St. John Tues 2/22/12 and Wed 2/23/12

We got to the airport with plenty of time to spare. We had brought a couple of bananas from home and ate them for breakfast as we left the motel before the meal was available. We read until our flight was called and then we were on our way. Our first stop was Charlotte, NC. Dave's knee has been a bit stiff - too much work on gathering wood for next year - somehow he wrenched his knee, but even though it is getting better day by day, he still feels it if he tries to walk too fast - so, we hitched a ride on one of the people carts in Charlotte to get to our next terminal. We felt quite special. I asked the woman driver if she had ever driven any celebrities and she said she had: Scorza? - a baseball player and Oprah's boyfriend among others. She delivered us to our gate and we had only a short time before our flight was called. This time we landed in St. Thomas around 4:00 (3 PM Mystic time). We had to wait quite a while for our luggage, but then caught a cab to Red Hook to catch the ferry to St. John. We got on the 6:00 ferry and arrived in St. John about a half hour later. We took a cab to the motel (walkable distance, but uphill in the heat dragging suitcases didn't sound like fun). We got settled into our room and then walked down to town for dinner. We had a granola bar and some chocolate for lunch - you know they don't feed you on the planes anymore so we had come prepared with snacks. We found a place on the water called High Tide. The dinner was good, but there were some guys at the bar who were very loud! We walked back to the motel to read and finally to sleep. We didn't sleep too well - lumpy bed and loud motorcycles going by in the night. We had breakfast at the motel and then went for a little walk as the car rental office was not open yet. We walked back there at 9 only to discover that our car hadn't been turned in yet. They said to call at 10:30. We called then and it still wasn't in - call back at 11:30. You have to get used to "island time" - everything runs a bit slower here. At 11:30, he said the car had come in, but there was a problem and it had to go to the mechanic so he would give us a truck for a few days to get us on our way. The truck turned out to be a taxi truck (remember Lana?). We had one of those the last time we were here. He said to call tomorrow and he would see about switching it out. We loaded the truck and got on our way with Dave driving (I don't drive on the wrong side of the road!). It is 14 miles across the island on switchback roads with the speed limit of 20 mph. The first 13 miles are on paved roads and the last one on very rocky dirt roads. We were happy to have the truck - I may call and ask to keep it! We arrived at VIERS (Virgin Islands Environmental Resource Station), which will be our home for the next month. We met the director, Randy, and he introduced us to the other volunteers. It will take me awhile to get all of their names, but there are quite a few of them from a variety of places - Michigan, New Hampshire, Martha's Vineyard, New York City. I will sort them out by the end of the month. We are staying in a dorm cabin (just us, but no private bathroom) for a week before we get into a volunteer cabin. One of the leaders of a school group which is here now is using the cabin we will be using later on. The kids are leaving tomorrow, but he is staying an extra week. As far as I can tell, the volunteers do a variety of jobs - cooking, cleaning, making beds, etc. Randy told us to take today and tomorrow off to settle in and get used to the area. We saw two mongeese (mongooses?) on our way to camp and two wild donkeys and a deer in camp. Randy tried to drive the donkeys off with an umbrella - they didn't look too scared! After moving into our room, we took a walk down to the beach. The water was lovely! We chatted with some of the volunteers and had a wonderful swim. When we got back to camp we showered and then tried to get on the blog until dinner. We had salad, fish, corn, rice and cake for dessert. Apparently, the breakfast crew is in charge of making dessert each day. I will have to learn to say no or will come back home weighing 400 pounds! The kids in camp right now are a high school group from Michigan. They eat the first shift and the volunteers eat 10 or 15 minutes later. We chatted with the volunteers for a while until bedtime.