So yesterday was one of those 'introverted' kind of days. The weather was decent, a bit cold, but sunny, and there wasn't much else going on. I had planned on maybe going over to the Georgia Railroad Museum for a couple of hours. But it just never happened. Spent most of the day hanging out in the trailer reading my book and watching videos. Spent an hour or so out walking around on some of the park trails, but otherwise it was just a nice quiet day in which to do nothing.

    Today was a little different. For one thing it was much warmer today. Somewhere up in the mid 70's I think, with nice blue skies and fluffy white clouds. I spent a couple hours reading and relaxing at the trailer, but then headed out for a nice long hike to make up for only doing a short one yesterday. Ended up walking nearly all of the trails here in the park by the time I was all through. My 'Fitbit' registered something like 18,000 steps, so between 8 and 9 miles overall. A fun and very pleasant walk. I really didn't see much of real interest except for a couple of raccoon kits that ran up a tree and peeked down at me from among the branches.

    Have been over at a Micky D's for a couple of hours since then. My personnel little WiFi gadget ran out of data use on it yesterday, so I need to latch onto some other WiFi signal so that I don't run up a large 'use' bill on mine. Have been busy uploading photo's for most of that time, it seems very, very slow for some reason today. With any luck though I'll have a few to post along with this missive before the evening is over.

   About the only other real news from today is that I plan to stay one extra day here in the Savannah area. I had planned on packing up and heading on up to the Floyd Virginia area in the morning. But after looking at the weather report for there it looks like some cold, rainy and snowy weather up there tonight and tomorrow. So I went over to the park office this morning and paid for another night here instead. I am really hoping, and planning on leaving early on Tuesday morning now, as long as the weather isn't a total bust. Will just have to see what comes along I guess.

St Croix Contra Dance Week - Feb. 2014

Day one and we have arrived on St Croix and made it over to the resort at Sugar Beach. We are in a 4 bedroom condo and are lucky enough to have one of the rooms that face the ocean. So here we have the view from our balcony. Not a bad way to start a week in paradise.

The view looking west from the end of the balcony off the living room. Seems like the trade winds were always blowing at least a little bit.... except maybe really early in the morning. But I wouldn't know about that. 

The main reason we all come to the island during this one week in February. Here we see the open sided tent that we dance in every evening. George Marshall and his crew do a great job of getting everything set up and running well before any of us even show up. The tent has a nice stage at one end for the musicians and a wooden dance floor that is set up on top of rubber blocks to provide some spring to it. The stars are some type of nearly clear vinyl so the show up really well at night when the tent is lit from inside. 

Day two, first full day on the island, and one of the first things to do is meet everyone and have a short presentation about how things will work while here. After 20 years, George and his crew have this all down to a science. It's still fun however to spend some time meeting old friends and some new.

There is a calabash tree on the grounds near to the dance tent. I always find it interesting to note that the fruit comes right out of the side of main branches instead at the end like most fruit would. It must have something to do with how heavy the gourd is. Several people have taken and etched some really stunning art work into them and then let them dry before taking them home as souvenirs.  

A closer look at how the fruit gourd sets right off of the side of a main branch. 

A wonderful little beach right next door to where Rima and I were staying. This one is right on the way to the little beach cafe,
'Breez', where we would eat lunch most days. 

One of the many beautiful flowers on the island. I didn't take as many flower photo's this year. I already have so many from past years that I really didn't feel like I needed more. 

Waiting for the cab to take us all down to the street fair, 'Jump Up', in Christiansteg. This palm tree just intrigues me. Every year I take pictures of it, and every year it seems that I just can't capture the true essences of it. Maybe next year. 

The big draw for me at Jump Up is the appearance of the Moko Jumbies on their stilts. The costume, with face mask, came over from Africa with some of the first slaves. They evidently used them as a way to scare their kids into behaving. Something along the lines of 'Either behave or the Moko Jumbies will come and get you'. Seems like it would work to me. 

Once they got here in the new world the practice was banned by their new 'Christian owners'. Of course that only meant that it went underground for that period. At some point they became a type of secrete group that helped keep the slave owners in check. I'm not sure how effective they were though.

The whole thing was on the verge of dying out 20+/- years ago but several locals got together and started up a new group to teach the history as well as the stilt walking to new youngsters. Now it seems to have some real prestige associated with being in the group. 

You can't of course see these guys walking through all of the tourists and then stopping to do one of their little dance routines. I still have a hard time believing these guys can pick up one leg and hold it over there head or squat down so that their butt is below their 'actual' knees, all while being hooked to these wooden sticks that are tied on with cloth rags. Of course the tourists love it, especially young inebriated women for some reason. They all wanted pictures taken of them standing between their legs.... I'm not sure what that means.

Along one of the quieter streets was this trio playing some good blues and jazz for those passing by. 

One of two, young people steel drum bands playing that night. The other one had more kids and was very, very loud. Still lots of fun to watch and listen to.

And down at the end of another block we had some of the locals joining up with some of the tourists for a little line dancing. In the middle we have one of our contra dancers. Others had been out earlier, but this dance was unknown to most.