St. Thomas, July 2015

The board meeting for Windhaven was in St. Thomas this year (U.S. Virgin Islands).  Wow!  We were very excited to go.  But getting there was a huge ordeal.  Remember, I thought we were going to be in Utah, so our tickets to St. Thomas were out of SLC.  It was too expensive to change last minute, so we ended up flying from Austin to SLC on a (very) early morning flight, spent the day in Utah, and then took a red-eye from SLC to NYC where we had a two hour layover, and then flew from NYC to St. Thomas where we waited another hour or so until Ben's flight came in.  It was many, many hours of travel on very, very little sleep.
But, it was worth it-- St. Thomas was totally interesting and we had a great time.  Some highlights:
1.  In St. Thomas, you drive on the left-hand side of the road.  This was completely freaky.  Even freakier because drivers there are terrible.  Like, really awful.  And the roads are tiny-- narrow and winding and full of blind curves.  Ben and I actually saw two different accidents within 10 minutes while we were driving back from the one and only Walmart on the island.
2.  There was a drought going on and many of the trees on the mountainsides were dying.  It was sad.  Definitely not the lush rainforest I was expecting.
3.  Snorkeling!  We went snorkeling several times, and it was definitely the best place I have ever snorkeled.  I wished very much that I had a waterproof camera.
4.  Jimmy's boat.  Jimmy has an 80 foot yacht that he brought down from Miami (well, the captain of his boat brought it down).  It is nice!  We went on a sunset cruise one night, and then went out to St. Johns a couple of times (where the best snorkeling was).
5.  One of the days, Ben was in meetings nearly the whole day and the boys went fishing (not on Jimmy's boat), and I stayed in the hotel room and planned much of our Europe trip.  I brought along a bunch of guide books and maps and spent many, many hours figuring out where we wanted to go, what our route should be, what activities we should do.  I had NO idea how complicated and time consuming it is to plan a trip like that!  We've always sort of traveled by the seat of our pants, but you really can't do that in Europe.  I was very proud of the itinerary I made.
6.  We went to church on Sunday-- a small branch in a little building at the top of a VERY steep hill.  It was cool to be there with mostly native St. Thomas residents.
7.  One afternoon/evening we took a drive across the entire island.  Some of the roads were so steep!  It made me very nervous.  But it was so pretty, and we found a place on the other side of the island from where our resort was and went back to it the next day to go hiking (Brigham running).
8.  IGUANAS!!  There were SO many of them.  Especially on the grounds of the resort where we were staying.  They are pretty fun to watch.


Joseph was my seat-mate on the way there.  He loves it when I take pictures of him.



Mosey was SO tired after traveling for so many hours (I think it was 17 hours total from the time we left SLC, and that wasn't counting the EARLY flight from Austin to SLC the morning before).  He fell asleep on this couch and didn't actually wake up again until the next morning.  He even slept through the pizza.  :-)



But Brigham didn't.  He sat out on the back balcony patio overlooking the resort and the ocean.


This was the view from that balcony.





Brigham on Jimmy's boat.


















On the beach on St. Johns.  This was where the snorkeling was so spectacular.
















Again, on Jimmy's boat.  Mosey got brave and jumped several times from the top of his boat into the ocean, once we were at anchor.