Ken Ibold
Final Approach
- Joined
- Feb 21, 2005
- Messages
- 5,888
- Location
- Jacksonville, Florida
- Display Name
Display name:
Ken Ibold
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you and yours!!
Just got back at 1:30 am from 12 days in Costa Rica. What a ride! We celebrated Christmas on Christmas Eve, as we were leaving at 5 am Christmas day. So we had a nice morning and starting packing bags. As she was wont to do, the dog starting getting excited when the suitcases came out. But after a little while, it was clear she was not “excited” but in distress. I thought it was because she ate a huge rawhide she got for Christmas, but since we had a 10-year-old neighbor watching her while we were gone, I took her to the vet at about 8:30 pm Christmas eve. Tests and tests later, turns out she was hemorrhaging inside from a cancerous liver and we put her to sleep at 11:59 Christmas eve.
So then we had to get up at 4 am for a long trip. Much sadness, but a welcome distraction from an empty house. Great trip. Ended up driving around a country where we didn’t speak the language, where there are no road signs, and where there is no GPS road database. Did lots of cool stuff, like zip lines, whitewater rafting, deep sea fishing (spotted whales!), hiking a couple of active volcanoes, horseback riding. Whew!!! The kids were great, ordering food they’d never heard of in a language they didn’t speak. (There was lots of pointing and smiling at mealtime!)
We ended up in three parts of the country. First the Arenal volcano part, which was very nice but is starting to get pretty touristy. We spent as much time as possible eating in back-street sodas (cafes) and driving ourselves AWAY from the tour buses. Then we went down to Quepos on the southern Pacific coast, where we stayed at a funky little hotel that was right out of Swiss Family Robinson. And then up to the Poas volcano area, where no one spoke English and the roads were particularly confusing. We arrived there after dark (due to an accident at a one-lane bridge on a major highway – and that’s NOT one lane in EACH direction, but one lane) and spent 3 hours driving around looking for the bed and breakfast where we were staying. Finally, at about 10 pm, we drove to nearby Alajuela and stayed at your basic airport hotel, before starting out the next day and trying again.
Yesterday, our return trip, started out with a tour of a coffee plantation, and boy did we need the caffeine! When I took the rental car back to Budget they extorted $50 extra out of me because they had given me a car with a defective tire (previous sidewall blowout repaired with rubber cement). And then we had to fly all the way to Newark to change planes and come back to Jax. We were late getting into Newark, and there was a HUGE line at immigration. Our plane to Jax was starting boarding in 5 minutes. So, person by person, I started asking “excuse me, we have a tight connection. Would you mind if we went ahead?” Pretty soon, huge blocks of people were chanting, GO, GO, GO! and we cut through the entire line. The immigration guy had us through in about 25 seconds, and we RAN to Customs and were through in a blink. Then I ran ahead of the family, carrying three big duffels, and got to the gate, sweaty and panting, just as boarding was beginning. Cathy then wanted to get the kids something to eat, as it was 7:30 pm and they hadn’t eaten for 6 hours. The line at the sandwich shop parted like the Red Sea and she finally got on board with subs for each of us. Those New Jersey people were so nice!! Whew!
All the while, I was thinking about how things would be different if I had an airplane that could have made the trip. In fact, I wrote a column on the airline/Baron comparison for my trip.
And although we were all sad to come home to our now-dogless house, it's nice to be home.
Just got back at 1:30 am from 12 days in Costa Rica. What a ride! We celebrated Christmas on Christmas Eve, as we were leaving at 5 am Christmas day. So we had a nice morning and starting packing bags. As she was wont to do, the dog starting getting excited when the suitcases came out. But after a little while, it was clear she was not “excited” but in distress. I thought it was because she ate a huge rawhide she got for Christmas, but since we had a 10-year-old neighbor watching her while we were gone, I took her to the vet at about 8:30 pm Christmas eve. Tests and tests later, turns out she was hemorrhaging inside from a cancerous liver and we put her to sleep at 11:59 Christmas eve.
So then we had to get up at 4 am for a long trip. Much sadness, but a welcome distraction from an empty house. Great trip. Ended up driving around a country where we didn’t speak the language, where there are no road signs, and where there is no GPS road database. Did lots of cool stuff, like zip lines, whitewater rafting, deep sea fishing (spotted whales!), hiking a couple of active volcanoes, horseback riding. Whew!!! The kids were great, ordering food they’d never heard of in a language they didn’t speak. (There was lots of pointing and smiling at mealtime!)
We ended up in three parts of the country. First the Arenal volcano part, which was very nice but is starting to get pretty touristy. We spent as much time as possible eating in back-street sodas (cafes) and driving ourselves AWAY from the tour buses. Then we went down to Quepos on the southern Pacific coast, where we stayed at a funky little hotel that was right out of Swiss Family Robinson. And then up to the Poas volcano area, where no one spoke English and the roads were particularly confusing. We arrived there after dark (due to an accident at a one-lane bridge on a major highway – and that’s NOT one lane in EACH direction, but one lane) and spent 3 hours driving around looking for the bed and breakfast where we were staying. Finally, at about 10 pm, we drove to nearby Alajuela and stayed at your basic airport hotel, before starting out the next day and trying again.
Yesterday, our return trip, started out with a tour of a coffee plantation, and boy did we need the caffeine! When I took the rental car back to Budget they extorted $50 extra out of me because they had given me a car with a defective tire (previous sidewall blowout repaired with rubber cement). And then we had to fly all the way to Newark to change planes and come back to Jax. We were late getting into Newark, and there was a HUGE line at immigration. Our plane to Jax was starting boarding in 5 minutes. So, person by person, I started asking “excuse me, we have a tight connection. Would you mind if we went ahead?” Pretty soon, huge blocks of people were chanting, GO, GO, GO! and we cut through the entire line. The immigration guy had us through in about 25 seconds, and we RAN to Customs and were through in a blink. Then I ran ahead of the family, carrying three big duffels, and got to the gate, sweaty and panting, just as boarding was beginning. Cathy then wanted to get the kids something to eat, as it was 7:30 pm and they hadn’t eaten for 6 hours. The line at the sandwich shop parted like the Red Sea and she finally got on board with subs for each of us. Those New Jersey people were so nice!! Whew!
All the while, I was thinking about how things would be different if I had an airplane that could have made the trip. In fact, I wrote a column on the airline/Baron comparison for my trip.
And although we were all sad to come home to our now-dogless house, it's nice to be home.
