Island evening

This is my only other outfit post from St. Croix, I wore this one evening to walk on the beach with Clark. This was Sunday evening and it was kind of overcast/cloudy/threatening rain by 5pm. So we went to the local market and got some rum (full bottle was $9.99 eeeeeeeek), orange juice, sprite, and pineapple juice, oh and mini snicker bars haha. We had a little party for two and order in room service. I think this was the first time ever that I ordered room service while staying at a hotel. As a kid it was just not something we did and I guess I took that into adulthood but we ordered from Kendrick's which is a restaurant at the Buccaneer and it was really good. We both had baked mac and cheese with cauliflower! Yummy.

Clark loved finding the hermit crabs! He said it was his favorite and it wasn’t hard to find them because they were everywhere. They were funny little guys and not afraid of anything it seems. They would come out of there shell and try to pinch you while you were holding them. Fearless hermit crabs. I guess I would say that about most of the wildlife on the island they seems unfazed by humans. There were gecko friends on our terrace every morning that would slither away if you got too close but then they would be back the next morning. haha I think the iguana were my favorite. Go check out my last post if you want to see more photos of the iguanas! 

Also as you can see in the photo of Clark and I with my sunglasses off, I am wearing little to no makeup. Even my mascara washed off. Around day 2 I realized that if we are going to be spending most or almost all day doing water activity (swimming, snorkeling, jet skiing) there is no point in putting on makeup haha. So this is how I looked 85% off the time after day 2. I would just put on my sunglasses to look 5% more put together then I actually was. haha. 

love, Carlee

Top & Skirt: American Eagle

Sandals: Gap

Sunglasses: TJ Maxx

Hair: Out of control haha 

St. Croix fun facts + photos

Hey just here sharing some more photos from our St. Croix trip. These photos are from the time we spent in Frederiksted. I actually ended up jumping off the pier. That’s why in one photo my hair is dry and the other is wet haha. Fredericksted is on the West End and the water is SO BLUE. Also iguanas everywhere! I think we probably saw 20+ iguanas on our 6 day trip to St. Croix. I got up close and personal with the one below. Here are our photo from that day plus some fun facts about St. Croix that I learned while on our trip! . 

St. Croix fun facts and stuff

- There used to be 300+ stone sugar mills on the island when there was lots of sugarcane growing. Now there are only 120 still standing which is still a lot.

- There are only 5 types of wildlife on the island. Wild horses, boars, deer, mongoose, and iguanas. Also there are geckos, crabs, tons of other sea life (but those don’t count according to our tour guide haha.)

-There is a national guard base on the island.

- Point Udall on the eastern side of the island is the most eastern point in the United States of America.

- One side of the island is rain forest (the west) while the eastern side is desert.

- Christopher Columbus landed on the island. It was his second trip across the Atlantic in 1493 and he landed in salt river bay in St. Croix so this was technically the only place in the USA where Christopher Columbus actually stepped foot.

-The end of the movie Shawshank Redemption was filmed at Sandy Point in St. Croix although it’s suppose to be Mexico haha

- Sandy Point is a critical nesting habitat for the endangered leatherback sea turtle.

- The Dutch brought over yellow and red brick and that’s why still today the fort at Christiansted is yellow and the fork at Frederiksted is red. 

My shirt: Old Navy

Hat: Forever 21

Sunglasses: TJ Maxx

PS. Notice how my hair is dry at the beginning and wet at the end. Yeah, I jumped off the pier! haha 

Point Udall / St. Croix

One of the things I wanted to do while in St. Croix was go to Point Udall. Point Udall is the most eastern point in the United States of America which I thought was pretty cool. Although not a state the US Virgin Islands are a territory of the USA so still the United States of America. We went midday on Satuday. The weather was a little clouding on Saturday so we didn’t really want to do any water activities and while it didn’t end up raining thank goodness it was the perfect day so a scenic drive.

So you get to Point Udall on a paved one lane road that winds through the desert of St Croix on the east end. It was about 20 minutes from our hotel so not to bad. There weren’t many signs we just made sure to stay on the road that was closes to the ocean and we figure we would find it. We did. We parked and got out and walked around the sundial a little bit. Then we decided it was a good ida to hike all the way down to the actual most eastern point. Where all the waves were crashing against the rocks. I had my Toms sandals on but to my surprise they held up really nicely and my feet didn’t hurt at all after or have any blisters so YAY!

After Point Udall we drove back to our hotel (the Buccaneer- recommended 100%) we stopped by Cheeseburger’s In American’s Paradise for some lunch and it was so good. The cheeseburgers were SO GOOD and big! I had the potato salad and Clark had french fries and both were really good as well. I also had the dreamsicle frozen drink and it was AMAZING! Orange rum, vanilla rum, orange juice, some other things I don’t remember but it was good. Go here for lunch if you are ever in St. Croix. 
love, Carlee

Romper: Target

Sandals: Toms.com

Hat: Forever21

Sunglasses: TJ Maxx

Buck Island

Buck Island was amazing! We booked an excursion through Big Beard’s to see Buck Island. We did the half day in the afternoon and I am really glad we only did half the day because we were both really sun burnt afterward even after putting on 50 spf. So much sun and fun! The Big Beard crew was really awesome. Gabe was our first mate and he gave us some pointers on snorkeling most effectively. We boarded the Big Beards Adventure boat at the boardwalk in downtown Christiansted and then it took about 25 minutes to get out to Buck Island. They said the boat could hold 40+ people but there was only about 18 people on the boat with us which was awesome.

On the way out to Buck Island, Clark and I sat in the very front of the boat and got soaked haha. Like we didn’t even need to get in because we were already all wet but it was really fun. We also saw 2 sea turtles on our way out to Buck Island which was amazing! And on the way back we saw a dolphin!!!!!!!!!!!! Once we got out to Buck Island, Gabe explained a few things on the beach then we snorkled on the clear really calm side of the island for about an hour. Then we went to the other side of the island were the main part of the Buck Island Reef National Monument is and we got to snorkel among the reef it was awesome. Buck Island is actually the USA’s only underwater national monument which is pretty cool if you ask me.

We saw 2 really large schools of bright blue fish (seen here on my insta) and three 5-6 foot barracudas. Tons of other colorful fish, blue & yellow, red, rainbow, etc. We saw all different types of coral. I guess there are 6 species of endangered coral at the Buck Island reef. So you had to be very careful not to harm the coral or wildlife at all because federal crime! (eeeeek)

There are definitely other company’s that you can book an excursion through to see Buck Island but I would recommend Big Beard’s the staff was super friendly and experienced. We got to the island on Thursday and actually used our hotel phone to call Big Beard’s and make a reservation for Friday (the next day) in the afternoon. Since August is not the busy season I was hoping we would be fine and we were. If you are going during the busy season November - March I would probably book a little bit more in advance then I did. Maybe 1-2 weeks! Happy Tuesday!
love, Carlee

Bliss

Bliss. Warm waters. Warm nights. Cool breeze. Cold hotel rooms with the AC on blast. Gecko friends on the porch. Stopping for iguanas and ghost crabs on the way into the hotel each day. Driving up to breakfast at the great house because we are to lazy to walk. Vacation. Finding an open parking spot every morning before breakfast. Eating Johnny Cakes and homemade banana or chocolate chip pancakes. Seeing a rainbow from breakfast one morning. Wondering what the fruit trees are that are growing on the property.

Driving on the left side of the road with no problem. Stopping on the side of the road when we spot an iguana. Stopping on the side of the road for local fruit stands. Buying baby bananas locally grown. Clark being worried that there might be spiders in the local bananas. There weren’t. Passing free range horses, goats, and cows at every turn. Getting lost and asking the locals where to go because our phones didn’t work on the island. Realizing every person you talked to is super nice. Very very nice. Eating yummy food all day everyday. Not having anywhere to go or be. Bliss.

So many other things that happened to us where bliss and amazing and I am sure they will come up in other post. I wore this outfit to the casino on Friday night. Clark actually took a little cat nap from 7-9pm and I was thinking that we were in for the night. But he woke up and was ready to go so we drove to the casino. (Only casino on the US Virgin Islands) and lost $80 within an hour or so. We played black jack and I made my $40 last about 45 minutes then Clark came in and played and his $40 lasted about 15 minutes haha. It was a good time though. They even had live music and all the locals where super friendly. 

I know we are really high rollers, spending $80 ;) 
love, Carlee

Dress: Target

Shoes: Target

Sunglasses: TJ Maxx

Hat: Forever 21

Back from vacation - St. Croix

Hey there! So Clark and I just got back from a 6 day trip to St. Croix in the Caribbean Sea. St. Croix is one of the US Virgin Islands. It is less inhabited then the other two St. Thomas and St. John and it was just perfect for a nice relaxing vacation. I plan on sharing lots of photos from our trip and talking about the different places we went and also some recommendation but for this post I am just stopping in to say a quick hi and also share some of my St. Croix photos that aren’t really going to fit into another post. So here is a taste of some of the wonderful things we got to see and do!

We stayed at the Buccaneer it was really nice and all the people were super friendly. I would definitely recommend it. I will talk more about it later in greater detail. 

Photo of the Bahamas from our trip down to St. Croix. 

 Local fruit!

 Chickens and roosters and baby chicks everywhere. haha. My mom has chickens so I kept sending her chicken photos. 

Cherries from Washington State! This is a big deal because my dad is a cherry farmer in Washington State and his fruit is packed at Chelan Fresh which is where this bag of cherries came from. WA cherries that could be my dads all the way in the Caribbean!

I may or may not have jumped off the pier in the nude. Don’t worry no one saw.... I don’t think. It was definitely a yolo moment (is that still a thing!? haha)

Hope everyone has an amazing weekend! Happy Friday. 
love, Carlee