Days after the Honeymoon

The night we got back from the honeymoon, we went back to the Microtel Inn for our park/sleep/fly reservation. On our way back to Mechanicsburg, we stopped at Valley Forge, where Washington's troops spent their winter. We took a walking tour and watched a movie. It was actually really interesting, and it was free, so we enjoyed it.
We also had time to open some of our wedding gifts and Jenn got to play in a softball game while we stayed with her parents. It was a good time.








Re-enactors showing clothes/items used during the Revolutionary War.





Jenn and I in a small cabin that would have held 6 soldiers.





Opening some wedding gifts.







Jenn played on her church's softball team and she got a real hit!

An unfamiliar place for Jenn to be.

Honeymoon (6/21/09-6/27/09) Days 6 and 7

Friday was probably our most grueling day of our honeymoon. We had signed up for the volcano hike. We hiked up Mt. Liamuiga on the northern end of the island. Liamuiga is an active volcano, but hasn't erupted in about 2,000 years. We had to hike about 3 hours up to the rim of the crater, but the hike was absolutely beautiful the whole way. We hiked through different sections of the rain forest and saw many different types of trees and plants. We were informed of all the different herbal medicines and things the locals use make from the plants, including an aphrodesiac made from one of the plants. Our guide, Mr. Rogers, assured us it worked.

Goats scattering into the wild sugar cane field as we were driving up to the start of the hike.

The view of Mt. Liamuiga and sugar cane fields.

A tree fern seen on the way up the mountain.

Giant buttress roots from some of the trees in the rain forests.

Video of Jenn hiking up the mountain.

Hiking up with Mr. Rogers.

When we finally made it to the top of the crater, the view was absolutely gorgeous. While it was a bit overcast, we could see all around the crater and vaguely see the island of St. Martin or St. Bart (I don't remember which it was). Mr. Rogers told us on nice days you could see three different islands-St. Martin, St. Bart, and Anguilla I think.

Panorama of the crater of the volcano.

Me and Jenn with our fellow hikers, Orrin and

Jenn over the crater.

Crater with the small crater lake, which Mr. Rogers says is not usually there.

The hike back down.

FINISHED!!!

On our trip back from the hike, we decided to take some photos of the local culture. From the bottle shops every block to the side of the road bar-b-ques, it was not exactly as grand as our suite at the Marriott.

Barbeque right on the side of the road.

Typical house along the road.

Government housing being built. Small, but looked in better shape than many of the houses.

When we got back to the resort, Jenn and I relaxed a little at the pool and pool bar. Then Jenn decided to take some photos of the landscaping at the resort to show just how beautiful it was everyday.

The best customer to the swim-up bar.

Fan palms lining the path.

The view of St. Kitts just outside of our front door.

The view from our balcony.

Saturday we got up early to take in one last snorkel. We were both hoping we would find that elusive octopus we had heard about on one of the first days. So we snorkeled out to the rock reef and swam around. This time we went around the edge. We saw many of the same fish, coral, and rays. Right before it was time to head back in, I looked down on a rock and thought I saw part of it move. Sure enough, there was an octopus on the rock with its tentacles curled up into little balls. It was very well camouflaged and it took a minute of pointing it out to Jenn before she saw it. If it had it's arms stretched out, I'd guess it'd be between 3 and 4 feet from tip to tip. Very cool.

After that adventure, Jenn and I headed in to pack up and get lunch before catching our flight at the airport. Let me tell you, it was really aggravating at the airport. I am used to U.S. airports, which have their flaws, too. However, this was RIDICULOUS. It took us almost 2 hours to get through the first line. Then we had to go to another line which took a more reasonable 3o minutes. Finally, when we thought we were through, we had to go through a final line, which took about another 30 minutes. Luckily once we were on the plane, we had no problems.

Final drink at the Bohemian.

Waiting...and waiting...and waiting...at the airport.

Finally going to the plane.

Getting on!

Leaving St. Kitts.

Honeymoon (6/21/09-6/27/09) Days 4 and 5

The following day started the same as before, with a wonderful breakfast buffet at the Calypso Cafe. Then we had some coffee drinks on the outdoor patio before we started playing shuffleboard. After shuffleboard, we decided to go out snorkeling around the rock reefs at the resort. We met a group of people the day before who told us they thought they saw an octopus out on the reef, so we were really excited to go out and find it. Unfortunately, we did not find the octopus. However, we saw a coral reef out a hundred feet or so off shore, so we decided to swim out and check it out. It turned out to be about the same as the rock reef- same fish, same coral, but still really awesome.After snorkeling for a good hour or so we decided to relax on the beach before getting lunch. Jenn sunbathed while I did my own version of sunbathing (under the gazebo). For lunch, I got my favorite meal of a chicken gyro that I must have had 4 or 5 times while we were there. It was delicious.Since we were not going on any excursions on this day, we checked out the events that were happening at the resort. We saw that there was a digital photo scavenger hunt that Jenn and I decided to try out- AND WE WON! We got a bottle of win for our first place finish, which we saved for a later time.Our third and final special dinner occurred on Wednesday evening when we went to the fancy restaurant The Royal Grille and had dinner out on the patio. After dinner we walked around a bit and sat out listening to a live island band while drinking some wine and rum & coke.

Feeling good from the dinner and drinks, we decided to try our luck with the penny slot machines again and actually won a whopping six dollars! We felt a little awkward cashing out printouts for 3 or 4 dollars at a time when most people were cashing out for more than 50 dollars, but we were just as thrilled as they were.

Thursday started off with a quick breakfast before going on our second excursion- a half day snorkeling trip to the Caribbean. We were taken in a van back to the capital city of Basseterre where we boarded a large catamaran that took us out. It was a little disappointing for myself because I didn't see much more than what we had seen the past few days off the coast of our resort. Also, we only went to one spot for snorkeling, and I was expecting to go to two. But we were able to swim in the warm water, jump off the boat, drink as many Carib beers as we wanted, and ate a nice lunch of chicken roti (curried chicken basically) which the crew referred to as "curried monkey".

After our snorkel adventure, we did some souvenir shopping, meringue dance lessons, shuffleboard, and seafood dinner at the resort. It was another great day in paradise.

Honeymoon (6/21/09-6/27/09) Days 2 and 3

Our first morning in paradise we decided to get breakfast in bed with room service coming to our room. Then we went to sign up for excursions. We decided to try and sign up for 3 or 4 of the excursions. There was a train ride around the island, snorkeling on the Caribbean side of the island, hiking in the rainforest, hiking a volcano, a day trip to Nevis, an island tour, and ziplining through the rainforest. We were hoping to take the train ride, trip over the Nevis, snorkeling, and volcano hike, but as things turned out, the train only runs when cruise ships come on the weekend, and the trip to Nevis was not going to work out with the times and the other excursions planned. So anyway, we ended up with 3 signed up- An island tour, snorkeling in the Caribbean, and the volcano hike. Our first full day there though, we did not have anywhere to go, so we hung out at the resort, where there were tons of things to do.

We could use any non-motorized equipment for free, so Jenn and I rented a sea kayak and actually saw a sea turtle while kayaking which was really cool. We also went snorkeling right off the coast of the resort, which was the Atlantic Ocean. It turns out there were a lot of cool fish, rays, and coral in the rock reefs right off the coast. We also enjoyed the swim up bar and drinks by the ocean while we waited for our first special dinner- lobster under the stars. Before bed the first night we took our chances at the casino and actually lasted longer than we thought we would before losing our money in roulette.

The second full day of our trip began with a breakfast buffet at the Calypso restaurant where they served classic breakfast foods as well as local cuisine. It was delicious. Then it was time for our first excursion- the tour of the island.

The tour began with a stop in the capital city of Basseterre. We walked around a little bit and saw Independence Square where they used to bring the slaves to be sold.

Then we got back in the van and on our way to the Caribelle Batik we saw an Egret tree and old sugar mills.

Finally, on our way to Brimstone Hill we saw Bloody Point (where English and French settlers massacred the Carib natives, leaving a river of blood than ran for 3 days) and green vervet monkeys that ran across the road. Brimstone Hill was really cool with great views of the island and a very rich history with the English and French occupation.

Bloody Point

Finally, our tour went to see the black sand beach and saw the volcano Liamuiga in the distance.

When we returned from our trip around the island, we relaxed with lunch and drinks by the ocean, played shuffleboard, played bingo, went swimming, and had another really nice dinner at La Cucina where we created our own pasta. We also decided to turn around our luck with the casino. In true Grandma Smith fashion, we went to the penny slots. Unlike Grandma though, we were not winners this night.