St Thomas 2020
Day 12: Thursday, July 30
Our last full day in St Thomas
As far as we could tell, most of the Tropical Storm had passed us by this morning. There were still some showers going on with intermittent sun here and there, but it would be a gloomy day off and on.
I was up at the crack of dawn again and watching the sun rise over the clouds. Every morning I would have friends (other than Mr Eerka) and this time they brought family members.
By 6:30am, it looked as if the sun just might bring a nicer day than what we had yesterday. Now had we came here on our own, I would have immediately went inside and started packing for a beach day to jam in before we left this beautiful island the following day. However, I knew that Kendra and family were "beached out" (is there really such a thing???) and it just probably wasn't going to happen today.
There was a guy that showed up on the beach and started doing some yoga/meditation. He would hold his position for a VERY long time without moving. Then assume another position. He was out there standing by the water for hours. Maybe I should have joined him to clear my mind and prepare myself for our last day of packing while I uncontrollably sobbed because I never wanted to leave.
The fam was up by 8 and it was time for some breakfast. I was still trying to figure out how we were going to eat up all of this food we still had here, but I wanted to be able to do it without gaining the extra 10 pounds!. We were just getting a hodge-podge mixture of whatever I could come up with.
After breakfast, Sakari and Kam decided to go down and give the iguana's some apples we had left that we weren't going to be able to eat before leaving. It didn't take long for them all to come running.
Now remember, Sakari is the animal whisperer. This time I think she didn't whisper and the voices in her head ended up yelling, which set off an event she wasn't quite prepared for.
This iguana was more than aggressive...something Sakari has never encountered. She has fed many iguana's over the years and they have all been quite nice...until now. This particular iguana not only bit her trying to grab the food, but kept running after her when she tried to feed others. She came back a bloody mess. We cleaned her up and she was good to go.
After getting in touch with Kendra, she decided that today would be a beach day!!!! No wait, that was me and she said no. :( Instead, we opted for a shopping day. We needed to get some souvenirs, our fridge magnets, maybe a shot glass (she collects) and anything else that might suit our fancy.
Of course Billy and B didn't want to go so it would be just us and her and Kam that headed out on this adventure.
We figured it would be best to go into town around Havensight and off we went. The sun had went away and it was raining. Ugh. I maneuvered the hilly roads from the left side of the road and wondered would come back home and forget to drive on the right side again? I mean I have gotten pretty use to this over the last few weeks.
The hubby should have discovered this coffee shop sooner. I wonder if they live up to their name?
We got to the cruise ship area...I have to say it's so weird being here without the cruise ships coming in and everything closed up with no hustle and bustle of people coming and going here.
We drove and drove and drove and we were going in circles and back tracking and NOTHING WAS OPEN! No little trinket shops, no tee shirt stores, No I St Thomas shirts or coffee cups. No handmade cheesy hand painted shells or palm trees woven into baskets. Notta thing! Notta, zilch, zero, zippo stores open. It was crazy.
We kept circling around to see if we could find something else. I'm pretty sure I used more gas this day than I did the entire week going places.
We did know there was a Kmart around in the area. So, we were going to try to find that. We had passed the sign several times.
Now let me tell you something about these streets....streets back home, if you miss a turn or went the wrong way, you can usually turn down and street and circle back around. There were several times we decided to do this and we would end up on a street that had no intentions on letting you just simply either turn around, pull off on the side of the road and turn around, or circle you back around.
We were down by the dock and wanted to turn around, took a wrong turn, and ended up going up a huge hill with no way to turn around in site. When I finally seen a dirt area off to the side, I pulled off the road. Kerplunk we went. It was a bit of a drop off on the side and onto the dirt. Hmmm, ok, well, now I have to get myself turned around and back up on the road in this small little area. That would prove to everyone that my skills are not what I thought they were. I was battling trying to get our non-4x4 up onto the road and dodging traffic coming off the top of the hill around the corner. I'm not cut out for this kinda driving these days. In my younger days yea, but now...no! We bottomed out, we rocked back and forth and finally we made it. Ok, time to MapsMe how to get into the parking lot at Kmart because I'm not taking any more wrong turns.
Back down the hill we went.
There's a bit of construction going on down the main street along the cruise ship area in Charlotte Amalie. Hopefully they can get it completed before the ships start to resume cruising again. It looked like a nice area.
We finally made it to Kmart and luckily they had a small section of gifts dedicated to St Thomas. I managed to get some items for my son back home watching our animals, and a item to add to my "vacation" room. They had some huge discounts on the items (just a few bucks) and I imagine they are trying to get rid of what's left from when the ships stopped coming?
Now the neat thing about this was we discovered that Kmart was actually attached to a mall. We went out into the mall and had a look around, but most things were closing up (and it was only 2pm). How weird. We spent some time in one of the stores with tons of (what I call) kids jewelry. Sakari picked out some necklaces, earrings, and some new hand "socks". She's really into these now...I guess it's a new fashion? Her earrings consisted of a pair of PINEAPPLES, some weird psychedelic colored triangles, rainbow hearts, and hot dogs. HOT DOGS!!! Let that one sink in. But we really couldn't pass up the deal they were having "only today"...Buy 2 get one free! Free did they say? Well sure thing then. Or maybe it was 3 and get half a pair free. Who knows! We just heard the word free. Go pick out some "free" items Sakari! She's a little picky beast and just couldn't figure things out so I told Kam to go get her some "free" items on mamaw and off she went. This awesome deal with all these free items would set me back at least $60. Trickery I tell ya! But we walked away with some happy kids.
After shopping, Kendra wanted to stop and eat (they didn't eat breakfast). So, there was a McDonalds in the parking lot and we decided to head over there. I mean you can't mess up the directions to get there can you? Have faith in me I tell ya...I messed it up...but only because their pull in area from the street went 2 different ways and I wasn't sure which one to do. No worries, we would circle around once more and finally make it.
I have to say, the employees here are not only S-L-O-W with people in line (we waited FOREVER) but they were quite rude as well.
I thought it was weird they were pouring our drinks out of a 2 liter bottle.
Ok, we were done shopping and eating. I was satisfied with the purchases I made and it would have to be good enough. It wasn't the experience I was wanting, but oh well. Mission accomplished.
We headed back to the condo to see what everyone else wanted to do. I bet you can guess....swim! The sun was out now, so why not?
We changed into our bathing suits and headed for the pool. I informed Kendra we had a visitor.
The kids had fun almost the rest of the day and only stopping for a snack and to drink here and there. Hey, that's what vacation is all about...the kids having fun and making memories so I guess I was good with just hanging out there the rest of the day.
Even though we had some sunny skies, don't think that we didn't still have the lingering rain off and on from the storms. But, we were already wet so it didn't really matter.
Sakari put her hand sock on me and told me I was now the cool mom.
Since Sakari and Brayden are only 3 months apart, they are very close. When they are not around each other, they talk on the phone and....they have this special "hand shake" they do every time they see each other. Of course, they would have to add on to it to compensate for being at the pool because it just had to involve going into the pool at the end.
So I decided to take one last walk around the area and take pictures.
Several turtle nest here right by the pool area in front of the "sea glass" beach.
I headed down the jetty one last time. The wind was blowing and the water was a little mad still. But I love to try to get pictures of the waves crashing onto the rocks.
Back to the pool area. I love how the pool is situated right against the ocean water. I'm not sure why they had the steps leading down onto the beach blocked off. But, you could always go around.
I took one last walk down to the sea glass beach to collect any last minute goodies I could find that the storm might have washed up. Kendra had said people were out there first thing in the morning gathering things. They probably had the best opportunity to find treasures. I was only able to find a few pieces of sea glass. The water was up pretty high and into the "big" rocks along the beach (which was about 4 feet away from the usual water line with the crushed rocks where you find the sea glass). But it was ok, I was happy with the collection I had found over the last 2 weeks.
The hubby and I decided to take a walk down the other side where the marina was. I hadn't been over that way and wanted to check it out.
I can tell you this is THE place to find all the crabs in the area. They were just everywhere. Darting between the rocks and running.
There were plenty of pelicans diving for fish in the area as well. Maybe from the boats returning after the storm and churning things up for them. However, we did notice that our parasailing boat had not returned yet.
There was some rock stacking going on here...I love to see what people create. Had Sakari been walking with us, I'm sure she would have stopped to do her own creation.
Can you spot the crab? This is some awesome camouflage going on in these rocks. I can see why they like it over here.
Kendra messaged me on Snapchat and ask what I was doing on a boat. LOL Sometimes these little bitmoji's are funny with what they do.
After we got back to the pool, it was time to head back to the condo, have dinner and finish our packing....as sad as it was, it had to be done.
Billy caught a picture of all of us coming back from the pool.
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Dinner tonight would consist of me using up the rest of our hamburger, spaghetti and bread. Then it was off to pack the rest of our things, weigh the luggage and make absolutely positively sure that we would NOT be over 40# for our Spirit Flight. You just never realize how much an extra 10# gives you (with Southwest) until you're struggling to fit it all in for 10# less. Ugh!
UP NEXT: Leaving stuff behind, going insane, missing the plane????
