Day 2

At dinner last night, my cousins and I had made arrangements that they would come around 10am to pick me up for a day of rigorous hiking!   My husband and son (who think I am crazy) opted out of this and planned to find a quiet beach somewhere to hang out. All beaches on the island are public so they were going to walk to a nearby resort and check out their beach.

One of the things I really wanted to do was to see some ruins of the old sugar plantations here on St. John.  My cousins chose Reef Bay trail... a trail with pretty rough terrain which included an old sugar mill where cane was ground, sugar made and rum distilled and also some rocks with ancient carved petroglyphs. Two hours hiking in... mostly downhill including a side half mile to see the rock carvings.  Lots of stops to take photos and read the plaques telling about plants and history.

The day was gorgeous... a bit cloudy which kept it from being too hot!  We ate a picnic lunch perched on rocks near the petroglyphs.   Another mile or so to check out the sugar mill ruins and then a beautiful white sandy beach appeared beyond the forest vegetation.

We spent about 20 minutes there... a quick dip and a few minutes to dry out in the sun and we were back on our way out.

It only took us ONE hour to hike back out.... surprising all of us since it was pretty much all UPhill to get back to the car.  But I can definitely say that I got my exercise in today!

We stopped for dinner supplies on the way back to the condo.  My men were there when we arrived back.... and had some really bad news.

We had a death in the family this morning.  It is a hard thing...but not a surprise.. my husband's relative has been on hospice care since the end of December.  But now my poor husband has to figure out how to handle what's next.

And what is next is this:  arrangements have all been made.  The family has been waiting.  It is not realistic for them to wait for us.  Nor, as it turns out, does it appear to be realistic for us to return in time.

His family knows that we are away.  We've checked flights out.. but even with additional fees to change reservations, there simply are not enough seats for all of us on tomorrow's flight... and, because of the race on Saturday... the flights are booked solid for Saturday and Sunday.  Our original reservation was for Tuesday afternoon.  Even once we get home, we must transport our dogs to a friend's house and then travel 5 hours by car.  We have a dilemma as to what to do.

Well.. not much of a dilemma... so far, there is not much we CAN do..   but it is hard to be here and not able to go back like we need to.  Tomorrow we will find a landline and  talk with relatives to find out what the funeral arrangements will be... and we have our own original plans for tomorrow's activities.  I'm not sure how to proceed right now.

So it looks right now like we are STUCK in paradise!  What a mess!

What would you do?  How would you handle this?