The "Deja Vu!" Story

This is the exact same location that is shown on the TV show
"Wheel of Fortune" featuring Vanna White and Pat Sajak.

It was an ordinary day.  Just turned on TV and there sat Vanna and Pat under a palm tree at the Sandals Resort at Grande Ocho Rios, Jamaica sipping a concoction from a coconut.  This is Sandals/Beaches week on the show and they have prize packages available on the "Wheel Of Fortune" that will send you to one of their resorts in the Caribbean.  Carol said to me, "That's the beach and maybe the same tree that we sat under when we were in Jamaica.  It was back in February of 2008 that Carol and I, along with our traveling friends Jerry and Just Sue, traveled to Jamaica on vacation.  We stayed at the Grande Ocho Rios waterside resort.  Across the main street was the second half of the resort.  

The bride and groom as we watched their wedding, one
of many that we saw during our vacation in Jamaica.

We had such a good time that year enjoying the all-inclusive resort as well  making a visit to another Sandals resort on the island for a day.  Side trips to Dunn's River to walk up the waterfall, a trip to a pottery factory and a rafting trip down the Martha Brae River were all fun and enjoyable.  But we did manage to spend many hours on the beach at Ocho Rios.  One afternoon we parked ourselves under the coconut palms to enjoy the beach and ocean for the day.  

I shot this photo from under these coconut palm trees.
One of the coconuts above fell and hit me in the head.

I even shot a photo looking directly overhead at the coconuts hanging from the tree.  At one point during the afternoon a band began to play and this young girl dressed in a wedding dress walked right next to us as she headed toward the water for what was her wedding.  The entire beach had a chance to share in the wedding.  After a dip in the ocean, we grabbed our paperbacks and settled down for an afternoon of reading.  Wasn't more than fifteen minutes later that I was hit, rather hard as I remember, by a coconut from the tree above me.  The same tree that Vanna and Pat were sitting under on the show tonight.  Things such as this put a permanent impression in, I mean on, your brain.  And, what are the chances that something such as two TV hosts sitting under the same tree that I sat under almost eight years ago would happen.  I'll bet pretty slim.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.

One of my favorite photos I took during my time in Jamaica.