Hello intertubes!!

I am back from my birthday mini-break, and have brought back (admittedly paltry) photographic evidence. It was a great trip, and I definitely look forward to going back to Tortola again for some more exploring. The coolest part was that all of an hour elapsed between getting on the ferry in St. John and parking my rental car at the seaside hotel. Awesome! : )

Anyway, here’s the pictures:

Tortola Mini-Break

And for next time, the things I intend to document include:
- The super-beautiful north shore road – you’re liable to get splashed by the steadily crashing surf as you drive along, all unsuspecting.
- Smuggler’s Cove – my beach of choice for this trip. Great sand and shade. Perfect water. A ramshackle, but full-service beach bar. Ideal.
- The Tamarind Club’s nifty swim-up bar. (They serve a mean fish & chips.)
- The view out across Beef Island to Virgin Gorda from the Ridge Road. Holy cow.
- The inventive and elegant Dove restaurant in Road Town. Also, their food.

But for now, I hope you enjoy the panorama shots!

Cheers,
Kelly

Fact One: I miss autumn.
Fact Two: I want to make this so hardcore.

Fact Three: I am really looking forward to my birthday – I will be getting off this rock and visiting another rock for a couple of days. I will not be able to use my cell, nor have internet with which to obsessively check my email. I will sleep in. I will get tan. I will drink refreshing rum drinks and do nothing that even resembles work. I realize a lot of you think that this is all I ever do, but you are mistaken, and I am REALLY looking forward to acting the tourist for a couple of days. Like a lot. *contented, anticipatory sigh*

Fact Four: I’m going back to work now. Have a nice night, y’all.

Kelly

So I might have to rethink this whole Italy thing…apparently, it’s country full of CRAZY people! Or at least, it was back in the ’70s when this was made:

I’m literally speechless…
Kelly

This photo album may cause feelings of ickiness and terror! (Really. There are scary bug pictures – look at your own risk.)

Click for a small album of my bug-hunting adventures!

Killing time while we wait for the printers to get back to us with final proofs! Halloween issue, FTW.

KellyO

Alright, so the internet is distracting me still, but I had to share this one; yes, even with you insect-phobes who’ll be visiting. My co-worker Alex and I had a close encounter the other night… with a Tarantula Hawk. (How’m I s’posed to sit on a story about a bug with a name that cool!?)

So you can Google the sucker if you like, but most of the pics you’ll find won’t look like the kind we have in the Caribbean. (Ours is just a different, apparently seldom-photographed, variety.) A Tarantula Hawk is a wasp. A four-inch-long wasp. Whose thorax is as big around as my thumb. So I’m standing in the surf shop with Alex and we had one of those moments where I’m listening to him talk and then suddenly my eyes focus on something behind him and go all wide. This wasp flew into the store, attracted by the lights (it was nighttime) and started just sort of buzzing around. Wasn’t aggressive or nothin’, but there was no one in the store (slow season is boring) and so Alex and I spent a good 20 minutes checkin’ it out.

As insects go, this sucker was beautiful. Its (giant!) body and wings were irridescent blue-black and it’s little feeler/antennae were bright orange. It got itself tangled in some cobweb, so we had lots of time to look at it while it wrestled free.

It wasn’t ’til I got home and Googled the sucker, though, that I discovered how horrifying it is. Not only is the sting of the female reputed to be the most painful wasp sting in the world (though not deadly), but their namesake is super-gruesome. The female captures a tarantula and paralyzes it. Then, she drags him back to a burrow – either one she’s built, or the poor tarantula’s own – lays a single egg, and seals the whole thing up with the paralyzed tarantula inside. That way, when the egg hatches, the larva has a nice warm meal waiting for it. O_O Augh! Poor bastard.

Island living is never boring, I’m here to say. No one I’ve talked to has run into one of these before, though, so don’t be thinking (you know who you are!) that these things are everywhere. We just got lucky. : )

Back to work (and then to sleep)!
Kelly

p.s. I just discovered - thank you, Wikipedia - that the Tarantula Hawk is the state insect of New Mexico. Obviously.