In the afternoon before our last full day in Aruba, I was finally feeling up to getting into the ocean. This meant I got to participate in my absolute favorite thing to do on an island trip — sunset at the beach, when the sun goes down into the ocean in front of you. Living in NJ my whole life, I’m never more than 20 minutes or so from the open seas, but of course we face the wrong direction……
After a serene visit to Playa La Posita, a hot but enjoyable trip to El Morro, and a real mess at the El Yunque rainforest, we wanted to spend some more time at the beach on our last full day in Puerto Rico. Regular readers of this blog know that I have a strict no-backtracking-unless-absolutely-necessary policy, so we wanted to try something new. Ariel had read that the Balneario del Escambrón beach area was also “family friendly” and sheltered from…
Aside from beach time and visiting the El Morro fort in San Juan, the other primary goal for our trip was visiting the El Yunque National forest, the only tropical rainforest in the US national forest system. Visions of standing under waterfalls had been dancing through our heads for months during the buildup to our trip. There’s something pretty incredible about feeling the power of even a small waterfall pour all over you… It’s something I have experienced at Iguacu…
After some much needed and restorative beach relaxation time, it was time to get out and explore. One of my favorite things to see on trips, are ancient ruins. While the Caribbean does not have much in the way of remnants of truly old civilizations, many islands have massive fortresses that are remnants of the colonization era. San Juan has one of the best known of these of forts, the Castillo San Felipe del Morro, which was built in the…
After one of the most aggravating travel days we’ve had in recent years, we settled in for our first non-resort trip with Ethan. For our first morning in Puerto Rico we decided to go the beach. We are staying on the north coast, and there can be strong currents in December, so one of Ariel’s top priorities was finding a protected beach where we would not have to worry about huge waves and rip tides. She found a beach called…
After our Aruba trip, we felt we were able to successfully extend our airplane range to basically anywhere in the Caribbean. But after three consecutive island resort trips with Ethan (of varying levels of success), we decided we wanted to try something a little more adventurous. With me being sick for much of the Aruba experience, it fell to Ariel to fill most of the days for Jacob and Ethan, and there’s only so much time you can spend at…
The short answer is… sort of? It’s not really “secret” in that it’s pretty well known that there’s a tunnel system underneath the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) terminals post-security (although I don’t think this existed back in 2017 when Ariel and I went to New Zealand), but exactly HOW to navigate this dungeon-like maze is really confusing. There’s no guide anywhere and only a rather unhelpful map of the airport that is extremely light on details. The various lounge/points…
There’s a point in a person’s life, where it becomes easier to romanticize the past than it is to think about an uncertain future. The effects of nostalgia – or more accurately, a yearning for a mythical past that never really existed – have been discussed to death over the past decade or so. But that’s not what I’m talking about. What I’m talking about is FRUSTRATION. This isn’t the future that any of us envisioned. I don’t mean in…
After a really rough start to our trip, I was finally able to get myself close enough to normal to start exploring the island with Ariel and the kids. Amazingly, despite blowing the first 4.5 days of a 7 day trip, we managed to reach basically every corner of the country. Which really isn’t saying a whole lot as the entire island is only 69 square miles. For reference, Middlesex county in New Jersey (where we live) is over 300…
So… the first half this trip has been C-H-A-L-L-E-N-G-I-N-G. My situation did not improve after 48 hours and I went from just feeling generally ill to a full-blown flu-like nightmare. It was just your classic nasty upper respiratory bug: feverish feeling, post-nasal drip, runny nose, chills, and finally a truly nasty cough that kept Ariel and I up all night. So by Sunday I was frantically seeking some medical assistance. Turns out in Aruba, that’s not very difficult at all….