Bahamas Trip

The story of our trip has to revolve around Balls Alley. The spot where we stayed in Nassau had a road that runs from West to East, right along the coast. If you want to get from West to East, you take a parallel road a bit farther inland. Every quarter mile or so, there are roads perpendicular to the coast that let you go between the two directional streets.

Balls Alley looks like it's one of these pass through roads. But it isn't. Early in the week, Mrs. theskinnyonbenny, Brent, and I turned down Balls Alley to make the jump. but instead of going through, it got more and more narrow, and finally, it ended in a jumble of shacks and wrecked cars.

	Looking down Balls Alley

We turned around and headed out. Toward the start, the alley was lined with dudes, taking big fatties, trying to wave us over and take our orders. Or our lives. Could have gone either way, had we stopped.

From then on, we got the same reaction from the native Bahamians when we would mention having visited Balls Alley. Their eyes would get wide, and they would say incredulously, "Balls Alley. I can't believe you went there!" that would be followed by a serious attempt to sober us up for a second so that we MIT heed the warning never to go there again.

We got that warning at the Greyclif, an expensive but good restaurant hosted by a pantywaist in a bow-tie who didn't want us drunks there at all. That didn't stop his bar waitress from serving strait rum one on top of the other, getting me to the point where I loudly ate a ball of butter while waiting for the bread.

	Too sexy to be 40.

The bar features an excellent piano player by name of Pam, who has the ability to play, sing, and participate in your conversations simultaneously. We made serious plans to have her back to our house on an upcoming night to perform privately.

Fortunately, we didn't follow through on the private Pam performance. I say that it's fortunate because many of us were passed out before dark on the night where we had it planned. We had spent most of the day on a boat charter, where we caught a bunch of fish and then swam off anchor from as pretty a beach as you can envision. We brought along enough beer to supply the Bahamian Navy on a four month cruise, but half of that was earmarked for Mark, who got seasick and didn't fulfill our expectations in amount consumed.

We followed the trip by adding to our tip with free drinks for captain and crew at the marina bar. The next thing I remember is getting out of bed, finding that the refrigerator had a lot of the fish grilled, with conch salad. I ate, the found Clay and Brent passed out in front of a soccer game, their bellies covered in cheesecake crumbs.

From there, I went down to poolside, where the wife's were mixing it up at the bar by the pool with the guy who does some maintenance around the house. He was showing them a picture of his daughter, who despite being somewhere in the 6 to 9 year old range, looks quite a bit like Snoop Dog.

	Post fishing-trip drinks

Mrs. theskinnyonbenny spotted me, groaned, and made it clear that this was to be girl time. So I went back to bed.

I much preferred the greeting down there when we returned from the casino. Theskinnyonbenny family was sticking it to them, so we stayed late when many of the others left. (The pit boss was another who warned us against a Balls Alley return visit.) When I went down to the pool, Brent was in the water, naked as a shaved chihuahua, with both arms aloft. In one hand was the house machete, and in the other was a mostly empty bottle of Patron. He was shouting "Cannonball" and drinking straight from the bottle.

Some other fun tidbits:

• I've been wearing the same swimsuit on every vacation for abou 7 years. Amanda looked like a model, displaying what you would have to call a different swim ensemble every day.
• despite being the youngest of us, Josh really does have Thurston Howell III demeanor, especially when he smokes his pipe.
• When Clay drinks too much, he can't say "sex monger." It comes out "sex mongrel."
• you can go ahead and google "Teddy Bahamas," but it doesn't come up with anyone in particular.
• if you spend two days on and off a jetski, in rough water, with mesh lined shorts, you will sand the skin off of your ass cheeks, and for the rest of the week, it will be unpleasant to sit.
• I feel like I need to make fun of Stacie. She's made it through this post scot-free, but I cant think of anything specific to tell.

	Who left their drawers out?

I also see that I made notes to add these to my quote file:

• "We talked extensively about our exit strategy.". Amanda, on whether she thought she could stand the rest of us for a full week.
• "Ben, I'm going to have to ask you to step away from the light." Amanda, interrupting a conversation taking place in the pool at night. I had moved closer to the underwater light, and I was wearing not a single stitch.
• "FAWNA." Lisa settles the discussion about what band sang "Turn Me Loose."
• "No, it's my job. I fly to islands and ride other people's jetskis around." clay, when rude,y asked if he was holiday by a British lady who didn't like jetskis on her waterfront.
• "What? Read?" Stacie, in reply to Amanda's "I've never been able to do that before." She was speaking of her ability to read while music was playing.

I posted lots more pictures, and many of them are hilarious. Look at the photo gallery list, or jump right in here and here.