Anniversary in Aruba

For our 25th wedding anniversary in 2002, my husband and I went to Aruba. First, we celebrated Thanksgiving at home with our two children—I think that was the only year we have ever had just the four of us for a holiday. We cooked turkey and all the trimmings, and at the end of that weekend, we sent our son back to college and made arrangements for the neighbors to watch out for our high-school-age daughter while we went to Aruba.

Our daughter was a good student, a good driver, and I trusted her. Still, I wanted someone to know she’d be by herself at home for a week.

“If we hear music, we’ll call the cops,” our neighbor across the street said with a deadpan face.

I must have looked appalled at this possibility, because he laughed. “Don’t worry,” he said. “We have teenage girls. We know what to watch for.”

Then, in the first week of December, we set out on our adventure.

What I remember most about Aruba is the wind. My husband and I stayed at a lovely resort on the northwest coast of the Caribbean Island, one of a series of resorts along that shore. As soon as we arrived, we walked to the beach, and the wind whipped my hair about my face.

After a day or so near the resort, we wanted to explore more of the island and rented a car. Over the rest of our stay, we toured much of Aruba. We drove all along the southern shore, did touristy things in the capital of Oranjestad, snorkeled on a reef in shallow water near the Citgo Oil Refinery, viewed the lighthouse on the northern tip of the island and the natural bridge on its north-central coast, toured an aloe plantation and factory, and hiked a corner of Arikok National Park.

Through all of it, the wind blew, hot and drying. It wasn’t really unpleasant—I was used to wind from my childhood in Richland, Washington, where the wind came through the Columbia River Gorge and east toward Richland.

But Aruba was a far different Caribbean experience than our trip to St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands for our tenth anniversary. St. Thomas was a more typically humid Caribbean climate. The vegetation in St. Thomas was lusher, the beaches whiter, and the water a deeper blue.

Still, our trip to Aruba was a memorable week in our lives and a delightful change from early winter in Kansas City and the madness of Christmas preparations.

On our last day in Aruba, we headed to the airport and learned our flight was delayed by snow in Charlotte, North Carolina—our transfer point. We made it to Charlotte late that night, but not back to Kansas City. We got one of the last hotel rooms near the airport and made the final leg of the trip home the next day.

Our daughter had managed fine without us. And we’d had a wonderful trip, until the journey home.

What memorable vacations have you taken?