J and K Adventures: Leaving for Costa Rica

Jeff here:
Months ago, Kat got tired of me talking about going to Costa Rica being on my bucket list - my whining must have gotten to her as one day, she came home with the news that she had booked us a nine day vacation at Guanacaste, Costa Rica, leaving on November 7th. We were both pretty cranked and looking forward to our next adventure on the road.

Well, sometimes life gets in the way of the best laid plans. About 2 weeks prior to departure, I got ill - just a bug I thought, but as time went by, I was not into healing mode - just a slow descent into my own personal hell. On Thursday, October 29th, I finally decided that my clock was winding down and it was time for the medico's to step in. They got some test results back and went into full court press mode. I won't go into details but things got ugly before the spirit triumphed over the dark forces. Soon I was on my way to health again.

But our question to the Doc was, "Can we still go on our trip?" His response was, "If it was me, I would be on that plane heading south!" Yeah! Hope springs eternal. After 5 days they let me out--there's no hospital big enough to hold me!!!

I was still pretty fragile but Friday arrived and after Kat came home from work, we headed north to spend the night in Portland and fly out on that silver bird at 5:30 A.M. on Saturday. My thought - fire our travel agent for cruel and unusual punishment!

We got to the airport and went through the rigmarole of signing in and getting our boarding passes. Now I have never before had to study boarding pass's but I have now learned this is a must, particularly if you are flying United. United is misnamed, if it was Un- United, Never United or United in name only it would be more appropriate. For the 3 legs of our trip, Portland to Denver, Denver to Houston and Houston to Liberia Costa Rica - the closest we were ever seated together was the row behind me. The furthest was 15 rows in front of me! This was just not OK. We were trading, begging, buying a round for the row, promising a first born son - whatever it took to sit together. We were not happy campers and add into the mix, me not feeling up to snuff - well the powers that be at United will be hearing from us, as God is my witness.

We landed in Liberia, cleared customs in record time, cashed in $50 for over 12,000 C.R. Colones, (the local currency 454 to the dollar) - I'm rich!!! Not often I'm walking around with 12 K in my pocket! Well, we made it to the Riu Guanacaste in a half hour, due our trusty driver, Rudolfo, and even though we were both totalled, we got dinner and headed up to dreamland in our new tropical paradise. Kat asked for an upgrade, which they granted, and we have a balcony on the 3rd floor with a view of the ocean......Hallelujah!

After a soothing night's sleep in the comfort of air conditioning, we spent Sunday checking out our surroundings and hanging around the pool. The weather was hot and humid but quick dips in the pool were welcome and we were treated to a thunderstorm as we hung out on the balcony at sunset. Ahhh, what a relief to be here!