Okay. I'm back.

I started my vacation by missing my flight. So I got a new flight that sent me from Raleigh to Chicago to San Juan. At least there wasn't an additional charge. Then the flight from Chicago got delayed by two hours, so I missed both the last ferry and the last flight to my final destination. So I got to spend the night in San Juan, in a crappy motel, since everyone else on that flight from Chicago got stuck there, too. When the wife and I went out to find some dinner, sans car, we had to walk over a junkie convulsing in the street. On the way back, I'm pretty sure he was dead. (Writing this down, I feel like an Evil Samaritan, but there were cops right there and they weren't doing anything -- what could I do?)

So the next morning, we got a taxi to the ferry and got to our final destination without incident. On our first visit to a beach, I managed to get the rental car stuck in the sand when I misjudged where the sand started after the dirt road. It took half a dozen guys to get us out, and the car was slightly damaged by a low-hanging tree branch in the effort, which I have to pay for.

So, after having lost, basically, at this point, a day and a half of our vacation, we decided to go take a nap.

That evening, we went to the bioluminescent bay, which was one of the coolest things I've ever seen. You get to swim in the bay while these single-celled organisms that you agitate with movement glow. It's like your body is filled with neon. On the way out, we saw a bunch of fish leaving trails as they zipped through the water. I even saw a pair of manta rays glide off, leaving a trail at their tails and wing tips. Very cool stuff.

The next day we went to some beaches and went snorkeling. Again, very cool. Most of the beaches were deserted, and we spent much of our time at this one beach where there were no other beachgoers except for a small family of three that were there for about an hour who didn't come within 100 yards of us. Another very cool day.

The next day we went to El Yunque. Bad idea. First, we had to catch the early ferry out because we were told by the car rental place that if we took the 11AM ferry, we wouldn't arrive 'til noon, which meant we couldn't get our car until 1PM, since she'd be on her lunch break. The early ferry, by the way, left at 6AM. So we got up before dawn on our vacation. Nice. We get to El Yunque and the first thing we notice is that there's little there that isn't on our little island. There were some waterfalls. We decided to walk the short trail that leads to a waterfall. As it turns out, the short trail isn't really very short, and it's not a flat trail at all. This didn't work too well with the wife's asthma, especially after having come up into the mountain from sea level within an hour or so. So she got seriously out of breath, and the going was very slow. Once we arrived at the waterfall, it turned out that it was, at best, little more impressive than the one we could see from the road. On the way back out, the wife stubled and fell, wrenching a knee pretty well and contracting a rash on her lower legs that no one could recognize. At least the rash didn't hurt or itch.

On the way back to the ferry, we got lost in the town the ferry is in. We were on a numbered road when suddenly signs would tell us that we were no longer on that road, without turning or signs telling us to turn. We managed to find the ferry with less than ten minutes to spare, which was especially nerve-wracking, considering everyone told us we should be there at least half an hour beforehand, and that was the last ferry of the day. We got on, though. So that was another day lost.

The next day, we just took it easy, staying at the hotel and doing some reading. The wife got a massage, which was her first, and which she now wants to do as often as possible. Can't say I blame her.

The next day was our day to come back. I almost missed the flight off the island, as I took a wrong turn somewhere and ended up at a dead end on another numbered highway. But we made it, and had a fairly uneventful flight back, other than the pilot who flying us to Miami apparently thought that he was landing on an aircraft carrier and smacked the ground quite hard on touchdown and somehow didn't bounce back off the tarmack. I wouldn't be surprised if the landing gears were bent.

So we had some good times and some bad times. I think I got fairly rested though. The food was excellent. Oh -- the hotel was deserted except for us. Even the staff (of one) left at about 5PM. Skinny-dipping ensued. (Since few of you know what I look like, I can say that without much chance of inducing nausea.)

Oh, and I left my digital camera at home, for which I had purchased a larger memory card expressly for this trip. Good work.

My wife got her new Mini Cooper the day after we got back, though, somewhat alleviating her displeasure at leaving so early. Despite all the tribulations, she loved it, and wants to go back as soon as possible. I was somewhat indifferent, but I'm just that way anyway.