Vacation Mode

As I know I have stated in the past, I love to travel. It is my most favorite thing to do because I always crave an adventure. I decided to go someplace new and went with a friend to St. Thomas.

While we were there, we ventured into town and went out to lunch. As we were seated, I see a guy working kiddie corner from us. His laptop said NBC Sports on it, and he was wearing a very big sports ring.

Well, this is a perfect scenario for a girl like me. I start chatting him up because I am curious what his story is all about.

Come to find out, he was a former professional football player and won a Super Bowl (hence the ring). Now, he works for NBC Sports and has a home on the island. He is divorced with three kids and this is a second home that he uses as an outlet for fun.

We started talking about adventures to do while we are there, etc. He asked if we wanted to come to his house for a BBQ?

Now, I didn’t get one creepy vibe from the guy, but you can still never be too sure. He had a bit of island fever and was generally excited to talk to girls from the states. Especially sports fans.

I told him we would love to come to his house (with my friend of course) but we are putting on Facebook who we are with. I said sometimes blondes coming up missing in the Caribbean. He laughed and said that is fine, post whatever you want!

He had a buddy on the island who was a local and was also going to be joining us. This guy came to pick us up from our hotel. We were shocked as we rolled up to the football player’s house. It was a beautiful house nestled in a mountain overlooking the ocean with a wrap around porch.

These two guys created this fabulous dinner, and we had an awesome time chatting. The football player felt terrible since he just went through a divorce and I decided to bestow my wisdom on him. Of course, my wisdom from having never been married. LOL

I said learn the lessons from the relationship, heal and move on. You can feel bad about it all, but you can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube. He thought that was hilarious and tweeted it out to his followers giving credit to me for the line. (Although, I stole that from somewhere).

Now, he is asking me a bunch of questions and my friend overhears us. She said, no, no, you are not going to get anywhere with her, you would be better off talking with me.

I laughed as she had a point. It would definitely take me awhile to warm up to a guy with his professional sports background. It hasn’t ended well in the past.

His buddy was so excited for us to be there too. He was a teacher and a coach on the island. He wanted me to come to his school and talk about my career to give the kids some ideas for different paths to take. Which I happily did the next day.

We are still all friends on Facebook but haven’t really stayed in touch over the years. I was really glad to meet them though!

Lesson learned? Be cautious when meeting people at their homes. Always travel in pairs when possible, let people know where you are and have an exit plan. And, at the minimum, you can meet new friends!