Our Jamaican Vacation

snippy already described the trip to Jamaica in her LiveJournal, so I'll talk about other things.

We stayed at Beaches Negril (http://www.beaches.com/main/ng/ng-home.cfm). It's an all-inclusive resort, so once we'd checked in, we didn't need money for anything except purchases at the gift shop, or--if we'd chosen--to pay for some of the activities available that were not provided by the resort (jetski rides, parasailing, various tours). It rained heavily for a short while about the time we were checking in, and again the morning that we checked out, but otherwise it was bright and sunny most of the time, though occasionally it was briefly overcast.

I grew up on the east coast, going to the beach every summer for our family vacations. But it had been more than twenty years since my last trip to the (warm) shore. I've been to the Oregon coast, but that's not the same. So swimming in the Caribbean was very enjoyable and a nice reminder of those childhood vacations. My only regret was that the sea was calm; there was no surf, and no chance to go bodysurfing.

On the other hand, Snippy, the boys and several other members of our group all went out snorkeling on the reefs one morning. It wasn't the sort of immense reef I was expecting--expectations raised, no doubt, by seeing the most spectacular reefs on the planet via television--but it was interesting. Lots of smaller reefs separated by patches of white sand. A variety of fish, some neon blue fish, gold fish (not the species--just gold colored), and one hand-sized species with a swordfish-like point. I wondered about those. We also saw a couple of coral-encrusted anchors and a small cannon (no doubt placed there deliberately, but interesting nonetheless).

( My scuba diving experience )

My Time Squad moment

We began our trip at 11:59 p.m. on Friday night, after being up all day. We endured 12 hours of air travel (including two plane changes), as well as Customs & Immigration in Jamaica, and a 1.5 hour bus ride from Montego Bay to Negril. snippy and I took a nap in our room once we were settled in. She later got up and watched the sunset. I was still in the room when the phone rang. I answered it and heard someone with a Jamaican accent asking if we'd requested a roll-away bed be brought to our room.

I hadn't, and I didn't think Snippy had, but if she had I didn't want to muddy the waters, so I agreed that we had. They said they'd deliver it shortly. I left the room then and went to dinner in the resort's buffet-style restaurant. Later on, Snippy and I fell into bed about 9 p.m. Jamaica time (6 p.m. Portland time) after a very long and tiring day. We were rudely awakened by a phone call. I wondered who could possibly be calling us in the middle of the night, though I soon learned that it was really about 11 p.m., so we'd been sleeping only for a couple of hours.

The call was from Oneson, who shared a room with Twoson. He reported that Twoson was feverish and hallucinating! Snippy and I quickly went up to their room. Twoson was indeed feverish, but reports of "hallucination" were exaggerated. He was feeling the effects of exhaustion, dehydration and heat, basically. We herded him down to our room, where we gave him water an Advil, used a cold wet washcloth to cool him, and then put him in a cool bath. Eventually, feeling somewhat better, but not fully restored, he went to sleep on the roll-away bed, which we set up for him.

Man, it was awfully convenient that we had that thing in our room. And then I realized what was happening. We were caught up in a time loop. And, heavy-duty science fiction reader that I am, I recognized immediately what had to be done. If we were to prevent a temporal disaster, the time loop had to be completed at all costs!

And so on our final day there, I approached the reception desk and asked the nice lady there if she'd be so kind as to arrange for a roll-away bed to be delivered to our room last Saturday. Her expression made it clear that she was confused, so I repeated my request. She did not appear to be enlightened, saying, "I don't understand." That's okay, I thought, only one of us has to understand. "It's confusing, I know, but if you could just arrange for a roll-away bed to be delivered to our room last Saturday, I'd really appreciate it!" I said, already moving away from the desk. "Thank!"

After all, the seed was planted. And that's all that really matters. The request was made, and since it was fulfilled, the cause & effect loop was complete. I'm not entirely sure how the request will be transmitted to last Saturday, but clearly it will be.

And that's how I saved the universe from a temporal anomaly.