Once upon a time... Just kidding. About a month ago when I was dealing with subzero temperatures and lack of power, a light bulb popped up over my head and the harder I tried to ignore it the brighter it became and the more I wanted it. My bright idea was to join Carmen in Puerto Rico for a week before joining my parents in St. Kitts for the holidays. So I devised a plan to tell my boss my idea, more or less I brought it up in casual conversation about how “I had a layover in Puerto Rico, and wouldn’t it be nice if I could see El Yunque National Forest while I was there?” Slowly I added more and more days to it: “wouldn’t it be nice if Carmen and I had a chance to work on some things together?” Well, a few hour layover turned into a few days, turned into a week. At the time I had still a few weeks to plan the trip and Thanksgiving in St Louis to go to. Every time I scraped ice off of my vehicle, I thought of Puerto Rico. Every time I could see my breath in the air, I needed Puerto Rico’s warm 83 degrees temperatures. Towards the end of November I made the few hour flight home for Thanksgiving. It was a wonderful trip. By the end I had seen my friends, spent time with my family, and eaten way too much turkey.
I was ready for North Carolina again, but as soon as I landed I was back to dreaming about Puerto Rico.
During the next few weeks, several things happened. I had to return the teal mobile. Before I did this I had noticed that the 4 wheel drive was not engaging, and that there was a little more clunk in the wheel well. It is going to get retired this year which is very sad for me; he was a good SUV, usually reliable. I will miss him very much.I also have the opportunity to be extended to March, which I am very excited about. I found out that with this I would be changing my duty station, my supervisor, and where I live. I had four days before the Puerto Rico trip to pack up everything I own and move. This was a lot harder because I stocked piled food like a squirrel. After packing most of my stuff I realized that A} I don’t have a key to the new house, and B} I would never finish cleaning the house before I left if I didn’t stop packing. So I asked if I could move when I get back. That was a great relief!
So that was Friday, December 7th. Only a few days, a couple of meetings and a conference call or two until I left. On Thursday the 13th I arrived at the airport in Atlanta at 6 am to start my all-day journey to San Juan, Puerto Rico’s capital.Carmen met me at the airport, and we drove in the pouring rain back to her house (still 80 degrees). Today is my first day in the office. Situated in a beautiful tropical rain forest, El Portal Tropical Rain Forest Center is wonderful. The people are super friendly, the food is great and the weather is spectacular. We have a couple of conference calls with our boss, we are working on a best practice program PowerPoint for the region, and on Sunday we have a tropical bird count to attend. At the count we will be out with volunteers counting both exotic and endangered birds.
