Every Day

A lot of good things and a lot of not so good things happened to us on our trip to Puerto Rico and Id like to start with the bad news and end with the good news. So here are some things that did not turn out so well for us. We took the ferry over to Vieques on Wednesday and we ended up being on that ferry for two and a half hours. Its normally about an hour trip but when we went on the ferry, they were doing some maintenance and we didn't even leave the dock for like 45 minutes. What was worse was we were in the bottom of the boat which was very crowded with only very tiny windows. I started feeling a little tiny bit claustrophobic and I never feel that way... When we were leaving the boat, It was a struggle to get off. The organization of the boat was not very smart making the only three entrances exit through the same narrow hallway... and I hate when people need to stand so close to me. One man was standing so close to me (and I even had a suitcase) that I could almost feel ...

For the past three days, my dude and I have been traveling around Puerto Rico and loving it. Because of Ty's discount, we were able to stay at the luxurious Ritz-Carlton for he first two nights, treated like kings and queens. Ty has never had a relaxing vacation, so the first day, all I wanted to do was sit by the pool, relax, nap and enjoy the beautiful Ritz resort. Ty throughly enjoyed this part of our day and later we went to explore beautiful old San Juan. The old walls and beautiful buildings inside the walls of the old town completely stole our heart. Our dinner was amazing both nights. The second night we ate at a vegetarian/pescatarian restaurant which was phenomenal. We had recommendation to go to this place from the Ritz and were told to ask for the owner. Once we met her and her team, both Ty and I were amazed with the wonderful food and ambiance. We got some free dessert too! Yesterday we went to El Yunque National forrest which was beautiful and tomorrow we think tha...

Wednesday morning I organized a beach clean-up. I had been wanting to clean up the beach that I walk past every day to work for 5 months. A beach that is absolutely TRASHED. So I posted on Facebook and asked a few friends if they could spare the time to help. I figured that I would be out there by myself but I had two other people help me! Someone from Facebook who read my post and decided to join and my roomie Scott. We started bright and early at 9am, it was cloudy but still pretty humid. We started with some kitchen bags from my house. We filled up four of then pretty quick and then on the walk to the dumpster, filled up a few small plastic bags. When Scott showed up he tackled a small section that was trashed with soda and water bottles. I was going to leave that section alone as it was in the trees a bit but he cleared it out making it look so nice! I wish I had taken a before and after picture. Once we filled up all the bags I had brought, we decided to grab a few more from t...

My time off from work has been awesome so far! I love not working. haha. Monday, Amber, Darren, a friend Johnny and I went on a boat adventure over to St. John. It was a small boat just a bit larger than the size of a dingy but it worked! The ride over was bumpy and rough. My butt still hurts a few days later but we got to see St. John from the water and a brown booby (bird) flew with us for awhile which was awesome. Then we found a beautiful cove with a tiny beach and pristine blue water. We pulled the boat in and set the anchor but decided to pull in a little closer, when "well thats odd" came out of our captains mouth. I decided not to worry. Amber and I jumped into the blue water to explore. We got stung by a few things in the water so then got out and tried to track down the goats that were yelling like humans in the mangroves. At one point I was talking to one of the goats that was just out of eyesight. It was hilarious. Then we heard the sound of the engine startin...

As my time in the USVI comes to a close, while Im very excited about what my next adventure will be, Im also sad that this period in my life is ending. This adventure has been very different then others that Ive experienced in my years of travel, but also very similar. Here is why: One of the ways that it has been similar is that I had built in friends when I came here. Amber and Ty were a huge support system to getting used to this new environment much the same as when Ive done any environmental education (EE) travel job. At other places, you have a built-in friendship circle. You live and work with the same people making them your closest friends in a very short period of time. These other people are in it with you, coming to work at this place for a few months or a year and then eventually moving on to the next gig.  That is how the USVI differed. Even though Ty and Amber were here with me, I wasn't living in a  shared household where it was all put in plac...

So we start walking along the road to some impressive mangrove swamp. Ty is obsessed with mangroves and seeing some this huge made him so happy. The prop roots were over our heads!! It was insane. Ty took about a million pictures of himself with the ginormous mangroves and then it was time for us to continue our adventure. This is where it gets a bit tricky... We walked along the road to another beach where we thought we could walk along the beach to another beach. It was a bit of a walk but we were able to go on a short walk to see a salt pond which was neat and smelly. Once we realized we couldn't walk along the beach (it got really rocky), we decided that our plan of action would be to try and hitch our way out. There were no cars for at least a mile... We kept walking and walking with no luck. Cars kept going to the beach behind us but none were leaving. That didn't stop us however, we just kept no trucking along. Then we decided that if we got a ride back to Cruz b...