I’ve returned to the normal routine of my life! :)

The time off from the blog has once again done me some good. The added bonus of traveling added another few weeks of adventure, for which I am always grateful. I wish I could say that what you see above is what we were privy to the entire past month, but no, only two weeks were spent in Puerto Rico.

My husband and I spent a lot of time driving around the island and still managed not to get to the many places the island had to offer. But what we experienced of the native food was very good, and I wish we could have eaten out every night, but the cost to do that would have been astronomical!

As you can see from some of the images below, we were surrounded by so much green! The forest excursion we took to El Yunque was amazing!

However, the beaches were less so.

A couple of adventurous things we did were the mini-power boat rides to another island and the bioluminescence tour of the Laguna Grande in Fajardo. Unfortunately, the weather was hot, humid, and usually overcast or rainy, so the ride on the mini-boat was pretty choppy! My butt was sore afterward! But the beach we stopped at was nice, and our tour guides were wonderful. The bio-luminescence tour was educational but strenuous. It was a lot of effort to coordinate our paddling and work against the current to get to the bay, but also keep up with the others AND avoid hitting the other kayaks going the other way in the dark! Yes, it was an adventure, and it tested our patience, specifically with each other. lol

One day was spent in the city of Old San Juan. And I think it was also the hottest day we spent outside. Many electrolytes were consumed. lol

We tried to make friends with the geckos around our VRBO, but they scattered as soon as they saw us each day. :(

And there was a beautiful mama bird that had made a nest in the branches of a tree at the front door that we greeted every day on our way out to our next day trip.

While there was so much beauty to observe, there was also still so much of the island showing the signs of destruction from Hurricane Maria and Irma in 2017. There were many commercial buildings and houses standing empty, overgrown with foliage, plastered with graffiti, and showing severe neglect. It was not unusual to see abandoned buildings across the street from beautiful new homes too. Some of the local people I talked to mentioned that even though money flowed to the island after the damage from the storms, it didn’t seem to help rehabilitate all the structures that needed it.

But even seeing the blight and dealing with a few issues at the VRBO, it was wonderful to have another staycation and vacation. My peace of mind has been restored! Happy to be back! :)