A couple weeks ago I was stunned to learn that I’d be joining our oldest daughter on her trip to Guadeloupe. She got me an airline ticket with points she had as my Christmas present.  Suddenly I was joining her on the trip I knew she had been planning, which had been initially instigated by an offer of cheap airfare there. She took a red eye from California, and I joined her on her connecting flight to Guadeloupe out of JFK in NYC. She had a rented a modest and inexpensive AirBnB (shown below), which was small, clean, and centrally located, and had also rented a car.

It soon became clear that inviting me was a definite blessing, when we arrived and learned that there were only stick shift cars on the island, and she didn’t know how to drive one!  Suddenly, I was the driver, which suited me just fine, although I’d soon learn this to be a bit harrowing as the one lane roads take traffic both ways, and the steep hairpin turns in the mountains first gear could barely handle, not to mention that in the city, traffic signals were non existent. Getting through an intersection was a bit of a free-for-all, but thankfully, we survived unscathed.

The other little wrinkle is that our daughter speaks only a tad of French and I speak none at all. Thank goodness for Google translate and for patient, helpful people everywhere. Not speaking the prevailing language certainly made this more of an adventure, especially since this is not a touristy place, so is not set up to accommodate foreigners.

I just got home, and will be sharing my photos this week of the special time we had last week. In the photos in this post, you just see us arriving, and the photo above shows the compact art materials I took.

It was wonderful to be with our older daughter, who lives far away in California, and who works long hours, so is generally busy and unavailable. To get to be with her, and ramble and explore when neither of us had our computers, was unusual to say the least. I’m so very grateful for the bonding time we had, for all the beauty we experienced, and the camaraderie we shared.