It’s our last day in St. Croix, as well as the last day of our travels before returning to California. Yesterday we had the day off to start packing and start saying goodbye to the island. After a huge lunch of enchiladas and a dessert of tropical fruit cobbler (pineapple, passionfruit, papaya, mango, coconut, and banana), we went to the beach for the last time. Unfortunately, the sand flies were out with a vengence, and the surf was pretty rough - but the water was still good for a final swim.
Wednesday night at the farm was a Family Dinner night, and we were lucky enough to have Steven’s parents on the farm who cooked us a southern meal (ribs, beans, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie, pineapple-bread pudding). Some folks from the Nature Conservancy joined us for the occasion, and good times were had by all.
I can’t find the words to explain how it feels to have our travels be ending. Amazing experiences and people made it easy to enjoy, and we’ll hold on to those new memories and relationships moving forward.
What’s next? Visiting Whit’s family and friends in Claremont, four graduations in two weekends in two cities (SF and LA), then on to the Northwest to visit my family. We’ll continue to update the blog (Whit’s got some videos in the making) as we travel up the west coast.
Stay tuned…
Our last week of life at 
Last weekend was great fun. Dan had a surprise staff event planned for Saturday night that we anticipated all week long - so much mystery! Before the secret event happened we went swimming in the warm tropical water for a few hours at Butler Bay - but that was after Joe - a professor at UVI that lives on the farm - lead a yoga class in the morning. After snorkelling for a bit, we headed back to the farm to meet up with Dan and Jen to start the evening’s adventures. The water was amazing that day - it was like swimming in a giant pool. When we arrived back at the farm, there was a note in the Community Center listing all the items we would need with us for our secret evenings festivities. Items needed for the night:
So, as you can see - this island and this farm are a little chunk of paradise. We eat so much food from the farm; it makes you realize how good fresh food is and how horrible most of our store bought food is. It also makes you realize how much packaging we use on a daily basis; at the farm we go through so little packaging - it’s incredible. Here you have to be mindful of the water, if we use to much we have to pump more out of the pond. We also have to be mindful of the electricity at the community center, since it runs on solar power and if we over use it we have to turn on a generator (which we have to fill with gas, and that’s not fun). We go to the beach at least every other day, if not every day, and spend our afternoons swimming in the ocean and relaxing after a hard days work. We eat as a family at almost all the meals, but lunch is our big meal. On Wednesday nights, we have a family dinner and invite any friends on the island to come eat with us.
