The Good Life: Girlfriends, Tae Bo and Rum Punches in the Virgin Islands

Sweating through a session of tae bo is a breeze - a cool ocean breeze - when you're doing it with a girlfriend, in the Virgin Islands and sit down for a rum punch after.

Bring it on Billy Blanks! Bring it on!

One of the best vacations I ever had was with my girlfriend to the isles of St. Thomas, specifically St. Thomas and St. John.

The fun started on the plane - uninterrupted girl chatter for hours on end. No cell phones, work worries or significant others to intercede. Ahhh, girl talk - the foundation of every good girlfriend relationship.

Dry-mouthed from the chatter-filled plane ride, we board the ferry to the island of St. Thomas. A salt-tinged breeze skips through the air, lifting our spirits even higher - we're almost there!

Landing on the beautiful island of St. Thomas, which grows flowers as big as your head, we spy a bar close to the landing. Do we worry about our bags, checking into our rented digs or getting something to eat? No, of course not!

The open-air bar calls us - and we heed it, ordering perfectly prepared rum punches to soothe our parched gills - which are dry from yakking, laughing and in general catching up.

Parchness taken care of, we hail a taxi, which takes us to the house we've rented for the week. It's a huge villa situated in the side of a mountain. One bedroom sports and outside shower which overlooks the ocean.

As I lazily make my way to the shower each morning, I think of how useless it is for man to try to re-create the colors of nature. I'm from Florida, and I've never seen an ocean blue like this.

At home, I rush to shower. In the Virgin Islands, it's a lazy "spa treatment" I look forward to - and take advantage of at least twice a day.

The Tae Bo Championships!

As my girlfriend and I lazily pass the days away, sunning ourselves on the beautiful beaches, snorkeling, grilling and having our fill of the island's rum punches, we also get down to work - on our bodies that is.

She half-heartedly packed some Billy Blanks tae bo tapes. We were never really supposed to do them. But, something about the island inspires you to "take care of yourself."

So, in a momentary fit of "We should do this!" we give Mr. Blanks a chance.