Ever since Ariel and I had the incredible privilege of celebrating our honeymoon in Tahiti, nearly 10 years ago, it has always been our plan to try and return for a future anniversary. We knew it would be unlikely to find our way to the South Pacific again, despite having a very amusing moment of foreshadowing on our flight there, where people de-planed ahead of us to make a connecting flight. And I was like “who flies to Tahiti to…
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 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…
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….
It’s been over a year since my last post. A less-than-stellar experience getting to, and being in, Antigua (not due to anything related to the country itself!) spooked us on doing anymore serious travel since last year. Our next attempt was a trip to Cape May that also involved a lot screaming at bedtime… and was cut short due to a bout of food poisoning. So… not great! But a couple of road trips to Pennsylvania went pretty smoothly, and…
After our successful Jamaica trip, we decided we wanted one last hurrah before Ariel went back to work, so we booked a flight to Antigua to stay at the lovely Carlisle Bay. It… did not go as planned. Now to be clear – the place we stayed was beautiful and Antigua itself is very charming! But getting there… and back again… was truly a nightmare that we haven’t experienced in many an age. One of my earliest posts was about…
Unlike the first time we were in Jamaica, this time around we decided to do some exploring. I went off on my own on a long journey to the Bob Marley house. I recently read The Hobbit to Jacob (which he absolutely loved), and so when I found out there was a series of caves – with an underground lake no less) just a few minutes away from where we were staying, we just had to take him to the…
In my last post, I talked about the trip up to the Bob Marley House in Nine Mile, Jamaica. Read that if you’d like to learn about the journey, or read on for my experience at the house itself… After waiting for really just a few minutes, our tour guide arrived. My only regret of the entire experience was that I never got a picture of “Captain Crazy” as he introduced himself. What can I say about the Captain… he…