"What A Wonderful World" - The Bahamas Experience - Part V

Digga-digga-digga-digga-digga-digga, pound-pound-pound! Digga-digga-digga-digga-digga-pound-pound-pound! The melodious harmony of jack hammers and nail guns fill our hotel room and, despite the fact that we have our sliding glass door to the ocean shut (it is the windy season in the Bahamas, of course!!), it permeates our room with a continual reminder that we cannot use our hotel pool facilities.

We dump our luggage and head to lunch, then for a brisk walk. I use the word, “brisk” because the temperature in the shade, coupled with a constant 30 mile-an-hour wind gust blowing in from the ocean, feels like 65 degrees. We discover that the Sheraton pool is really not that far away and we also learn that, if we were ever to do this again (as if!), we will stay there, rather than at the Wyndham.

We return to the room. Exhausted, we nap until dinnertime. I awake to more tears, sorry that we have not only missed an important event of two important friends of ours, but sorry that I lugged two rolls of toilet paper (as instructed by Carol – “Don’t ask, just bring it!” was the description) and 20 pounds and half-a-suitcase-full of our fantastic Halloween costumes that we were going to wear to the Halloween party on Friday night with Carol and The Cap’n (we were going as dueling “Gorton’s Fishermen” – we had the best costumes, right down to the yellow protective gear and grey beards!).

Since we decided that we were going to stay on property (heck, we already had the wristbands!!), we opted for a restaurant called “The Black Angus”. Big juicy steaks and good wine could be the only thing that could console our sorrows at this point. We dress in our what-was-to-have-been our wedding finery and make our way to the second floor, where Jerry, the charming Bahaman waiter, informs us that, yes, indeed, the Black Angus does serve Maker’s Mark bourbon. “Well, Jerry,” exclaims P.O.D. with a smile. ‘You may have just made our trip!”

A couple of cocktails, a wonderful meal, including a great bottle of wine leads to P.O.D. taking me onto the dance floor of the little bar outside of the restaurant where we dance to two songs, one of which was a rendition of “What A Wonderful World”, which is one of my all-time favorite songs.

It occurs to me, while we are dancing, that P.O.D. and I have dated for right around 2 years and we have never danced a single dance together.

While there was no beach in sight and I never drank a single Rum Runner, I felt, for the first time, like I was in Paradise.

More “The Bahamas Experience” to come. Stay tuned!

Mathematically Eliminated - The Bahamas Experience, Part IV

(First, I want to take one minute to thank everyone for laughing along with me as I tell the story of this really unbelievable experience. Thanks for humoring me as I work through all of this. Writing about the trip has been theraputic and it has allowed me to put this all in perspective and laugh about it. We will get back to ice cream and optimism after my final blog entry on the Bahamas Experience - a few more posts yet! .....Thanks!)

Fortunately, my crying jag only lasted about 50 minutes, as the flight from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida to Nassau, Bahamas, is mercilessly short.

Our trip through the immigration checkpoint is quick and festive thanks to the “Lou Ralls-esque” lounge singer and his three piece backup band who serenades us through the process with the smooth tones of Harry Belafonte’s “All Day, All Night, Mary Ann”. Were I not an emotional basket case, this would be charming. But, because I am a basket case, it annoys me to no end. I shift my weight from foot to foot, glancing at my watch every two or three minutes: 12:50, 12:52, 12:55…. “What is taking so long???”

The wedding is in 2 hours. I finally have made some peace with the fact that we will never make it to the event. But maybe we can make it in time for the reception. More tears. I can’t even look at P.O.D.

“All day, all night, Mary Ann! Down by the seaside sifting sand,” croons the singer. I am in travel h-e-double hockey-sticks. Finally, we pass the checkpoint and we race to the BahamasAir counter to see when the flight to Treasure Cay leaves. 4 p.m. Cost: $300 each. There are still seats available. P.O.D. and I exchange looks.

But it is not that simple. Through further investigation of the flight itinerary, it is discovered that the 4 p.m. flight will not land until 5:30 p.m. Once we get our luggage and hail a cab to the ferry dock, we will have missed the final ferry out to Green Turtle Cay. Additionally, in order to catch the 8 a.m. flight from Treasure Cay back to Nassau in time to catch our 10 a.m. flight from Nassau to Ft. Lauderdale in order to catch our 1:50 p.m. flight to Atlanta in order to catch our respective flights back to our respective homes, we will have to leave Treasure Cay before the last ferry leaves Green Turtle Cay on Saturday afternoon and stay in a hotel on Treasure Cay on Saturday night. (Feel free to re-read that last sentence about seven times…..you will eventually be able to do the math.) This will give us ONE night on Green Turtle Cay…and present more logistical decisions yet to be made. We are exhausted.

Time to regroup. We huddle in the terminal for a few minutes to discuss our options. P.O.D. makes the rounds to confirm that, indeed, only one airline flies to Treasure Cay and only one flight option is available to us. I continue to cry – this time because I know that this trip that we have been looking forward to for months has come to a premature and frustrating end. I am convinced that if I do not stop crying soon, that the Bahaman immigration officers will kick me out of the country because I am pretty sure that there is no crying allowed in paradise.

P.O.D. finally deduces that we are “mathematically eliminated” from making our final destination. As he so eloquently put it, “We were screwed yesterday morning – we just didn’t know it.” But here we were in Nassau, with nowhere to go until Sunday morning. We decide that it is time to “make lemonade”.

We make our way out to the terminal lobby, where high-end, all-inclusive hotel resorts are peddling their accommodations to arriving travelers who have made previous arrangements with them or, like us, have been “mathematically eliminated” from their final destinations, as well.

After determining that we need to get out of this with the highest level of comfort at the least amount of expense, I am able to negotiate with the handsome young man at the Wyndham Casino resort kiosk to give me the “rate you would give your sister”. He gives me an ocean-view room for a fraction of the ocean-view room cost. We are thrilled.

One short cab ride later, we arrive at a pleasant, but weary-looking casino hotel (there are only a handful of things that P.O.D. does not enjoy and gambling is one of them). At check-in, P.O.D. glances at the ceiling, “Is that mold?” I try not to look.

The check-in clerk does a double take on our room rate, which makes me smile at the young man who really must have come through on that “sister rate” on our hotel room. Then she asks us to put on resort wrist bands that we have to wear the entire time we are on the property. (Number two on P.O.D.’s list of things he doesn’t enjoy is wearing wrist bands – years in the trade show industry has given him an emotional allergic reaction to wearing anything that identifies him as a “participant” of something).

Turns out, the wrist bands are very important. It seems my “brother” at the casino kiosk back at the airport failed to tell me that the pool was being renovated at the Wyndham and the wristband gave us access to the pool at the Sheraton property, next door.

What we discovered about 10 minutes later was that the pool renovation was occurring 5 floors below our ocean-view balcony. For each day of our stay in paradise, we were serenaded by the sweet sounds of jack hammers and hammering a few hundred feet away. Which makes me wonder: did the woman at the check-in desk give a double take on the room rate or on the fact that any idiot would allow themselves to be booked in a hotel room overlooking a major renovation project during a hotel “off season”.

We will never know.

More to come in Tuesday’s blog…and be patient…..the ice cream and ‘eternal optimist” attitude will return once this all gets vented. I am feeling a little better already….

A Bahamas Geographical Lesson - The Bahamas Experience, Part III

The day is Thursday. Today is the day of Carol and The Cap’n’s wedding! P.O.D. and I wake up, thaw out (refer to the broken thermostat reference in my last blog entry), grab a good breakfast, and head to the airport. Our flight to the Bahamas is at 11:40 a.m.

So far, everything has run smoothly with the exception that our calls to the hotel where we have booked lodging on Green Turtle Cay have yet to be returned. Apparently the phone service to the hotel is unreliable. When it was possible for him to do so, P.O.D. has left two messages at the hotel, but no one has returned our phone call. Apparently, if you run a hotel in Green Turtle Cay, customer relations is not a requirement. We have already missed one night in our hotel and we want to make sure we are not charged for it.

Our main goal for today is to be able to manage an on-time flight departure, get to the ferry and get to the island. If all goes well, we should have one hour before our arrival time at Green Turtle Cay and the ceremony. We have checked our luggage (again!), maneuvered through security (again!), and wait at the gate (uh…you know the adverb!). Despite P.O.D.’s nagging head cold, we are in good spirits.

At 11:50 p.m. (see my previous comment regarding airline departure times and how they are interpreted by BahamasAir in last Friday’s blog), we board our much bigger and much more safe-looking airplane and, once again, begin to fill out our necessary immigration forms. We settle into our seats on our flight bound for Nassau on BahamasAir. I pick up the promotional Bahamas in-flight magazine and it hits me:

In order to get to Green Turtle Cay, Abacos, Bahamas, we need to take ONE MORE flight from Nassau to Treasure Cay island, where, we have, yet, to take the ferry that will take us to Green Turtle Cay.

I am sick. P.O.D. has begun to calmly read his book, unaware of the fact that I am about to lose my (until this moment) even-temperedness. I study the map closer. It all begins to make sense, now.


In my geographical naïveté, I realize that the Bahamas is not just one small set of islands, but a rather large and complicated system of island chains. Carol and The Cap’n were very clear in their initial booking instructions, but all of this material that they had sent to me in May had been filed away at my home, a thousand miles from where this airplane – bound for NASSAU! – is sitting. Once our flight from Fort Lauderdale to Treasure Cay on Vintage Props and Jets, Inc., had been cancelled, we just didn’t realize that we needed to book a flight to Nassau…THEN to Treasure Cay. I sit and stare at the map. I feel like a prize-fighter that has just been dealt the K.O. punch.

Here is a map, similar to the one I saw in the in-flight magazine....I have marked our route from Ft. Lauderdale, FL, to Nassau and the route we have YET to take to get to Green Turtle Cay (circled) off the coast of the th Abaco island chain....




I turn to P.O.D. I begin to cry. I am certain the Bahaman woman, a kindly-looking grandmother wearing two baseball caps stacked one on top of the other (what is that all about??) and a beautiful dolphin ring (she boarded the plane with a gi-normous bag of electronics that she purchased at Target) must have thought I was completely nuts. In fact, looking back at the situation on the plane, she never made eye contact with me once. She huddled up next to the window, hugging herself….maybe she was worried that her seatmate was crazy. I assure you, she was.

I croak out to P.O.D. that we still have another flight that we need to take. He, of course, cannot hear me as the engines are firing up and my speech, through tears, is largely incoherent. He places his book in his lap. “What are you saying?”

I dramatically point to the map on the in-flight magazine. “WE STILL HAVE TO TAKE ANOTHER FLIGHT!!! WE ARE NEVER GOING TO MAKE IT TO THE WEDDING!” More tears.

“No,” reassures P.O.D. “We are going to Nassau. We will just catch the ferry over to Green Turtle Cay.”

“Uh, no,” I say ‘with a tone in my voice’. Again, over-dramatic pointing to the map. “We land here,” I say, now speaking to P.O.D. like Barney the Dinosaur would explain to little Suzy in the “Barney Travels To The Bahamas” episode (there really is no episode of Barney explaining the geography of the Bahamas island chain….but if there was, I seriously wish I would have watched it!). “We still have to get to here (I say, in a patronizing tone, whilst pointing to the island of Treasure Cay), then we have to catch a cab to HERE (now, big pokes of the map with my finger, stabbing the place on the map where the ferry dock sits), THEN catch the FERRY TO GREEN TURTLE CAY (I shake the map in front of his face – “And the award for frantic, frustrated, and immature traveler, goes to……1SweetMama!”)!!! AND WE ONLY HAVE TWO HOURS TO DO THAT!!!!”

P.O.D. just stares at me. He is a very seasoned world traveler. A million-miler. A Crown Room regular. How something like this could have gone so completely wrong is baffling to him.

We want to blame each other but neither one of us do. We know better. This trip has been a string of small “clusters” from the moment we awoke 24 hours ago until this very painful moment. P.O.D. tells me not to panic. We will find out what we can do when we get to the airport. He smiles at me, even though I know that deep down, he must want to strangle me for dragging him all across the globe without a real clue as to how to get to our final destination. He is a good man.

I stare at the map for the duration of the flight. And cry.

"Airplanes and Aggravations: The Bahamas Experience - Part II

So, here we are, three and a half hours before we were to settle into our seats on Vintage Props and Jets, Inc. on a flight to Treasure Cay in Abacos, Bahamas, and we find out....we have no flight.

By this time, it is almost 10 a.m. and we haven't had breakfast yet. We arm ourselves with the necessary paperwork, phones, and credit cards and head downstairs to the hotel restaurant for breakfast. P.O.D. decides it is necessary for us to chat with The Cap'n (refer to Tuesday’s blog entry when The Cap’n and Carol are introduced) to get an airline recommendation: BahamasAir. A couple of phone calls are made and it is determined that we have booked passage to the Bahamas, leaving at 5:30 p.m. Because they are purchased “last-minute”, we pay a premium. No matter – we have overcome this obstacle and will only lose a few hours in Green Turtle Cay.

It is now about 10:30 and we are informed that the buffet at the restaurant is now closed. Reluctantly, the wait staff offers us menus, from which they will cook us some breakfast. P.O.D. orders green tea. After some searching and some time, the wait staff announces that they have no green tea - in fact....there seems to be no tea bags on the premises. Slightly irritated, P.O.D. simply orders hot water.

Now, note that due to the state of affairs at this time, the fact that there is no tea, P.O.D. is not feeling well, and I am emotional over all of it, breakfast is very quiet. Aside from my frantic phone calls to my credit card company, who cannot find a purchase to Vintage Props and Jets (when I know I paid for them on my card!), P.O.D. and I are not in the mood for chatting.

After a mediocre breakfast, it is decided that P.O.D. will go back to bed while I venture out to find some good cold medicine. I head downstairs, pay for three extra hours on our room for a late check out, hail a cab ("Robert" from Yugoslavia, now a U.S. citizen and a Democrat who thinks America is no longer the favored nation - it is China. He has voted already. He tells me his views on global politics as he tears out the puzzle page from the Miami Herald, folds it up, and places it in his car visor for safekeeping).

I negotiate a shrewd deal to have Robert provide me with round trip transportation to and from the local drugstore and wait for me for ONLY 2 minutes while I run in to purchase cough drops and cold medicine. We settle on $23 for the ride and the tip.....and the political advice.

Back at the hotel, I am able to medicate my groggy paramour, finally locate and settle my charge dispute to the failed airline and even "Google" the Press Release (in case I need the evidence) which details the company's closing and the fact that they laid off 40 employees (this was included in Tuesday's blog entry for your reading enjoyment).

A few hours later, P.O.D. and I head off to the airport and await our 5:30 p.m. flight. Everything is running fairly smoothly and our spirits are lifted. We were able to make arrangements with The Cap'n to have someone meet us at the ferry dock at 6:45 (because the last ferry from Treasure Cay sails at 5:30) to take us over to the island for those Rum Runners at the "Welcome Reception" which begins at 6 p.m. Now, all we have to do is get there.

If it were that simple.

At 6:00 p.m. (because Bahamans, I discovered, observe a posted departure time for an airplane as only a suggestion), we are finally directed to our airplane - a tiny and tired vessel who creates a bit of concern among its passengers as we climb the stairs to board it. We begin filling out the necessary paperwork (immigration papers which ask the specific reason why you are visiting the islands, where you are staying, and when you plan to remove your sorry self from the island) and, just as we are beginning to gain back our confidence that this trip may actually happen, the beautiful Bahaman airline attendant informs the passengers that the airplane is experiencing mechanical issues (really?? how unexpected!) and we will all be deplaned while the problem is being fixed.

P.O.D. and I exchange glances and head back to the terminal. We call the Cap'n and tell him to inform his contact that we will be late and we will call when we know an approximate arrival time. Carol tells us how sorry she is and insists that, if it becomes necessary, to pull the plug on our travels. They will miss us but they certainly understand. We assure her that we are going to be there. Then we wait.

And wait.

7:45 p.m. and we have heard nothing. The plane still sits in its parking place and there seems to be no real activity going on around it. We are told by the gate attendant that, while they apologize for the delay, we will be kept informed and, if necessary, most everyone can be rebooked onto the 8:40 p.m. flight. P.O.D. and I decide that we really don't want to have to cross an ocean from Treasure Cay to Green Turtle Cay at 10 o’clock at night so we opt to have our luggage pulled from the ailing plane and rebook out on the Thursday 11:30 a.m. flight.

Thursday is the day of Carol and The Cap'n's wedding. Timing will be tight but the wedding is at 3 p.m. and, if all goes well (um...like it has been going up to this point?), we should make it to Green Turtle Cay with about an hour to spare. Time for one Rum Runner.

Another night in Ft. Lauderdale. Of course, finding a hotel room proves a bit of a challenge, but we are able to secure a room at the Holiday Inn. By this time, we are frazzled and just want to relax with a good dinner at the hotel restaurant, a cocktail, and a good night’s sleep.

The hotel room is dingy, the thermostat is broken and the room temperature holds at a frigid 65 degrees, warming occasionally to a balmy 66 degrees. The hotel restaurant is out of our first menu choices and the bar just ran out of Maker’s Mark bourbon (see Tuesday’s blog entry).

That’s okay. We settle for our second food and beverage choices at the restaurant, pile on an extra blanket in the room and, with the assistance of Nyquil, P.O.D. is able to get a decent night’s sleep.

Do our weary travelers reach their destination in time for the wedding festivities? Will 1SweetMama ever sip a Rum Runner on a Bahaman Beach? Will P.O.D., despite his reassuring 1SweetMama that “Things could be worse,” finally realize that they just might?

Tune in on Tuesday for the next exciting installment of “The Bahamas Experience”!

Trust Your Gut - The Bahamas Experience - Part I

For a long time, I have heard people say, "Trust your gut". As I get older and find this statement to be more and more true, I have finally reached that singular moment in my life where I firmly and unequivocally believe that your gut is, in fact, a fortune teller. Listen to it. Never was there an experience that put this more into perspective than my trip last week to the Bahamas. You will be reading about this incredible experience as I capture every painful detail in a multi-part blog series. I am hoping that the recounting of this trip will be an entertaining and informational account for my readers while also serving as therapy for my soul.

Today is Tuesday and I returned from my trip at 1 a.m. on Monday. This was a trip I have been looking forward to since, roughly, April, when my good friends, Carol and The Cap’n (that is a nickname we gave him because his life, besides Carol, is boats) announced they were getting married and would celebrate their nuptials in Green Turtle Cay, Abacos, Bahamas. This would be my first trip to the Bahamas, as well as the first trip for my friend, Mr. P.O.D. (You know him from previous blogs. If not, please refer to the post from 9/2/08). While POD does not, himself, favor beaches and intense tropical sun, the thought of a romantic getaway with a small group of good friends sounded intriguing.

So the planning begins.

Toward the end of June, we booked passage from our respective homes (I, in Iowa; he, in northern Kentucky), meeting up in Atlanta, where we would catch the Delta flight to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, arriving a little after midnight. We would land at a hotel there and hold up for the night. Sleep in. Get a good brunch and head to our 1 p.m. flight with Vintage Props and Jets, Inc. out of the Ft. Lauderdale airport bound for the island of Treasure Cay in the Bahamas, where we would hop the ferry to Green Turtle Cay and be sipping Rum Runners by 5 p.m., in time for Carol and the Cap’n’s Welcome Reception, which began at 6 p.m.

Easy peezey. Sounds great. But it was my gut, who, weeks before our departure date, began to put the brakes on my enthusiasm for this tropical getaway. I was beginning to have second thoughts about this trip. I was experiencing an inner conflict on celebrating with my great friends in a beautiful and remote island paradise while considering the needs of my travel companion – making certain he would be happy, given his feelings about boats, beaches, sun, and drinking during the daytime. Now, he was coming down with some kind of “bug”….throw in the total cost of this “little” excursion and you have a formula for mixed emotions.

Everything began to crumble on Tuesday night around 9 p.m. while I was giving myself a pedicure, speaking with my friend, Emma, on the phone. My gut was trying to tell me something.

I confessed to Emma that I just did not have a good feeling about this trip and, with each passing day, I had grown more and more anxious. Having just received news that P.O.D. was coming down with a nasty head cold, I was worried that this might dampen our fun. "Well, here is the deal," said Emma, a holistic life coach, artist, and yogis, "It is too late to cancel. It is going to be fun. You just need to relax and let it be." She was so connected with the Universe and her words were encouraging. “Besides,” she said, “you will come back with a great tan!”

She was right. It was silly for me to worry. P.O.D. reassured me that he was thrilled to be with Carol and The Cap’n and he would be able to settle in to a shady spot on the beach with a good book and he was just excited to be a part of the festivities and to be on vacation – with me.

I was able to get out of work cleanly on Tuesday afternoon. Tied up a few loose ends on the cell phone on my way to the airport. Turned up classic rock tunes on my radio and got into vacation mode. I was on my way to the Bahamas, baby!

My travels went smoothly. After landing in Atlanta, I checked in with the kids while I waited for P.O.D.’s plane to land. Once on the ground, he immediately set off to find a parodies shop in the airport for some Kleenex and cold medicine. Thirty minutes later, we clinked our cocktail glasses together at a little airport bar and toasted the beginning of a long-awaited and much anticipated adventure. I should have taken it as a sign that they had no Maker’s Mark bourbon (our favorite) at the bar. There was one bottle but we were told by the bartender that it was “for show” only.

Soon we boarded our plane to Ft. Lauderdale and landed, without a hitch, at the airport where we caught a shuttle to our hotel. While checking in, I mentioned to the desk clerk that we would like to find out at which terminal Vintage Props and Jets, Inc. was located. This way, in the morning, we could easily navigate to our final airline.

Nobody at the front desk could give us any information on the existence of Vintage Props and Jets.

Curious.

“No problem,” I said to the desk clerk. “I have their phone number and a confirmation number for our flight tomorrow. I will just give them a call in the morning.”

We settled into bed. Awoke around 8 a.m. P.O.D’s cold had blossomed overnight and he was feeling a little rough. We showered and planned to go have breakfast before heading out. Our flight was at 1 p.m. This would still give us time to hit a drugstore to get more intense cold medicine and cough drops. Meanwhile, I called the number for Vintage Props and Jets, Inc. The number was no longer in service.

Even more curious.

After consulting the phone book, information, and calling the number for the airline (that was printed on our e-tickets) fifty times, P.O.D. finally made a call to the Ft. Lauderdale/Hollywood Florida Airport. The news was a big ol' blow to my gut, whose angst I had nearly calmed by this time: “That airline is out of business.”

Read the Press Release here.

(To be continued - Come back and visit my blog on Friday, November 7)

Does Jimmy Buffet Eat Blue Bunny Ice Cream?

It pains me to say this but today, my blog comes to you while I am in Green Turtle Cay in Abacos, Bahamas. Please don’t miss me too much while I am gone. But this little “vacay” got me to thinking…..do you suppose Jimmy Buffet eats ice cream?

I would have to think that a man who commits himself to having fun and enjoying life would be first in line at the ice cream counter. In addition, he is also a man who appreciates things that are frozen (i.e.: Margaritas – the man lives in Margaritaville, for goodness sake!!), so I figure that he must have had a little ice cream along the way. Whether its fins to the left or fins to the right, you know he had a couple of scoops of cool and creamy ice cream after he woofed down his cheeseburger! I can’t think of anything more “paradise-like” than that!

If you visit his Margaritaville website, there is an FAQ page that devotes itself to some of the basic platforms of the Parrothead King…..the “perfect” Margarita recipe, who invented the Margarita….and who invented the blender (a really interesting story…go check it out!).

Again…..gets me thinking…..okay, so maybe this self proclaimed “old hippie” might prefer his ice cream blended, as well?? In fact, I would think that Jimmy not only eats ice cream, but I will bet he puts it in a blender, adds a little bananas, coconut, mangos, and peanut butter (c’mon…you gotta have a little protein!!) and makes himself one tasty breakfast smoothie! What the heck – toss in a little rum, too. You’ll be napping in your hammock by noon! Talk about paradise!!

As a celebratory send-off for my little vacation, I tried my new recipe (both with and without rum) and I am here to tell ya….it is “Buffet-acular!” Here is my recipe:

1Sweet Mama’s Guilt-Free Buffet-acular Breakfast/Anytime Smoothie
2 large scoops of Blue Bunny(R) No Sugar Added Reduced Fat Banana Split Ice Cream
½ banana, chopped into pieces
¼ cup mango
½ cup kiwi fruit
3 Tbsp coconut
3 Tbsp orange or grapefruit juice (I even think pomegranate juice would be good!)
2 Tbp peanut butter
1 shot of rum (optional – but it actually tastes better this way!)

In a blender, combine all ingredients. Blend together on medium setting for 10 seconds. It may also work better if you “pulse” the blender.

Enjoy your guilt free – protein packed smoothie! See you stateside next week….until then…..pass that jigger of salt!

Meet Moolinda

Since we are on the subject of my town: Le Mars, Iowa (read my last blog entry), I really cannot overlook one of my other (and less offensive!) favorite attractions in this community. Le Mars, being “The Ice Cream Capital of the World(R)” would, OF COURSE, be the location of a museum and Visitor Center devoted to the history of ice cream and the history of Wells’ Dairy, Inc., who make Blue Bunny(R) ice cream and novelties. You may not know this, but Wells’ Dairy was founded in Le Mars in 1913 by a man named Fred H. Wells, Jr. when he purchased a horse, a wagon, some cans and jars, and a small milk route from a local dairy farmer in the area – all for the grand total sum of $250.

95 years later, Blue Bunny products can be found in all 50 states…which certainly makes it nice when this Ice Cream Princess travels! Today, more ice cream is made here in Le Mars, Iowa, by Wells’ Dairy in one location (Le Mars, Iowa) than any other company does in any other single location on the planet….over 100,000,000 gallons of ice cream each year!

The road a small town dairy travels in order to become one of the largest family-owned dairy processors in the U.S. is dotted with unique milestones, roadblocks, hills, valleys, superhighways and, in one literal case, a memorable billboard that graced a thoroughfare of Le Mars in the 1950’s.

This billboard drew considerable interest from community residents and passers-by as it promoted Wells’ Dairy in a 3-dimensional way. The focus? A larger-than-life fiberglass Jersey cow head promoting the goodness of Wells’ Dairy. The billboard drew even more attention when it fell victim to a college prank…..several students from the town university kidnapped the beloved Jersey cow head and held her captive for several days. She was later release, unharmed. In time, the billboard was removed, never to be seen again.

Until the late Fall of 2004. In an attempt to clean out some of Wells’ Dairy’s old storage buildings, a crew of employees uncovered the old and battered cow head, marred by years of neglect. It was offered to the Ice Cream Capital of the World Visitor Center Museum to display among its collection of Wells’ Dairy memorabilia. The museum enthusiastically accepted and the Jersey cow underwent an “Extreme Moooo-keover”.

Months later, the cow head, restored beyond her original beauty was erected within the halls of the “Ice Cream Capital of the World Visitor Center” Museum and a contest was held in order to find her a suitable name. Thousands of entries from all over the country were considered but the name “Moolinda” was the one chosen from an ice cream fan in Texas.

If you pass anywhere near Le Mars, Iowa, you really must stop in and say hello. You really might find her “udderly” delightful.

By the way...here is a picture of the famous billboard (and Moolinda in her prime!) in its "hey-day" - circa 1960's):