OUR RETIRED ADVENTURE
qUEREMOS VIVIR AL SOL
KSha
Costa Rica is amazing! Beauty abounds.
Panama is "home" for now. Loving life!
South America is next! Columbia here we come.
Costa Rica is amazing! Beauty abounds.
Panama is "home" for now. Loving life!
South America is next! Columbia here we come.
We wanted to explore different places for lunch during the last few days of our most excellent adventure, and took in a scenic lunch in the mountains off the coast just south of Dominical. We returned home later that afternoon about 20 minutes before a crazy rainstorm started. During the 4 hours of nonstop rain, we lost power for about 90 minutes. The cribbage tournament was only slightly delayed until candles and a flashlight were implemented. ![]() The road to this restaurant was worth the "active driving" and wow, what a view! Our last Sunday in CR ended up being called Toucan Sunday. A light rain began as we sat by the resort pool when the first one flew in. It landed closer to the pool than any other had before as NGG jumped into action. It was tough to pack up and leave Villas Rio Mar as we headed back to Quepos for the mandatory covid-19 test. Then we continued on to the mountains, up to San Jose and our return flight.
As we were climbing a winding section of the road, we got a WAZE alert that there was an accident ahead; and just enough heads up to slow down as traffic came to a stop. The added lane that had allowed passing of slower cars climbing the incline turned into a slow crawling parking lot. In a short time, we encountered people walking in the road selling water and food items as the cars slowly moved along the road. Thus began the glitches we encountered on our return to the states... We didn't move at times, and never exceeded 30 kph during the next 1 1/2 hours as the traffic sorted itself out of the mountains and the accident areas. As we started into the interior of the country to reach San Jose, the roads got a lot steeper and (it seemed) a little narrower. Oh, and it started to rain. Oh yeah, it was dark too! Sun set is at ~6 PM at this time of year and with the heavy rain, it was pitch dark at 6:10. I do have to say that with all the driving we did on this trip, I felt cautiously confident driving on the steep and winding roads that night in the rain. Upon reaching the outskirts of the San Jose area, we hit it's infamous traffic jams before finally making it to our hotel outside the airport. Move luggage into one more hotel room, (I thought), dinner and then hit the hay to return rental car and check bags at the airport early the next day. Got a flight delay message before the hay was hit. We had a smooth rental return; but before the shuttle took us to the airport, we got another flight delayed message-- connection in Houston could be tight. By the time we were at the check-in counter, the delayed expectation would have our connection flight in Houston, gone before we arrived. [That generated a few under my breath Dbl Dangs]. We decided to fly to Houston on the delayed original flight, instead of flying from San Jose the next day, and rescheduled our flight to Chicago out of Houston a day later than planned. We were not the only delayed flight arriving in Houston this night, nor the only United flight. We waited with a lot of angry people in a line for over 2 hours for hotel and food accommodations due to missed connections. The Service Counters were under staffed and the process was posted on social media by a few fed-up people. We were finally registered at a hotel (damn, got to move the luggage again) that required an 80 mph--30 minute taxi ride while negotiating his return for pick up at 7 AM. Final luggage move settled us into our room at midnight. We completed our return to the ole homestead in Elmwood Park around 1 PM; 54 days since we had last seen her.
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Kevin & Sharon SeibelBeginning our next big adventure! Archives
December 2023
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