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Thursday, May 7, 2009

Greetings from St. Johns!




I (Pip) have had a wonderful stay on St. Johns, US Virgin Island. This is the view off the deck where we did yoga for about six hours every day.



I did manage to get away for a little geocaching, although I have to say that traveling around this little island is a bit scary. I thought the mountainous roads in Virginia were bad...no way....I will have nightmares for years to come, and I was just a passenger!



I had downloaded info for the Cruz Bay Cache into Ms. Garmin before leaving the mainland. During my free time from the yoga mat, I would play with Ms. Garmin, looking over caches, etc. This of course, sparked conversation with my classmates who politely showed interest in my strange little hobby.



I actually got to take one of my classmates, Amy Sand from Illinois, as a geo-hostage, when we went into Cruz Bay on a shopping excursion. We fired up Ms. Garmin and the hunt began. Now Ms. Garmin gets all technical with street names and such. But here on the Island, there are very few street signs, or stop lights, or the general traffic courtesies you find on the mainland. Side walks are few and far between. I think pedestrians are considered more of a nuisance than anything. And I'm sure points are rewarded in double digits here, and tourists probably carry bonus points, especially if you just scare the daylights out of them.



So here we are, Amy and myself, trying to get our bearings, when a voice behind us says..."Where ya goin?". I turn to find a tourist guide fella..and reply..."We're not sure"...and the nice man says..."If I were you, I'd go down one block and take a right".

We went back after we found the cache and thanked him and took this picture. I think he was expecting a tip, but I think just being featured on this blog is reward enough, don't you? If not, my Karma is screwed for sure.


Well the Nice Tourist Dude got us started in the right direction, and that seemed to please Ms. Garmin. The main clue we were working with was "look for the blushing fruit". Now we were thinking tropical drink...or Amy was thinking tropical drink...there was a good deal of drinking by my classmates on this trip....modern yogi's, these friends of mine...progress not perfection...that's a good motto...I stuck with the sparkling apple juice, thank you. But let me tell you about the Chocolate Lovin' Spoonful Cake that we had....oh my gawd...to die for....it probably had rum in the icing or something...cause it was just awesome.


So we are looking for blushing fruit, and some lady named Linda....and I'm thinking I want a cold fricken soda..so let's hurry this deal up....We didn't have to look far. One block down, made a right and on the left was the Pink Papaya. I went inside and asked a very nice lady if she was Linda. She was. She told us to go back outside, near the shudders and look up. Amy spotted it right away. And she found a step ladder when we realized both of us were too short to get the cache down from its perch. (Having short arms is an affliction that I bear the burden of on a daily basis, it is my cross to bear, I suppose).











Here is Amy







excited about her first find!








And here is me, anxious to break it open and see what's inside ...































And what was inside? All kinds of goodies...










At first I didn't think there was anything real exciting....but I kept digging and I found a Path Tag...I wasn't sure what it was at first, and am still a little confused...but it was interesting...it was from Georgia...so I had to have it...










As you might remember, Beth and I found our very first cache in Georgia, visiting a friend, so this was cool. I did go onto Pathtags.Com, and recorded the find, but I've not really made head or tails of it yet. Once I do, I'll post the ins and outs of it.

So, I got to combine two of my favorite things...Yoga and GeoCaching. Life is Good.

Oh, and I bought myself a really cool T-Shirt that says "Find Your Latitude, St. John's"...I would tell you what I got Beth, but that would ruin the surprise if she reads the blog before I get home.





I met a few locals and got myself really grounded while in St. John's. Best working vacation I've had in a very long time.





Iggy, the local that chatted with me on the beach.













Grounded is Good!

2 comments:

  1. Very nice blog! Didja log that tag yet?

    ReplyDelete
  2. I did log the tag on pathtags.com, but I'm still not sure what this deal is all about. More later. ~Pip

    ReplyDelete