I don’t know how photographer Joel Collins managed to capture a shot of all these empty chairs in front of the Divi Aruba Phoenix Beach Resort on Aruba last month. Since the hotel installed them, all painted pretty in Caribbean colors and lined up side-by-side facing the dreamy Caribbean Sea, the site has been a very popular spot for Divi guests — any time of day, morning and night. No matter the time, the chairs are always taken!

The chairs are from way up north – New York’s Adirondack Mountains. Designed in 1903, and originally called the Westport Plank Chair after the city of its birth, the chair is now known universally – truly the world over – as the Adirondack Chair. There are a more than a few good reasons why this design has endured and is inextricably linked with vacation time, no matter the terrain – mountain or seaside: it’s comfortable and durable; and probably of equal importance to many, it has an armrest wide and sturdy enough upon which to sit a drink. The story goes that is precisely what Thomas Lee, the designer, intended.

If you’d like to know a little more about the history of the Adirondack chair (There’s even a little business intrigue in this little tale.), visit the Orvis site. You can even buy a little of the Divi beachfront for back home!

I think this chair on the beach in front of Divi Phoenix Beach is a perfect spot for ____________. Well, you fill in the blank.

And, I wonder why there are nine Adirondack chairs in front of the Divi Phoenix Beach in Aruba. Shouldn’t there be ten, one for each of the Divi resorts across the Caribbean? I know what I would be thinking about if I were in one of those chairs: Which Divi to enjoy next?!