June 16...Turks & Caicos

Here I sit on the balcony of our second floor room in a lavendar painted building on the lush grounds of the Beaches Resort, Provo, Turks & Caicos. The sky, a color barely distinguishable from the color of the building, is swept here and there with filmy clouds, not nearly dense enough to filter the's sun's bright light, which casts shadows from every manner of tropical vegetation onto the thick emerald carpet of grass below me. The air is very warm, balmy, and smells sweetly of hydrangea.


From this vantage point it's not hard to understand why Turks & Caicos has become the destination du jour for so any Americans, particularly those of us hailing from places like Pittsburgh, which is reputed to have an average of only 59 sunny days per year over the past 50 years. We get tired of the cloud cover that seems to settle over us for days, or weeks, on end. We long for the sunshine. Maybe it's the Vitamin D, but whatever it is, the sun is making Turks & Caicos feel something like paradise.