Only a couple of days after 8 tuff miles Mom and Dad Brandt flew down from the arctic north to enjoy some fun in the sun on St. Thomas. This was Dad's first trip to St. Thomas and Mom's first since the 60s. Apparently the island has changed a lot since then....
It was spring break for UVI and so I was able to get some extra time to show them the island. Mainly that consisted of showing them the beaches (of course!). The first beach we checked out was close to home... Brewer's Bay. Brewer's is the bay that the Center for Marine and Environmental Studies (CMES) sits on and which I look upon everyday from my office window. It's quite a nice beach and we watched the planes land and take off at the end of the airport runway nearby. They then got their first official tour of CMES and we then headed back home to clean up for dinner.
The next day was similar except we went to Magen's Bay on the north side of the island. On the way we stopped at Drake's Seat (see below), where presumably Sir Francis Drake, commissioned by Queen Elizabeth I, once sat to identify Spanish ships to raid. The Spanish considered him a pirate while the British considered him a hero. I think both sides would agree that it's a beautiful view. Mom remembered this place from her past visit, but it's definitely changed. About twenty safaris (open air taxis) and taxis came through in the time we were there. It's quite a tourist destination now, complete with traffic jams and cranky taxi drivers.
The next day found us in downtown to do a bit of shopping in the historic part of Charlotte Amalie. I've been put off by this area before because it's mostly a lot of duty free shopping aimed at cruise ship passengers. I was quite heartened to discover a few new shops with local arts and crafts. So heartened I bought some earrings!
That night was our community softball league game. Tyler and I are on a team made up of mostly UVI grad students. It was our closest game yet but we won! It definitely helped to have Mom and Dad in the stands cheering us on. They joined us at Betsy's, our local watering hole, afterward for team celebrations.
Tyler wasn't able to join us most days, only evenings, because he had just returned from a big work trip to California and was a little overwhelmed with catching up on other work. But he took Friday off to join us on an adventure over to St. John. This was a first for both Mom and Dad so we just had to hit up Skinny Legs and get a delicious blue cheese burger first. We then did a brief tour of some beaches and settled on Hawksnest in the National Park. It wasn't very crowded but that was mainly because it started raining almost immediately when we got there. We sat it out and were able to get in a good hour or so of sun time. Before we caught the car ferry back we headed to downtown Cruz Bay to check out some more shops and grab a painkiller. Ahhh St. John.
Saturday and Sunday passed too quickly. We did some shopping on Saturday and then hit up Brewer's Bay again on Sunday. Each night we either went out to dinner or ate in and then enjoyed some Wii time. Below is Tyler and Dad playing golf (with a little help from Blixie). This picture is a little bittersweet because...well... stay tuned for our not-so-cool-island-of-adventure story to come.
Monday arrived and I was back at work full time, starting my training on closed circuit rebreathers while Mom and Dad packed up. I then dropped them off at the airport; their week in paradise at an end. It went by quickly but I think we convinced them to come back next year.
