USVI Day 2

FYI - get used to the ridiculous turquoise water. That's just how it is. All the time. 

We saw St. Thomas in the daylight but this morning was the first time we really got to experience what St. John looks like - which is much different. Here we enjoy minimal population / development, just trees and water. 

So we woke up to this out the windows of our house:

Cruising through "town" past one of the marinas / mooring-bays.

I think this was taken at "Picture Point" - seems like it is appropriately named. We saw a max. elevation of roughly 1200-1300ft which seemed pretty decent to me considering how small the islands are. Lots of the roads are extremely steep.

A large portion of this island is a national park so we stopped in at the main NP office to check it out. It is next to a marina.

More really refreshing open-air architecture in a main wall of the park office.

Above the NP office was a trail which connected to a couple different beaches. We hiked out to Solomon beach which, fun fact, used to be the nude beach before the park service adopted new rules a few years back. 

Note: this "fern" did not curl up when touched. (Inside-joke warning - we were looking for this all week)

At Solomon beach, now wishing we had brought a change of swimming gear. The water looked great and it was on the warm side. The sun absolutely blazes down on you here.

After a hike back to the park office area, we stopped for a snack/lunch. There were a bunch of apparently wild chickens around who were happy to eat almost anything thrown to them.

Jeeps were everywhere. It was clearly the main rental vehicle in use. There were a few non-rentals that I saw (had body-color hard tops etc.) and a good chunk of the other vehicles were Grand Vitaras. 

We went to Trunk Bay for a first try at some snorkeling. Water quality here is great and there was a lot to see. I have some GoPro videos that I'll post up pretty soon. 

Trunk Bay itself is on the right side there. It is supposed to be one of the most used beaches as cruise-ship traffic homes in on it whenever they are nearby. I didn't think it was really busy at all, but we are still in the off-season yet. 

USVI day-1 (Traveling)

To the USVI! Picked up Nathan and Sarah at 4:00am, slightly bleary-eyed (I usually don't get up for work until 5:00). The airport was far less busy than expected and we were able to breeze through with plenty of time left to sit at the gate.

See what I meant earlier? This is over a week worth of clothes for me in a carry-on with room to spare. I even brought stuff for running as well as some long-sleeved shirts that I didn't wear. We did need a checked bag though for all the snorkeling gear as well as some food that we brought. 

All the people off to the right here were part of a wedding party heading to Sandals Jamaica. I couldn't help but wonder if they had only chosen the location because Michael makes a big deal about it on The Office tv-show. I also gathered that they had already started drinking a fair amount - hopefully that works out well?

Our first plane - a small connector heading to Charlotte, NC. There was a fair amount of caulking peeling off the seams. Nathan seems pleased.

Seems to have engine(s) installed well?

Time for a nap! (didn't happen:)

I don't have any pictures exiting the plane on St. Thomas, but that was truly an experience. Unloading (from a 767 keep in mind) was done out on the tarmac with portable stair-cases. Then everybody just wanders around toward the general direction of the airport, walking around other planes which are running - it was great! Then we make our way inside, where there are people handing out free rum shots while welcoming us to the island.

Here is the baggage claim. What you can't see is that this whole area is open-air. Behind me there is no wall - just a great view of outside. The check-in area for tickets was the same way. I was surprised how many buildings are made that way here, keeps everything nice and simple.

Waiting for Nathan to (hopefully) come back with the rental vehicle. The last time we saw him, he got into a gray minivan. While waiting here, we noticed how the traffic in general is very different. Almost every vehicle, even new ones, is side-swiped on one or both sides. The reason for this became apparent - they run three lanes of traffic in the same road space that we run two!

Rolling in the jeep, exploring side streets and back-lot neighborhoods. 

Here we are being loaded onto the car barge. I had no idea what to expect here. It worked really well - back on and drive off. There were several spotters directing everyone into the most efficient arrangement. 

Here we are "driving" in the Caribbean Sea, or so the Garmin thinks. Incredibly this unit understood the use of car barges and even had prompts like "load ferry".

After a bunch of driving and the car ferry, we've arrived on St. John. Finally time for some supper at one of many local places. Much more to come the next day after sleep.

Now to make a bed and catch about 12hrs of zzzs.

It begins!

Packing! Well, actually that began this past weekend but now only a strong day away from departure, we've got most of the ducks in a row. We will be headed to the USVI and I realized I've never packed for a trip to a location with zero temperature variation. All the clothing required for over a week can't even fill a carry-on size bag. Weird.

More to come as we travel (depending on wifi availability).

Thanksgiving

Thankfulness. Health? Opportunities? Special people in our lives? What about when they are all the same? Yes.

Lazy off-season?

Nope, just time for long gravel training rides. We had to bail off of this one due to time constraints, but it would be roughly a 25mile loop of surprising elevation gain if ridden completely. This day also included 15mph continuous wind for extra flavor.

Jingle Cross Rock!

I'll have to get back to this one later - running out of time before leaving for the next adventure! How to describe Jingle Cross? It was both entertaining and inspiring in a powerful way. I did not know we had an event this close-by that drew in entire fields of factory teams, including international pros. In the UCI races, the Cannondale team won all three days for men and Kona won all three days for women (with a British rider who's in the US for a while to round out the season after winning overall 2012 European CX championship!).