The First 48- Vacation Edition

Well, we just got back from our much-anticipated vacation to Puerto Rico.  It was AMAZING and our best vacation yet!  That being said, if you know me in real life, you know NOTHING ever goes smoothly for me and my family.  Our trip to paradise was no exception.  Please join me as I recount the first 48 hours.  Any real true crime fan knows about the "The First 48".  Without an ounce of hyperbole, at LEAST twice in the first 48, we were within minutes or mere inches away from becoming a Discovery ID special.  The thought of hand-picking nice-looking pictures of all of us and sending them preemptively to Nancy Grace did cross my mind.  I don't want a picture of me all sweaty, or one from an unflattering angle to be shown on Dateline reruns in perpetuity.  Long story short, I didn't send Nancy G any pictures for fear of the slightest movement, even just using my fingers to text may cause all of our untimely deaths.

Now let's get into the story, but before I do, let me tell you about the 24 hours, BEFORE "The First 48".  I have been working really hard to get healthy.  I would love to lose 50 pounds.  I had set a goal of losing 35 pounds before our vacation.  I met that goal!!!  Yay me!!!  I did, however, have a little help crossing that finish line.  The day before we left for vaca, I had my first colonoscopy.  I was supposed to have it 6 months ago, but I couldn't handle the prep, I got about a third of the way through it but started throwing up, so I had to cancel.  Fast forward 6 months and they prescribed me the pills for my prep.  So, there I was the day before we leave for vacation, and I met my goal and then some.  I am not going to go into the details of my colonoscopy, but there is one story I feel I should tell.  I am in the pre-op area, for some reason I had some type of tag-team nursing and had 3 wonderful women helping me.  Something was said about what I could and couldn't wear in the procedure room and they gave me a blanket for "modesty" One of the nurses said, well at least you aren't getting naked in front of a bunch of strangers.  I said, "that is exactly what I am about to do" to which she replies, "well it would only be weird if the doctor was naked too".  I respond, "umm, no, that would be criminal".  The 4 of us just sat in awkward silence until it was my turn.  

So now it is the next day, the morning of our trip.  We are up very early to make our way to Logan for our 8 a.m. flight to San Juan.  Chuck has the car all packed, we are 3 minutes ahead of schedule. Great!  We are at the end of our street when Emily tells us her seatbelt won't buckle.   I had suggested we just switch out to my car, I worked in a Pedi ER, none of my kids are riding unrestrained. Chuck had strategically packed up the luggage in his car, so that was the car we were taking. We try for several minutes and finally we get her buckled in. That snafu should have been a sign of things to come...

Now, we leave our house at 5:15 a.m. with a plan of having breakfast at the airport after we get all checked in.  Simple enough.  Oh no my friends, nothing was going to be simple on this day.  Nothing at all.  You see, on this particular day, the one we had planned down to the minute months in advance, on this day, there was an unprecedented global IT outage that hit the airlines hard.  Not to worry, our plane was still showing as leaving on time.  So, we head off to find breakfast.  We come across Peet's Coffee.  When we get up to order, they tell us they are basically out of everything.  It was not even 7 a.m. and they had no breakfast sandwiches, no iced coffee, nothing.  I take that back; Anna got the last breakfast sandwich.  I am waiting and waiting at the pick-up spot, nothing.  I finally ask and they say all they have are items for Jerin.  The pronunciation didn't sound anything like me name with just a ~J~ in front of it, so after I take the cold sandwich, with my new Netflix profile name, I move on to find something to eat.  You see, even though my waist is looking snatched AF, I am STARVING!!  I hadn't really eaten much of anything since Tuesday night, and it was now Friday morning.  I find a pizza place and get a breakfast stromboli, and goddamn that's best stromboli I ever ate in my life, or it was just my Eddie Murphy/Ritz cracker moment.

We were so lucky; our flight was only delayed 3 hours.  I was panicking it was going to be canceled altogether.  Though our luck will soon run out and there is a cancellation in our future.  The flight was pretty uneventful.  We land in PR, go to the car rental place and get our car.  That wasn't without incident though.  The lady was trying to strong arm Chuck into buying their insurance.  He bought some through Expedia when he rented the car but couldn't find the confirmation email.  The lady is going on and on saying it is required, you can't rent the car without it, blah, blah, blah.  It was going to cost us at least another $350 dollars.  I was like, nope, we have our own car insurance, we don't need to get extra.  She was still trying to say we did.  I read the paper over and sure enough, you can check a box declining the insurance if you have your own.  So, after a little bit, we are able to get our insurance agency to email a copy of our policy, we check the declination box, with maybe a little stronger grip on the pen than required, and we are on our way.

We get in our rental car, which smells like bologna and to a vegetarian was pretty gross.  If I had to put money on it, the car rental lady keeps rancid deli meat on hand to throw in the trunks of those we do not take her up on the extra insurance.  It could have been worse; she could have had liverwurst in the fridge.

Our carefully laid out plan was to head over to the north-western coast, grab lunch along the way and explore some caves and spend the night in Isabelle, check out some waterfalls the next day and make our way back over to the south-eastern coast where we had our weeklong beach house rental.  We were 3 hours behind schedule, it was raining out, so we decided to just grab something to eat and head to our one-night rental.  Chuck turns the car on, powers up his phone to enter the address into GPS.  Chuck has his phone in his hand but isn't moving.  I look over at him and he is white as a ghost and his hands are shaking.  My first thought is someone is dead, he must have got a messaged someone died. One of the qualities I love about Chuck is that nothing fazes him.  He is always even keeled, has a plan and doesn't get rattled.  He is the calm to my chaos.  I have never seen this look on his face before.  I ask what is going on, did someone die, no, did our rental get cancelled, yes.  Holy sh*t, we are in a new place, have no idea where anything is or how things work on the island, we have 3 kids and nowhere to stay for the night.  I'm like, OK, we can just get a hotel for the night, no big deal.  A little minor inconvenience. 

Oh no my friends, it wasn't our quick, one-night stay in Isabelle that was cancelled.  It was our week-long stay in Yabucoa that was cancelled.  Now I am past the Holy sh*t stage, and into the what the actual f*ck stage.  We are in a new place, have no idea where anything is or how things work on the island, we have 3 kids and nowhere to stay for the WEEK, this isn't a minor inconvenience, this is a full-fledged disaster that no amount of paper towels can fix... IYKYK  ;)

The host that canceled on us gave a number for us to call.  We call and when I tell you this guy was a caricature of a southerner, he full on sounded like Mickey's dog Goofy, "well golly folks" kind of accent.  No disrespect Kristy B.  All he says is there is a 'water issue', never elaborated, just said he just came from there and he can't have us stay there due to a 'water issue' whatever the hell that means.  He wanted us to cancel, but I'm like nope, I am not cancelling last minute and have that on our Airbnb profile.  No one would rent to us again.  So, he cancels it.  He would have kept talking in his over-the-top, fake, folksy accent but I said, I need to go find a place for my 3 children to sleep for the next 7 days.  

We get in touch with Airbnb and explain our situation.  The guy was nice, but kept saying we were the one who canceled, so we had to keep correcting him.  He said he was going to email us some alternative rentals that he would help us book.  He sent us 3.  Now, in real life, I am not bougie.  Most of my clothes come from Target, JCPenney and Shein, our house has its fair share of IKEA furniture.  Buuuutttt, vacation Erin is bougie.  For that one week a year, we like to stay in really nice houses, we want it nicer than our house, we want everyone to have their own bedroom and if we are not directly on the beach, we want a pool.  I want to hear the ghost of Robin Leach whispering in my ear when I walk in for the first time.  The alternative houses we were sent had the swarmy whispers of Robin Thicke, definitely not the lifestyles of the rich and famous vibe we were going for.  One was a 2 bedroom in a high-rise, nowhere near the beach and one of us would have to sleep on a pull-out couch for the week.  Nope!  We spent weeks finding the perfect house, now I had 5 minutes to find a replacement.  I told the guy we need 4 bedrooms, air-conditioning, a water view and a pool, oh and we don't want to pay more than we had for our original house.  I find maybe 6 rentals on the whole island that meet our criteria, all above our price range, you know, because we are trying to book a week-long rental in paradise, in the summer, with less than 24 hours' notice.  I find one and tell the Airbnb guy.  Well, more accurately, Chuck has to talk to him, the guy kept asking for Chuck's permission before he would speak to me.  At this point, I'm not going to call out his misogyny, but I did tell him I found a place and it was more than we were willing to pay, we told him, they needed to make this right.  Guess what?  HE DID!!!  We ended up getting a new rental, way above our price range and on the opposite end of the island we had planned for, and Airbnb gave us a "coupon" towards the rental to make up the difference.  OK, so we had a place secured for the week. 

All the while we were working this out, Chuck was driving to our Friday night rental.  Now it is really dark out so we can't really see the area we are in.  Not much in terms of streetlights where we were.

We finally find the house, after driving by some sketchy houses with what I hope are very life-like statues on their balconies and not their kinfolk who have passed that they stuffed and propped up to watch over them.  The road leading to the house was a long, dark windy road. It is completely dark when we pull up, we get out of the car and the creepiest cat was sitting still and looking us over in a very judgmental way.  4 out of 5 of us are animal lovers and we were all scared of this feline.  We get into the house and at first glance the entry way wasn't that bad. The rest of the house....IT WAS THAT BAD.   Ketih Morrison has definitely done a voice over describing a suspicious death at Ocean Hideaway.  That was the name of the place we were staying at.  It is aptly named as it should be hidden away from the rest of the world.  

I am going to try and paint a picture describing this house, but Steven King himself would be at a loss for words in describing the Ocean Hideaway.  We walk through the house and at first glance, it wasn't awful, very low bar when we are thinking well, it isn't awful.  But it was.  It was awful.  In the foyer there was a pipe hanging out of the ceiling, it was being held up by some wires.  No worries though, the homeowners zhuzhed it up with a simple gold bow tied around it.  You know when you buy hand soap or something and it has a tag tied around the pump with a gold elastic string?  It was that.  Someone took the time to get up on a ladder and tie a friggin, gold, elastic string into a bow around the pipes that are falling out of the ceiling.  I mean, in the review would I give them 5 stars for attention to detail?

From the foyer we move on to the bathroom.  The pictures in the listing make the shower look spa-like with a teak floor and glass tiles.  I am going to go out on a limb and say they may have sent the pic to the Facebook Group called Photoshop Me.  In real life, there was a moldy cement floor in the shower and the whole shower room, which looked more like an old, abandoned prison shower and doubled as the utility room.  They had taken a marker to the chipping cement wall in the shower and wrote 'hot' and 'cold' in what can only amount to a serial killer's handwriting.  Forgot to pack soap?  No worries!  I found an old, dried out, cracked piece behind the water heater.  It was grey.  I have never seen grey soap in the personal care section at the store, so I am thinking it didn't start out that color.  I left it where it was just in case another weary traveler felt the urge to infect themselves with any number of STD's or at the least scabies.  Didn't want to ruin someone else's fun in stumbling across a crusty soap left behind from the Carter Administration.

On to the first bedroom.  Emily was terrified by this house and couldn't stop crying.  I told her we can sleep in the room together.  Spoiler alert, there was no sleeping to be had on this night by yours truly.  Something changed and Sara said she would sleep with Emily.  After crying herself to sleep, Em did get a few hours rest.  Turns out the creepy cat is a fraud.  It spends its days sitting in judgement of the renters instead of doing its job.  On the way home last night, while stuck in traffic, Chuck pipes up with, "well, enough time has passed, I can tell you what I found in the bedroom of the first house...fresh rodent poop under the covers of the bed".  F*ck you cat, I hope a Chupacabra comes out of the bushes and eats you.  

OK, back to the house tour.  We move on to the next room, which is a big open room, that has a kitchen, living room and oh, 2 queen beds.  Yeah, 2 beds right next to the kitchen island, because that makes sense.   There are also 2 sets of stairs to nowhere.  With signs instructing us not to open the doors.  WTF?  What is behind those doors?  Oh, wait, I'll tell you...other renters!!!  The listing showed up as the whole house, not just one floor of the house.  The girls discovered there was someone staying downstairs when they looked out the window and saw a person hanging face, down over the side of a portable hot tub.  Maybe he was dead or maybe he was tired from a long work week; it could have gone either way.   I made a mental note to myself to check again for signs of life.  For those curious, when I checked back 10 minutes later, he was in a different spot, one he would have had to climb out to and not just his corpse floating to.  

The kitchen beds felt like they were made out of cardboard, I mean, probably higher end corrugated cardboard, with either gauze pads or potholders for mattresses.  For the record, when we stayed there, and I said they were made out of cardboard it was before the Olympics started and I didn't know cardboard beds were a real thing!  These beds were so awful Bernie, Phil, Barry, Elliott or for my RI friends Ni-Ro-Pe wouldn't sell them.  Even Claymation Bob wouldn't have these in his stores.  Yes, they were that bad!  Next to the kitchen beds was one of the sets of stairs to nowhere.  Though, they did have protection in place to keep you out.  The stairs were protected by clear, thick plastic strips.  You know the kind they used to have in the grocery store meat department, they just push them aside to walk out back to get you some rump roast?  Truth be told, in this setting, they had more of a Dexter kill room vibe.  To the left of that was a wooden slat door with a padlock on it.  It was nighttime and the lighting wasn't great, so it looked like just a door.  In the light of day the next morning, we could see it wasn't just a door, it was more of a crate type structure.  Is that where Dexter puts his victims while he is waiting for the sedative to wear off?  I'm thinking it is.  You know why?  Because right next to those doors was the fridge.  The fridge had some questionable stains on it, like someone had to try and wipe something sticky off.  Give me some luminal and a black light and I'll give you a murder scene.  

Moving on from the kitchen beds to the kitchen.  The stove was actually a nice gas stove.  However, it had a note on it stating if it didn't light, to call the hosts right away, it may need more gas.  The f*ck?  Upon further inspection, on the balcony stood a propane tank.  The tank had a hose connected to it that somehow was jerry-rigged to the stove in the house.  Now, I am no HVAC expert or a lineman for Boston Gas, but I have a sneaking suspicion that is not up to code.  Fortunately, we stopped for dinner before arriving and had no need to use the stove.

We picked this house originally because the kitchen looked like something out of Tuscany, exposed washed brick, terra cottta accents throughout, a beautiful fresco painting.  The exposed bricks were more akin to glued on paper mâché squares. The terra cotta accent above the kitchen island was a big circle shaped piece of Styrofoam painted in a lovely burnt sienna by a second grader.  You know what, on second thought, there was some thought and effort into the orange striping, I'll go as high as to say a second semester 5th grader painted it.

The piece de resistance of this craptastic house were the wilted flowers in the center of the kitchen/bedroom/living room/murderous kill room.  It took me until the next morning to realize they were fake.  I sh*t you not, they were artificial flowers that were WILTED!  In the online listing, they were perky looking.  Now they are dead.  Either someone did it on purpose or this plastic, inanimate object knew they were the proverbial lipstick on a pig, and they just laid down their lives in solidarity or in tribute if you will of the poor, unsuspecting guests.  

I am exhausted, I am hearing creepy music that no one else is hearing so I decided to call it a day and get some sleep.  Anna and I take one of the kitchen beds and Chuck the other.  I feel something on my chest.  I have been growing my hair out, so I just think it is my long, luxurious locks settling in.  Then I feel it again on my bicep.  My hair is longer than usual, but not that long!  I flick whatever it is off of me, screaming as I do.  Anna somehow instantaneously jumps up on top of the bed before I finish my scream.  She is standing on the bed screaming, I'm screaming, Chuck wakes up with all the commotion and finds the culprit I flung across the floor.  It was the biggest effing cockroach I have ever seen.  You know what?  We have been lied to all of our lives.  You know that cute little ditty, La Cucaracha?  The one that sings, La cucaracha, la cucaracha ya no puede caminar, which translates to 'the cockroach, the cockroach he can't walk".  Bullshit! La cucaracha, las cucaracha si puede caminar.  He CAN walk!  My whole childhood was based on a lie first told to me by Mrs. Ross, my elementary school music teacher.  Though I can't blame her, it was a different time back then, when it was acceptable to teach 6-year-old racist songs that may or may not be about getting high, but I digress.

I decide I am going to spend the night sitting in the leather chair defending my family from whatever evils may be lurking within this castle of creepiness.  I mean, there are bugs, rodent poop, magically wilted plastic flowers, doors to nowhere, a potential corpse outside and the door to the balcony that has no lock.  There could be a million things wanting to do us harm in this mansion of mayhem.  I sit up all night debating writing my own obituary in case I don't make it to morning.  Right before we left, a report came out about all the hidden cameras in Airbnb's.  If these people had them, all they would see was a crabby, menopausal women (which the 3 tag-team nurses clearly made note of not 1 day prior) standing, I mean sitting guard throughout the night, bobbing her head up and down, back and forth like a teenage lifeguard at the community pool.  Though going back to the menopausal woman, I may be able to use that to my advantage in this situation.  I am on vacation, so that means I don't have my magnifying mirror.  Ladies of a certain age, you know what I am talking about.  If anyone comes to do us harm, I can start growling and snorting and with the whiskers that have grown in the past 24 hours, I could easily pass for a chupacabra and scare them off.  Come to think of it, where did that creepy, good for nothing cat go?

We all survive the night; I give up my post and explore a little bit.  The glass ceiling in the kitchen/bedroom/living room/ dungeon of dread, the one I thought was painted black last night, wasn't painted black at all.  It was clear glass and the people staying on the floor above could look straight down on us.  Nothing unsettling about that.  There did turn out to be a gorgeous view of the ocean and we saw cows walking along the beach, but other than that, we could not wait to get out of this place.  Funny side note, immediately after we checked out, we get an email asking if we will provide a review.  I mean immediately, so I think there is some truth to the report about the hidden cameras.  After thinking about it, I really don't want to give them a review.  I am afraid that it will 1., Prompt them to give us a bad review and we won't find anyone to rent to us in the future and 2., I am afraid they will murder us.  What I really want to do is hunt down the folks who did write positive reviews for the property that we based our decision on.  In my best Liam Neeson voice, I want to tell them; I will look for them, I will find them, and I will k*ll them.

We hastily pack up and find the most delicious breakfast spot ever!  All 5 of us agree it is one of the best meals we have ever had, so the day is off to a good start.  Our plan is to go to Gozalandia Waterfalls.  In order to get there WAZE sent us through El Bosque Estatal de Guajatace.  

 Keep in mind, we were supposed to be heading to the other side of the island, so originally there was a different route we were supposed to take.  Because of the change in location, we were coming in the back way.  No big deal, right?  Wrong.  I mean so wrong.  Like polar opposite wrong.  We start out on our way, and up until now the roads have all been tight, windy and not in the best condition.  Now that Chuck has a few hours driving time in Puerto Rico under his belt, he is feeling a little more comfortable as we start winding our way into the forest.  About a mile into our drive, we see a sign welcoming us to the forest and with some friendly reminders; keep your headlights on and beep your horn as you go around the corners, that way oncoming traffic know there is someone coming.  How polite.  Ok, we are all in a great mood, happy to be out of the house of horrors and ready to start our real vacation.  Chuck is driving and giving some meek little 'toot-toots' of the horn as we round the curves.  Well, I am not an end-of timer or a doom -monger, but I quickly started to believe we were driving our children to their deaths.  When I say the road was only as wide as our rental car, with maybe an inch to spare on each side, I am not exaggerating.  Oh, and keep in mind, this is a 2-way road.  Meaning, it is meant for cars coming and going, simultaneously, at the same time.  We are noticing we are gaining in altitude.  Turns out the forest goes through a mountain.  The turns and curves are no longer fun afternoon out for a drive turns and curves.  They are hairpin curves at about 150 degrees, think like a zigzag furiously drawn by a 3-year-old sneaking a crayon.  

I have never been so scared in all my life, because not only was the road extremely narrow and designed like an accordion, but there are also no guardrails.  Not only was the road extremely narrow and designed like an accordion, with no guardrails, there were sheer 500-foot cliffs on each side of us.  Thank Christ I had a recent colonoscopy, or I would have legit sh*t myself.  Chuck is no longer giving a cute little toot-toot of the horn; he is basically putting the full weight of his adult male body into that horn as if our lives depended on it, because they literally did!  One of us had a full-on panic attack screaming we are all going to die, one was sobbing, one was silently holding their head down, so they didn't see the danger all around us, one of us suddenly found Jesus amongst the jungle canopy, several of us heard curse words only found inside a supermax prison.  Did you know the word "f*ck" can be used for any part of speech?  That day it was used as a noun, adjective, verb, adverb, and even a past participle.  I honestly thought we were going to die, the slightest move in the wrong direction and we were going off the side of the cliff.  If we did go off the cliff and on the off chance we survive the fall, we would die anyway.  There is no cell service, the jungle is so thick no one would ever see our car.  No one knew where we were going so no one would know where to look if we came up missing.  Now, as you all know, my PSR (primitive survival rating) on Naked and Afraid is about a -.12 baseline.  There is no way I could make my way out of a jungle.  I felt so bad that my children were not going to grow up, that Chuck and I were going to be responsible for killing our children.  

I was terrified there was going to be a sudden rainstorm, which would cause a landslide, or Chuck would sneeze and that would make us sail right off the road or hell, even a strong gust of wind. We are halfway through our trek, oh, keep in mind this road is 5 miles long, we round the corner and come face to face with a huge tow-truck towing a smashed-up car.  Chuck and the guy are kind of in a stand-off as to where to go.  Obviously the local with the big truck won, fortunately, at that point in time, we had a little bit of an embankment next to us that Chuck was able to back into giving the massive tow truck about 1/8 of a millimeter to pass us.  I have no idea what we would have done if we came across him at a point that had sheer drops on both sides.  Back up the whole way down?  Given up and just lived up there?  I was seriously kicking myself for not finding the good pictures and preemptively writing our obituaries, I was certain we were all going to die on that jungle road.

Since I am writing this several days later, you know we survived. I am not a civil engineer, nor do I pretend to be one, but in my humble opinion, that road doesn't quite seem safe.  Honestly, if any of you go to PR, do not go on that road, it has got to be on a list somewhere of the most dangerous roads in the world.  

We make it to the trails and head off in search of waterfalls.  We find one and Anna and I made our way under it, and it was amazing!  There is another trail with another waterfall that has a big swimming hole.  We find it and Anna, and I go to the big watering hole and hang out.  We start to head back down the stream to where the rest of the fam is hanging out.  We all brought dumpy sneakers to wear on these jungle treks.  The rocks in the streams are super slippery, but it is a catch 22, you can try your luck climbing over the rocks or you can walk along the super muddy, super slick riverbanks. I opt for the rocks.  I am just about to the spot where Chuck and Sara are swimming when suddenly my legs give out from under me, and I start to slip.  I land hard on my ass with one of my legs caught behind me a la Rick Flair's Figure Four wrestling move.  In that position I slide down a bunch of rocks, they seemed to go on forever, I kind of felt like I was in the Goonies movie when they slide down into the cave. I am holding my backpack with my new Fit Bit in it.  I hold that bag gloriously up over my head as I slide into water that is about 4 feet deep perfectly sticking the landing on one leg just like Kerri Strug in one of the most incredible Olympic moments in history.  I think my family would attest to it being slightly less than Olympic Gold Medal worthy, but I was proud of saving my Fit Bit.  Chuck immediately informed me it was waterproof.  My only regret was this triumphant feat of strength and endurance was not caught on camera.  I wish I could have seen it from everyone else's perspective.  You know, I do take comfort in the fact that my misfortune and dislocated hip will be the subject of many family's vacation memories for years to come.  I picture them sitting around their tables years from now talking about their visit to the waterfalls of Puerto Rico, when one of them will inevitably say, yeah, remember that chubby lady that fell on her ass and slid into the water and they all will laugh and laugh sharing in a common experience that brought them so much joy.  Some people leave great legacies behind, foundations in their names, curing cancer, etc.  This is me out here building my legacy.

So, after I pop my hip joint back into its socket, we start our trek out of the jungle.  Now, this time I am being super cautious, carefully watching each step I take when I am suddenly, and without warning viciously attacked with a huge club, right on the side of my head.  In my haze I am thinking there must be some marauding gang of thieves trolling the jungle looking to rob innocent tourists and I am their latest victim.  Apparently, there was no gang of thieves, there was no marauding going on.  While paying such close attention to my feet, I walked headfirst into a huge tree.  I had a big scrape that was bleeding and a huge knot on my forehead.  Chuck once again showed great concern and kindness making sure his bride was ok.  Turns out he is a way better human than I am because no sooner had I wiped my bloody brow, Chuck slid down the muddy riverbank into the water and I nearly piss myself laughing.  I guess we balance each other out.  I do believe I had/have a mild concussion from my literal run-in with the tree, but I soldiered on. I did google if it was ok to fly with a mild head injury and Dr. Google said it was ok, so here I am back home.  I was a little nervous Homeland Security or the TSA was going to pull Chuck aside and ask me if I feel safe at home as I had lots of bruises, cuts and scrapes along with some weird rash on my face that made my jaw look swollen.  Fortunately, Chuck made it through security no problem.

So, there you have it, the First 48.  If nothing else, we are consistent and own our sh*t show, even when we take it on the road.

There were a few funny things of note after the first 48 that I will share...

We took a trip to see the light house and cliffs.  We couldn't understand why GPS was showing it was going to take another 25 minutes to go a mile.  Well, if you have to walk the rest of the way, it takes slightly longer than driving.  So not only did we need to walk a mile in the 90-degree, super humid air with blazing sun over us, we had to do it through salt flats.  The salt flats were absolutely stunning to look at.  They smell like a public bathroom after a deviled egg eating contest.  The smell was horrendous, and it stuck to you with the humidity.  We persevere through the smell and long, hot walk with the promise of seeing stunning ocean views and the final reward being a deserted private beach we could cool off in.  The views were out of this world beautiful and so worth the walk.  The beach, yeah, not so much, it was full of seaweed and debris from storms so we couldn't get to it.  We had to walk back through the heat and acrid smell of the salt flats without the pleasure of cooling off in the bright blue sea while trying not to succumb to heat stroke.  If I am being completely honest, I think both Chuck and I were feeling inspired by the murderous house and running scenarios through our heads and what we would with the life insurance payout.  But alas, we all made it back to the car alive.

The other funny incident happened on the way back from the bioluminescent bay.  It was close to 10 p.m., we had dinner around 5 so we were all a little hungry.  We stop at an authentic Puerto Rican Restaurant, Burger King.  Side note, they have Impossible Chicken Nuggets in PR.  Anyway, Chuck doesn't feel comfortable doing the drive through in Spanish, so we all go inside. Now just a few days prior my kids thought it was a flex that I could understand the menu, help them order and speak to our waitress in Spanish.  That tiny little breakfast place was a local place and they only spoke Spanish.  Without me, who knows what they would have eaten.   So, we are in line at BK, everyone in there is speaking Spanish, not a word of English to be heard.  It's my turn to order, I get halfway through my order, completely in Spanish, thank you very much, and the girl taking my order asks me, in perfect English, no hint of an accent, how many nuggets do you want?  Sara and Anna burst out laughing, the girl behind the counter is laughing so hard, she has to put her microphone down and has her head down with tears coming out of her eyes.  My kids now think I am so 'cringe' for speaking Spanish.  The girl at the counter who is about Sara's age now thinks I am 'cringe'.  My kids ditch me at the counter and head to the other side of the restaurant, God forbid they are seen with me after that.  Somehow, I went from being a flex for them; having a mom who speaks another language to a total embarrassment in the matter of 2 minutes.  Again, I am sure I will provide them and their families years of entertainment when they are sitting around the table years from now telling their kids about the time Grandma embarrassingly spoke Spanish when the girl spoke perfect English.  Brick by brick my friends, that is how I am building my legacy.  Brick by cringe worthy brick.

I am happy to report the rest of the trip was wonderful!  Puerto Rico is absolutely beautiful, and I would highly recommend it.  The house we stayed at was amazing and I am happy to share it with anyone that is looking for a place to stay.  The beaches were out of this world gorgeous, we went to the bioluminescent bay and were blown away with how cool it was, we went to El Yunque Rainforest, which was really neat to see, and we ate some really yummy food.  I have already started looking at Airbnb's for an adult only trip to PR for just me and Chuck, I know 1 for sure I can cross of my list ;)