The run-up to the wedding

We traveled across from Kingston to Robin's Bay the day before the wedding, in case we need to do anything over there. Along the way we stopped at Castleton Garden, a botanical garden situated along a river in the mountains.

Everywhere you go in Jamaica you see these curry animals (goats destined for curry).

These orb weavers almost never become curry, however, except accidentally. This one was huge!

This river was made for the song "De ribba bed come dun, de ribba bed come dun, de ribba bed come dun, something something in the mawnin'" We have seen this one raging and muddy after a big rain.

The gardens are filled with unusual plants and trees. This one struck me with its symmetry.

Lauren and Heather had some sisterly fun together fooling around on the rocks and sliding into the pools.

It was nice to watch the two of them this couple of days.

Dan got a little pensive. No cold feet, though.

Eventually we got through to the North Coast without too much car sickness from the windy roads.

The road was bad from this point. We had a lot of potholes to dodge, so these kids on bicycles were able to race ahead of us for a couple of miles before they got tired.

Then we got close to the water. The girls wanted to stop immediately and get out, but we pressed on.

When we got there we found some guys working on a new piece of decking right where we wanted the ceremony to be! This became the focus for the afternoon and the morning of the wedding.

It turned out that we didn't have much to do except have lunch and loaf away the afternoon

So we did some loafing and some exploring. There were tons of hermit crabs around. One of the kids even found one without a shell.

They were all sizes. There are enough snails around so they don't usually lack for housing.

Loafing took precedence for a while. Here Lauren rocks Heather and Dan in one of the hammocks on site.

Later on I took the helm of the hammock for advanced loafing. I was not alone.

There had been a really huge storm. The beach and rocks were covered with bamboo and cane trash washed down in the rivers. This guy was in charge of cleaning it up. After he filled this bucket he was quite overcome by his own loafing instinct and just lay right down on the rocks.

Later on we got to know a few more denizens of the site. There were a couple of pups that were kind of cute.

This one adopted his own coconut as a chew toy, shredding the coir with his teeth. Esther used to tell me about sleeping on coir mattresses - itchy, poky, and uncomfortable. Ah, the old days!

Lots of lizards were around. This one did his mating display every few seconds for a long time. The orange was kind of unexpected.

Eventually we got tired and headed off for bed. But the girls saw this giant toad jumping and wanted a picture of it. We're not sure what kind it is, but we saw something similar in Puerto Rico.