Puerto Rico Island exploration

Puerto Rico is so beautiful. There is a lot of damage from a hurricane, and a lot of poverty, but much less than expected. The locals are super kind and welcoming. They loved on our family well and even though most people are bilingual, they were appreciative and grateful for any Spanish we spoke. We felt very safe and met friends everywhere we went. 

After 3 nights on the tropical rainforest side of the island, we drove to the west coast for 3 nights on the soft sand beautiful beaches of Rincón. 

Driving in Puerto Rico was easier than I was told it would be. The only real challenges were how long it took to get short distances because of the zillion stoplights that honestly seem unnecessary. Also, no one can merge into moving traffic here. Cars just stop at the of on ramps. Lane usage appears to be optional as well. But living in Bella vista prepared me well for driving on winding, hilly, narrow roads and we were just fine. We had some fun caravanning around in two cars. Aaron and I did all the driving,  it our passengers switched up every time we got in the car. Eventually, Logan and Ryan were copilots (occasionally swapping Ryan for Corbin) and the kids spammed the funky chat between the cars with jokes and songs like the viral first time in Puerto Rico Instagram song, the coconut nut song, and the “Megan smells like a bag of farts” song which is the dumbest creation over, yet we were deliriously tired and sugared up enough to find it to be hilarious when we discovered it so it became a certified banger to be blasted with windows down and 10 year olds (ok and adults) giggling hysterically. Bananas were tossed between windows. Grumpy teens and tweens were ejected and moved to the other car for bad attitudes when hangry or farting in the car, or for sprawling out too much in someone else’s space. It was not all sunshine and roses but we still made light work of road travel with a party of 10 and still like each other enough to choose to spend the entire day just hanging around and being together after getting home from this trip. I’ll call that a big win. 

We found basketball courts everywhere but had no ball or a place to buy one nearby. Absolutely tragic. Biggest regret of the trip is not buying a cheap ball the first stop in a Walmart on day one. 

Esme is our nature/creature finder! She found the most shells, coral, hermit crabs, and starfish. 

These kids are totally unhinged but they love each other well and I love that they are not only siblings, but genuine friends, too. We missed Quincy big this week. She would have loved all of it from food to beautiful nature to playing DJ while driving, to talking to strangers to snuggling on her siblings and teasing them relentlessly the next minute.  There was much laughter last week.