At the Beach

When I was down beside the sea, A wooden spade they gave to me, To dig the sandy shore. My holes were empty like a cup; In every hole the sea came up, Till it would come no more. The only thing that has changed since Robert Louis Stevenson's time is we give them plastic instead of wood!

This was our day at the beach. We had to go to 3 beaches before we found one open. The first two were closed due to the storms previous days. This is Dilly with his sand spade preparing to dig to China.
There is something that never changes about kids and beaches. We got sand in our eyes and our ears and our nose. We got sand in our hair and sand between our toes!

Puerto Rico fruits, veggies & animals

This is the view from Kirs and Rob's balcony. The view to the right of this overlooks the airport. Plane landings and takeoffs are a favorite hobby.

A favorite hobby of the locals is cock fighting. There are cock fighting arenas, chickens and roosters everywhere. They are roaming free and in cages in backyards.
There is strange and exotic fruit on trees, but very few green or yellow vegetables in the stores. There are a lot of root vegetables, avacados the size of a small football and the best mangoes you have ever tasted. I expected their food to be spicey, but it is actually very bland seasoning wise and often breaded and fried.
There are iguanos everywhere. They are the Puerto Rician squirrel.

Ponce, Puerto Rico

These are pictures from Ponce. Below is a building overlooking the town square. I really liked the colors, peach and turquoise. Down below was a Subway. I felt it destroyed the integrity of the building. They have a lot of fast food places in Puerto Rico.




These are school kids in their uniforms on an outing.


To get to Ponce from San Juan you drive up over the mountain range which runs through the middle of Puerto Rico. It takes about an hour and 1/2 and you pass many toll booths where you have to throw in money. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason for the amount but seems to to anywhere from 50 cents to $2. Ponce is a picturesque little town with much charm. The kids spent a lot of time exploring the town square. They loved chasing the pigeons.
This is the church which sits in the center of the town square with parks on either side. The next building is a hotel.













This is the old fire station, now a museum, painted the original colors. It sits right behind the Catholic Church. Pretty flashy!




The church from behind. I thought it looked very elegant from this angle. The fire museum is just off to the right. There is a little ice cream store just across the street that has local ice cream and gilatto flavors.

Puerto Rico, Aricebo Light House

We spent spring break in Puerto Rico visiting Kirs, Rob, Rowan, Dylan and Amy. When we went to Aricebo the waves were amazing. It was just a little squall, but being a desert rat, I have never seen such huge waves! Rowan would scream with joy and excitment whenever a tall one hit. It was really something!
They had many of the decks closed due to high waves. Just as we were going to head up to the light house, a particularily high wave washed at least 10 feet higher than and over the walkway to the light house! I think that was the highest, but they didn't consider it high enough or maybe often enough to close the walkway.


We're heading back down to play on the ships, the Nina, the Pinta, the Santa Maria and the pirate ship. When Kirs and Rowan were on the pirate ship she told Rowan about how the pirates had to " swab the poop deck". Rowan got a kick out of that and added "swab the poop deck" to her vast vocabulary of phrases.