Rambling thru life

Today is Thursday.  I've been asked what are we doing today several times.  Its easy to tell everyone about the trip to the Bio Bay tonight.  But that isn't until 8PM.  But for today I was at a loss on what to do.  Previous trips we spent one day in San Juan which used took up a day of the trip.  This time to the island, the family has decided not to go into old town again.  So what should we do? In 1978, I visited Puerto Rico courtesy of the United States Navy.  We pulled into Roosevelt Roads Naval Station, Along with some buddies we went up to San Juan for a couple of days.  But that is a different story.  Today's story is our visit to Roosevelt Roads. Roosevelt Roads Naval Station was turned over to the government of Puerto Rico in 2004.  Today most of the station is abandoned. You can read more about it  here. We entered the station close by the airport entrance.  There were guards at the gate, but they let us in without even checking ID.  From the entrance we dro

Today is a simple day to blog about.  We spent the day at the Balbeario Monsrrat Beach  and we went to dinner at Pasta y Pueblo Restaurant in Luquillo. We brought the boogey boards found in the apartment along with LoriAnn and my snorkel masks.  The water was to silty to see much beyond a arm length.  But it was great practice for Tom and Megan in preparation to snorkeling on Friday.  Because there wasn't much surf, the board din't help much than to hang onto in the water. We still had fun playing and splashing in the water. We made a short stop at the grocery store for more bottled water and food.  When we got back to the apartment, the gate to the parking lot did not open.  Tom got out and pushed it opened so we could park.  It was still open when we went to bed. For dinner we went to the Pablo y Pasta restaurant in luquillo.  We tried to go there on Monday night but it was closed. Its hard to find this location and you may give up before you do.  Don't give

Since my second trip to Puerto Rico, I have always wanted to go to the Arecibo Observatory.   This was to be the trip. Four years ago we tried to go on Thanksgiving day.  We traveled some fun roads to get there only to find it closed.  This time I checked the web site to see what the visiting times were only to find that the Observatory was closed for renovations. I guess this means that I will need to make another trip to Puerto Rico. Instead of Arecibo, I opted to take the family to the  Bacardi Distllery  for the Historical tour. We are not a bunch of big drinkers so some of you might think this was unusual.  Although I have expanded my menu selelctions over the years, I grew up with three primary drinks; Beer, Jack Daniels and coke, and Bacardi and coke. Since this was my eighth trip to the island for work or please, it is about time that I went. From what I understand this used to be a free tour, but that was long ago.  Entrance was $12 each, but that included a free drink

Today we went to the El Yunque rain forest. This forest is the only tropical rain forest in the USA. We first stopped at the La Coca falls for a photo op.    Then we went up higher and found the trail to La Mina falls.  We found the lower trailhead and set out with intentions of swimming in the water pools at the falls.  About half way there I slipped and fell, skinning my knee and cutting my toe.  After continuing on for aways, we decided to abort.  There were a variety of reasons, not just because my knee and toe were still bleeding.   We then went up as high as you could by car, and started our way down. We stopped again to walk around the picnic area.  We all agreed that natures attempt to recover this area added beauty to the forest, it also gave it a eerie look.  A monster may pop out and get us at any time.  The worse we saw were slugs crawing up the trees. Farther down we stopped at the Yokahu llok out tower.  The tower reminded me of the watch

Its Sunday. Our first full day in town is typically a slow going day and today wasn't any better.   Everyone awoke late in the morning, and moved to the balcony to enjoy the sun, wind and view.  We are already well into vacation mode.  But our stomachs started to get the better of us.  It was great to have Eggs and Bacon for breakfast on the balcony.  Megan pitched in to help LoriAnn cook, and Tom and I had cleanup duty. After breakfast we headed over to Balneario Monserrate Beach.  This is a popular city beach for the locals.  Since it was Sunday it was pretty busy.  The $4.50 entry fee we thought was modest.  The beach was clean, the water was calm.  We swam and played in the water for a couple of hours.  As with most trips to the Caribean, LoriAnn again was excited that she could float in the salt water.  We took time out of swiming for a walk down the beach and it was fun to see the families enjoying the day. At one end of the beach, it comes to a point.  There we saw some

We caught a ride to the airport from our friend Scott and had an un eventful flight from Minnesota to Puerto Rico.  The first day being a travel day was exciting, and frustrating with all the much to do with baggage, security, ground transportation and such. Somehow we managed to squeeze all the luggage we had into our rented vehicle and out of the airport we went. Like always, gettiing from the airport to our lodging requires travel down roads where I haven't been.  I always do better when I can leave the airport in the daytime.  Seeing the sun gives me a sense of direction.  Its been almost 2 years since I travelled the Highway to Luquillo, but as sights went by me, I got a sense that I have been here before.  Our lodging is different this trip to the island.  Instead of staying at a resort we decided to rent an apartment. We choose Bella Mar in the town of Luquillo.  Luquillo is located in the Northeast corner of the island close to Fajardo. The apartment is a nice two bedr