Tan Doug Tours St. Croix - Episode 2

The ocean view from Doug's porch.

Continuing the storyline from Episode 1:

It's Day Three, I think. I haven't eaten much since Day One, as I have food poisoning, so my "facts" may be slightly skewed. Please correct me in the comments section if in fact I've boogered up some chronology.

As I've said before, St. Croix is just absolutely beautiful.

We started the day out with a little shopping in downtown Christiansted.

(click any pic for the whole album.)

We walked down to the boardwalk and checked out all the sailboats.

Gilligan inquires about a three-day tour.

Then, of course, it's time to check out another beach, at another resort.

A nice view en route to the beach.

Piratey ship (Doug, i can't remember the name), is a National Historic Landmark -- the last pilot schooner used by the US Navy. It offers sunset cruises.

We grabbed a bite for lunch before laying out under the coconut trees. Apparently more people die every year from coconuts falling on their heads than from shark attacks. Having not eaten in 48 hours, I overindulged myself and ate most of a ginormous hamburger. Shouldn't have done that -- the ole gastrointestinal tract, lying in wait, would gather its strength to exact demonic revenge in a few hours.

Country boy and Gilligan pose at the Buccaneer.

My sexy girlfriend.

It was awesome. I was really feeling back on the top of my game after lunch. We floated around, jumped off a little pier and napped in the sun. Those daily naps in the sun on the sand have ruined me. I've still yet to get my body used to a normal amount of sleep each day.

This is what I'm talking about.

Shark bait.

The edge of the Buccaneer beach. Don't sail onto the rocks or you'll end up in Davy Jones' locker.

After our piratey adventure at the Buccaneer, Doug led us to a secret beach. It's pretty amazing being the only people on a beach of the caliber as those in St. Croix. With no open container laws. We hiked around a bit, watched the sun go down and hightailed it out of there while we had enough light to see the mangrove trail.

Miller time.

Where to next? Cheesburgers in Paradise, of course!

Doug ordered a couple rum specialties for he and Carrie, the Cruzan Confusion and the Painkiller, while I stuck to water.

Carrie is a fan.

We watched a bit of Steve Gatz on the guitar before going back to Doug's for the evening.

That's all I've got for today, but check back for Tan Doug Tours St. Croix - Episode 3: An offroadin, tidal poolin, fishin and sunset watchin adventure.

The Pack loses and Lincoln dies

We've begun our seminars downtown. They're pretty cool. Work starts Monday.

Plenty of time today to do a bit of site seeing before the afternoon session.

The Petersen House, or the House Where Lincoln Died, was just a few blocks away, so we hit it first.

Just a couple rooms, nothing spectacular, though it was kind of neat being in the room Lincoln died. The Ford Theatre is across the street. Maybe we'll get to it one of these days.

Ben, Alex, Morgan, Gavin and me.

Apparently, because he was so tall, Lincoln died laying diagonally on the bed. The bed in the room is the same size as the original, which is owned by the Chicago Historical Society.

Clicky for more pictures.

Gavin, Alex and I walked over to the White House, harassed lazy squirrels and just kind of farted around.

The Washington Monument isn't nearly as big as I remember.

My sister and her boyfriend, Jon, joined Ben and I to watch the Packers/Giants game Sunday.

Bad game. Won't say anything about it except that it was fun to get together and eat some burgers, quesadillas and veggies, and drink some beer.

I was questioned by the NSA today and stalked the King of the Jungle

OK, so I wasn't really questioned, but an NSA cop did make me run through the pictures on my digital camera for him.

My sister Emily, her boyfriend Jon, Mark and I went to the NSA's National Cryptologic Museum today near Laurel, Md.

Afterwards we stopped at National Vigilance Park -- a bit of greenspace off the highway where they parked three big planes. Apparently, all the buildings behind the park are NSA and picture taking is a no-no. We're farting around at the park and an NSA cop rolls up in an SUV cruiser and rolls down the passenger side window.

"How're you doin?"

"Fine. That a digital camera?"

"Yeah."

"Come over to this side of the car please."

I walk over.

"Let me see your pictures."

"Ok..."

I start scrolling through and he sees one he'd like a closer peek at, touches my camera and turns off the preview function.

"What happened?"

"You pressed a button. Hang on."

"OK."

He looks at all the pictures. Nothing scandalous, except maybe this picture of me nearly getting sucked into the jet intake of a EA-3B Navy Recon jet.

(Click pic for photo album)

"Anybody else got a camera?"

"Yeah," Mark says.

"Let me see it."

He scrolls through the pictures, same as before.

"Can I take your picture?" I query.

"No."

"What?"

"No."

"Oh, OK."

"Anybody else have a camera?"

"I have one in the car," Emily says.

"That's OK," he says as he finishes flipping through Mark's pictures.

"How long are you all going to be here?"

No one answers. Cop mumbles something about taking pictures of the buildings behind us.

"Can I take pictures that way?" I ask, gesturing at the buildings.

"No."

"Oh."

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Back to the Crypto Museum.

We arrived shortly after 10 a.m. and wandered around for a few minutes before a dude announced he'd give us and the other ramblers a tour of the joint.

It was a pretty good tour, I guess. He covered the bits about the Enigma machine purdy well, but closer to present day started weaving in tales about being vigilant of terrorists and and started explaining history by anecdote and it was a little hard to follow. We wandered off after a while and poked our heads back in every now and again.

Enigma!

Just a couple jolly gentlemen.

Emily shows us how to use some big-ass crypto machine.


Maps are cool.

Mark starts playing war games.

Then we headed over to the National Vigilance Park, next to the NSA. Let me ask you a question: Why the hell would you park a park next the NSA? Do the NSA cops harass every tourist who stops to look at the planes, or did we just look scary?

Maybe it was our four matching pea coats.

Done with the NSA, we hop back in the highway and drive to Baltimore. It's aquarium time!

We get our tickets all sorted out and grab a quick bite to eat before the 4D immersion movie begins.

It was basically a 15-minute edited-down version of a Planet Earth episode with David Attenborough which employed 3-D glasses, squirts of water, vibrating seats, burst of air and bubbles (like the kind you blew with a little wand when you were a kid). It was cool, but definitely aimed at the wee ones.

The aquarium was really cool. We saw lots of neato aminals. Like these guys:

We like swimming, but we also like sitting down to rest our weary flippers.

And this guy:

Look at me! I'm a Waxy Monkey Frog!

And this guy!

Gimmie a kiss! I'm an electric EEEEEEEEL!

Don't forget these fellas!

Pssh! We scoff at you! We poison dart frogs are too cool to face you. Neener neener.

You'd better put down that spear gun, mister, or we'll tell!

The rest of the animals can be found in the photo album.

We were quite thirsty after the rainforest and Australian desert exhibits, so we wandered down to the airport-like strip mall off the water and grabbed a bite to eat and a drink. Which is when we found the King of the Jungle, aka XXX, aka Vin Diesel, aka bad-dresser man, wandering around aimlessly from floor to floor.

Finally a janitor asked him something and he bought some chicken.

"Dude, have you seen my bro?"

Let's get another look at your lovely coat.

"Normally, both your asses would be dead as fucking fried chicken, but you happen to pull this shit while I'm in a transitional period so I don't wanna kill you, I wanna help you. But I can't give you this case, it don't belong to me. Besides, I've already been through too much shit this morning over this case to hand it over to your dumb ass."

And with that the great adventure was over. Stay tuned for more episodes of Tan Doug Tours St. Croix!