This absolutely sounds like my husband.
We start out on a short, innocent walk (no snacks or maps needed), and then his dislike of 'turning back' results in these long, adventurous trips, often involving stollers stuck in ankle-deep mud and exhausted kids & parents.
Jim, those stray dogs down there are called "satos". I kind of tend to judge a society on how it treats its satos. In Greece, the satos were fat and friendly. You see how they are in Puerto Rico. It's sad, really.
We lived just outside of San Juan for a year and a half. I used to come out of the grocery store (they liked to hang out there) and have to shoo half a dozen out from under my truck before I could drive away.
We already had two dogs, so it was impossible for us to adopt any more, although we did try to adopt one. Our two refused to get along with him, so we ended up taking him to the Humane Society. I will always hope he had a better life after we left him there than he would have had we left him on the street.
This is the kind of dork I am: while I read the first paragraph of this entry, I thought to myself "he'd be a good guy to crash on a deserted island with". I've been watching too much Lost lately.
what is wrong with cross country? Cool girls love skinny guys with endurance, even in high school. Didn't you see Juno?
now if only Juno had any basis in the real world, and not just Dakotah Steamboat or whatever-the-fuck-her-name-was's imagination.
Third fastest runner on my high school cross country team here. that's right ladies: third fastest. 5K PB 17:19.
I'm well and truly not one who corrects usage mistakes on blogs, but I so enjoyed the one here that I feel oddly compelled.
I'm thinking that if the hurricane had exasperated the earlier damage, that would have made the path more, rather than less, accessible? I wonder what exasperated damage is like? Cranky? More damage-y?
It really did take a moment of imagining before I realized that it had, you know, exacerbated it. ;-D
damn unquestioning acceptance of spellcheck's alternatives.
This sounds exactly like a hike my husband and I would take the kids on. It looks like it was a gorgeous day, though, despite back aches.
As an aside, I believe I saw you on the CBC National News last night on their story on Detroit's decay.
Coming from a girl who frequently has to hold up her left hand to make the sign of an L for left JUST TO BE SURE, I totally feel Wood's pain.
I'm jealous of Wood's competitiveness when it comes to hiking. My orienteering-loving Eagle Scout of a husband likes to take me on hikes. And while I am all over the level elevation hikes, the climbing ones make me weep. I cried all the way to the top of Texas's Guadalupe Mountain, and napped at the top while he bounced around like a 6 year-old at recess. If I climbed half-dome in any state (let alone pregnant and thirsty) he would think I was a God.
THIS...... "I don't know why we do this. Somewhere along the line we made the mistake of thinking self-imposed martyrdom made us better parents, that our suffering would one day be repaid tenfold. What a crock of shit. All we get for it is back aches.".....
was my ABSOLUTE favorite part of that post....and the pictures....
But fairly, Yes, this adventure did seem to err on the side of martyrdom....but how many kids can say that their parents took them hiking in the rainforest before they reached school age?
That in itself is all kinds of awesome!
Re: Landslides - They occur when rock units are parallel to slope. Or you have a rock/soil unit that cannot maintain a steep slope. So if you undercut the foot of the hill, you take out the support of said rock units/soil, which causes landslides to occur. Hurricanes do a lot of coastal/beach erosion, which would do a lot of undercutting, which would make landslides worse. My guess is you're correct, Dutch, unless the base of the hill which the mountains were on was no where near the beach.
Anyway...great post! I have the navigational genes in the family, which is why I'm the geologist, though my husband isn't that bad.
I would've had the heeby jeebies going through those rainforests, but then again, your wife lived in Cambodia...
My husband doesn't like the GPS, either. He's admitted that he misses all of my "I'm so lost" phone calls. Ha!
You four have the most amazing adventures. I'm far too cowardly to hike into the jungle.
Great post! I'm too chicken to do something like that - what if I got lost? Or there were big bugs in the rain forest?
I myself hiked Half Dome when I worked in Yosemite one summer. I worked on concessions staff, so I think I may have spent the entire summer intoxicated. Anyway, I hiked Half Dome with some friends on two hours' sleep, completely hung over, and no water. We drank right from the stream when we got back to it, much to the horror of various tourists who warned us about the giardia.
So did the kids get to see any monkies?
I used to get lost on the five minute drive to my best friend's house, so I both relate to Wood and admire your adventurous streaks regardless. Also, on one of those trips to my best friend's house? My grandma was driving WITH THE GPS and we still got lost, mainly because she can't tell right from left and secondly because she ignores the GPS's instructions. It once took us 45 minutes to get from the outskirts of Santa Fe to the center of town because she kept telling "the wee woman" in the GPS that she was wrong.
is orienteering like that thing where you have to find a box and open it to find the next point, and you leave a treasure/take a treasure? my dorky brother in law does that. of course, i married his dorky brother, who also ran cross-country in high school, and swam competitively, and any other "compete against yourself/others" type sports. weirdo.
on our honeymoon we hiked through the sage national rain forest in the bvi. we were the only people we ever saw there- and it was so quiet, yet filled with creepy bug-tree-nature noises, we fully expected to become some serial killers next victims. my hilarious husband kept whistling the theme to deliverance.
finally, the vehicle we just purchased to help out detroit's economy (and my mother in law's next round of celebrex) has touchscreen nav-gps installed. i thought it was excessive and stupid. i was wrong. so very, very, wrong.
I have a fairly faulty sense of direction but a huge wandering streak; I love to hike, I love to explore.
The photos in this post are so rich, satisfying.
I have some natural built-in GPS myself and my family used to use me to keep track of where we parked our car etc. Actually, starting from a young age, I was allowed to ride in the front of the car and my mom was shuttled to the back with my younger sister because I knew how to read maps! That's right, it would be my dad and me, age 5, in the front. It was the 80s, please don't judge them.
Anyway, I ended up being supplanted by the GPS a few years ago too. I'll be honest-I felt sort of mad for a while except they still need my help finding their way back to the car so I haven't been rendered completely useless yet.
Also, gosh, I wish I'd known of orienteering because I'm pretty sure I could win an Olympic medal in it.
All that said, I nearly killed my driver's ed teacher and myself by not knowing the difference between left and right. Now when I steer and I'm told to make a left I still hold up index and thumbs on both fingers to see which one makes the L (using the rest of my paws to grip the steering wheel).
Such a cool experience for the kids, back aches be damned.
We went on hikes religiously when I was a kid (I grew up on many acres of forested property). My dad was always making us break our own trails and recognize landmarks and use a compass. I owe my sense of direction (and my completely stubborn distrust of GPS technology!) all to him.
Of course, he would also bribe/frighten us with promises of meeting Indians in the woods. Also Bigfoot. I was like 10 before I realized that the Susquehannocks weren't still hanging out in central Pennsylvania waiting to scalp us one by one if we found their camp and were unable to provide wampum in exchange for our freedom.
You terrify me.
We got lost in Glen Helen (Yellow Springs, Ohio) when my daughter was about 9 months old and I was convinced we were all going to die and our dehydrated corpses would be devoured by coyotes.
I felt I was reading a description of me when you were writing about Wood's direction challenges. Detroit native, and cannot find my way around downtown in a car (and to be frank, I don't do a ton better on foot). Do they make GPS necklaces? Because that would be awesome. Interestingly, though, I am savant-like about finding my car in a parking lot, while my husband, who is very good with directions, is hopeless.
oh.. I'm married to a Marine who loves "Land Nav" and finds topographic maps almost better than Playboy!
We did PR about 6 years ago with our (then)5 year old and 1 year old. El Yungue was indeed quite an endeavor, but worth every minute!
Didn't you go to an island? Tell me you spent at least one day on the beach, you know, relaxing?
What is it about Detroit? I from Detroit,lived near here most of my life and I still get lost. It's a grid, how hard can it be? I can get anywhere in NYC and Chicago as long as I have my trusty map. I even know when the taxi driver is taking the wrong way.In Detroit I drive in towards the bridge and that's always the last thing I remember.
My best friend's friend used to participate in orienteering competitions all over the US and Europe.
The closest I've been to orienteering is geocaching and that's not quite the same thing.
And when I was younger, I liked to go to unfamiliar cities and neighborhoods (within driving distance of home) and purposely get lost so I could find my way back. I'm not good with being able to tell if I'm going north or south but I can find my way around pretty well.
heather: yes, we spent three days right on the beach; but the story of those days is blessedly dull and hardly worth telling.
I'm a longtime reader, but rarely comment. This one struck me. I love it!
Be careful of GPS in the city my friends. It has tried to get me to turn on streets that no longer exist,or at least should no longer be driven on. That really says something that you can get around in another country, but the GPS can't always correctly map Detroit. I'm so glad you all made it, and for gods sake bring more snacks!
hehe! Great story! I wouldn't want to live it myself, but still. In the beginning, I was reminded that I had coincidentally written a post complaining about the popularity and reliance on GPSs eroding our navigational skills. But then the story got completely beyond everyday navigation and holy cow!
I like my maps, and I like poking around, but I am not so blithe on unmarked trails. One of my secondary goals in hiking is to avoid "the death march" after we've managed to bite off more mileage than we can hike back before dark without killing my knees. Alas, we tend to be way too ambitious. If you can avoid inflicting too many "death marches," your children will no doubt inherit your sense of adventure!
I love your writing. You guys are amazing parents-- I can't imagine doing this with my daughter! Bravo!
I read "orienteering" and later "we got a GPS" and was expecting a geocaching story. (This was way better!) I bet you'd all enjoy geocaching.
Ha, Wood and I share the same sense of direction. I think it means our brains are too full of brilliance in other areas.
Not to sound like too much of a WUSS, but what was the bug situation out there? All I can think of is the mosquito population...
P.S. 17:19 is a good time. My son ran cross-country, so I'm in the know.
Hah, thanks for sharing your adventure. Loved the pictures, too. I too am directionally challenged and my husband is smugly NOT. I still cringe at the memory of having to call him for directions from a Baltimore ghetto while "enroute" to Annapolis. Good times.
I'm a carbon copy of your wife. I'm as competitive as hell, yet can't find my way out of my neighborhood some days.
But I am so ridiculously jealous of your trip and that hike that I kind of can't stand it.
Think it'd be a good idea to plan a trip like that with a 3 year old, a near 1 year old and being 6 months pregnant?
Perhaps not.
My wife always gets lost too, so I finally bought her a GPS last year. She lost it within a month.
Haha. I am like you and my husband is like Wood. He has these odd navigational rules he uses that (1) bodies of water are always to the west and (2) uphill is always north. There are other, more obscure ones too that I can't recall that often contradict the first two. This always makes me laugh because we live near a south-facing beach with a giant hill to our west. Since it's the pacific ocean he can't fathom why the beach faces south. He also can't find his way back to a lot of places he's been.
Oddly, I think I am the only one in my family with any sense of direction. My sisters are all perpetually lost in places like airports and each others' hometowns. One of them always ends up in downtown Pontiac when she tries to go to Utica to visit the other. We were once all together in Minneapolis airport and they both started panicking because they couldn't figure out how to get out to the street. I started reading signs (gasp!) and walked away from them. They both started freaking out. I told them to stop being babies (I am the youngest by 9 yrs) and read the f-ing signs. They both spend the rest of the weekend mad at me.
Wow, that's a whole new level of vacation adventure in my world.
I too did orienteering. I however sucked at running and could probably get lost in a closet. Fun times!
Too bad The Discovery Channel has totally ruined my sense of adventure and ability to read this post without flashbacks of the "worst-case scenarios" played out on "I Shouldn't Be Alive". On that same note - I shouldn't be allowed to watch that show.
I love it! Sounds like something my husband & I would get ourselves into. And even though it can be completely miserable at times, I think we always look back at these adventures with a smile. I mean, look at those amazing photos you got!
I was in Puerto Rico a couple of years ago and I saw the cell tower that you're talking about - though I'm quite sure we took a much shorter route to get there. It wasn't much to look at it and we didn't get to swim in any waterfalls. You got the better deal.
My family lives in and around Naguabo -- I haven't been back to visit in too long. Your vacation posts are wonderful nostalgia. Thank you.
You guys obviously haven't seen the movie, The Ruins....
cinematic gold.
living a vicarious vacation through yours and waiting patiently for the students to pack their stuff into uhauls.
My husband and I lived in Puerto Rico for three years while he was stationed at the naval station in Ceiba. Those poor dogs about broke my heart. A friend of mine on the base had a dog he'd rescued at the beach named "pinky". I asked him about the name and he said that when he found this poor animal he had no hair and looked like a baby mouse that you'd feed to a snake. Thankfully the dog recovered.
Don't give up on the indoctrination. Thanks to my dad (the electrical engineer)'s training (and probably some good directional genes from him), I can now read a map (on paper! Yes, I am 150 years old, why do you ask?) and find my way to north, south, east, or west (well, if I have a compass/the sun is out/the stars aren't covered).
Which serves me well, since hubs is a land surveyor - basically, orienteering for pay (calm down and stop drooling). Which means he would give anything to be able to take me out in the woods (filthy! Not for that! Well, not only for that) and hike around. Oddly enough tho, despite my excellent sense of direction, I don't much like hiking.
Also: I'm against the GPS devices as well. Hubs *just* bought one a few weeks ago, primarily for tracking of mileage and for when we go out of town. I can't see spending $150 on something when, hello, map for $5.95? Kids...
There are no monkeys in El Yunque.
Monkeys are not native to the island there are some strays running around though that escaped from isla del Mono.
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