The Kids are Alright

IMG_0872, originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

So I owe a trip report, don't I?

May 6-7: Travel days. We left for Atlanta, caravaning with the family we were going with: Stacey and JK, and their two kids Sierra (9) and Andrew (11). Even though the kids are older, they get along great with Brenden. We arrived without incident at one of the Comfort Inns near the Hartsfield airport. Did you know you can get a hotel room AND parking for a week for about the same price as parking for a week? (about $80).

I was kicking myself about getting the later flight to St. Thomas because I found out about the Park-Sleep-Fly program after I bought our plane tickets. Our flight didn't leave until 11:50 so we took our time getting to the airport and killed 3 hours by lounging around at our gate. Fortunately the kids all had their DSIs so the whining was relatively minimum.

About 20 minutes out the captain told us we may have to divert to San Juan because the tarmac in St. Thomas was sporting a pot hole. We circled around for about 30 minutes but then the captain told us we get to land in St. Thomas (much applause). He then told us he will have to slam on the brakes because St. Thomas' short runway is now about 1000 feet shorter. He did, but we landed fine so he got more applause.

As it turned out the earlier flight from Atlanta did get diverted to San Juan and landed after us. Ha!

So we collected our luggage and got our jeeps from Dependable, the company we used last time. We drove to Red Hook, and waited for the car barge while watching a very ominous cloud shroud St. John. Our villa greeter, a nice guy named Demitrios, phoned us hoping we had 4-wheel drive cars because the rain was a torrent and some streets are flooded. Anyone who doesn't have 4-wheel drive on St. John is doing it wrong, rain or no rain.

Jon and Stacey talked about stopping at a store, so I spilled my little surprise: I had contacted a villa provisioner so we had lots of food (and beer and rum) waiting for us. After an exhausting day (we got to the villa at around 7 pm) the last thing I wanted to do is worry about food.




May 8 - 9: After the torrential rain we woke up to a beautiful St. John morning. I convinced everyone that our first stop should be Cinnamon Bay. We overdid it, of course - we spent 5 hours out there and I didn't wear a rash guard (I 'out grew' my old one). When I snorkeled around Cinnamon Cay, I burnt my back something fierce. That night I spent a lot of time drinking.




I have no freaking idea what we did on the 9th. That was Sunday. I think it was a villa gravity day. The kids spent a lot of time in the pool. We all ate lunch out and did some shopping later in the afternoon, and I snagged myself a new rash shirt (it's like a rash guard, but more like a tee shirt so those of us who have a little too much weight around their middle don't look like we've been stuffed into sausage casings).



I'll write more later but in the meantime here's a gratuitous chicken photo: