I'm back! We got in last night a bit after midnight. The trip home was mostly uneventful. Lucy and I got up early and had our sunrise walk on the beach (as we had pretty much every morning we were there). It was fun to hear all of the roosters crowing as the bats whirled around the tamarind tree coming in to roost. We had coffee in the pavilion and sat in the breeze. When it was light, we all went swimming in the ocean one last time. Charlie found a starfish and then found an octopus hiding in a tiny crevice in a rock. Alisa had gone snorkeling way down the shore, so I walked down and got her so she could see it. While we were watching it, Charlie suddenly yelled "Jellyfish!" and ran up onto the beach. I borrowed Alisa's goggles so I could see it, before we too left the water. It was a handsome medusa. Luckily no-one got stung. One of Buzz's party got stung the first couple of days we were there and had to be taken to the clinic, so we dodged a real bullet thanks to Charlie's excellent observational skills.
We were nearly packed when one of the Cottages owners came down with a phone call from the auto rental place. When Alisa had rented the car, they had told her she could just drop the car off at the airport in the afternoon, but evidently the agreement actually said we were supposed to have returned it that morning. Making a long story short, we agreed to leave it at the airport before noon, which was what we had planned to do anyway. When we got to the airport, I dropped everyone off at the ticket counter and then followed the directions on their map to leave the car in one of the three slots they had identified for their cars. I locked the keys in the car they way they had directed and started to walk away. The woman manning the gatehouse for the parking lot leaned out and told me I couldn't leave the car there. "I'm sorry," I said. "That's where the rental agency told me to leave it and I've already locked the keys in the car". She started to sputter, but just then, the man from the rental agency showed up, so I turned and ran back to the airport, to make sure I didn't have to be involved in any discussion about the car or it's location.
The flight to San Juan was a little bumpy, but the flight back to Boston was smooth. We got in right when they said we would, picked up the car, and got home in good order. It's good to be home.
Driving a car in St. Croix is an experience: they drive on the left (wrong!) side of the road, but they have American style cars, with the steering wheel on the left. They also have the headlights adjusted for driving on the right, so that they tend to blind the oncoming driver. It's mostly pretty easy to adjust to driving on the wrong side of the road. It's hard only (1) when you're turning and your instincts are all wrong for looking for oncoming traffic and (2) when you're pulling out and you have to decide which lane to drive in. Now that I'm back, I have twinges of fear everytime I pull out or turn, worrying about whether I'm doing it right.
I've tried my 
Cruzan Rum Single Barrel and Rum Cream. The Single Barrel is meant to be drunk neat. After the long day yesterday, I cracked open the bottle and had a taste before bed. It was perfect. The Rum Cream is a lot like Bailey's Irish Cream. In fact, in a side-by-side taste test, although I could probably tell you that they weren't the same, I don't think I could tell you which was which. And I couldn't tell you which was better. It's really, really good.