In Virginia or England?

Is it rock? Is it a man-made wonder of the world? Nope, it's Foam-Henge near the Natural Bridge in Virginia. It is the exact replica of Stonehenge made from styrofoam blocks. We were heading down to visit the Natural Bridge and we saw a road-sign, then there it was in all its foam-iness and glory. "I don't remember this!" I said to the group in the car. "This is new." It was a moral imperative to stop and walk around, because how many times in your life can you say that you visited a foam replica like this one! Say no more...

--Bryan

Honeymoon, Part Two

On Thursday, we changed rooms. We went from the villas to an actual hotel room. The views from our new room were much better than the villa (a shuffleboard court is just not the same). We swam in one of the Marriott pools, then over to Turtle Beach for snorkeling. A salesman from Marriott said that the eastern half of the island will change with a couple new resorts and changing the Great Salt Pond into a marina. It is a shame and who knows how you will affect the ecology by destroying the pond. We landed at Turtle Beach where the snorkeling was great and the food very tasty.

On Friday was Nevis. (Picture: St. Kitts from our ferry). We decided to bike the entire island. Unfortunately, the back of the island was uphill and it took much longer than we expected. Next time, we take a taxi! We did stop at a nice local place on the beach for lunch, right next to the airport, but the airport was not very busy, so it was not a problem. Also, we stopped at the site of the birthplace of Alexander Hamilton. We have to have those history moments and a Jefferson connection…. For dinner, we ate at Ciaos, an Italian restaurant run by Italians. The meal was first rate.

We took a driving tour of the entire St. Kitts Island on Saturday. The first stop was Caribelle Batik, a touristy place that makes pretty amazing designs on cloth with wax and dye. We stopped at Brimstone Hill Fortress, a British fort built around the early to mid 1700s. It is on the UNESCO World Heritage List like Monticello and it was fantastic. The fort sits on a high mountain and overlooks the town of Sandy Point (see pic below). The French attacked this fortress during our American Revolution but France lost her in the treaty ten years later.

Myla and I wanted to see the infamous “Black Rocks” and we were expecting huge cliffs of black rock, right? Nope. It was a simple beach with a couple of slabs. By Sunday, we were heading home but not before we hit our best snorkeling in the morning right by the Monkey Bar on the Caribbean Sea. Ahhhh, the rum, the sun, the history, the food, and yes, even the slots.

--Bryan Craig

Honeymoon, Part One

We arrived on St. Kitts late at night, so we could not get a good view of our surroundings. We did hang out at the deck of our villa at the Marriotts Resort and Casino drinking my first Carib beer while Myla had some red wine. By Monday, we got a rental car, a little pink number, and then hit the grocery store (keep left, always left!) and downtown Basseterre, a crowded little town with little turn-abouts and old buildings. Tuesday was our first adventure: a one day volcano hike. We had an hour long drive to get there but we saw a little more of the western Island. It was a full day of hiking over rocks, through a few layers of rain forests, and reaching the top by lunch-time. The sight of the dormant volcano crater now filled with vegetation was pretty incredible. We saw the highest peak, Mt. Liamuiga at almost 4,000 ft. (see left) as trails of clouds swept over it. Our guide was very nice and we met some folks from Blacksburg, VA.

For dinner, we went to the Monkey Bar which is a place on the Caribbean side (St. Kitts Marriott is on the Atlantic side). Myla had snapper and I had seafood pasta. Her snapper was one of the best seafood meals I tried in a long time. I won’t complain about my meal, either.

We went on a half-day hike through the rain forest on Wednesday. The guide was nice enough but he was a walking advertisement for himself as the best guide ever. Yeah, we bought the tickets so were pretty captive audience, so let us move on, shall we? The best part of the hike was a swing that we had a chance to try out and we met a couple from Alexandria VA. We hit the beach to snorkel a little east on South Friar’s beach.

--Bryan Craig