disgusted by the new attitude on the island. She has lived here all her life, and this tree abuse is only something from the last few years. Before that people lived together nicely. She loves the island, but she does not like the trend.

She takes us back to the hotel.

If you are in Aruba, and you need a taxi cab, call for Margerita Kelly, she is the greatest.

We settle in for one last night in Aruba, and take the 'tow head' picture, finally. This is a kid we have been seeing for the whole time -- we have watched him run around and we have met his parents, and shared the tow-head vocabulary with them, which apparently arises etymologically because of the light color of tow, which is a variety of hemp. Who knew?

the little tow-head in his mothers arms

Aruba (Saturday, Sep. 3)

We go through customs in the Aruba airport. I find a free sherpa right away, and roll our goods through the system. This works well.

There is a large family that trails us through. They are loud and rowdy, and they cut through the fence at one point, causing the customs agents to surround them. They are obviously ignorant and entitled. Or think they are.

Homeland security is the great equalizer, however, and the rich and belligerant are no better than the rest of us.

We move through the Aruban airport, pushing our sherpa, and keeping an eye out for the 'lost and found' where I am hoping to find Rita's backbone adjuster, but nothing presents itself. We go through two searches, get out passports stamped, and move through to the plane.

Houston and Minneapolis (Saturday, Sep. 3)

We fly to Houston without incident, then find our gate to fly to Minneapolis.

We are on the road home.

We are NOT on the road home. We wait.

There is a severe storm in the Fargo area. We get on a plane, and then we are ordered off the plane. Then we get in the air, but we cannot land in Fargo, so we are diverted to Souix Falls, SD.

Sioux Falls (Saturday, Sep. 3)

We sit on the ground in Sioux Falls, then they let us off the plane, but we cannot move around the terminal.

I have my laptop, and I want to check to weather, but I don't have the right service provicer. So I go around to all the other passengers, in case they can get connected. I find one guy who has the right service, and he checks to the outlook for us. It does not look that bad. The word spreads among the passengers, who are all eager for information, but are getting little from the airline. I like this, we are self-empowered.

Then we are loaded onto another plane, and finally fly to Fargo.

Fargo (Saturday, Sep. 3)

After that, it is a blur. We arrive in Fargo, at the end of our tether, and need to line up, late at night, to catch a cab home. Somebody boosts our cab, and we end up catching one shortly after.

Rita and I are standing on the sidewalk in Fargo, and I try to say something funny like, "What do you want to do when we get home?"

And she says something equally funny like, "Find a roll of tape to shut you up."

Soon we are home. All is good.

It was torture and delays to get there, and it was torture and delays to get back, but in between was finest kind.

We were gone for a week, but it seemed like a month. Good times, seriously.