My Summer Vacation by Vivian A.- Gather Essentials: Writing

My Summer Vacation by Vivian A.

    Couldn’t resist. This writing challenge took me right back to grade school and those essays we hobbled together the first day of school. Well since I packed my daughter off this morning to her first day of class for 2008-2009 it seems the perfect time to write.

    This summer was a busy one and involved a lot of traveling. First at the end of June we visited some friends who had just moved from California to Colorado. We miss them dearly, but we’re thrilled to see how nicely they’ve settled into their new digs. We had fun horseback riding in the Rocky Mountains and white water river rafting. Tooled around Fort Collins and Colorado State University where our friend teaches and all in all just had fun seeing “their town”.

Come back home, do laundry, and then ship daughter off to England to visit her father and his family for the next 4 weeks. She is finally old enough to get herself through immigration and is quite pleased. This of course resulted in the worse return trip ever, poor thing and only 15. Well she made it, but I think the glamour of flying has worn off.

    Meanwhile, since I’m not the sort to bemoan my loss- okay, maybe just a bit. I do love her after all, my husband and I headed to Dublin, Ireland for a week. He had a conference and I got to wander the city and see the Book of Kells at Trinity College. The weather was cool and rainy, but we did luck out with a weekend of sunshine which we spent being tourists together since he wasn’t in meetings. Got to meet up with a lot of friends we’ve made through the years at the conference and I got to meet one of my Gather buddies live. Wonderful time.

    Next stop, traveling directly from Ireland to the Caribbean, we visited St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands. Yeah, you figure out how much fun the packing was for this trip. Anyway, it was hot and humid and while he was in more conference meetings I tooled around St. John (neighboring island) and took pictures of Pre-Columbian petrogylphs. The hike was arduous and I broke the cardinal rule by doing it alone, but I simply had to track down these carvings. The National Park Service runs a hike, but I missed the one day they did it. So armed with the map and trail guide they so kindly provided, I wandered off to find my quarry. I was not disappointed the petroglyphs were spectacular and after falling on my rear, for rain had descended mid-hike, I erred on the side of caution and did not try to repel down a small rock formation without gear and other people. Somehow the idea of try to crawl back up the 30% grade in time to make the ferry back did not seem like a good idea. Besides, I would have heard no end of it from my husband.

    Final leg of the journey was a puddle jumper over to my birthplace, St. Croix. St. Croix is the largest of the three US Virgin Islands and the least steep. While St. Thomas has lookouts for Blackbeard the pirate, St. Croix had sugar. Over a hundred separation plantations dotted the island all in pursuit of the white gold. It was odd to go back, I hadn’t been in more years than I care to admit. The town was in the process of being revitalized, but 20 years after hurricane Hugo they were still trying to get back on their feet. Cruise ships are finally slated to return in 2009, a source of tourism the island sorely needs. It was as beautiful as I remember and the people were actually friendlier. Perhaps the most touching is the second person I met after getting off the plane was someone I went to school with for years. He recognized me right away and told me the updates on all of our friends who had been back.

    21 days after our journey began we teetered back into our home. Glad to be able to sleep in our own bed again. The next day my daughter arrived in much the same state of mind. Couple weeks later here I am writing about my summer vacation.