You Think They'll Go On A Trip With Us Again?

It's 1991, and my wife and I decided we'd like to go on a trip and also invited my best friend and his wife. Being newlyweds and young, we didn't have a lot of money so we were looking for something really economical. My sister was super nice and offered us a time share she had for a week for $150 for the week.  She's a saint and I love her dearly.  The time share was on the island of ABACO, about 40 miles away from Miami. Well, this trip could only be described as "The trip from Hell".  Due to all the bizarre and messed up things that happened on this trip(bad beach, no restaurants on the island, bad weather, horrible bug problems in the condo, the flight to the island, etc...), I'm only going to write about the 3 things that I think stand out.

#1 THE FLIGHT FROM MIAMI TO ABACO
   We land in Miami from Chicago and have to take another flight for about 35-40 minutes to get to ABACO. Well, the plane.which is an old propeller model, that takes us seats 8, including the pilot. Our luggage had to go on a separate plane. They're asking all of us how much we weigh and that's how we are seated on the plane. My luck, I get to sit right next pilot, who's a pretty angry looking fellow. I actually have controls including a steering wheel right in front of me. I'm thinking, "I've played Nintendo a lot, maybe he'll let me land this baby". Guess again. Before we take off, the pilot looks at me and says "I'm only saying this because you look like the type of guy, DON"T TOUCH A FUCKIN' THING!"


#2 WILL THAT BE THE SHOULDER OR CONCH, SIR?
    The first night we get there, we find a BBQ Place(actually looked like a tool shed with a grill in it) and decide to eat there.  Well, tonight's special is Shoulder( not the best cut of meat) or conch( the fish that lives inside those shells you put up to your ear to hear the ocean). We each pick our choices. The next day at lunch at our condo restaurant, the waiter says, you have a choice of Fried Conch or Shoulder for lunch. Huh? You got to be kidding me? Was this left over food from the Tool Shed BBQ? As it turned out, this was the only food they had on the island. I'm not kidding. Every meal consisted of some form of Conch(Conch Fritters, Grilled Conch, Conch Omelets, etc...sounds like Bubba from Forrest Gump) or Shoulder. My buddy that doesn't eat seafood had shoulder for 7 days straight.( I think his cholesterol went from 175 to 657 in one week!). We were able to go to the store and buy some spaghetti for a couple of meals. Fine dining

#3 THAT WAS AN INTERESTING BOAT RIDE
   The weather for most of the week was pretty bad.  Cloudy and not that warm. We had scheduled a boat ride that was going to take us to some remote beach( hope they have a restaurant on that beach!). It was the 4 of us and another 4 people on a motor boat that resembled a oversized canoe with a lawn mower engine on it. Bad start.  It's  only partly cloudy and we're actually thinking we might get a good weather day. We head off on the 35 minute boat ride. At about the 15 minute mark, it's getting cloudier, actually ominous. Black clouds, much colder and the wind is picking up big time.  The water is getting rough and the ride is getting rougher. The captain of the boat starts passing out black garbage bags for us to put over us as pseudo rain ponchos. Now the rain starts coming(of course!) and it coming hard. The captain is telling us to relax but no one on the boat is buying it. It's now a full out rain storm in the middle of the ocean. My buddy looks at me and says "I'm not sure if I've ever seen one but that sure looks like a funnel cloud" HOLY SHIT! We're all now looking at basically a tornado in the ocean. At that point the captain say "We probably should head back"
YA THINK?!?!?

So, fortunately, my vacations since that trip have been better but I will always remember my trip to ABACO