it's a little scary.....

....for me to realize it's been almost two months since i last posted. sorry about that. i think my muse may have gotten lost in the woods during my last hike.

in all honesty, i was going to cheat and just put up a link to the post i wrote a while back about how my sibling and i, in our younger years in baltimore, used to scare the bejeesus out of my dad with our basement haunted house.

i could've sworn i wrote a post like that. i mean, i've told that story over and over again, to the point that i've actually had friends chime in to fill in the gaps when i skip the part about the glow in the dark ghosts or vincent price's rapping. however, after searching this blog for "voncent price", "thriller", and "haunted basement", i've concluded that it must've been a phantom post....sort of like when i think i've said something out loud, and it turns out i didn't actually get past the "thinking" stage. (damn this short attention span of mine!)

growing up in baltimore, the only "haunted" attraction we knew of was the "haunted school"- woodlawn elementary school, down the hill from our house.

most of the year, the school (which, rumor has it, was actually torn down some time after we moved, but i digress...) was opened up for roller skating on wednesday nights only. (i went weekly for a couple of years, and even after all these years, i'm pretty sure i could still get under the limbo stick, though some light stretching might be necessary first.)

however, during the weeks leading up to halloween, the school (which was closed around the time we moved to maryland- due to structural instability, or something like that) was transformed into a fairly low-budget (at least compared to the masterpieces in kansas city) haunted house.

up the hill, at our house, sibling and i pretty regularly turned our basement into a mini-haunted house, employing the use of glow in the dark ghosts (i'm sure sibling's gotten rid of them since, which is a bummer, because i coveted those things for years), glow in the dark jelly bracelets, glow in the dark shoelaces and, most importantly, a copy of michael jackson's "thriller" album on tape.

we'd make a trail with the bracelets and shoelaces, rewind the tape to the beginning of track 4 on side 1, turn out all the lights, and call daddy downstairs. while michael sang (the basement was small, so we rarely made it to vincent's rap), one of us would lead daddy around the basement while the other would jump out, throw the glow in the dark ghosts, and shout "boo".

daddy was appropriately scared.....in fact, i'm pretty sure it was the most we were able to scare him until we hit high school and he tried to teach us to drive.

looking back, it's interesting to think that we figured flying plastic ghosts were scary, yet the morning we woke up (maybe a year or two before we moved to missouri) and saw that a bunch of our neighbors' cars had been torched overnight, it didn't really faze us. (on the other hand, i'm pretty the effect it had on our parents was probably akin to seeing a zombified michael jackson beating down the front door in the middle of the night.)

the halloween before we moved, i finally went to the haunted school. i can't remember for sure whether sibling went with me or not. in fact, i don't remember much of that night at all, aside from older kids in make up jumping out from dark corners, and i may or may not have spent a significant amount of time trying to get a younger boy i liked to kiss me. (i was so incredibly successful that my first kiss (not counting joey galford trying to kiss me on the bus in kindergarten) wasn't until i was 15. this sort of retardation when it comes to courtship continued into my 20s. i think i might finally have outgrown it. maybe.)

digressing again- sorry.

long story short, the haunted school wasn't really all that spectacular. perhaps if they'd hired someone to play "thriller" over and over again, while someone else threw little plastic ghosts at the hauntees (that's the right term for "those who are haunted", right?), even my dad would have been scared.

is that a banjo i hear?

i'm moving a little slowly this morning, but it's for a good reason- SO and i went hiking yesterday on the winding stairs trail, near walhalla, sc.

(we thought a hike might be a good idea because, for his upcoming 40th birthday, SO and i are going to visit his family in phoenix, arizona. as usual, there is a strong possibility that sooner or later, we will find ourselves enjoying the local terrain on foot. since most of our daily exercise is limited to walking on flat land, clearly a little conditioning is in order.)

this 3.5 mile trail (which, according to this link, apparently features a bonus waterfall, secret falls, which we somehow managed to miss completely) was done as an out-and-back hike, totalling 7 miles.

the parking area for this hike was pretty easy to find, and not just because we overshot it and wound up at the entrance to the cherry hill recreational area. we actually parked in the same pullout we used a couple of years ago, when we hiked the big bend trail (which i didn't blog about, for some strange reason). however, a lesson was learned after our last hike in this area- ticks are abundant. so, before heading out on the trail, windows were rolled up, the sunroof of SO's spiffy new chariot was closed, and we doused ourselves in mosquito/tick repellant.

we started our hike from the northern trailhead, on sc 107, which, according to hiking south carolina by john clark & john dantzler, is the easier way to approach the hike. after a slight incline just past the trailhead, the trail descends over a thousand feet, mostly through a series of switchbacks- which, i suppose, inspired the name of the trail.




our first stop was fairly early on- a photo op along the west fork of townes creek.


(forgive the blurriness. this was the best of six....by a fair bit, i assure you.)

the trail was pretty flat along this section, and we marveled at the variety of mushrooms along the trail. there were huge yellow ones, smaller red ones, oddly shaped large white ones.....the smurfs would have been proud. i would've snapped some photos, but was excited about the waterfall and wanted to get to it as quickly as possible, so pictures would have to wait until the hike back to the trailhead.

miuka falls can be heard after the first switchback along the trail. there's a little bit of a scramble to get a decent view of the waterfall, but i managed to stay on my feet without the assistance of too many trees. i believe SO even managed to stay upright, which will spare me the prospect of having to presoak his shorts in oxyclean and half a bottle of shout.

miuka falls is a 75-foot cascade waterfall....it reminded me of oconee station falls, which i visited about 10 years ago, before moving to south carolina. like oconee station falls, i had a serious desire to have my photo taken at the base of the waterfall.


(this was taken at oconee station waterfall- 1998 or so, i think)

however, my plan was foiled on two counts:

1. SO was highly squeamish about the idea of yours truly walking around on slick rocks.....i believe he may have said something about "plunging to (my) death" or something like that

2. my camera battery, which was just charged my next-to-last day on st. john, decided to give up the ghost while SO was squatting down in an attempt to achieve the sort of angle that would catch both myself and the waterfall in the photo.

drat.

so much for that new facebook profile picture, though i managed to get a couple of good shots before the battery gave up the ghost.







in retrospect, it's probably just as well that we somehow missed secret falls, as i wouldn't have been able to capture it on film (or is it "in pixels" these days?) anyway....just another reason to go back sometime.

beyond the waterfalls, the trail seemed to be far less traveled. at a couple of points, we wound up on alternate paths, skirting around the edges of fallen trees. thankfully, major scrambles weren't involved, and we were able to continue our hike at a fairly decent pace. (i figured we should be able to handle 7 miles in under three hours- a shorter period of time was preferable, given that we didn't hit the trail until 4pm.)

wildlife encounters were limited mostly to yours truly walking into spiderwebs (which would be one of the ways i figured out the section of the trail beneath the falls wasn't nearly as well traveled as the section above the falls), which generally wasn't a problem....except for the one that left me with what seemed to be a ginormous tarantula on my shoulder. (in retrospect, it was probably just a small, harmless arachnid, no bigger than a dime. i was too busy shrieking and flicking it off to really check it out, though.)

about an hour and fifteen minutes into the hike, just as i was wondering when we'd reach the southern trailhead, on tamassee road, SO commented that he heard music.

this was a good sign. music meant we were getting close to the road.

at the southern trailhead, the source of the music became clear. since i have no photos to share with you, i will have to share my artistic rendition of the scene we encountered:



1. yes, matisse would be proud. and by "matisse", i mean john matisse, the half-blind homeless man i saw talking to himself last week downtown.

2. there are multiple reasons for SO's exclusion from this drawing:

2a. as you can see, i only draw handless, anorexic nudists, which SO most certainly is not, by any account.

2b. upon realizing that banjos were, in fact, featured in the music we were hearing, SO turned around and headed back up the trail faster than i've ever seen him move before.

time to get from northern trailhead to southern trailhead (over 1000 ft. descent in 3.5 miles, with photo stops): 1 hour, 20 minutes

time to get from southern trailhead to northern trailhead (over 1000 ft. ascent in 3.5 miles, without photo stops): 1 hour, 15 minutes.

i believe the numbers speak for themselves, folks. clearly, this boy has watched deliverance.

the trip back was fairly uneventful. SO realized that having a towel in the car might be a good idea, as he didn't really like the idea of his sweaty t-shirt stinking up the driver's seat of his new chariot. since he didn't come to this realization back at home, where we have an abundance of towels, he made do by using my spare sweatshirt as a barrier between his sweaty back and his seat.

a couple of swigs of warm gatorade later, we were heading back toward greenville on sc 107, which ran into sc 28- the road that heads into walhalla, where we pick up 183, which heads into greenville, where it runs into 385, which runs into I-26, which gets us most of the rest of the way home. it's a fairly simple route, and not long after reaching 183, i instructed SO to stay on the road and closed my eyes.....opening them about 45 minutes later, expecting to see the sights of northern greenville.


(our planned route)

funny thing- one does not expect to see the sign for issaqueena falls in northern greenville. in fact, one expects that sign along sc 28.....not far from where sc 107 splits off toward cherry hill recreational area.

needless to say, i was a little surprised.

about two miles from where i closed my eyes, there's a stoplight along 183. one must turn left to stay on 183. otherwise, one winds up staying on whatever road merged with 183 a few miles back, and, as my trailblazing SO discovered, if one stays on this road and doesn't make any turns whatsoever, one winds up back on 28, bound for the georgia and north carolina borders.


(our actual route)

i pointed out a few (i thought so, anyway) memorable sights and asked if he'd seen them before, but it seems SO takes the whole "keep your eyes on the road" line of thinking to heart, as he responded that he hadn't noticed anything unusual.

to his credit, he turned around fairly quickly, and about twenty minutes later, when we made the turn onto 183 again, he realized his mistake.

i did not close my eyes again until we were safely on 385. during the intervening time, SO apologized multiple times. i pointed out that it was no huge deal to me- after all, i was planning on sleeping on the way home, and i did not have any sort of interest in the college football game of which he'd now be missing the first hour.

maybe for his 40th birthday, i'll teach him how to make sense of a map.

brother, could you spare a dime?

on the way to work this morning, i found myself pondering what to write about today, given that it's been over three weeks and i know at least half of my readers (both of you) have probably given me up for dead.

finishing the half-written post about the saga of my car was a thought, but i forgot my pile of receipts, which i'm using to illustrate just how badly the folks over at the AAA car care center felt the need to screw me. (sure, i could approximate, but really- i think my story males more of an impression if i use the actual figures.)

however, inspiration came in a different form after i arrived at work- in the form of a coworker who came in and informed me that his "buddy" won the 220-something million powerball jackpot a couple of weeks ago.

(it is worth noting at this point that the only reason "buddy" won is that i didn't remember it was wednesday until 10:15 that night....well past the powerball ticket purchasing cutoff time.)

anyway, it turns out that "buddy" and coworker used to work together, and after pointing out that useful little factoid, coworker remarked that he sure hoped "buddy" wouldn't "forget" about him.

are you kidding me? i mean, i've heard that after winning a big prize, one can expect all sorts of "long lost" relatives to appear....

"hi. i'm steve, your second cousin's uncle twice removed through marriage. we met at the '83 reunion...i was the tall guy. anyway, i'm having problems making the payments on my brand new hummer, and i was wondering........"

call me heartless and cruel, but the answer would be "no".

in fact, if it were possible to claim the prize and remain anonymous, i'd be all over it like botox in beverly hills.

i'd still work.

i'd still drive my present car until it hits ten years or 200,000 miles.

i'd still unplug the tv and microwave when i'm not using them.

i'd still eat kraft dinner. (hold the dijon ketchup.)

however, i'd probably be writing this from st. john, where i'd be hiking around and making faces at green iguanas for the next two weeks.



that might be what it takes to hide from random acquaintances planning on showing up at my door with their hands out.....like to coworker down the hall who, an hour later, is still going on about "buddy", his newfound wealth, and how close they were when they worked together. (which, to be honest, though admittedly a little catty, makes me wonder if "buddy" and my coworker ever shared an actual conversation, or just a ride in the elevator one monday morning......)

hot fun in the summertime....

...perhaps thankfully, i don't actually know the lyrics to that song, so there is very little change of it replacing o.a.r., which is currently playing on my mental jukebox.

i just finished recording the weather reports for my radio shift, and again today, our high temperature is supposed to be in the upper 90s. i'm currently shivering in our highly air conditioned building, but when i get off work at noon, out into the blast furnace i go.

there was a report earlier this week about how an alarming number of american children are suffering from vitamin d deficiencies.

in this era of computer games, wiis, xboxes, playstations, and the internet, is this really a surprise? when was the last time you saw kids outside, playing, in the middle of the day? i mean, i hate to sound like an old fogey, but when i was little, mama would kick sibling and i outside and tell us not to come back for a couple of hours.

before anyone calls child welfare and asks them to act retroactively, i should point out that in the middle of summer, when temps in baltimore topped 85 degrees, we weren't kicked out for as long, and would be allowed in for tang and some quality time in front of the air conditioner vent.

summertime also inspired daddy to dig out the pool from the garage. the first one i remember was pretty small (then again, so were we) and had inflatable sides. i think there might have been rainbows on it, but frankly, the stronger memory is of the "discussion" i had with mama (i think i was about four at the time)about how i had to wear a swimsuit in the pool, or else i wasn't going to be allowed to get into it at all.

as we got older, we got a bigger pool, including the inground one in kansas city that was ripped out a few years ago....and when i headed off to college, there was the infamous elmo sprinkler. the point is: we still found ways to spend time outside.

so, i suppose i'll attempt to frolic in the sunshine after work (though i cannot promise to give it full effort, because really, how bouncy can one feel when it's 95 degrees), in an effort to stave off ailments brought on by vitamin d deficiency, and then perhaps i'll head home for a nap in front of the a/c vent- just like back in the day....

who are you, again?

it's always a little disappointing to learn that something you've believed about someone for a very long time just isn't true.

first, it was the easter bunny. (i still dispute that one, as i once had my picture taken with the one and only easter bunny, after finding the golden egg at the woodlawn easter egg hunt back in 1986.*)

then, my sibling was kind enough to point out that kermit had poles stuck to his arms.

(i'd offer up the "luke, i am your father" example, but that's a bit cliché, don't you think?)

i was the last to find out that richard simmons, little richard, and george michael were gay. (i'm starting to have a sneaking suspicion about tim curry, too, but i'm still not quite sure.)

and please, don't ask how old i was when i learned that wasn't david bowie's real hair in the labyrinth. the answer is in the double digits, and i can't guarantee that the first digit is a "1".

i could go on and on, but after a point, one's ignorance becomes a little..... embarrassing.

the subject came up during dinner one night this week. while one of my companions was frantically searching for her debit card and worrying about the possibility of spending the rest of her night washing dishes, i pointed out that we could hold a telethon instead. after all, surely jerry lee lewis wasn't doing anything this weekend.

you know- jerry lee lewis. the guy who married his thirteen year old cousin, made a bunch of annoying comedies during the black and white era of television, and now does those "jerry's kids" telethons for muscular dystrophy. (despite this, he's still called "the killer", except during the telethons.....because it would be a little awkward, i suppose.)

i can't stand that guy. i mean, i admire the work he does for mda, but really- bonking a thirteen year old, a relative, and especially a thirteen year old who happens to be your relative- is just plain gross. furthermore, eddie murphy was far better as the nutty professor.

my "mistaken identity" problem was quickly pointed out to me- in stereo. since i did not completely escape the "stubbornness" gene that seems to be dominant in both of my parents, of course i swore i would google it (man- i remember when i was little and we actually had to go to the library so that mama could prove the existance of thomas crapper to me....maybe the nation's obesity epidemic can be blamed on the convenience of googling, rather than having to actually go to the library and wander around the stacks to do research....) when i got home, just so i could prove them wrong.

uh, yeah. my bad.

i suppose santa claus will be next.....

*yes, i have photo evidence of this....and i'm sure this rather stunning photo of myself will be all over the tabloids when i'm rich and famous.

virgin islands dispatch #3

i'm not sure how i managed it, but somehow i seem to have brought the rain back from st. john to south carolina. funny- i didn't think i had room for a napkin between my two carry-ons, let alone storm clouds.

forgive me for not posting earlier, but when it came down to $8 for either 45 minutes of internet time, or a ride on mr. frett's taxi from the maho bay camps to cruz bay....well, i like walking and all, but i'm pretty sure i would have missed my flight this afternoon if i'd hoofed it from point a to point b.

where did i leave off last? *scrolling through previous post in another window* ah yes, i was heading over to bvi on monday.....

i'd signed up for the virgin gorda/jost van dyke excursion on the stormy petrel, and was mildly disappointed at first to learn that i'd been bumped to an alternate craft, pirate's penny. however, i could not have asked for a better crew. the captain, eric, was wonderful, and since he was raised in the islands, i'm sure our tour of the baths at virgin gorda was far more detailed than what the majority of folks experience. (i just hope i can remember which room was which when i get around to printing my pictures and stuffing them into an album.)

after our tour of the baths, we grabbed sandwiches at a local deli, which were eaten on the fly on our way to sandy spit, which is this little islet off the coast of jost van dyke:



there's some really great snorkeling here, and though i sort of cheated to get over to it (a float was involved), i was able to get pictures of a parrotfish swimming around the small coral reef.

on the way back to st. john, we stopped over at white bay on jost van dyke for an hour. while most folks were interested in having painkillers over at the soggy dollar bar (so named, i'm sure, because to get to the bar, most folks swim from their boats), i spent some time adding to the local economy (i felt the mojito lip balms were a nice substitute for all the mojitos i was denying myself during my vacation, and the long sleeved t-shirt came in handy at the chilly airpost this afternoon), and took a small (barefoot) hike over to the next beach.

i switched gears again yesterday- the reef bay trail was the other big hike on my "to do" list, mostly because i am a sucker for petroglyphs.

plan a: take the nps' guided hike to reef bay, including the boat ride back to cruz bay.

this would have been perfect. unfortunately, during the off season, this guided hike only happens twice a week....and the only day during my stay just happened to be the day i was frolicking in bvi.

plan b: take the goat trail from camp to maho bay, then pick up the maria hope road to centerline road, cross the street to pick up the reef bay trail, and upon reaching reef bay, hike back.

i found the trailhead to the maria hope road without much of a problem. unfortunately, if it's blazed, it's with the same white that naturally occurs on about a third of the trees in the immediate area. having very little desire to be lost in the middle of the woods by myself (i have a healthy sense of adventure, but not that healthy), i backtracked down to north shore road and walked over to the cinnamon bay trail, figuring that after i reached centerline road, i'd simply hike a mile east and pick up the reef bay trail.

i started up the trail without incident, but by the time i reached the spur trail for america hill, i'd started feeling a little lightheaded and headachy....not a good thing when one is planning a serious hike alone. so, deciding (for once!) that discretion was the better part of valor, i took some pictures at america hill, then turned around (just as a thunderstorm rolled in- talk about timing!) and headed back to camp.

i spent a couple of hours resting in my tent-cottage- mostly scribbling postcards and watching the iguanas in the tree outside.



by midafternoon, i was getting antsy again, and headed out towards a couple of previously missed ruins- annaberg school and fredriksdal. the former is very well preserved and the trail is marked with a large nps sign on the side of the road. finding fredriksdal, however, is not so easy. in fact, i initially walked past both the trail to the estate house ruins and the bridge, which is almost directly across the street. on the second pass, though, i noticed that someone had tied one of those pink plastic ribbons around a small tree by the trailhead to the bridge, and the rest was gravy. (not literally, obviously. i mean, what on earth would one do with gravy in the middle of a forest?) the old stone bridge was the highlight of this round of hiking...my only regret is that there wasn't anyone else around to take the obligatory photo of me under the bridge, so i settled for a quick snapshot of the view from just off the main trail.



the brush was pretty thick in this area, and since i was wearing my formerly khaki shorts (as opposed to my favorite green pants, which still hadn't finished drying yet), i'm afraid i wasn't really up for the bushwhacking that would've been necessary to see all fredriksdal had to offer. (basically, i went just past the estate house, then turned around...though i also saw some additional ruins peeking out of the foliage while walking along the road.)

i thought about heading back over to waterlemon bay and trying to find the ruins in that area (all i saw my first time through, on the way to the guardhouse at leinster point, was part of a building and a cattle trough), but changed my mind as i got closer to leinster road and opted for a quick stop at my favorite ruins (francis bay estate house) on the way back to camp, instead.

i left camp with somewhat mixed feelings this morning. i took the gnomes down to little maho beach one last time,



said goodbye to the iguanas (by this point, i could see 6 in the trees outside my tent-cottage),



and packed up my two carry ons, as well as the box i was shipping back home, and headed toward registration to check out and meet mr. frett's taxi one last time.

after spending a couple of hours supporting the local economy in cruz bay (nat'l park visitor's center, friends of the virgin islands park store, as well as a couple of other stores, the names of which i'm too lazy to chase down after a day of travel), i paid $10 for a ticket on the ferry back to charlotte amalie. during the ride, i met a lovely woman who was also heading to the airport to catch the flight to charlotte. i won't divulge her name, but apparently half of the island knows that she and her husband bought their east end house for a phenomenal price. (i'm sure even a "phenomenal price" is still far more than i'll ever be able to afford...at least until i finally sit down to write my best-selling autobiography, of course.)

between good conversation and a decent mango chicken panini at the airport, time there flew by rather quickly, as did the plane ride home, though part of that was due to the nap i managed to catch during the 3 1/2 hour flight.

it'll be odd waking up in the morning to the view of a solid wall, rather than maho bay and my iguana neighbors, as seen through the screened walls of my tent-cottage. on the other hand, i need a few days for these mosquito bites to heal and my skin to rebound from the effects of sunblock stick and salt water.

besides, with petrogyphs and ruins still unseen, i have no doubt i'll find my way back to st. john eventually......

virgin islands dispatch #2

when i woke up this morning, my pants were still wet and my legs were incredibly stiff. the condition of the former was due to being put on over wet bikini bottoms 3 times yesterday, being caught in the rain in the middle of a trail once, and, about half an hour after finishing last night's post (which was 15 minutes after i'd hung them to dry on my clothesline and 5 minutes after i left my tent-cottage in my pajamas to donate some extra soap and shampoo to the maho bay camp "recycling center"), we had what could only be descibed as a "gullywasher". there i was, trapped in white pajamas, waiting for the thunder/lightning/downpour to abate, and my pants, which to this point were actually almost dry, were getting an extra rinse.

the latter condition was due to hiking what i figure to be a hair over 7 miles yesterday. i can't remember if i already listed where i went last night (tonight's internet time is being paid for with my good looks, charm, and right leg), but in the morning, i checked out francis bay (mostly because i was intrigued by the picture in my guidebook of the tile floor at the estate house ruins),


(this picture's mine- i tried to pick out the one out of the dozen or so that showed both the architecture and the tile)

the ruins at the annaberg sugar mill, and hiked over to waterlemon bay. i would've hiked the johnny hart (i hope that's right- the book is back at my tent-cottage) trail, but wound up turning around at the guardhouse ruins, since my camera battery was low and i tend to get a little....photohappy. my knees voiced some very definite opinions during the climb back up the maho bay camp driveway, but apparently this is not abnormal when one reaches old age.

lunch was a day-old steak sandwich at big maho bay (the camp where i'm staying is at little maho bay, which gave me a chance to try out the 1/4 mile "goat trail".)

i got bored after about 20 minutes on the beach, so i caught mr. frett's taxi over to cruz bay, where i finally got my national park passport stamped. while there, i asked if there were any local trails, and about half an hour later, i was in the middle of the lind point trail when it started raining. (thankfully, whenever i pack my camera, i also pack a baggie, just in case.) as i'm sure i've already mentioned, the rain continued (intermittently) for the rest of the day.

as for the stiff legs (you thought i was going to leave you hanging, didn;t you?), i did what any normal, rational person would do....i decided to hike some more.

with rain in the forecast again today, i inquired at the activities desk as to whether it would be better to hike over to trunk bay (where the national park service maintains an underwater snorkeling trail), or to head south, to the reef bay trail, which features a waterfall and some petroglyphs (the two fastest ways to sell me on a hike). the girl i asked didn't really have a set opinion, so i figured i'd just start walking and see where i wound up.

as it happened, i missed the trail that would have led me up the mountain to the reef bay trail, so i headed toward trunk bay. along the way, i stopped at cinnamon bay to check out the ruins of another sugar mill,



as well as the danish graveyard, and then continued westward along the highway. there were a couple of stunning views from the road, and i managed to take a few decent pictures, along with several off-center ones of myself. (as you might imagine, though i looked fine when i set out on today's hike, but the second mile, i looked like a sweaty, drowned rat.*)

i wound up passing trunk bay, after realizing it really wasn't that much farther to peace hill, where there's a semi-restored windmill and some really great views. (the christ of the caribbean used to be here, as well, but was taken out by a hurricane in the 90's. according to the website i just linked to, there's a plaque there, but somehow, i missed it. who knows? i may have been sitting on it while taking a spiffy photo (one spiffy one out of 7 attempts, mind you) with a wooden totem sort of thing that was nestled in the ruins.



on the way back, i attempted a snorkel at trunk bay (let's just say i made it to the sign that tells you where the trail is), where i also managed to eat most of my chicken salad wrap, before a rather aggressive bird swooped in from behind (while the wrap was in my hands, no less!) and helped itself to my tomato and lettuce.

i also stopped by cinnamon bay, and after a quick walk to buy a few postcards on the beach, i headed across the street to the cinnamon bay trail, which is fairly steep and a little over a mile long. (thankfully, i did it the right way: steep climb first, and then steep descent last.) there was a spur trail to some ruins that i meant to take, but it wasn't clearly marked, and i didn't want to wind up lost in the woods by myself.

all in all, it was a good day- 8.4 (or so) miles under my belt, and neither of my two new blisters popped. (yay!) tomorrow's adventure: getting up early to head to the baths at virgin gorda and jost van dyke. (it's my one splurge for the trip.)

oh- and i almost forgot to tell, you- i finally saw an iguana! she (i named her ludwanna) was hanging out in a tree outside my tent-cottage. i happened to look up while figuring out today's milage, and there she was. she wandered into deeper foliage about ten minutes later, but my little roommate, anatoly the anole, was hanging around my front door when i last left my tent-cottage. :)

*a slight exaggeration, but only a slight one, i assure you

virgin islands dispatch

my butt is wet....and it's about the fifth time today.

(i know how deeply you care about these things, so i thought i'd share.)

forgive me for not getting around to finishing the final post detailing the saga of my car. it's about half written, but since i'm paying an arm, a leg, and part of my soul for internet time, let me give you the brief version: do not ever, ever, ever take your chariot to a AAA car care center.

anyway, i'm writing this while sitting on my wet butt in the internet kiosk at the maho bay camp on st. john, in the u.s. virgin islands. it's pitch black at 7:30 pm, which takes a little getting used to, but on the other hand, i have no idea what time sunrise actually is, but i was up, moving, and heading down to the beach to snorkel around 6:30 this morning. (the gasp you just heard was from my dad, who clearly remembers calling and blasting my out of bed at 10:00 am during the summer when i was in high school.)

admittedly, i am not a strong swimmer, and i have a fear of drowning (i am not too comfortable if i can't touch the ground), but i am pleased to report that i wound up swimming over a little reef at maho point....i believe the book said the water was 10' deep there, but can't really find the figure at the moment and don't really have time to search for it (i know i'm up to an arm and half a leg for the internet time, by this point.)

anyway, i also managed to squeeze in a couple of hikes (including one in the rain....good thing i had a baggie for my camera and phone), and a little more snorkeling.

ack- one minute left, i've been informed. time to go dry out my pants and nurse a ginormous blister that popped while hiking in the rain.....but hey- at least i have a popped blister and wet butt in the virgin islands, and not back home. :)