Monday 10/14- After a very full and exciting weekend, it’s Monday and it’s back to reality. I had to work today, at least for a little while. I’m at the end of the last big push to get returns filed by tomorrow’s 10/15 filing deadline for returns with extensions. Technically, it was a federal holiday so the firm was closed, so I was the only one working, but that's ok with me because it means no distractions from co-workers and I can focus on what I need to get done.
The final few things that we ordered to bring back with us have arrived and we have compiled all of the items that friends in Costa Rica asked us to bring back for them, so that means it’s time for Ramie to finalize the packing of the suitcases. He worked on that today while I worked. It turns out that his method involved unpacking them one at a time and moving things between them to optimize the space and maximize the weight allowed in each one. This is time consuming and he didn’t get it finished with it today. That’s the reason why we don’t wait until the very last day to pack.
Tuesday 10/15- Today turned out to be pretty much a repeat of yesterday. Once I was finished working, I helped Ramie finish the suitcases. We ended up with 4 checked bags, each at 49.5 lbs., as well as 2 overhead bags and 2 backpacks that were packed as full and efficiently as we could get them. We were able to fit a few “wants” in there along with all of the “needs”, but there was absolutely zero space left for anything extra. Tonight would be our final night with Taryn, Steven and Will; once again Steven made a delicious dinner and we spent our last evening here playing Mario Kart with Will and chatting. Sorry I didn't have a chance to make the enchiladas that we talked about. Hopefully next time!
Wednesday 10/16- Since the craziness of the wedding planning and execution was over, we finally had time to meet up with a few friends. This afternoon Ramie set up a get together with a bunch of his old co-workers, but unfortunately the day and time didn’t work out for most of the people invited, and only Carl, Tana and Jason (who you may remember we connected with earlier this year during his trip to Quepos) were able to make it. It was fun to see them and to catch up, but they could tell we were exhausted and we ended up only spending a few hours together. Afterwards we went back to Nic and Hieu’s house where we will stay for our last few days in MN.
Thursday 10/17- Its MEA weekend in MN, which means that the kids don't have school for the next couple of days. Nicole took the day off and Hieu works from home, so we were able to hang out throughout the day. The weather was sunny and warm, so we hung out outside for a good portion of the day.
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| Elodie wanted to dress up her magnetic dolls with Uncle Ramie, Of course he couldnt say no. |
That afternoon, some of our old Mopar car friends from WI were visiting some other car friends who live in Central MN, and we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to have dinner with them, as we had not seen any of them since before we moved down here. We picked a place near Nic & Hieu’s house that sounded good for the meet up and made it a date. The food and drinks were pretty good, and the conversations with friends were even better. Even though we haven’t seen Keith, Kim, Tammy, Jeff, and Pete for a very long time, the conversation was just like it had always been before. We ate, drank a few beers, and had so many laughs. I think we spent close to 4 hours reminiscing before it was time to split up and head our separate ways. I’m glad that it worked out the way that it did and we were able to meet up.
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| Look at all of those kegs... |
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| And all of the taps to go along with them!! |
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| The only pic Pete will take |
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| Kim and Tammy |
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| The crew, Keith, Ramie, Jeff, Pete, Tammy, Dana Kim |
Friday 10/18- Today was kind of a repeat of yesterday. We relaxed, spent time together, and enjoyed the MN weather that decided to warm up a little bit before we left again. One thing that Ramie was looking forward to while we were in MN but hadn’t had yet was pizza. To make sure he didn’t completely miss out, we ended up ordering Dominos for dinner. Hopefully that satisfied his US pizza itch.
Saturday 10/19- Today was our last full day in Minnesota and the plan was to get together with Taylor and Dylan one last time now that the stress of the wedding was done. Taylor was dog-sitting in Stillwater so we decided we would go to her since she couldn’t spend a lot of time away from the dog. Well, if you knew us before the move to CR, then you know how much we liked Lift Bridge Brewery, so that was the obvious choice as a meetup spot. Since we were here, this also meant that Ramie would get his favorite pizza that he was really craving since we came home: Pizza Man pizza. We met at about noon and the plan was to get lunch. It turned out that there was a Halloween event and pumpkin carving at Lift Bridge today, and there were a lot of people there for that, but thankfully most of them were hanging out in the back and left plenty of tables open in the front for us to choose from.
When Taylor and Dylan arrived we tried to order the pizza, but it turned out that they didn’t open until 4… I guess we will wait! In true Taylor style, she showed up with a goody box for Ramie containing some of his favorite things: sour patch kids, a Hot Wheels t-shirt & car air freshener, marshmallow peeps, and a Nintendo switch game that we have been wanting to borrow from her. Oh no! We don't have any space left!! Fortunately, they only real heavy and bulky thing were the sour patch kids, and because these are very important to him, Ramie will find a way to make them fit. Eventually 4:00 came and we were able to order our food (we were probably the first order of the day for them). When it arrived you can imagine that it was devoured quickly, we were hungry since we had been planning on lunch!! We hung out for a little while longer after we finished, but it was time to say our goodbyes. They told us that they want to plan a visit to CR next year about this time, so we will have more discussions about that in the near future. Before we left Taylor told us that she had one more thing for us, and to follow us to car, since we were parked at opposite ends of the street. Since they wouldn’t be able to mail ours like they would everyone else’s, they hand delivered our thank you card thanking us for all that we did for the wedding and the gifts. This was followed by some very long hugs, but for maybe the first time ever, without shedding any tears. We talked for a few more moments about finding the right time for them to come back to visit Costa Rica next year and then went our separate ways.
We had such a good time with them this afternoon, now that we were all able to relax after the stress of the wedding. We headed back to Nic and Hieu’s for the night, but couldn’t stay up late visiting, as we had to get up in the wee hours of tomorrow morning to head to the airport.
Sunday 10/20- Here we are again at the dreaded travel day. Our alarm was set for 1:30 am, but Ramie couldn’t sleep and was up at a little after 1am and pulled out his computer. I asked what the heck he was doing, and he told me that he realized that he had forgotten to recharge our Costa Rica phone plans and he wanted to make sure that it was done before we left Wifi. We would need our data up and running to communicate once we landed in Costa Rica.
As quietly as we could, to not wake anyone else, we gathered our belongings and headed out the door and were on the road to the airport by a little after 2 am.
Of course, there was no traffic at this time of night, so we made it to the airport just before 3 am. This was the first time that we had rented a car while in MN and we had to drop it off in the airport parking garage at the "returns" area. Let me tell you, it was a maze just to find the area that we had to bring it to. At least we were the only ones in the parking garage and following the signs pointing to the drop off area wasn't too difficult. We did one last check of the car for any items we may have left behind, Ramie went to look for a luggage cart since we had so many suitcases and I started unloading them. Unfortunately, Ramie came back empty handed; there were no carts in sight. Now what sense does that make? This is the area where people drop off rental cars, most likely while having suitcases, so why wouldn’t they have those cart rental things nearby? Thankfully, two of our bags have straps on them that we could attach two together. This does make for very heavy pulling, though, remember how full we have them packed?! We then found our way through long halls, up elevators, down escalators, and it felt like a mile before we made it to the terminal. I didn't realize just how far away this parking garage was! Eventually we made it to the check in counter and of course they were still closed! We waited with a handful of other travelers in line for about 20 minutes or so before the employees started showing up. Eventually we were able to check the 4 big bags, which weighed in right at that 49.5lbs on the airport scale, right where we needed them to be. High five to us, man we know how to pack!
Of course, this early in the morning there are no coffee shops open in the airport. This is terrible, because both Ramie and I, REALLY like our coffee in the morning. Seriously airports, airlines offer flights at 5am and people have to be there 2 hours early, and there is not a single place open for coffee or a bite to eat. Now what sense does that make!? (That sounds like the Costa Rican thing to do! lol) Other than our lack of coffee, everything went smoothly and we made our first leg to Dallas, where we would stop for a short layover. Once in Dallas we had to take the tram to a the opposite side of the airport; we found our gate, got coffee at a shop near the gate and waited. We were waiting for maybe 40 minutes when Ramie got a text saying there was a gate change and we now had to go to C37. We were at C1, which means that this didn’t SOUND like it would be very far, but if you’ve ever been to the Dallas airport, you know that is not the case. The tram dropped us off at C15 and it was quite the hike to C1, now we had to go all the way back to the tram, get back on it, go to the next stop, and then walk to the far end of the C terminal on the other side. Have I mentioned that I dislike airports and travel days? Thankfully, we still had plenty of time before boarding and weren’t rushed, because these types of things give me travel anxiety.
When we finally got on the plane, the flight went smoothly and we landed in CR at about 1:30 pm, 12 hours since the alarm went off this morning. Since we had so many bags, here we hired a porter to load them up on his cart, take them through the x-ray machine and customs, and take our bags all the way to the parking lot. Since we moved to Costa Rica and always have so many bags when we come back from MN, we have started hiring a porter to take our bags through every time. By doing this, we’ve only ever had one suitcase inspected one time, and have never been questioned about anything in our bags. The $20 we tip the porter is well spent for lugging nearly 300lbs of luggage through the airport and parking lot, and this process seems to work well for us. The porter waited while Ramie checked in at the rental car counter where they directed us to the shuttle to bring us to the car lot, and unloaded our bags at the shuttle. It didn’t take long and we were off to the rental car lot, where we once again ran into the rental company not having the car we reserved, just like happened back in MN! We reserved a Toyota Corolla, just like we had from Uvita to the airport a few weeks ago, but they didn't have any Corollas on the lot. Instead of getting a nice big upgrade like we had back in MN, though, we got what was considered “equal” but, after driving it, it seems to have been quite the downgrade. We ended up with a Suzuki Grand Vitara. We could barely fit all of our suitcases into the car, had to push the front seats forward as far as we could, and they were still stacked nearly to the headliner just to make it all fit. Once we got going, Ramie complained just about the hole way back to Uvita about what a gutless pig it was. Yes, I know we had it loaded pretty heavy, but there is a back seat to this vehicle, and nearly 300 lbs of luggage isn’t so different from 2 small to average sized adults. Since we hadn’t eaten anything other than the snacks that I had packed for the travel day since we had our pizza at the brewery yesterday, we made a stop in Jaco for some fast food. We had the choice between KFC or Burger King as the only “quick” options that we could eat on the road, and we decided that chicken sandwiches from KFC had to be the better option, and went that route. Since we had all the luggage in the car and it's not advised to leave your belongings unattended in a vehicle like this, Ramie waited in the car while I went in to order.
Ramie waited and waited, and when I eventually came back out to the car with our food, Ramie asked me if they had to hatch the eggs, raise the chickens, butcher them, then cook them to make our sandwiches, because he sure felt like it took an eternity. I mean, it felt like a long time that I was standing inside, but I don’t think it felt like I was waiting almost a half hour. A person in front of me did order a ton of food, and I think they may have cleaned out everything that they had ready in the kitchen, so I did have to wait a while, but at least ours was fresh and not sitting under a warmer for the last hour. Now with food in our hands, it was time to get back on the road again, well for a couple miles any. Now Ramie had to go to the bathroom, so we pulled over at a gas station, before getting back on the road again, this time to hopefully make it all the way home. Of course we ran into some pretty heavy rain so it was slow going for quite a long time. We eventually made it home around 6:30. We unloaded the bags from the car, opened up the house to air it, out since it was smelling a little musty after being closed up for 3 weeks during rainy season, and then pulled out the basic things that we would need in the morning, like our toothbrushes and deodorant. Needless to say, after being up since 1am this morning, we didn't stay up late, or even go pick Skye up, even though we are both very excited to see her. After a quick shower, our heads hit the pillow around 8 pm. Everything else would get taken care of tomorrow.
Pura Vida!
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