Last day in St. Martin - well, partial at least. It’s Mother’s Day today, and I feel bad that we’re spending with neither mine nor SQ’s. We had to be out of the room by 10am but our flight wasn’t due to leave until around 4pm. After asking for a late checkout we packed up and headed toward Maho and Simpson Bay for some lunch. Mainly because that’s the direction of the airport. We were going to give Ric’s Place a try but changed our minds after checking out the inside. It’s basically a cliche sports bar supplanted in the Caribbean. Not what we came for. So we drove back to Sunset Beach Bar (next to Bliss), in Maho Bay. While this seemed to be another cliche altogether, it’s a pretty unique experience. It sits at the end of the runway for the Princess Julianna Airport and you can see all of the planes land and take off. There’s nothing quite like eating a burger and drinking a Rum Runner while being deafened and shaken by the back end of a jet ready to take off. The food is so-so and the drinks need to be blended up a bit more, but hey - topless girls drink for free (or so the sign says)! I assume that is an evening thing since we didn’t see any while we were there. Legend has it that in high season the girls flash the pilots as they are coming in to land on the runway. This all just kind of sums up the Dutch side for me….
We were still way early at this point, but after melting in the Caribbean sun we decided to head for the air-conditioned airport. The rental car return experience with Lesley Bruce of Kenny’s Car Rentals once again couldn’t have been easier. We were early so we had to call him to meet us, and he was at the airport within ten minutes. We checked in (my bag was overweight, but they didn’t charge me!) and made it through security very quickly. The airport has a decent selection of shops so we snagged some adorable bottles of Ma Dhoudhou (flavor-infused rum) for ourselves, my parents and our best friends back home. I also somehow ended up with candy and a T-shirt for Syd, and a very overpriced zip-front sweat shirt hoodie for myself - with ‘St. Barth’s’ stitched across the front. Not that I’ve been to St. Barth’s…yet. SQ gave me a hard time, but as soon as I whipped it out to put on (cold in the airport), he was now jealous of my ‘cute sweatshirt’ and had to have something for himself.
One last BBC at the airport tiki bar and we boarded the plane. After all the great food I’ve had all week I’m now left with a $5 snack box on the US Airways flight back to Charlotte. If we didn’t miss Syd so much we might not have come home at all. SQ even jokingly suggested trying to jump on the wrong plane, an Air France non-stop headed back to Paris. Maybe next time…