Adventures with My Dad

Overview:

My name is Emma Kinser. I am 9 years old. I will start the 4th grade this fall. My dad and I like to go on adventures. We decided the best way to share them was to create a travel blog. These are my words, but Dad helped me with spelling and grammar. This is our first entry.

Our Trip to St. John

Day 1 - June 12, 2012

Today was an early day. We had to wake up at 4:30 so we could get ready and take a cab to the airport. Luckily, we packed almost everything the night before. The taxi was right on time and we got to DFW airport fast. Here is a photo of me standing in line at security:

Dad bought the hat for me the day before the trip. A whole bunch of people complimented me on it during the whole vacation. We got through security and decided to have breakfast while waiting for our flight. We had breakfast burritos at Blue Mesa. They were awesome. We went to our gate, but that's where things started to go wrong. Our plane had engine troubles, so we took off two hours late. When we got to the airport in Miami, we were told that we missed our 12:30 connecting flight to St. Thomas and we probably wouldn't get to leave until the next day. They put us on standby for the 5:30 flight, and we made it! Dad and I watched TV shows on the plane and played Sudoku.

We landed in St. Thomas around 8:30 and took a shuttle van to the ferry in Red Hook. We got there early, so we walked around and found a restaurant called Fish Tails. We had fried calamari for an appetizer. Dad told me it was like onion rings. After we finished them, he told me it was really fried squid tentacles! He was surprised that I actually liked it. For dinner, I had spaghetti and Dad had mahi mahi. They were very good.

We went back to the ferry dock and left on the 10 p.m. ferry. We arrived in Cruz Bay at 10:20. It was a short boat ride. Dad had made a reservation with L&L Jeep Rental so they were waiting at the dock with our Jeep. I had never ridden in a Jeep before. I thought it was cool. The man who rented our villa to us was also there waiting, so we followed him to Coral Bay where our villa was. The roads were crazy! It was like driving all over a mountain - up and down with lots of turns. It was only 8 miles from Cruz Bay to Coral Bay, but the drive took 30 minutes. We FINALLY got to the villa around 11. The name of the villa was Harbour Lights. It was really neat. Here are a couple of pictures of it:

Even though it was really late, Dad and I swam in the pool before we went to bed. That was the best part of the villa. We had our own pool. I swam in it every night. Dad swam in it sometimes. Here is a photo of it:

Tomorrow we go to the beach!

Day 2 - June 13, 2012

We slept in today because of our late arrival last night. We got up and decided to go to breakfast. We got in the Jeep and drove to Cruz Bay. We finally found a parking spot after driving around town several times and we walked to JJ's Texas Coast Cafe.

I had the pancakes and Dad had the huevos rancheros:

They were delicious! I thought it was crazy that we saw chickens walking around our table:

After breakfast we went to a jewelry store and Dad bought me a pretty ring. Then we went to the beach by the ferry dock. Dad knew there was a webcam pointed at the beach, so we wrote his friend's name in the sand so he could see us:

Scott liked it so much that he posted it on Facebook and said, "Somewhere there's a beach with my name on it!" After that, we got back in the Jeep and drove back to Coral Bay. Along the way, we saw donkeys in the road:

Donkeys have been in St. John for several hundred years since the days when the island was used primarily for growing sugar cane. The donkeys never left, and everyone leaves them alone.

We went to Lilly's Gourmet Market and got some groceries and then we went back to our villa. We got ready and then went to Skinny Legs for lunch:

Dad wanted to come here so he could get a cheeseburger in paradise. The restaurant is cool. The menu is on a surfboard:

We both got cheeseburgers. They were awesome:

After lunch we went snorkeling at Maho Bay. We saw lots of small fish, including a puffer fish. After that, we went back to Coral Bay and got a pizza at Donkey Diner and went home and ate. After that, I swam in the pool and Dad listened to reggae. We had no idea the big day we would have tomorrow...

Day 3 June 14, 2012

We got up early today, ready to hit the beach. We drove to Cruz Bay to search for a noodle to help me swim. The store wasn't open yet, so we drove to Trunk Bay to look at the beach. This is the view we saw:

This is me sitting in front of Trunk Bay:

The difference in the quality of the photos is because Dad took some photos with his camera and some with his blackberry (so he could post them immediately). Little did we know that the camera would suffer a tragic death later during the trip...