A Long Day’s Journey

I had an alarm set to rouse myself from my slumber, but the true fact was that I was already lying awake at 4:00 a.m. when the ringtone from the phone began to sing. I had been that way for at least an hour as myriad thoughts danced around in my head. We collected our pile of suitcases and loaded them on a bellhop’s cart and wheeled them down into the frigid single digit temperatures waiting for us at the shuttle bus. The van’s wheels crunched over the ice covered driveway as the driver quickly covered the short distance to the airport.

The commute ran as smoothly as it possibly could have. Once our overweight bags were checked in, the going was easy. The flight from Providence to Philly only had eleven passengers, so we spread ourselves across the plane and had plenty of elbow room. The traverse across the terminals in Philadelphia got us to our next boarding with just a few minutes to spare. We had upgraded to business, so although the flight was full, we boarded first and had large comfy seats in the second row from the front of the plane. We had a bit more time to kill in Miami waiting for the final leg of our journey but were soon onboard with the first two seats in aisle one.

Getting through Liberia was easy. We had our QR codes all set up for entry into Costa Rica and were whisked through immigration. We piled our luggage onto carts and ran it through the scanners then walked right out of the building to find Adobe rental car waiting at the curb. The shuttle took us up the road to the office where Max was awesome, upgrading us to a better 4WD model at no extra charge because it had the racks we had requested. It took a while going through the process and Max set me up with a SIM card so I now have a Costa Rican phone number.

Finding the house was no problem. After a short stop in Belen to grab groceries, we arrived at Casa Playa Blanca just as the sun was setting. The property manager came by to give us the low down on the house then our friends Chuck and Sharissa strolled up the drive to welcome us and invite us over for dinner. It was nice to be done traveling. Sharissa had commissioned a tray of vegetarian lasagna from a local chef and we all gathered for comfortable conversation and some quality dining. Road weary from a long day, we retired early and went home to put away a few items and get some well needed rest.