Puerto Rico, Part I

For Scott's spring break, we took a trip to Puerto Rico to visit his sister Emily and her husband Eric. They were married about a month before us (today is their one-year anniversary), and they moved to Puerto Rico last summer for Eric's job with the Coast Guard.

We stayed most of the time at their house, and the free lodging meant we could splurge on two nights at a beach resort and fancy dinners.

Our first full day was devoted to visiting and photographing Old San Juan. It's a cool place with a huge wall surrounding the city and great old architecture.

The basketball court with the best view I've ever seen.

Scott and Emily

After a rest, we went to this awesome beach to try to catch the sunset. We serendipitously ended up at a locals beach about 30 miles west of San Juan. Kids were EVERYWHERE, running and playing in the water. It was a little chaotic, but it was a fun vibe.

We then made our way back east a few miles to a quieter beach to wait for the sunset.

The sunset wasn't that great, but we did the best we could. The next morning we set off for the El Yunque rainforest. Our beach resort was near there, so we spent the morning hiking before we checked in.

The rainforest was beautiful. But we were glad to park ourselves at the resort and not drive for a few days. We had a rough trip out to the rainforest. We missed a few exits because the signs can be ambiguous and because Puerto Rican drivers are no joke. You have to always be on your toes and checking your mirrors when you drive there. I was glad I wasn't driving, and I was grabbing my "oh shit" handle while navigating the packed streets.

The resort was the Wyndam Rio Mar Beach Resort. It was something different for us because we always pack our vacations full of activities. So it was nice to have no real plans for at least one day. We actually sat on the beach for most of the day on Tuesday. And on Monday night, we had one of the best dinners we've ever eaten. I can still taste it. YUM! All these photos were taken with my iPhone because I didn't even take the camera out pretty much the whole time we were there.

View from our room.

Farmers Market and Puerto Rico

We are headed to Puerto Rico to visit Scott's sister Emily and her husband Eric for spring break. We'll be spending a few days at the beach this trip, just relaxing. I'll hopefully share some photos while we're gone and definitely share some when we get home.

In the meantime, enjoy this video I made at the Farmers Market Restaurant in Fort Myers this week.





I, of course, enjoyed some chicken-n-dumplins for lunch after my work was done. yum!

Papa's WWII photos

This week I've been scanning photos from a box of memories kept by my grandma from my Papa's service in WWII. He never talked about it very much, but it's a treasure that he was able to come back with so many great photos while serving in the Signal Corps. Most of the photos are from Italy, and it makes me want to plan a trip to visit the places where he was. The leaning tower of Pisa is obvious, but I'm still working on figuring out where some of the others were taken.

I was able to identify the Pontifical Shrine of the Blessed Virgin of the Rosary of Pompeii, above, by using google images. The site is popular with Catholic pilgrims, so I'm assuming this photo was from some sort of ceremony related to that.

January 16, 1945 

And a fun one.....

Turning 33

I turned 33 on Friday.

Luckily I was off work after a long two weeks of covering the Republican primary election. We went out to dinner downtown then walked around ArtWalk for a while. We were home by 8 p.m. and loved it.

When I was younger, I thought I would never want to spend a weekend night at home. I thought only losers didn't go out on the weekends. I don't know if it's getting older or if it's because I'm always out and about with my job, but I just don't want to stay out late anymore. Being at home with Scott is more than enough for me these days.

While we were out, there was a preview for the Art Fest, so we checked that out. For a few years now, we've been eyeing these really cool salt and pepper shakers. So this year we finally decided to buy one. This was one of my birthday presents.

My other present came from earlier this month. I was out at Goodland near Marco Island for a story. At the end of the day after photographing stone crab claws, mullet fisherman, the friendly postmistress and a few other local scenes, we heard that one of the original Highwaymen painters was selling his work down the street. If you don't know, the Highwaymen were a group of African-American artists from Florida in the 50s and 60s that sold their paintings often on the side of the road. They are part of what has been called "The Last Great American Art Movement of the 20th century."

I was pretty excited to be able to own a work of art by S.M. Wells or Sylvester Wells. He is now nearly blind and he's one of the twenty six original Highwaymen. I was just excited to have the chance to meet him and expand our small budget art collection. Here's me with him with the painting he sold me. It's a royal poinciana tree - one of my favorite Florida trees.

Here's a couple of other iPhone pics from Goodland - a fishing village with a famous mullet festival where they do a dance called the Buzzard Lope (apparently something like the chicken dance but uglier) and drink a lot of beer. And they have a Buzzard Lope queen. Man, I'd like to see that someday. We visited on a regular weekday, so it was just business as usual. But it was a good place for a few Hipstomatic iPhone shots.

sorting the mullet

Last week I also went to Everglades Wonder Gardens in Bonita Springs for an assignment and came up with this photo of their flamingos.....

And this was parked in front of the Ritz Carlton Golf Resort in Naples during the Winter Wine Fest last weekend. A Packard, if I remember correctly.