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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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I thought it was weird they were pouring our drinks out of a 2 liter bottle.
