Puerto Rico

Friday, 24 Sep 2004

Judi at the end of Hacienda Del Mar's beach

Today the sky dawned clear and blue, and we spent the day at the resort. We did the river pool. We floated in the main pool on our Swimways rafts. We walked on the beach. It really is a beautiful beach. We would have loved to lay out on this beach except that it was even better to lay out on the deck next to the river pool, so close to the beach that it was as though we were there, but without the sand.

The Hacienda del Mar is a great resort. The only problem is, there aren't enough activities to keep you busy for seven days, and laying out gets old after a while, and then what's there to do? Go somewhere else. In traffic. Lots of traffic. And bad drivers. And traffic. And no road signs. And traffic. And did I mention the traffic?

But today was a great day -- clear and sunny and the water was magnificent all day long.

Lunch was at the resort's restaurant: Johnny Rockets. The choices were no-brainers: Split a plate of chili cheese fries (with onions), then two chili cheese hot dog (with onions), followed up with a shared root beer float. This is part of the cuisine that American has given to the world that makes me proud to be an American.

Johnny Rockets is an outdoor restaurant, and it's enclosed in netting to keep out birds. But the last time we ate here we noticed two birds inside the netting, and today we found out why: There are places where the netting meets the ground where some of the strings are broken, creating small opening where the birds can push through. And the birds know exactly where these are. We watched them land, hop along to the openings, and push through, just like they had their own personal doorways.

Sunset from a chaise lounge

For the last three evenings we've gone down at sunset to lay in lounge chairs on the paved walk along the river pool. It's so peaceful, so relaxing. I told Judi I could just spend the night there.

More on the subject of the invasion of American slang into world culture: This evening as we sat in our lounge chairs at sunset, a couple of girls in bikinis raced past, and one who was especially overweight (what else can you tell at dusk?) was chattering in Spanish into her cell phone, which she suddenly broke off with, "Okay, bye."

Now on to another subject: The insects! Yes, the Lushness of Puerto Rico means insects. Some of them the biting kind. St. Maarten is supposed to be notorious for mosquitoes, but we've seen nary a one in all our visits. But here in Puerto Rico they have biting insects. Hey, it comes with the lushness.

We are watching Hurricane Jeanne. We are so watching Hurricane Jeanne. We are due to leave tomorrow evening. Will we be able to fly into Orlando? Even if we are, will we be spending the day after tomorrow weathering yet another hurricane? Will we be without electricity again, as we return to the States, just as we were when we left two weeks ago?

Stay tuned. But I'm not looking forward to the next couple of days.

Oh yeah, and I hurt my right foot on the water slide today. I can barely walk tonight. I hope this improves by tomorrow.

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