Day 1: PR Zombies

Thursday and Friday, March 25-26

Our son, Judah, and daughter-in-law, Mari Kristin, drove us up to LAX to catch our flight to Atlanta, then, on to Puerto Rico. There was almost no traffic so it took us only about 45 minutes. We'd printed our boarding passes at home before we left, so we didn't need to check in at the airport either.

Security went fairly quick and so, before 10 pm we were sitting at the gate, waiting for a flight. We thought about getting something to eat, but the concessions at LAX are pretty limited, compared to other airports. Specifically, there didn't seem to be a Starbucks. (What's up with that?)

Our flight left right on time at 11:55 and the flight was as uneventful as a flight in Coach can be. This was a 767, so the side isles have only two seats. That meant that Kathy and I got our own row. Kathy slept a little, and I slept a very little. We touched down in Atlanta at 6:00.

Our connection to San Juan PR left at 8:30 am, so we went looking for breakfast. Unlike LAX, the Atlanta airport was chock-full of choices, from Dunkin' Donuts to Starbucks. We has a "southern" breakfast at Pashcals: scrambled eggs, grits, biscuits, home fries, bacon, and a giant smokey sausage link. I thought it was great.

Our flight to San Juan was on an older 737 with 3 seats on each side. Like our red-eye into Atlanta, it was also completely full. It also felt a little precarious both taking off and landing; it made a lot more non-engine noise when taking off, and, when landing it seemed to scoot across the runway a little crab-like when it hit.

In San Juan the cruise-ship transfer bus was waiting and we were able to get right on. By 1:30 we were unpacking in our stateroom, and headed up for lunch. We really didn't get much sleep on the plane so both of us felt like the walking dead. We considered getting a taxi and going across the bay to see Old San Juan, but that was more than we could handle.

Life-boat drill was at 5:30, dinner at 6:30, bed at 8:00. We watched the shipboard TV presentation about each of tomorrow's shore excursions. When it came time to talk about the excursion we had picked (a boat-ride to the Virgin Gorda Baths along with snorkeling), the presenter said that it was for "experienced, active snorkelers". I spent all night waking every half-hour from dreams about being thrown overboard and then having to grade a Java function one of my students had written. I don't know which was worse.