We spent a quiet Thanksgiving down here. We went over to our friends at TJ Ranch (www.tjranch.com) and spent a relaxing afternoon and night. I’ll be stopping by there quite a bit in the future, since I’m going to be helping Tony out with the cooking during their busy season (December through March). It should be a lot of fun, and gives me a chance to practice my skills in a real kitchen.

Now it’s time to stay far far away from all the stores. This place is an absolute madhouse during the shopping season. We’re talking people parking on the grass around malls…and it takes 45 minutes just to get out of the mall parking lots! Crazy!

Not too much else going on. Once the weather starts drying up a bit Eve and I will be doing some hiking. I’m also planning on going down to Boqueron (in the southwest part of the island) later this year (or early next year). Will probably go fishing out there…with the former mayor of the city. It’s a small island, after all.

Also, I *promise* to pull out the camera and start taking pictures. I know it’s long overdue.

P.S. For those wondering which Home Depot we went to, it was the one in Mayaguez.

Things are finally starting to quiet down a bit. Many of the boxes are unpacked, and yesterday I cooked up my first meals in the house. Hurray! Believe me, after two weeks of eating out, then two weeks of nothing but boiled meat and rice, some good old Sloppy Joes are much savored.

The hard part about shopping down here is the lack of spices. You can finds tons of garlic, anise, and “poulty seasoning”, but not much else. Chili powder is hard to find for some reason, and forget about “weird” stuff like kosher salt and dried peppers. A lot of veggies are tough too, or really expensive. So, I’m going to shift some of my cooking to use more local ingredients…except that I won’t boil them to death. If someone could come up with *real* chinese food down here, they’d make a mint.

Speaking of food / money opportunities…there is a place right next door that is like a “horse bar” (for lack of a better term)…open on Thr/Fri/Sat. Basically, it’s a place where a bunch of people come to drink/dance/ride horses. It’s kinda cool, since a gazillion people on horses show up starting at around 7 PM. Music is a bit loud, but at least it’s decent music…and it quiets down at around midnight. Anyway, I’m not sure if they serve food down there or not, so this could be a good chance to open up a BBQ stand (we are right up the hill from the place…right at the top of their driveway). I’ll keep you posted–this could be my big start in cooking down here.

For all those lushes out there…rum is cheap down here. About $8 for a 750 ML bottle…and that’s for Barardi Select, not the rot-gut. I can see why there are so many drunks down here. On the bright side, even with the cheap booze, I’m not drinking very much…if I did I’d screw up my liver (with the meds that I’m taking). As for the health front, I think my blood pressure is getting too low, which is a really good sign. Maybe I need to start working again.

Yesterday (Thr) the movers arrived with all of the furniture and tons of boxes. The house is now starting to look like a home, instead of big empty rooms.

Spent the last couple of days installing a bunch (15) new light fixtures, switches, outlets, etc. We need to get someone in to swap out some circuits, since one is overloaded, and we need a 240 feed for the laundry room. So, right now, we are pretty much up and running, except for a kitchen that is a disaster (but workable) and no laundry.

Over the next couple of days Eve and I will be working on the remaining paperwork stuff (like insurance, drivers licenses, etc). Once that’s done we’ll hopefully be able to relax for a bit.

Well, we are getting the house into shape. Got most of both bathrooms working, electrical is shaky, but we can work on that as we go. Got the appliances, so we can actually start cooking there soon (hopefully today [Sat] when the propane gets delivered). Evelyn and I should move out of Arcibo to the house in the next day or so. (Her parents moved in two days ago.)

I’ve got some sort of cold, so I’m sick. I’ll write more when I’m feeling better.

On Monday we picked up the car. Not too bad of an experience. First had to drive from Arecibo to San Juan (about 2 hours). Once there, we went to Trailer Bridge (our shipper) and they gave us the paperwork to pay the taxes.

Went over to the tax place (over the worlds worst road…the minivan bottomed out several times) and stood in a couple of lines, paid $1400 in taxes (cash only, please) and got our papers stamped. For our car, it took a total of 45 minutes at the tax place, but Eve’s dad was there for over 5 hours since his older truck (89) was no longer on their tax books.

Back to Trailer Bridge with our stamped paper, paid another $1000 (the shipping cost), got more paper stamped, and then picked up the car. We got a LOT of strange looks while driving from San Juan to Arecibo (due to the Illinois plates).

Today (Tue) we got to stand in more lines to get our PR plates (once you get the car, you need a PR Title and Plates issued within 24 hours). Waited for about 45 minutes, filled out paperwork, paid $200 for the plates/insurance, got more papers stamped, and then got our plate and “city” sticker. Horray!

Next up, to get our PR drivers licenses.

Advice to anyone moving down here: Make sure to carry your Social Security card. They use it all the time. Also, be prepared to add on to your name…mine is now Ronald L. Nelson Williams. They are VERY confused by my name, since the only people with “Nelson” down here use it as a first name. For a while, I was being called Nelson Ronald Williams.

Well, we got into Puerto Rico last night (Friday 11/4).

The flight out of Orlando went pretty well, though we did have a little medical adventure. Pushing away from the gate the kid (12 yrs old) behind us started to have “heart problems”…of course, his medicine is in his checked in bag (duh!). Okay, so we are lucky and someone else on the plane uses the same medicine. Horray! I think, here we go! So we taxi out, get on the runway…and…the kid has a panic attack and “needs” to get off the plane! Back to the gate we go, to sit for 2 hours while they try to pull their damn bags off the plane (unload/reload/refuel). Anyhow, once we finally got off the ground things went well and we got in at 6 PM AST (4 PM CST).

We’re spending the next couple of days in Arecibo until we can pick up our car on Monday. Hopefully that goes okay…it’s probably going to be an all day affair.

Checked out Evelyn’s parent’s farm/house today and their land is pretty big. Lots of plants…plus chickens, dogs, and a cow for good measure. There is a horse farm right next door, so Evelyn is pretty happy with that.

There is still a TON of work to be done at the house, both inside and out, and we probably won’t be able to even live in there for a couple of weeks. But once we get the inside in decent shape, there will be lots to do outdoors.

For those drunken Savo people out there, there’s a veranda, and next door they have cockfighting every weekend. What more could you ask for? We really need someone who is willing to shovel cow manure.

(P.S. I don’t have internet access @ home, but we did find an internet cafe with good access, so I’ll be checking e-mail once or twice a week.)

Okay, until I have more time this will have to do:

So far things have gone to plan. Stayed one night in TN, another in Jacksonville FL. Dropped off the cars last Friday–that went pretty good. Can you believe that TrailerBridge ships 700 new cars out to PR every Friday? Don’t know how they fit on that island.

Have spent the last couple of days at my sister in-laws house. Now we’re moving on to Orlando to meet some more family. Will be in the Orlando area over the next two days (Wed/Thr). Then we have our flight on Friday afternoon to PR. I’ll write more once we’re in PR (or in Orlando, if we can find a library).