Somewhere around Christmastime, but before all this winter’s snow, we made a call to book a beach vacation over Spring Break. We had no idea how much we’d need it.
January 2025 was just as the Counting Crows would say, “a long December.” A city-wide water crisis in Richmond had spillover effects to surrounding counties and, while our water at home was unaffected, work was a different story. We had two working bathrooms at our hospital, but colleagues at other local hospitals shared photos of temporary employee restrooms – 5 gallon buckets lined with red biohazard bags.
This trip we’re headed to St Thomas in the Virgin Islands, an unincorporated territory of the United States. We needed to pick somewhere within the US, Mexico or Canada to ensure that Ale, our au pair and 6th member of our family, could travel with us. Added bonus of the St Thomas selection: some of our best friends from home, Dee and Patrick, are coincidentally vacationing there at the same time. More to come on that.
A few perks of St Thomas – direct flights from Dulles and same time zone as Richmond. As anyone who’s traveled with kids knows, these may be two of the hugest factors in calculating toddler travel meltdowns. Aside from the 3am wakeup to catch the 9am out of Dulles, traveling here was easy peasy. (I say that cautiously knowing there’s still a trip home to be had.)
Amir rented a three-row SUV from Budget. Things aren’t cheap here, but everything is essentially a 30 minute drive or less. We figured a rental would give us flexibility to explore since we’re staying at an AirBnB, not a resort with built-in shuttles.
They drive on the left side of the road here, but unlike the UK, the steering wheels are still on the left. Despite the small size of the island and its roads, cars and SUVs are just as big as mainland US. I plan to dig into just why that is.
Sea View was easy to find. The roads winding up and down the mountains with breathtaking views of the sea immediately brought me back to those guardrail-less cliffs in Crete, Greece. As I’ve noted in a multitude of past posts, Amir is a great driver in an unknown environment. I learned that early on when we were duty partners on the ambulance.
As soon as we arrived, I could barely get my sunscreen and suit on before the kids were jumping into the pool. I planned ahead and brought lifejackets for #1BigBrother and #1LittleSister since I knew we’d be doing a good amount of snorkeling. I have a 1:1 non-swimmer to adult rule without lifejackets. Since it was 3:1 this afternoon, the lifejackets went on.
Amir headed to the grocery store almost as soon as we arrived here. We’d barely eaten breakfast, missed lunch, and were about to be eaten by a pack of hungry children. We were warned that groceries are expensive yet still didn’t expect the level of sticker shock. At the Cost-U-Less supermarket, a box of Ritz crackers costs $12, a dozen eggs $15 and somehow a handle of decent rum only $10.
Amir grilled up cheeseburgers on the poolside grill, and Ale finally showed some skills in the kitchen/bar arena, making us all “Pain-Killer” cocktails.
We’re all exhausted from the day – understandably so. We have no plans to wake up by any particular time for any particular reason. If we make it out to a local beach where we can snorkel, that will be a major win.
~Steph
TeamLouka 