State Quarters ... for Territories?

In 1999, the US Mint began producing commemorative quarters for states. Presently, the program is set to end next year. This week, the U.S. House of Representatives passed HR 392 which, if passed by the Senate, would extend the program to 2009. In 2009, six more quarters would issue to commemorate the US Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Mariana Islands, America Samoa, and Washington DC. Our delegate to the house is a cosponsor of the bill (who knew delegates could do such things when they can't even vote on the bills?). Apparently, the House has passed this bill quite easily before, so it's not really news. The exciting part is that people are hoping that with a Democratic Senate, it might actually get passed. So please call your state Senators and encourage them to vote in favor of the quarter legislation!

A Week in the States

We just got back from a week's vacation in the states. We went to Arizona for my grandma's 90th birthday, and Dave hopped over to California for a couple days to see his parents. Neither of us are big on shopping, but when we go to the states, shopping is a vital part of our trip. We buy clothes, because it's hard to find stuff we like here. We buy electronics since most places online won't ship them here (they consider us outside the US). We bring back lots of food too, either because we can't find certain items here, or because they cost way too much here. This trip we brought back almond butter ($5 at trader joes in AZ, $19 at the health food store on St Thomas), soynut butter (unavailable here), pumpkin butter (unavailable here), and a big bag of almonds (overpriced and sometimes unavailable here). We also brought back salad dressing, some which isn't available here, and some which is over twice as much here. What's more exciting than packing all of this in the checked baggage to bring home? Realizing it arrived in one piece after three flights! yay!

It's amazing driving on the flat, straight, wide roads in Phoenix. It seems so easy to get around compared to on St. Thomas. We relish trips to the grocery store in the states too. The produce section is the best - amazing variety and good quality produce (you should all appreciate it!!!). But even the aisles with cereal, granola bars, dried fruits, and meats are fantastic too. We've learned to go to the store the morning after we arrive, before anyone else wakes up, so we can take our time and enjoy it by ourselves just like kids in an amusement park, without boring anyone else.

Also while we were in Arizona, I ran my first half-marathon. The race organizers had predicted average weather: 45 as a low, 65 as a high. In reality, that Sunday had the coldest morning in Phoenix since 1990, the low was 28 and the high was 45! I nearly froze. We left St. Thomas with highs of 86 and lows of 75, so this was a huge difference for us. Luckily we'd left some warm clothes at our parents' houses and stayed warm by spending most of our time inside. The race itself was fun even though it was cold. Dave took photos of icicles in a parking garage and watched race volunteers rake the roads near the finish to remove ice. It took my friend Debbie and me 3 hours and 13 minutes. Maybe we'd have been warmer if we ran faster? Official race photos of us during the race are online. I think I came in 1900th place . . . in my age group!! The biggest race here is coming up next month - 8 Tuff Miles, an 8.3 mile footrace across St. John. There are about 700 participants. And it sure isn't flat like the Phoenix race was.

Celebrities on Island

Living on a small island with just 50,000 people can sometimes get a little ... routine, so it's very exciting when a famous person arrives on island. I saw a blurb in the paper two weeks ago that filming for a movie was beginning at Lindquist Beach (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button). Immediately, I searched imdb.com for that movie and scanned the list of credits for names I recognized. I found one! Brad Pitt.

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie (I call them the "Polies") are apparently staying on St. John right now. No idea if it's just for the filming of the movie, or if it's unrelated. (They didn't contact me.) But I can still reach and make some six degrees of separation connections.... my friend's dad runs a car rental company on St. John, and the other car rental company on St John rented a car to the Polies, BUT they had to get an extra car seat from my friend's dad. Too much of a reach? Well, Dave's kayak company, VI EcoTours does kayak tours on St. John out of Caneel Bay Resort. Over the weekend, Caneel decided that when the Polies wanted to rent a kayak, they should give them an EcoTour kayak instead of the Caneel kayaks, because the EcoTour kayaks are better. So Dave's coworkers had to do their kayak tour on less desireable kayaks. These little tidbits provided me with much entertainment over the last week or two. It's a small island, what can I say? We're bound to run into them sooner or later....

Cruise Recap - St. Lucia

Okay it's finally time for the cruise posts to begin! We had planned to fly to Puerto Rico on a Saturday for the first day of the cruise. But due to my appendicitis, we were in the hospital that day instead. Dave made arrangements so we could still catch 4 of the 7 nights on the cruise. We hopped a Liat flight to St Lucia on Monday, where the ship arrived on Tuesday. We could have flown straight to Barbados, where the ship was on Monday, but given Liat's reputation for being late, we weren't willing to risk it. Flying on Liat is always interesting and it reminds us how we live on one of the island's where it's relatively easy to buy things (though generally we don't feel this way). For instance, we've seen passengers checking huge bags of toilet paper and paper towels. St Lucia is only about 400 miles from St Thomas, but Liat flights involve a lot of island hopping, so we first landed on St Kitts, then Antigua, and then St Lucia. The longest flight was 40 minutes. (We've been in the Antigua airport a few times now. It's most enjoyable when they have running water.) The St Lucia Pitons are pictured to the right here - the twin peaks are on the south side of the island and are a popular beautiful tourist site.

On St Lucia, they drive on the left side of the road, but with the driver's seat on the right - just like in Dominica (oops - we haven't blogged about that yet have we?). We took a taxi to this great hotel Dave found (Caribbean residents get great deals on some really nice hotels!). We wandered around a little at my very meager pace and Dave took pictures of me trying (unsuccessfully) not to laugh at the decapitated palm trees (it hurt to laugh 3 days post-op). We tasted the local beer - Piton Beer . For lunch we also had chicken roti, but we both decided roti is better on St. Thomas. We went to the beach near the hotel too. We heard someone say it was the best beach on St. Lucia. Maybe we're spoiled, but we just thought it was so-so.





After we got on the ship the next morning (pictured above), we took an uninspiring taxi tour of the island. There was no narration or explanation to the places at which we stopped, and the driver only said things like "hurry up". Supposedly a 3 hour tour, the taxi was so slow up and around the hills of St Lucia that it was closer to 6 hours and there was great potential for the ship to leave without us. We did get to see a "drive-in volcano" steaming (pictured to left), a few overlooks, and the Pitons. We also tasted a banana fresh from a banana tree along the road, and we ate lunch at a cacao plantation (the bean used to make chocolate - pictured here). St Lucia was really beautiful - very lush and green. The people we met seemed very friendly (minus the taxi driver). We would both like to go back when we are both feeling well, so we can take advantage of all the beautiful hiking and swimming opportunites and enjoy the rainforests. The picture below is of one of the towns we drove through. More pictures are on our shutterfly account.