Wednesday, March 25, 2026
Whew, we made it!!
Yesterday felt like a super long day- I guess because it was. I already filled you in on the stressful part.
Everything else went off mostly okay. Slight delay out of Chicago (just an hour), and then upon arrival to St. Thomas, we had to sit on the plane for almost 45 minutes as no gate was available.
While on the plane, I thought a lot about how to handle the “pivots” of this trip. Originally thought we’d head straight to our St. Thomas place, and then maybe go to St John Thursday (today) overnight until Friday.
But as I thought more, I realized it made more sense to just try and go all the way to St John yesterday (Wednesday). Why unpack things in St Thomas etc only to turn around and have to gather things for overnight in St John?
Also, I know our group, and I knew no one would be moving too fast this morning (after super early flight and all the travel).
The last car ferry over to St Thomas was at 7 pm, so I thought we’d have enough time to make it. Get settled in and then enjoy at least 2 nights at our beautiful St John VRBO. (50% of planned? Not terrible.)
From the plane, I also rescheduled our boat trip to Saturday night to give us more flexibility on Friday.
Arrived!!
The car rental pick up took WAY longer than expected. We had to take a shuttle to the office. The line was not actually that long, only 2 people ahead of us and 2 at the desk, but those 2 workers were SLOWER than molasses. Literally I have no idea what they were doing. They moved slow, they talked slow, everything was slow. They seemed like to not even notice the growing line behind us nor the fact that the line was literally not moving…
Island time is real, I guess. Omg. It was making me twitchy. (I would not have cared as much except I really really wanted to make the car ferry to St John and the last one was at 7 pm and we still had a 30-40 min drive plus wanted to stop at grocery store and it was already like 4:30!)
(You know the sloths in Zootopia? They worked here.)
We waited soooo long but finally got our vehicle.
Driving to car ferry across St Thomas:
Got groceries, made it to car ferry with time to spare!! Waiting.
I like this pic of the boys:
From the ferry! Unfortunately we were a little past sunset and it got dark;
It was close to 8 by the time we docked. We were STARVING.
Found $20 parking in a lot in the little town of Cruz Bay and wandered around some to get the lay of the land.
Ethan wanted this place, burgers!! Which sounded delicious to me too.
Ahhhhhh, finally!! Crisis averted, travel done, sitting down to our first vacation meal, a much needed drink in hand.
I had a sex on the beach (vodka, peach, cranberry, OJ) which was yummy.
We had barely eaten all day and I got this DELICIOUS double cheeseburger. Oh it was so good. The meat was amazing.
Then a drive up into the hills about 2.6 miles to our VRBO- an incredible 3 bedroom rental house with 2 separate decks and a huge screen porch with the most amazing views.
It doesn’t really show up much at night, but it’s just great.
We sat out on the screen porch until my eyes were literally drooping shut at about 11 pm. Finally headed to bed where I slept HARD!!
Up at about 7:30, and now just chilling here on the porch with tea and looking at the most beautiful views. Pictures so do not do it justice!! Birds and lots of tropical sounds, a gentle breeze, the views… heavenly!!!
Not sure exactly what we’re doing today! Beaches for sure. Right now everyone is just moving slow and really enjoying these gorgeous views and warm temperatures. I guess we’ll have to get moving eventually but I could sit here all day….
More later! 🙂
GRATEFUL KAE 