Four Days

Well, it's a 4-day holiday here on the island and I'm stuck here until April 16. But, some of the other Americans and Canadians here are doing some things and they have invited me. On top of that when I started whining to my boss in the refinery about languishing for 4 days, she gave me enuff work to keep me occupied...D-OH!!!!

There is a vacant "lot" behind my bungelow that slopes severely down to a street. It's heavily packed with briars, cactus, and all manner of stuff that keeps explorers out. A couple of days ago, I was driving down the street back there and right directly behind my house was a dead boa constrictor. I'm generally not afraid of snakes but this was the biggest snake I've ever seen outside of a cage...probably 823 feet long. ok, maybe 8 feet.

Speaking of wildlife, I was heading to town this morning and I saw 5 wild burros trotting parallel with the road...and there's a lot of traffic because it's the road to the beach and this is a big beach weekend in Aruba. Any way, the road has a curve and the burros get to it a little ahead of me and the cross the road at the curve. All I had to do was slow to a crawl to let them by but a car coming the other way had to stop. So I keep my eye on the burros because I'm still slow-rolling. The burros are still trotting after they clear the road and I'm watching them and I suddenly realize there only 4 of them. A quick math calculation and I realize that one has not crossed yet. I'm still rolling and I see it out of the corner of my eye...and then I felt it. That burro collided with my rent car right at the left front tire. There wasn't any damage but if I had hit him instead of the other way around I probably would have been calling for my third rent car for this trip.

While I was looking at the car I noticed something odd about my license plate...it has a piece of another license plate attached over the top of the original. Oddly enough, the small piece is the part the has "2009" stamped into it (and the "V" that identifies it as a rental car and, of course, me as a foreigner). The part under it has an "A" with 2008. (The "A", of course, stand for "Aruba"). I'm trying to decide if I'm worried about that.

Actually considering running down the street to the beach. A bunch of Canadians dropped by and invited me. I know my chicken legs aren't any whiter than those Canadians so I'll probably do it...

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