My wonderful husband took me to St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands for our 10th anniversary and my 50th birthday. We left on a Thursday morning and came back on Monday early evening. We stayed at the Buccaneer. This is a golf/tennis resort but we relaxed and enjoyed the island. On Friday we went horse back riding, on Saturday we shopped and on Sunday we went snorkeling. In between, we relaxed, read and slept. We also did some sight seeing as Russ had lived on the island 21 years ago. He tried to find his old stomping ground. On our shopping day, we went to Radio Shack in Sunny Isle shopping center. This is the Radio Shack Russ moved to St. Croix to help open. It had just been remodeled so it looked very different than when Russ was there but still a very busy store. We ate like Kings and Queens everyday. It would start with breakfast at the hotel and would end with a wonderful meal on the water's edge.
As we drove around the island we would come to wildlife just walking around. We saw roosters and chickens with chicks roaming the streets in downtown Christiansted, goats grazing on the side of the road, a momma horse and her colt grazing beside the road, iguanas and lizards. As we were going to ride horses, the GPS took us over a mountain on dirt roads and with hairpin turns. We weren't sure where we were but the scenery was beautiful. Horseback riding was wonderful. We met Cowboy Steve at a place called
Off the Wall. We talked for a few minutes and then walked across the street to a small part of the forest to meet the horses. Steve decided that since I had been riding since I was 8 he would really work me. Not only did he have me running the horse up a mountain, he had me standing in the saddle, rearing the horse up like the Lone Ranger and swimming the horse in the ocean. Russ sat back and watched most of this until he had to ride bareback from the beach to where the horses were kept. Later that night, we had the best homemade ice cream I have ever had at a place called
Rowdy Joe's. That evening the GPS took us home on normal streets--not over mountains. One day we had lunch on a little island that took 2 minutes by boat to get to. We sat on the beach at Hotel on the Cay, watched tourists have fun in the sun & water and had lunch. On Sunday we were picked up by Big Beard's boat to go snorkling. We started with a 20 minute boat ride to Buck Island, where we practiced snorkeling and then went on to the other side of the island to snorkel. We saw lots of cool fish and coral. It was a wonderful day. After the boat took us back to the hotel, while having lunch on the beach we got close to an iguana looking for lunch. She was the second iguana we saw that day. The first was on the dock when we went to get on the boat.
Over all the trip was fabulous. We missed the girls a great deal but it was fun to get away just the two of us. I hope it isn't 10 years for us to do it again.
