The Wedding of Karissa & Tyler

Really quick, because I need to get busy writing a couple articles that are due by the end of the month....

Karissa and Tyler got married this past weekend, a few days before Christmas when the whole family was home. Here are some pictures:

That's about all the time I have right now. One of these days, I'll post some pictures from our three Christmases!

Honeymoon Part 4: Day Trip to St. John

I'm going to attempt to finish this four-part series of our trip to the Virgin Islands, while waiting for dinner (a frozen pizza) to bake, then eating, showering, and whatever else needs to be done before I make tomorrow's lunch and go to bed. I had planned on finishing this long ago, but then I got supersick and haven't had the time or energy to do it. I feel better now, and have caught up on mostly everything I wanted to get done today--the only day of my "weekend", since I had to work yesterday--so here goes....

We spent our third day in the U.S. Virgin Islands visiting the island of St. John. It's a short ferry ride from St. Thomas, but a day trip for sure.

The streets of St. Thomas

We had hoped to take the ferry from the harbor in downtown Charlotte Amalie, but apparently it's hit and miss whether it's going to show up on a day when there are no cruise ships coming in. It wasn't showing up (we were watching for it during breakfast) so we were going to have to take a ferry from Red Hook, which meant we would have to take a taxi to the harbor, and it wouldn't leave till 11 a.m.

The island from the harbor

So I was taking my time getting ready to leave. Well, the ferry decided to show up later than usual, and we actually ran from the bed and breakfast so we could get there before it left.

We totally wouldn't have had to run, but we wanted to make it and take this one since it's a more scenic route to the other island. It only took five minutes to get there, and we made it in plenty of time.


It was definitely neat to actually be out on the ocean, although it was nerve-wracking to think that we were out in the middle of some VERY deep water; even though we were on a fairly large boat, we sat up top and could feel how big the waves were.

Scenic Tour

 
I felt that St. John was a nicer island than St. Thomas. It's a smaller island. Still, we had to take a taxi to any of the beaches. The taxi ride to Trunk Bay was beautiful.

St. John, near the harbor

We spent the majority of our trip snorkeling, swimming and sunning at Trunk Bay.

Dan loved snorkeling. He had gone in lakes before, but never in the ocean. There is soooo much more to look at in the coral reefs; we had heard that Trunk Bay had the best snorkeling, so that's where we decided to go. I had never even gone snorkeling in a lake, so I struggled to figure out the equipment. :s

It was interesting, but not something I was interested in doing for very long. I was far more inclined to relax in the shade on the beach, until the stinkin' birds decided to show up and poop on my towel. I'm not a fan of birds, especially the fat, ugly pigeon types.

Check out the waves! They were much stronger on St. John. If you didn't "go with the flow", you would literally get knocked over, whether you were trying to get in or out of the water.

All we had for lunch was a granola bar and smoothies, so we were starting to get hungry. Back in town, we ate dinner at Joe's Rum Hut.

The restaurant had a great view of the harbor. The sun was just setting, so I got a few good pictures as it started to get darker.

Dan wanted to get me a souvenir from our trip, so I picked out some jewelry at a gift shop on St. John. My sea turtles, made with real paua shells:

After dinner, we walked along the beach, and then back to catch a ferry to St. Thomas. This time we had to take a taxi to the bed and breakfast, and although we were the first ones on, the driver decided to drop everyone else off first.

We seriously went all over the island, and because there was some sort of traffic block, at one point he had to turn around and drive ALL the way around from another way. He must have made about four stops before we were the only ones left. Shortly after leaving the dock, I had to use the bathroom, and what should have been a five- to ten-minute drive took an hour and a half. My bladder was not happy.

For our last day, we made no plans other than to relax at Bellavista. Lucky, too. It rained for a good part of the morning. Although it warmed up for most of the day, it rained again in the evening. The only time we left was to go eat dinner at the Greenhouse, which was just a short walk. After we got back, it really started to pour.

Even though it was a short trip, I was ready to come home to the cold weather by the time we left Monday morning. Our flight left at 8:00 a.m. Central Time. We had a couple long layovers, and didn't get back to Fargo until 10:30 p.m. We still had to pick up Mila and drive back to Huron.

It was 3 in the morning when we got home. I quickly brushed my teeth and slept for two hours, before getting up at 5:00 to go to work.