“Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt.” –John Muir
This morning we left the beach to hike and explore Cueva Ventana (Window Cave). It’s a cave situated atop a limestone cliff about 10 miles from our hotel. It overlooks the Rio Grande de Arecibo Valley. The guided tour enhanced the experience helping us to understand the ecosystem, sharing history of the caves, illustrating the diverse beauty of the plants and pointing out animals, birds and insects. This cave is fairly small, only 300 meters long, at the end is a window that opens up to an impressive view of the green mountains and the Rio Grande de Arecibo…it makes you feel like you’re on top of the world as you overlook the valley.
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Feb. 4 – Cueva Ventana
Feb. 3 – Arecibo, PR
“It doesn’t matter where you go in life as long as you go to the beach.” –Unknown
Our first full day in Puerto Rico started with a wonderful breakfast at a place called Tostado…amazing coffee and a breakfast made from scratch. Our plan this week is to head west…making our way around the island to Fajardo next week, which is on the east coast of Puerto Rico.
Feb. 2 – San Juan, PR
“It feels good to be lost in the right direction” –Unknown
Six hours from Austin to San Juan…not too bad. Now we’re in paradise. The island of Puerto Rico is beautiful and the people are warm and inviting.
We arrived in San Juan with just enough time to pick up our rental car, check into our hotel and venture out to find a place for dinner, a few drinks and to watch the Super Bowl. Here are a few pictures of our first evening in Puerto Rico.
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Puerto Rico Adventure
“Adventure is a path. Real adventure, self-determined, self-motivated, often risky, forces you to have firsthand encounters with the world” – Mark Jenkins
We’re off on our winter adventure. It seems we’re drawn to the same kind of places each year…warm weather, beaches, waterfalls and natural wonders to explore. This winter we’re off to Puerto Rico…the feel and excitement of being in another country, but all the conveniences of being in the United States since it’s a U.S. territory. Sounds like a great place to spend a few weeks.
Happy New Year 2020
“The new year stands before us, like a chapter in a book, waiting to be written.” —Melody Beattie
Happy New Year…I hope 2020 brings happiness, health and adventure to all of you. It’s hard to believe we’re starting the third decade of this century…wasn’t it just yesterday we were waiting for the new millennium to arrive? The last 20 years have brought a lot of changes and blessings to our life and the beginning of a new year is the perfect time for us to reflect on the past and the future. We’re spending our life doing what we love, with the people we love…who could ask for anything more. The past is full of wonderful memories and the future is full of hope…every year seems to get better.
Looking Back at 2019
“My best memories are the ones we make together.” ―Margaret Atwood
The highlight of January was taking our second trip to Costa Rica to enjoy a little relaxation and adventure. We spent two weeks on the west coast exploring Quepos, Dominical and Uvita.
February and March were slow months…mostly cold and wet, but we enjoyed hanging out with our Texas grands and visiting with friends.
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Merry Christmas
“the best keeps getting better all the time” -Allan Jackson
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from the crew of The Pearl…2019 was wonderful, busy year. We really enjoy the life we have at the moment. This was our third season in Ithaca, New York. We miss cruising, but we really love this part of NY. It gives us a chance to be close to our Pennsylvania family half the year and home in Texas the other six months. In both places we get to enjoy being on the water and the company of our family.
Highlights of our year…a second trip to Costa Rica, spending a week in Eleuthera with our whole family, entertaining cruising friends in Ithaca, finding new places and wineries around us to explore, a road trip to Nova Scotia…that turned into a wonderful trip to New Brunswick and the arrival of a new granddaughter in PA.
But the true highlight of our year is the time we spend with our family and especially the time we spend playing with our four (now five) wonderful grandchildren. They’re each growing into such special, amazing little people, they bring a lot of joy and love to our life and we feel fortunate for the time we get to spend with them
We wish all our friends and family a very Merry Christmas and a healthy happy New Year. We look forward to more adventures in the coming year.
Fall Foliage
“And all at once, summer collapsed into fall…” -Oscar Wilde
The fall colors are taking over in upstate New York and Pennsylvania. It truly is a beautiful time of year. Our trees in Texas change color, but we don’t get the colors you find further north. Do you know why? Here is an explanation…Although temperature and rainfall influence the colors, the onset of longer nights is the most important factor in leaf color change. The day light hours in the south stay more consistent so we have less color.
Road Trip Lighthouses
“He who returns from a journey is not the same as he who left.” – Chinese proverb
New Brunswick is one of Canada’s Maritime provinces, we had hoped to visit the other two, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, on our trip this fall, but circumstances kept us in New Brunswick. The three Maritime provinces are full of lighthouses…almost 300 and most look very similar. We enjoy finding lighthouses on our travels, we seldom go too far out of our way to find them, but we do visit and take pictures when we we find them. This trip we found 18 and I’m sure we would have seen many more if we could have gotten to Nova Scotia. Click the following links to see our lighthouse map and lighthouse photos.
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Finger Lake Wineries (Part VI)
The Finger Lake region has wine trails, beer trails and cheese trails. All these places do tastings and many offer entertainment on weekends, so it’s fun to explore different places. But after spending three seasons in the Finger Lakes we have our favorite wineries we like to visit to enjoy a picnic and a bottle of wine. It’s getting hard to find time to check out new places. Here are a few we found this summer.
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