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January 16, 2022

Three Days in Culebra

We spent three days exploring Culebra, 12 miles off the east coast of Puerto Rico. It’s hard to believe that this tiny island – world-renowned for its pristine beaches, incredible snorkeling in turquoise water, and vibrant underwater landscapes – used to be used by the US Navy for bombing practice.

Culebra totals just over 10 square miles, and served as a U.S. Naval base until 1975. That’s why you can still find a couple of rusting World War II tanks there, detritus that has been reimagined as art by Culebrans. You can read all about the tanks in this article from Atlas Obscura.

The flight alone was spectacular.

More than 20% of Culebra is preserved as a National Wildlife Refuge, which serves as a habitat for endangered sea turtles and seabirds, among other creatures. The flight in and out literally takes your breath away as you behold soaring mountains, dappled clear waters, and lush forest.

If you’re looking for natural beauty, come visit. If you’re for nightlife, go elsewhere.

Three Days in Culebra YouTube Video

It’s a New Year – Let’s Go For It!

Happy 2022!

It’s a new year — thank God — and despite the inconvenient evolution of Covid-19, Messy Suitcase plans to forge ahead with our traveling life this year, as safely as possible. We hope you will come along for the ride! We plan to continue helping our friends and followers stay abreast of what we’re doing with our creative retirement.

Whether you love to travel or just want to live vicariously through our adventures, we hope our journey will inspire you to think differently, to look at life through the prism of possibility, to get out there and explore!

Where are Bob and Lisa now?

We’re in Washington, DC, till mid-January, enjoying holidays with family and college break with our son Gavin and his cat, Ellie, and exploring the Nation’s Capital.

When Gavin goes back to Champlain College in Vermont, we will return to Puerto Rico. Why? Because international travel is just too difficult with Covid spiking, and Puerto Rico is a warm, lovely space to spend the winter. We lived here in the mid-1990s, and being back this past fall has felt like returning home.

1st Stop: Cabo Rojo
We will spend our first month living in the beach town of Cabo Rojo, on the SW coast of Puerto Rico. Cabo Rojo puts us within a short drive of a number of stunning beaches with excellent snorkeling, La Parguera with its bioluminescent bay, towering limestone cliffs, idyllic nature reserves, creative restaurants, and so much more! It will also give us a sense of really town living, Puertan Style. the town square is just around the corner.

Cabo Rojo
*(Dr. Blofeld (highlighting), CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)*

2nd Stop: Isabella
After a month, we will travel to Isabela, on the northeast coast. We will stay in a resort condo community right on the ocean, with a cycling trail nearby, and access to a number of surfing and snorkeling beaches.

Isabela
*(Dr. Blofeld (highlighting), CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)*

3rd Stop: San Juan
We are just not done with San Juan. We barely scraped the surface of our to-do list of activities and places to visit in Puerto Rico’s capital city, with its diverse combination of awesome beaches, historic sites, and urban culture. So we will be back in Punta Las Marias in mid-March for another month of city and urban beach exploration.

Have You Visited Our YouTube Channel?

Beto has created scores of videos of our adventures over the past three-plus years for you to check out! From strolling through the pueblo magico Tlaquepaque in Mexico, to exploring the Leather District in Leon, Mexico, to touring a coffee hacienda in the mountains of Puerto Rico, to splurging on a sunset dinner cruise in London, there is so much for you to discover at the Messy Suitcase YouTube channel!

Find the Messy Suitcase YouTube channel at bit.ly/messysuitcase

Please subscribe today, and ring the bell to be notified of new videos!

January 9, 2022

Greenwich, England: Sea, Land and Time

We took a Thames River Tour to Greenwich, England, which then surprised us with a bounty of attractions: The Cutty Sark, the Greenwich Market, the Royal Maritime Museum, and, of course, the Prime Meridien, where East meets West!

January 1, 2022January 1, 2022

Castillo San Cristobal: Protecting San Juan

The Spaniards built Castillo San Cristobal in the 1500s to increase the fortification of the strategic island of Puerto Rico. Let’s walk through history together!

#messysuitcase #retirement #travelblogger #travelblog #puertorico #castillosancristobal #oldsanjuan #usparkservice

December 31, 2021December 31, 2021

Our Death-Defying Flight to Culebra from Ceiba

Watch out for that mountain! The plane that took us to Culebra was tiny and the landing terrifying! Will we survive? Watch and see.

December 29, 2021December 31, 2021

Why are there US Army Tanks on Culebra’s Beautiful Flamenco Beach?

Why did the US Army leave two giant tanks at the end of Flamenco Beach on the Puerto Rican island of Culebra, considered one of the most beautiful beaches in the world? Find the answer in the latest Messy Suitcase YouTube video.

December 28, 2021

Big Bus Tour of DC

When you are traveling with someone without a lot of mobility, a Hop On Hop Off bus tour is the best way to give them an overview of a place. So I took my visiting sister-in-law on a Big Bus Tour of Washington, DC, on Christmas Eve. The tour is definitely overpriced at about $45 a person, but she loved it, and we had a birds-eye view of Washington’s most iconic buildings and monuments from the upper level. She loved it!

Big BusTours has a useful app that lets you follow your bus’s progress on a map, and see where the next bus is if you decide to disembark.

The audio version of the tour — everyone gets free headphones — included a lot of historical tidbits that we both found fascinating. But there are definitely some limitations to a bus. They can’t get as close as you like sometimes, so we saw the graves at Arlington Cemetery from a distance, and couldn’t even see the Potomac River when we passed the Wharf and the Southwest Waterfront. But now we know where to go back and explore!

Here are some of the sights we saw:

Washington Monument and the Jefferson Memorial

December 20, 2021December 20, 2021

We are Back in the States!

We are back in the United States for a month and have settled into a beautiful apartment in the Penn Quarter of Washington, DC.

Saying Adios to Puerto Rico

Our two months in Puerto Rico were glorious and it was difficult to leave, so we of course spent some final moments enjoying the beach in front of our apartment in San Juan.

Then we headed sadly to the airport, donning long pants and shoes for the first time in two months. Even Putzie came out to say goodbye!

This was the sight out the window as our southwest jet flew out of San Juan International Airport bound for Manchester, NH, where our truck was parked.

How New England Greeted Us

After leaving a balmy 84 degrees, we stepped out of the airport to a frigid 29 degrees at the airport. We also discovered there was a Winter Storm Warning for much of the next day, our primary travel day through New England. With the sandals barely off, we were strategizing an early wake-up (after getting to bed after 2 AM) so we could cover as much ground the next day as possible before the predicted 8-10 inches swept in.

Still, this was what we encountered on the ground the next day, after we drove across Vermont to Burlington, picked up our son Gavin and his cat Ellie, and headed south to Saratoga Springs, NY.

It was a knuckle-clenching trip, especially one spot on a back road in upstate New York where our truck slip all over the road. Bb managed to right it with no harm done, but it was a tense journey from then on out, and reminded Bob why he likes to live in warm climates in the winter!

We spent the night in the best La Quinta ever, in Clifton Park, NY, where Ellie and Kaylee negotiated a reunion between growls and hisses.

It was great to be with Gavin again!

On to DC

On Sunday, we rose earlyish and continued the trek south to DC, finally moving into the Lansburgh at 425 8th Street NW at around 4 PM.

Our condo is beautiful, and the location is superb — just a couple of blocks from the National Mall, and a block from the downtown Christmas market. It even comes with a bar and a liquor cabinet for us to fill!

We are excited to begin exploring the Nation’s Capital and spending time with family and friends!

December 17, 2021December 17, 2021

Leaving Puerto Rico Today

Beto’s enjoying a last hour of beach time before we fly to the snowy northeast today.

Lisa is capping her last run in San Juan in 2021 with coffee and a pastry (from 787 Coffee, of course) by the ocean.

Enjoy some last images of the weird, wonderful beach at Punta Las Marías, our home for the past month.

This evening we board a plane bound for Manchester, NH, where our car is parked. Then, tomorrow we plan to get up super early, drive across the state of Vermont before an approaching snowstorm, scoop up Gavin and his cat Ellie at Champlain College in Burlington, and drive down to Sarasota, NY for the night. On Sunday, we rise early and drive another seven hours to our next home: Washington, DC!

We are not looking forward to going from 84 degrees to 29 in a few hours’ time.

December 13, 2021December 14, 2021

We Tour Puerto Rico’s Oldest Rum Factory

Puerto Rico is the rum capital of the world! So we have set out to visit as many rum factories as possible. We started with the island’s oldest, Ron Del Barrilito, in Bayamon, just outside the capital San Juan. In this part, we learn how Barrrilito rum is made with help from an excellent tour guide named Edgardo. Next time, we will taste it!

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