Update: Drop #17- Visit all 50 States

     The ones in red are recent :-)

Alabama
Alaska
Arizona
Arkansas
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware
Florida
Georgia
Hawaii
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Mississippi
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
North Carolina
North Dakota
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Carolina
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
Vermont
Virginia
Washington
West Virginia
Wisconsin
Wyoming
25/50...! Halfway there!!!

Complete- Drop # 32: Go Scuba Diving

Did this at St. John!

So this isn't me scuba-ing, obviously... Didn't take any pics of the actual scuba
but just know that I DID do it! Pretend!

We hooked up with one of the scuba instructors on the island. Her company is called 6-Paq scuba, and she's been diving for nearly 30 years. She talked and talked, droning on for about two hours in the hot caribbean sun about what to do, how to do it, etc and giving me a physics examination every few minutes. Ultimately, though, it was worth it. I guess she's one of the few people who will take people scuba diving without requiring them to go to a full day class beforehand.
 
     Anyways, after two hours of her talking and telling us how to breathe etc, we put on the gear and we were in! I kind of just dragged along the bottom for a while; my weights were too heavy. Anyways, after she adjusted me and I got used to the environment I was good to go! It was amazing to me how quickly you can  raise to the top just by simply breathing the wrong way. The water pressure plays neat tricks. I'd find myself exhaling what seemed like three times the amount of air that I had inhaled!

     The sealife at St. John is amazing. There's so many coral reefs so close to the shore. She took us to a secluded beach and pointed to a rock formation sticking out of the water to her right. The water was crashing over it, but under the water it was so calm. I told her that my main goal for the dive was to find a sea turtle. Sure enough, she found it! it was gliding so peacefully in the water. It let us pet it, even, and stuck with us for a good ten minutes or so. That was definitely a highlight of the trip as a whole.

     Soooooooo..... One more drop down!

Complete- Drop #45: Win Something

I hadn't really won anything in my life.
     ... Okay, that's not completely true. In kindergarden, I came closest to guessing the correct amount of jellybeans in a container they made look like a bunny for Easter. I won the beans.

Buuutttt.... that doesn't really count, now does it?

     Shows how long it's been since I've updated this thing. A few months ago, I attended a fundraiser for my dad's cousin. The grand prize was a trip to St. John USVI, and I won it!

     It was a very beautiful place indeed, and we tried to do as much as possible while we were there. Turns out my dad's cousin lives on the island, and we stopped over to visit them. The landscape was beautiful no matter what part of the island you were. Wild cows and goats roamed freely and would often block the streets, and deer would graze openly in the fields. We also saw lots of hermit crabs, lizards, iguanas, and a couple of mongooses (mongeese?)

     On the last day of our trip I saw the end of a rainbow. It was literally 200 feet away from me. For the record, there is no pot of gold :-(. But, that's quite all right! Aaand that's the story of how I completed #45!