Vacation

Scott and I got to spend six wonderful days and five nights in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic.  We left Salt Lake Thursday, January 20th on the 11:30 flight to New York.  When we landed in New York they had 5 inches of new snow and had to deice the plane before we could take off.  When we landed in Puerto Plata is was 85 degrees. 

As my friends have told me there are trips and there are vacations.  This was a good balance of both.  We relaxed, soaked in the sun, read, and had some fun excursions too.

Where we stayed all the food was included.  They had a buffet for every meal.  It was great.  No cooking, no clean up and fresh fruit every day.

 our hotel

 Relaxing

 and more relaxing

 the beach

 sorry, no swim suit pictures

I loved the open air dining.

 our balcony

 the pools

Amazing to me, I have this plant as a house plant. 

 We went zip lining,something never one of us has done before. 

We rode up the mountain in this.

 The ride up the mountain was through the country.  Lots of little shacks where people live.  Humble but they keep them clean. None of the homes had windows and I doubt they had indoor plumbing. 

 

 The flowers and landscape were beautiful.

 Ready to go

 going

 made it

 The zip line down the mountain was ten different stations.  It was lots of fun.  Scott got pictures of me but they are on his video camera and I haven't figured out how to get still pictures off it yet.

We spent some time at Ocean World which was just down the beach from our hotel.

 we saw a sea lion show

 visited the bird house

 Do I love birds?  No, especially when they are flying at me and landing on me. That is not a smile on my face it is a grimace.  I think birds know if you like them or not since I am the only one they left a deposit on.

 We saw a shark show.  All done in Spanish so we have no idea what was going on. 

This is one trip when we wish we knew Spanish.

 Our next venture was horse back riding.

All decked our ready to go.

 Scott's horse had to be the second in line behind the leader, my horse on the other hand was content to be last no matter how much I wanted him to go faster.

On our ride we stopped by a farm to get drinks and relax a bit.

I got to see bananas growing.  I love bananas and have always wanted to see how they grow.  Exciting!!

One day we went on a city tour.  Our guide was very knowledgeable.  I just needed a tape recorder so I could remember all that he told us

 The Dominican Republic Flag

 Our first stop was a cable car ride up the highest mountain in the Dominican Republic.

This was our entertainment as we waited for the cable car.

 the view from the top

 At the top they had a botanical garden.

You know me I loved all the flowers and plants.

 The African tulip

This was where we stopped for lunch. 

 Talked with a fun couple from Philadelphia.

 The next stop was the rum factory.

We were told the national pastimes are baseball and drinking.

 The sugar cane plant they use to make the rum.

 We couldn't take any pictures in the factory itself.  It was a fascinating process.

Free samples at the end of the tour.

 next the cigar factory.

 the tobacco plant

 Free samples here too.  You could even roll your own.

We didn't stay very long in there, the smell was too much for me.

 It was a great vacation.

We went from this . . .

to this . . .

 Our flight from New York was cancelled.  They shut the whole airport down.  They got a foot or more of snow so we spent the night in New York.  This was the lovely view from the front door of our hotel.
We couldn't even go into New York because the public transportation was having a hard time so we spent seven hours at the airport on Thursday.

No worries. 

We found out that you can get food delivered to the airport. 

We had wonderful Chinese take out.

We make it home safe and sound late Thursday night.