Puerto Rico

Saturday, 25 Sep 2004

It's Saturday evening, and guess where we are?

At the Hacienda del Mar in Puerto Rico.

Jeanne has been the story of this vacation. First she sent us clouds and rain for several days of our stay in St. Maarten. Then she whacked Puerto Rico, which was before we got here, but we still saw the effects when we arrived -- traffics lights out, limbs down, facilities not working. And now she's closed OIA, and our flight has been cancelled.

Judi floating in the main pool

The view while floating in the main pool

Me emiting from the main pool's water slide head first (photo: Judi)

We've extended our stay by two days (and if we had to get stuck somewhere, there are certainly worse places than this), and we're due to fly to Miami on Monday. Hopefully the airport there will be open.

What's worse is that Hurricane Jeanne is making landfall right were we live, tonight, so we have the prospect of no electricity to return to. That was how we left it, and it looks like that's what we're going to go back to.

In the meantime, we are here. A great deal of the morning was spent on the phone to American Airlines (or rather, on hold on the phone to American Airlines), to Hertz Car Rentals, and otherwise making arrangements. Then we had to go to town ("town" is Dorado, and believe me it's a town) for supplies to tide us over. The very nice but only-Spanish-speaking ladies came by to prep the room, and were surprised to find us still in it. I tried to explain that we would be staying for dos mas dios. I received puzzled looks. It wasn't until a couple hours later that it occurred to me that I should have said dos mas dias. I can understand the ladies' puzzlement when I was telling them "two more gods."

We spent the rest of the day by the river pool, and floating on our Swimway floats in the main pool.

Like I said, if you have to be stranded, there are worse places to be.

Lunch was once again, where else, Johnny Rockets. No root beer float today. One can only have so many root beer floats in so many days and not end up a person who says to other people, "You're too skinny!"

The resort, which was fairly empty last week (Jeanne aftermath?) is really filling up now. At first I thought it was odd that almost all the guests are Spanish-speaking, most with children, apparently from here on the island. But then I got to thinking, this is the hottest part of the year, right? And what do you do during the hottest part of the year? You pack up and go to a nice resort with a beach, lounge chairs, and a terrific pool. During the winter, when it may seem cold to the people who live here but will seem balmy to people who live where it really gets cold -- like, say, Iowa -- this place probably fills up with mostly English speakers. Ya think?

The casino was crowded tonight. The two times we went before, it was dead dead dead. I wondered how it made money. But tonight I saw how. It must have been more Jeanne fallout.

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