I’m here! The island is beautiful and the weather fabulous (although as soon as we landed, they had one of their afternoon tropical storms for about an hour-couldn’t help but think it followed me from Seattle.)
The day started early again, but I eventually made my flights from Miami to San Juan, Puerto Rico and eventually onto St. Thomas. BTI was kind enough to send a driver to pick me up and we slowly made our way to the hotel, thank goodness! I want no part of driving on the left side of the road here. It is weird—the steering wheel is on the right, but you drive on the left. It is Keith’s (the driver) first time driving here, but he has been here since Sunday and says he is kind of used to it as long as he has a car in front him to follow—luckily it was a high traffic time here and we had a lot cars to follow as we made our way from the airport.
I finally got to see Nancy after so many years! All these years, and we hadn’t crossed paths much since we graduated in nineteen hundred and something (wink!) She, of course, is up to her eyeballs in work right now, but it is great to reacquaint with her again. I had met her husband Nels a few times when I worked with the WBCA, but did not get to see Nancy.
The back-story is that Nels and Nancy run a company called Basketball Travelers, Inc. in Edmonds, Wash. The company specializes in arranging tours and tournaments for collegiate and high school basketball teams. Check out their website: http://www.basketballtravelers.com/
Tonight was the welcome reception at the St. Thomas Skyride that also featured a live radio show. We were expecting about 350 people (all the teams, coaches, support staff and VIP’s) and they all came. They took them up to this great little restaurant on hillside with an unbelievable view. To get there, they went up on a five-minute gondola ride and the funniest thing in the world was to see a 6’7”, 240 lb. basketball player take one look and say, “Ain’t no way I’m going up in that thing!” Thankfully, everyone braved the ride and had a great time eating, watching the bird show and listening to Hurricane Bob, the one man band.
It is late, I am tired and tomorrow the games will begin. Check back for scores, highlights and hopefully some photos soon. Thanks for reading!
Dana
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