Through the J.Cruz Lens: ....Monday Continues....

I spent a good part of the day thinking would I really, really enjoy a life like this? Mondays in the sun. Searching for a beach. Spending all my time with my husband and my friends.... would I get bored? Well I decided I would be willing to research it, given I would have an opportunity to go see the Kids and Babies whenever I want.....

Monday evening, after dropping Sean and the girls off home, we ~my men and I (~ Popi Cruz ((the love of my life)) Tracy ((my replacement "brother" ~ family is SOOOO so important to me)) and Kosti ((my best girlfriend))~) headed out in search of a view (for pictures) of the sunset, drinks and dinner ~ in that order.

Digression ~ Over our years traveling around our world, Puerto Rico for the most part we find ourselves looking for a place to eat that has good salads. The boys humor me, they could care less about salads, but my system needs them. It is always an adventure searching for a good salad here. Whenever I order a salad, whether side or otherwise, I get a chunk of iceberg lettuce, an unripe tomato sometimes topped with a ketchup and mayonnaise mix, sometimes not.

Back to the end of Monday story.....The place we stopped at for drinks and dinner, "Annie's" showed promise. It was the local/tourist place at the end of the strip of beach we were at on Sunday. You walked in and there was one of my favorite signs of Puerto Rico..... "no wifi, talk to each other, get drunk... it's 1993". We chose a table with a great view of the sunset, ordered up some drinks and waited for it to happen! This is said to be the best local (area) on the Island for sunsets. If you are there at the right time, it is said you will see the elusive "green flash" before the sun disappears. Two sangria's, a watermelon and a mango daiquiri later, I didn't see it....

Dinner was good. I did order a side salad for $5.95 expecting for that price I might even get a salad.... but no ~ chunk of iceberg lettuce on my plate, with a not yet ripe tomato, no dressing..... Have not found that all elusive good salad yet on this trip. Dinner and drinks were pretty good for the most part, although the boys said the drinks were light on alcohol. I couldn't tell. And then when we got home, I realized it was 44 steps up to our condo....

Tuesday ~ March 10, 2015....

Tuesday morning, bright and early.... well perhaps not so early, 9-10am (I guess that's early on an Island in the sun). Kosti greeted us with Karribean or should I say Kaz Ma Kosti, Kosti's for breakfast..... Delicious! We had the day all planned out. Get up, school for an hour and a half, off to the beach.

Professor Hendershott did hold class for an hour and a half, hmmm... perhaps he missed his calling. Since breakfast was liquid for the adults, we ate the sandwiches from the day before to wash breakfast down. And then the Kaz M Kosti Kosti's hit us all (well except for the girls) time for a nap. When we all came to around 3pm it was time to head to the beach. We decided to head to Rincon and find "Steps Beach". As we all piled in to the car, with Kosti up front navigating, turns out it was actually Sean who best knew the way around these parts of the Island. (you'd think it was Rush how well he knew it!) I think it was the police escort from his first night here.

It was 4 pm by the time we got to the beach. Good time to start a "day" at the beach. Some good snorkeling on Steps Beach. Tracy says it is some of the best Elkhorn Coral he has ever seen. Hmmm, who knew we had our big fish, Kosti and Kenzie... the little fish. She got right out there and tried to keep up. Impossible. Kosti was off exploring and as usual.... he touched a sea urchin and need to do some surgery to remove the quills, (or whatever they are called that they have to discourage others for touching them!)

When it was time to leave, back into the van we piled and headed out. Tracy spotted a small side road he wanted to explore and off we went. Of course the road went straight up, I mean straight up the mountain. At one point, Jay ~ who was driving, couldn't even see the pavement. Oh my. I was thankfully in the third row with Kosti. Poor guy's leg was turning blue from my hanging on. The exploration took us up one of the one lane twisty turny mountain roads that I love so much. This time, I was stuck in the third seat and couldn't even get out to walk if I wanted to.

Once we hit the summit, Kosti spotted a little gift shop, who knew? he wanted to stop at to see if they had his needed sarong..... They did and then some.

It was getting pretty late and time to start thinking of dinner. Sean to the rescue! He really knew his way around Rincon! Right from the summit, took us to The Lazy Parrot Hotel and Bar. They had stayed there when they first arrived. Knew all the staff, were right at home. Dinner was good. The chef apparently had made a trip to Italy to learn how to make brick oven pizza. The guys and little girls loved their pizza! I decided to try to salad there. No bad. So far this trip, The Lazy Parrot has the best salad. We did have to laugh as I was asking the waitress, (who grew up in Jersey) if it was a real salad, or.... and she finished the sentence, "a wedge of iceberg, with a tomato and catsup and mayo"... no, it's a real salad". We dropped Tracy and Kosti at a local bar and headed home. Sean dropped us off and headed back to pick up the boys. Fast forward to Wednesday!

Given the limited internet access, I am going to take the opportunity to upload some images. Fair warning, they are random, Not adding captions or locations until I get home. I have not editing capabilities and they have all been taken with my Canon Elph point and shoot.