Counting Down - Official Vacation Post #1

Talisa (my wife) and I are taking our first vacation together - just the 2 of us - in 12 years. We'll be heading for a week in sleepy, lazy, beautiful St. John, USVI.

I can't begin to express how excited I am about this trip. When we first visited the US Virgin Islands in April of 2007 (a half day stop over on our Carnival Cruise) we were immediately infatuated with the place and knew we'd have to come back for a real vacation - not just a half day visit.

So now begins the countdown...

We did a lot of reasearch about where to stay, what to do, what to see, and made our reservations.

We'll be staying at a quaint and affordable villa called Serendip. It is affordable because summer vacation time here in the 48 contiguous states is off-season in the Virgin Islands. The owner, Ted Johnson, has been very kind and helpful, and has told me there is a very good BBQ restaurant on the island. That is a challenge. I'm Southern born and raised, and I LOVE BBQ. I look forward to this challenge. Ted has even arranged for our Jeep rental when we get to Saint John.

My work, home, and laptop computers have Virgin Islands wallpaper, and my digital photo frame on my desk at work scrolls through about 20 pictures of St. John and surroundings (thanks Flickr!

Since this is supposed to be a photography blog - I have little experience with travel, landscape, and nature photography. I am actually nervous about my ability to capture the spirit and soul of our vacation and the island. If a picture is worth a thousand words, I want to make sure they're really nice words.

I'll be working on my low-light, wide angle, funky lenses, and composition over the next 6 weeks to make sure my photographic skills are up to the challenge.

So now I wait...