Tom Eppenberger Jr’s blog

Vincent: …it was out for five days and some dickless piece of shit fucked with it.
Lance: They should be fucking killed. No trial, no jury, straight to execution.
Vincent: Boy, I wish I could’ve caught him doing it. I’d have given anything to catch that asshole doing it. It’d been worth him doing it just so I could’ve caught him doing it.
Lance: What a fucker!
Vincent: What’s more chickenshit than fucking with a man’s automobile? I mean, don’t fuck with another man’s vehicle.
Lance: You don’t do it.
Vincent: It’s just against the rules.

The above is, of course, one of the more memorable scenes from Pulp Fiction. It also does a fairly good job of capturing the feelings I had when (thanks to Ted) I discovered that someone had hit my car while I was on vacation. I mean, it was parked in my driveway, and they managed to hit it and leave. No note or sorries were exchanged, only paint. And now I have a $500 deductible staring me in the face…

Ah hell, our vacation is over. Bags packed… sad faces… we said goodbye to our room and made our way for the exits. Before leaving we put one more postcard in the mail, bought some rum cakes, said goodbye to all the “starfishes,” and checked out at the front desk. We hopped in a mini-van and went to the airport.

I fully expected the airport to be a total PITA, but I had no idea what was in store for us. Getting our tickets was the easiest thing all day, and even that took like 15 minutes in line. Once we had tickets in hand, we had to walk through a line where we had to check in our bags and go through the metal detectors. Once through, we had to walk to the customs desk… yes, the US customs agents are actually in the Bahamas. We got through customs and had to walk up a flight of stairs, where we then had to go through more metal detectors. Finally we made it to the gate.

Food was high on our priority list, but this place didn’t offer much in the way of veggies. I ended up with a croissant, Lane ate a muffin and we all split what I though to be some Bahamian candy, but turned out to be Swedish.

Our flight to Miami only took a tad over an hour, and was fairly painless. It was now 12:15 PM, and we were supposed to have a 1 hour and ten minute layover…

When we trekked across two terminals to our gate and found nothing but seats filled with water from leaky roofs, we should have realized these were signs. Heavy rains, lighting and thunder rolled in, and visibility out the windows quickly dropped to something like 20-25 yards. This was some crazy, jungle like rainfall happening. And the thunder and lighting was pretty incredible too, I mean, it was at the airport. It wasn’t 10 miles away, it was there. I don’t recall a time where I saw the lighting and head the thunder at the exact same time before. As I walked across a ramp connecting two terminals to get coffee for Shelly and I, a huge flash and noise actually made me jump…

I returned with coffee and fruit, and saw that our flight was now delayed an hour. Another hour in this hellish airport, and no real food for us to eat. We were really famished, and the only non-meat filled items were candy, snack foods, unripe fruit and butter croissants. Shelly and Lane ended up finding a booth with some cereal boxes, and so they ate that while I busily called American Airlines trying to get some form of an update.

An hour turned to two, then three, then four. Lane napped on Shelly’s chest, while I paced, called AA, etc. The airport was closed for more than two hours because of the storm, and there was nothing that anyone could do, we were just stuck. Everyone was pissed and miserable. Even just walking around this damn airport was difficult because there were trash cans everywhere to catch all the water leaking through the ceiling.

6:50 PM we got on an airplane and started home, but first we had to stop in St. Louis. As we flew over Missouri, I did get to see some of the damage that the floods caused, it was pretty awesome stuff. For a few minutes, it made my difficult day of travel seem somewhat insignificant… but that only lasted so long because we were all starving!

We land in STL at 8:00 PM local time. They ask that we stay on the plane because we would only be here long enough to get the folks here on the plane. I said screw it, and ran off the plane to find food. It was 8:02 PM now, and the gate agent told me I had 10 minutes before boarding. The airport map at the gate told me that there was a pretzel shop, a Starbucks and a yogurt shop right near me. I looked around, and found everything had closed about 2 minutes earlier. I’m fuming mad. When I ask to get back on the plane, the gate agent tells me that I will “kindly need to wait for my boarding group number to be called.” I’m group 5… I just can’t win today.

Some lady waiting to board the plane then asks me about the weather in Miami, and whether or not it was really “that bad.” I confirmed things for her, and then vented about my family’s hunger pains. “Well, there’s a Chili’s right down there…” she says, and that’s when I started running. It was three or four gates away, and they were still open. They had a menu to order from, not just pre-made meat-filled crap, and it had Black Bean burgers on it! Hot damn. Only problem was the four people in line, who all looked irritated as if they had been there for an hour. Ah, hell.

I run back to the gate since I only had 10 minutes, and 5 had passed, but nothing has changed. After a few minutes of waiting, they make an announcement about waiting for a substitute crew member to arrive… I run back to Chili’s with drool on my lips. As I get close, I see that the line has grown… dramatically. 10-12 people were now waiting, with the same person at the front of the line. I decided to just go back to the gate without food, embracing what had become a pattern of bad luck that was lasting the whole day.

On the flight to SFO, we paid $4 for a “cheese tray,” that had a single slice of Cheddar, some crackers, raisins and a package of mixed nuts. A mixture of sleeping and thinking of food made the four hour flight seem to last eight. We arrived at the airport baggage claim, and found our ride home (Grandma Linda) waiting for us. Turns out that she had her own bad luck that day…

I had called her a few times from Miami letting her know about the delays, and telling her how to check on our status online or over the phone. Well, the online let her down. A few hours after we talked on the phone, she looked at our flight status online, and it appeared as if we were only going to be slightly late – not the 4+ hours that we actually were. After she circled a few times making her van overheat, she parked and then learned how late we were going to be. Rather than go home, she just waited. She was just as happy to see us, as we were to see her.

We got home shortly after 1 AM, and all of us ate Morningstar sausage sandwiches as we battled to stay awake. It was the best food we had tasted in quite some time!

Woke up this morning feeling somewhat depressed… it’s our last full day here. Very sad. We both felt like we needed to make most of the day, and so our only plans were to hit one more buffet and to do as many water slides are possible!

The day began with the breakfast buffet at Marketplace. We had only done the dinner buffet here, but the breakfast one was just as nice. Similar to the buffet in the Coral Towers, but just lots more stuff. Lane ate pancakes, waffles and french toast! Needless to say, we more than got our money’s worth for breakfast.

Next stop, the Splashers Kids area. This is just down the path from both the Mayan Temple and Power Tower, so Shelly and I were all set to trade off and one of us would play with Lane here while the other hit the slides.

Splashers play structure is just incredible. It’s a huge playground structure in a foot of water. There are five water slides, lots of valves where the kids can control the water flowing out, and a huge bucket on the very top that dumps water all over everything about every five minutes. That damn bucket was the only thing that Lane didn’t like, and I mean he really didn’t like it. We’re talking near tears and shaking with fear every time it happened.

Shelly went off first, and she did the “Leap of Faith” (six story drop) and “The Serpent Slide” on the Mayan Temple, and then “The Falls” on the Power Tower, which dumps you in the middle of “The Current.” She came and tagged me, and I did “The Serpent Slide” twice  and then “The Falls.” All of these slides are just too much fun. There are lines for all of them, but they aren’t too bad, the worst wait I had was about 10 minutes. When I got back to the playground, Shelly went off and did a few more slides before we headed back to the room for Lane’s nap.

When Lane woke up, we made a bee line back to Splashers, but something wasn’t right… There were no kids in the water. I left Shelly and Lane here to get ready for more water fun, and I went from towel hut to towel hut trying to find us some clean/dry towels. As I walked back toward Shelly and Lane, I passed the Mayan Temple and noticed that nobody (and I mean nobody) was in line for the slides. “Hot Damn!” I thought. I got back to the playground and Shelly told me that it was closed. Huh. We headed over to the Mayan Temple pool and as we started to make our way into the water, we had a life guard blow his stupid whistle at us… all the pool’s were closed because of lightning storms going through the area. Ah, hell…

We laid down in some chairs and decided to wait it out. Thirty minutes later, nothing had changed, but one of the pools near the Mayan Temple was open for some reason. All the slides (and the surrounding pools) ere still closed, but this one pool was open. We made the best of it and jumped in. After about an hour, nothing had changed, and so we said screw it and headed on our way.

Since it was still daylight, and it was our last day here, we walked around some and took in more of the scenery. We made our way through “The Dig” again, which I still just love – easily my favorite aquarium at Atlantis. We stopped and had the above group photo taken (thanks to whoever it was that took this photo), and finally ended up back at our room to change clothes for dinner.

Our last dinner here, and we decided to hit Johnny Rockets. If you hadn’t already realized it, we love this restaurant. After we ordered our food, but before it arrived, some of the Junkanoo entertainers had a series of homemade drums out on display for kids to play with really close to us. Lane and I went over and he banged on one of the drums for awhile. After dinner, they were just packing up the drums, but one of the guys let Lane grab a drum and they had a mini-jam session for a minute or two. Lane was shy as all can be, but he really enjoyed it.

We had told Lane that we would get ice cream after dinner, but ended up at Starbucks instead. Lane got a giant chocolate chip cookie, and I got to try a Dark Mocha Frap (either a local drink, or they are a test market), which was quite good but very sweet! One problem however, was that Lane didn’t quite understand that going to Starbucks and eating a giant cookie meant no ice cream. It wasn’t until we were a good 2-3 shops passed the ice cream parlor that it sunk in…

On the way back to our room for bed, we stopped and bought two slices of pizza for breakfast. At least this way we won’t have to rush down stairs and try to grab something on our way out. We packed up all of our things, closed the curtains in our room real tight (lots more lightning and thunder tonight) and hit the sack.

For a second straight day, it all started with Jamba Juice for breakfast. One big difference with this morning though, was all the thunder and lightning that was happening still. All the noise made Lane really nervous, and so we made a quick meal of it and headed to the beach.

Cove Beach to be exact. Our one and only trip to this beach was really cool. It was still pretty early, and there were only 2 or 3 other people there. This place really was a cove, and so there were very small and calm waves, and the water was crystal clear. I walked about 10 feet into the ocean, and quickly noticed a lot of rocks and coral. A minute or three later, I look down and realize that I am standing in the middle of a school of nearly clear fish with blue and black outlines around their fins. These fish weren’t small either, most were the size of my hand and some bigger. I got Shelly and Lane to come into the water to check it out, and while Shelly was quickly returning to shore, Lane really enjoyed the fish.

After about an hour of playing in the sand, both Shelly and I could feel ourselves being burned and so we packed up and escaped to a covered table and chairs at a concession stand nearby. We couldn’t decide on what to do, and so we both decided that we should give the water slides a try… best decision of the day! Shelly went on the Challenger Slides and the Jungle Safari slide while Lane and I chilled in a nearby pool. We then traded and I went on the Jungle Safari slide twice. I couldn’t build up the nerve to do the Challenger Slides.

Lane was too short to go on any of the big water slides, but the pools surrounding the Mayan Temple slides had some very short slides that went from one pool to the next. These slides were just the right size for Lane, and so we went on all of them 2 or 3 consecutive times before heading back to our room for him to nap.

Once he woke up, we made a beeline for “The Bahamian Store,” which was just outside of the Atlantis resort. We saw it a few days before when wandering around, and wanted to make a point of going through it. Our expectation was that it would be something like Hilo Hattie in Hawaii, but it turned out to be a small flea market type atmosphere where lots of different people have their own booths – but they all sell very similar wares. It was a bust.

On the way back to Atlantis, we decided to eat dinner at a place called Anthony’s. Big mistake. Shelly had a bowl of Black Bean soup, which she enjoyed, and we both ate garden salads which we pretty run of the mill. The real problem came with the main course that we were splitting… Pesto Penne. It looked good enough before taking a bite, but it only took a second to realize that this dish had a few pounds of salt included. Shelly got half of one bite down, I made it through two bites. It was really, really bad. On the plus side, Shelly found another drink that she liked called a “Melon Ball.” It had fruit juices, rum, etc, and tasted exactly how I would expect Honey Dew juice to taste. I also got to finally try the local Beer, Kalik, which was pretty good.

We left and headed back to the resort, trying to decide what our real dinner was going to be. Earlier in the trip we had vowed to not eat any pizza, but we decided to ditch that idea and got two slices to go. It was real good pizza, and really hit the spot.

Something historic happened while Lane and I were devouring our pizza though, Shelly snipped off five of Lane’s wonderful curls. All the humidity here made the curls very tight and pretty much “perfect,” and so she decided to take the plunge and cut them off. Some might be surprised, but I think that I ended up being more upset about doing it than Shelly was. It was a pretty depressing few minutes, I must admit.

After all the grease and salt and emotion, I decided that I had to have something sweet to eat, and the “Maya Chocolate Mountain with a melted Mint Chocolate center” dessert on the room service menu had been calling my name for the whole trip. 20 minutes later, we had two trays from room service on our table (Shelly also ordered some Peas & Rice, a local speciality which was really very tasty). I whipped the cover off of the dessert and gasped, I couldn’t believe how disappointing the plate was. The cake was still frozen, and the mint chocolate center was anything but melted. Regardless, Lane and I devoured it.

Even though we had some culinary disappointments this evening, it was still another great day in paradise. And, we went to bed to the sounds of more lightning and thunder. Mom, you would truly be jealous if you were seeing these storms!

We awoke today with lots of excitement… it was Aqua Tots day! Since it was only 8:30, and Lane wouldn’t get to feed the fish until 2:00, we had to kill some time…

The day started with a trip to Jamba Juice for breakfast. A couple of granola breakfasts, a smoothie for Lane, and some fruit… it was cheaper and faster than a buffet or the continental breakfast, plus it was super yummy. I had never had one of their breakfast smoothies before, they are super good!

After eating, we walked around for awhile and finally decided to hang out in the kids section of the park. We hit the lazy river a few times, and then relaxed for awhile at “The River Pool.” Shelly laid out in the sun, while Lane and I played in the water. After he practiced jumping (aka leaning) into the pool for me to catch him for awhile, he noticed that he could see some fish through a series of waterfalls clear across on the other side of the pool. We headed over there and realized that there were strategically placed gaps in the rock behind the waterfall exposing the aquarium in the building behind the pool. It was very neat to be standing behind a waterfall and looking into an aquarium.

It was about an hour before Aqua Tots now, so we decided to head back to our room and change clothes (both Shelly and I forgot that Lane was supposed to be in a swimming suit to feed the fish… oops!). After stalling in our room to kill a few more minutes, we walked down to the Discovery Kids Zone and were about 20 minutes early. Lane helped the teacher setup the table, chairs, crayons, etc while we waited for the other kids to show up. He also got his pick of the five different colored buckets, he chose green.

And, wouldn’t you know it, Lane was the only boy of the five kids chosen for that day. The teacher helped all the kids color a series of pre-cut swim creatures (octopus, dolphin, whale, shark) and then glue them to some construction paper. All of us parents stood around and tried not to interfere, but it was hard.

After about 15 minutes of this fun, it was time to clean up and make our way to the stream where the kids would all feed the fish. But first, the teacher showed the kids how to do a very important dance called the “Sting Ray Shuffle.” It involved keeping your feet on the ground, and shuffling them forward to take steps. This was all necessary since they could possibly step on top of sting rays covered in sand once they are in the stream…

We had to walk about 5 minutes to get to the stream, and then all the kids had to wait for a few minutes for the guys with the food to show up. When the two men with the big pail full of fish guts showed up, well the kids could hardly contain themselves.

They called for Lane to go into the water first, but once he got through the gate he got scared and turned right around crying for “Mommy.” All the girls went passed him and got into the water, while Shelly got Lane to calm down. They helped him through the gate and let him stay on the last step rather than going all the way into the water. While he was very excited to be there, he still had a certain amount of fear. But, that all went away once they started handing out the fish food.

Lane threw all of his food out much faster than the girls, and so one of the trainers actually stole some food from one of the girls and gave it to Lane. She didn’t seem to mind, and Lane was quite happy.

The feeding lasted about 10 minutes, and not a moment too long. As Lane walked out of the gate, he started to melt down and was definitely ready for a nap!

While Lane napped, Shelly experienced a little slice of heaven. She spent about two hours at the Mandara Spa, and got the “Exotic Coconut Rub and Milk Ritual” along with a mini-facial and scalp massage. She said that the architecture and atmosphere inside the spa were both quite amazing, and I think this was without question one of the high points of the trip for her.

After Shelly returned from heaven, and Lane awoke from his nap, it was off to Chop Stix for dinner. We had to make reservations a few days earlier, and had been looking forward to this ever since. The place certainly didn’t disappoint, and I think it was the best dinner of the trip. Tofu Pad Thai, Coconut Curry Vegetables, Broccoli and steamed rice… yum. It wasn’t just the food that was outstanding either, both the service and the atmosphere were great. The decoration inside was just beautiful.

I must also mention that this was also where Shelly discovered a new found love for Merlot. She had a glass of Bonterra, which as it turns out is a very environmentally friendly winery in Ukiah that only uses organically grown grapes. I found it very ironic that we found out traveled all the way to the Bahamas to find out about a winery just a few hours to our North. Anyway, she just loved the wine and was feeling pretty good by the time we left the place.

When we returned to our room, I noticed that Mother Nature was again treating us to some spectacular offshore lightning and thunder action. I got to watch a few minutes of it before Lane requested the drapes to all be shut, and for everyone to go to sleep. He really, really doesn’t like the lightning and thunder, and I guess I can’t blame him… I was no fan of it at that age either.