Sun, Surf, and Sleep - Day 2-3 in Puerto Rico

I am having trouble with slow internet and slow computers, so I am going to post some entries with no pictures for now, and then add pics later. Sorry about that.

Anyway, I was pondering the whole vacation thing and how much work and stress it requires, and inevitably it brings up the question, why do it? Wouldn’t life be so much easier to stay home, save some money, get some things done, and not worry about it? Well, to that I would answer with the question, wouldn’t life be much easier if you never left your house?

The reality is, life takes a little effort, and taking the easy way out is not a good MO, at least from my perspective. I see this all the time with parenting, and having tried my best to take the easy way out for most of my life, I’ve learned that when you do this, it makes it that much harder to deal with life’s challenges because you avoid them. Choosing the easy and comfortable path makes you afraid of deviating from the path of least resistance, and let’s face it, you have to deviate now and then, sometimes more than others. I’ve found that you can’t realize this until you actually do it, and until you do it, it’s so easy to avoid it altogether. There is huge resistance to taking a vacation, but we always had a great time, and the trips are always memorable.

I’m saying this because this time around was no different. When R mentioned wanting to take a trip, my first impulse was, “Now?” There is so much to take care of, so many things to deal with, not to mention the cost. Why do it? Well, the answer is, because it’s there. In all honesty, I find that three things happen when we travel, and that’s that I lose weight, I get lots of sleep, and we spend lots of time together. Time that will not be available forever when you’re interacting with pre-teen and teenage children.

This time around is no different. We are day 3 of our trip, and things are going well. The trip over was amazingly smooth, we made our flight with time to spare, the flight was spacious and comfortable, and we flight over was uneventful. We landed in San Juan around 9:30PM and took a cab over to the Hampton Inn, which is much like a Hampton Inn that you would encounter in the states, except that it had a little PR flair. I sort of liked that.

We got a good night’s sleep, had a killer breakfast (scrambled eggs instead of pre-fab round ones), and then hit the pool. The weather was rainy and hot, but the sun came out after breakfast and we had a blast in the pool. Just an observation, not too many people seem to swim and have fun in the pool, we had it pretty much to ourselves. By 10:00AM, they opened the bar, and I have to say, it’s beyond me having drinks that early.

We swam for several hours, then walked over to get our rental car. San Juan is an interesting city, redolent of NYC but near the beach, a little edgy, but fun for the young and the restless. We got our car and hit the road. PR is much greener than I remember, very lush and fertile. The roads are nice, and people don’t drive like crazy Europeans. It was very manageable.

By the afternoon, we had arrived in Rincon, and you could tell we were in surf city. Surf shops everywhere in a very “beachy” atmosphere. It was like being at home. The plan was to get our room, check out the beach, and get some surfing in. Not too much to ask, is it?

To be continued, but suffice it to say that Rincon is very cool, we love it here. I even managed to rent a board, hit the surf, and catch some waves. Best of all, I actually surfed the waves and the kids got to see it. How can you beat that. For the record, the surfing beaches are not for the faint of heart, very rocky, no sand, and a killer reef to stress me out. The waves were too rough for kids, as well, so it wasn’t ideal from a family perspective. However, they were good waves, and it felt good to be out there.

Just one last hilarious note, there is an ice skating rink in town. You just can’t get away from this stuff. Lots of cool stuff in downtown Rincon, as well, including a killer indoor skate park, and a BMX race track, both of which spoke to N’s heart.

Today is Tuesday, and we’ll head out for the rainforest. More on Rincon later, until then, thanks for reading.