It was dark when we arrived in San Juan. The air was thick and sticky and smelled like the ocean. My ears strained to understand the conversations occurring around us and my lack of comprehension made it apparent how much Spanish I had yet to learn. We hopped in our rental car and with two very unhappy children, exhausted from traveling 10 hours on the plane, we headed out towards Dorado,  the city we will come to call home in the next 3-5 years.

Rectangular cement homes snugly positioned next to one another lined the highway. Bars and gates covered their windows and doors. Stray dogs roamed the pothole filled streets. The jungle is creeping in at all angles, even here in the city,  and it feels as if you closed your eyes and sat still, then jungle's green leafy arms would swallow you into its dense green upon green colored belly.

Puerto Rico is about 100 miles long and 35 miles wide. Most of the island is covered in mountains, which brought us Tahoe loving folks great joy. While  they aren't covered in pine trees and granite, we are looking forward to some palm tree, iguana filled hikes.

Preston and I sat on our balcony after the mayhem of getting situated in our hotel with two small children. We heard loud music in Spanish blaring from the cluster of lights  tucked away somewhere  in the dense forest. A motorcycle driving  on the unlit, two lane road zoomed by.  The shadows of the island mountains made a perfect peak and valley silhoutte  against the darkest of dark skies. As the breeze blew in from the salty ocean, the palm trees that grow taller than all the buildings, Clapped their branches. And serenading  the loudest of them all, a little frog, called a Coquí, sang its "co-keey" song. At night, it appeared, everything that lived in those fauna filled forests decided to make noise.

As I sat there , my dead straight hair deciding to twist and frizz as the ocean air twirled its way around and through it, I felt overwhelmed and excited. I've always wanted an adventure, a life full to the brim of a story that was bigger than me, and although I was anxious about embarking on it, I could feel this was the start of our best adventure yet.