St. Thomas, Part 1...

Well, our first big vacation of this year was a trip we planned for the U.S. Virgin Island of St. Thomas.  We have never been to an island together for a vacation, so this seemed like the easiest one to start with...same language, money, and travel rules.

After sitting on the runway at the Dayton Airport, waiting for the plane to be de-iced, we finally took off and made our way to Atlanta and then to St. Thomas.  We were on a real plane for this last leg -- not a wind-up jobbie.  Upon landing, however, the heat smacked us in the face as we walked down the ramp.  Reminded me of some of the places I "visited" on Uncle Sam's dime.

But once we got to the hotel, it was all great from there.  The Marriott was really very nice and the whole layout was just about what we were promised by the travel agent...lots of people, lots of hustle and bustle, room haggles with the front desk, and some good old fashioned "hurry up and wait."  But all of that got smoothed out in about an hour and it was smooth sailing from there. They must have had plenty of experience with check-in lines in the past as they have a guy who comes up and offers you a rum cooler or a lemonade while you are standing there.  Oh well, just a minor inconvenience.

Once we got into the room and got our bags unpacked, we headed out to explore.  First stop was the beach.

Hard to go wrong with something like this.  What a beautiful place.  All that stuff of getting here is all in the past now.

We spent a lot of time out here on the sand.  And in some of the other entries, you will read about other adventures we had.  But we also got some history on this trip when we went over to St. Johns Island and saw some of the remains of the old rum facilities.  Shown here is one of the remaining cooking facilities on this plantation.  There was also a cooking house, and the remains of some store houses and other out buildings.

We did get one of the scattered showers that were forecasted for each day.  It rains for about 20 min. and then clears off and goes back to the tropical weather you would expect.

There were so many outstanding sights and activities that it is hard to narrow it down  to individual blog entries.  I will put a slide show of some of the pictures in one of the side bars on the right.  That way you can have the option of looking at some of these pictures without being held captive to "home movies of our vacation."

I would like to leave you with a couple of shots, however, of the area and things that stuck with me as being the essence of this trip.

So this might give you a small taste of what this trip was like and what you might read in the following entries.  Enjoy.

My heart doctor said that I need a six month vacation at least 2x per year.

Hooah