I have returned, and...

Well, I vowed to finish those outstanding fanfic projects while in Costa Rica. Instead, I devoted disturbing amounts of energy to a completely new writing project that will probably also never get off the ground.

It still told me a lot about my problems with internet addiction, though. Like, I was still able to get more writing done (on existing projects) in the last two weeks than in the previous two months.

So, I've pulled up Stickies, made a list of which websites I'm allowed to visit each day, and how many times I'm allowed to visit each one... until my next project is complete.

Oh, and for the Travelogue, hit the page break:

Monday and Tuesday.

Hey, everyone who was jealous of my getting to go to Costa Rica? You'd have a big cathartic laugh if you saw what we went through getting there. Where to start? First we had to fly to Denver, since Frontier Airlines is based in Denver, which meant we started our plane trip from Madison to Costa Rica by flying several hundred miles in a different direction. Oh, but the fun had already started when we arrived at the airport in Madison. Since our layover not only had us change planes but also switch airlines, if we wanted to check our bags, we would have to check them in Madison, go to the baggage claim in Denver to pick them up, and check them again at the Denver terminal to get them to Costa Rica. It was fortunate that our scheduled layover was two hours.

Also because at the very start of our trip in Madison, our 7:15 PM flight to Denver got delayed to 8:00 PM.

We decided for the second leg to take our bags carry-on. But it still meant getting them at the baggage claim in Denver, checking in at the Denver terminal to get our boarding passes, and going back to the gate, which meant going through the security checkpoint again even though we never left the airport.

For some reason, this was cheaper than getting there in a way that made any kind of sense.

Fortunately, the terminals and security checkpoints aren't crowded in the middle of the night. Oh, did I mention that our layover in Denver ended at midnight their time, which was 1 AM in ours? Also, that Frontier doesn't assign you seats until you're at the gate, and mom and I wound up getting seated in the very back row for the five hour flight, so our seats couldn't recline even the two inches that most airplane seats are limited to, and there's less space between rows.

At least international flights have actual food, though you have to buy it separately.

When we got to San Jose at 6:30 AM, we got picked up by a chauffeur named Stefan, hired to take us on the four-hour drive from San Jose to Puerto Viejo, where our hosts live. Thankfully we had a brief respite when Stefan recommended, for breakfast, a roadside café with a nice buffet. Mom had an almost filling meal, while I contented myself with strawberries, jello and milk. Then it was back into the fun house ride until 10:30 AM, when we finally arrived at Ron and Don's place in Puerto Viejo.

The scenery on the drive was so beautiful it almost made up for the drive itself. Which is an accomplishment, since today I learned that Costa Rica doesn't have speed limits, and that right-of-way conflicts are settled by games of Chicken (at which Stefan excels, even while spending half the drive on his cell phone). Oh, and the shock absorbers on that van could use some work.

If I ever come here again, I'm coming by boat.

At least the return trip won't have so much traffic for our chauffeur to slalom around... though that's because it will be in the middle of the night (since our flight leaves San Jose at 7 AM... and they recommended we show up "at least 3 hours in advance").

Okay, once we actually got here, it was nice, though at the time we were both a little too zonked out to appreciate it. Ron's and Don's place is just a little way off the main road just outside of Puerto Viejo, but it's surrounded on all sides by rainforest, dotted with other houses similarly surrounded by rainforest. So the only sound that gets through from the outside world is the roar of the sea, they have decent privacy, but you can still see some reassuring signs of civilization peeking through the greenery at a non-encroaching distance.

Ron and Don have a large front porch with chairs and a table like a patio and even a hammock, and of course they keep some bug spray around. They also have these electronic things that plug into outlets and repel mosquitos, a fan mounted above the porch, and further protection by a small army of geckos that basically have free run of anywhere they can fit into.

Yes, the fauna here are interesting. Ron and Don advised us to bring earplugs so we don't get woken by the loud cries of various birds and rodentia and crickets. There is a sloth living in a nearby tree that we can see through binoculars.

I really do feel kind of guilty about getting to be here.

There's also some non-native fauna. A ton of people have dogs around here, of various shapes and sizes. Some of them are obnoxious yappers (granted, with all the things that live in a rainforest), but some of them are nice. One of the latter, a little fat bull mix named Greedy (who is the sweetest thing, but lives up to her name), may technically belong to some neighbors neighbors, but she seems to spend all day hanging around Ron and Don's yard, or under their house. Seriously, when we're sitting out on the porch, she spends hours sitting on the front steps watching us, waiting for us to eat so she can stare plaintively until we give her table scraps.

We took a relatively brief walk on the beach... it's called "Playa Negra," which means "Black Beach," since the sand is black. Just offshore (directly out from where the road to Ron and Don's place opens up out onto the beach) there's a small barge with what looks like a metal hut on it, sailing a pirate flag. I'd seen it on some of the photos they'd sent us, but I had no idea it was so close to their place. Apparently that barge is going to be a floating café for boaters. I wonder if we might get out there to visit it at some point before we leave.

Then we returned and sat around yammering until dinner (chicken, mashed potatoes, salad), after which mom and I both hit the hay pretty darned early. I'm sleeping in a casita, relatively removed from the rest of the house.

Wednesday

I was gently woken from my sleep by a particularly eloquent bird of some sort. But hey, at least I was rested enough to actually enjoy the place. I dragged myself down to the patio and was rewarded with a watermelon-pineapple-lime smoothie.

Today Ron and Don took us on a walk into the little town of Puerto Viejo, to pick up some groceries. The various stores pretty much resemble their equivalents in America. I wonder what the restaurants are like.

True to our fears, it was rather sweltering. That was refreshing after Madison, certainly, though I still wish I had a brim rather than a hat to shield my face and neck from the sun without preventing the breeze from blowing through my hair. Or an umbrella.

After we went back, Ron and Don and my mom wanted to go swimming in the ocean. I look forward to it as well, but given that we're here for two weeks, I think one excursion per day is enough for me. Plus, I had already been feeling the sun, and wanted to wait for the tan to set in before going out again. So I sat around on the porch writing, until they got back.

After that, repeat the evening process of yesterday: Sit around talking until dinnertime. Well, they do most of the talking, and the drinking and smoking, with me occasionally joining in usually to answer questions. I'm getting some writing done, though.

I was somewhat chagrined to learn (and forgot to mention yesterday) that this place actually does have a wireless internet connection, contrary to my expectations (I could have sworn I heard them saying their net connection was a crappy 56k land line). But, I'd already posted everywhere online that I would be gone from the internet for two weeks, and I decided to make good on that promise. Surprisingly, the internet withdrawal/detox symptoms haven't really set in, I've just been writing and writing and writing. Odd.

Dinner was tacos, of the build-your-own variety. They had rice, grated cheese, meat, lettuce, all the fixings. I of course ate them all separately, including the tortillas. It's just how I am. The stuff was good, though. I must remember to ask if we can have those again at some point.

After dinner we watched Gravity, so I finally got to survive that movie. It's good, but yeesh, it's intense. After that we stayed up for a while longer until I turned in.

Thursday

Woke up around 10, just in time to join mom and Ron and Don for a surprisingly brief walk on the beach to see how the water was and gauge the possibility of swimming later on. I notice that the water does tend to kick up the sand, which turns the waves a bit murky once they get close to shore.

Then we walked in the opposite direction of the town, to reach a small and more local convenience store, to pick up a few things. I got a packet of these crunchy breadstick things that look kind of like churros, including sugar.

It occurs to me that we're spending an inordinate amount of time just sitting on this porch, with them talking (and smoking) and me writing. I don't mind, the place is beautiful and the bugs aren't that bad and I'm feeling all productive and stuff.

Remind me, first thing when I get back, to Google "Costa Rica rainforest bird sounds." There's this one specific type of call, that sounds like an old tape rewinding then ends in a screech, that none of us can identify (it might be a toucan, but they're not sure).

Then they announced a tropical storm was heading this way. Mom and I decided to take a brief walk on the beach before it started pouring. Then it didn't start pouring. We could see the storm heading towards us from the north, but then it seemed to clear up, and we made it back dry. For now.

We also discussed the possibility of housesitting more often. Of course, we have our share of obligations and responsibilities, so a three-month stint away from Madison would be... tough to plan around.

We watched a sloth through binoculars for a while, had dinner of pork chops (some of the saltiest meat I've ever eaten in my life) shortly after dark, and that's when the rain finally hit.

I like rainy nights. We sat around on the porch a while longer, just listening to it and watching what we could see of it in the night. We then drifted inside and tried to watch American Hustle, but we couldn't hear it over the rain. So instead, since we were hearing the roar of the ocean amplified, we decided to go back down to the beach and look at the wind and waves. I took the umbrella, but it turned out it had actually stopped raining by then, so all we were hearing was water drip off the leaves. Still, the wind was tossing the ocean, including that barge. I feel sorry for whoever's on that, though it must be an adventure.

We bumped into another neighbor of our hosts, and they chatted for a while about something or other. Apparently this guy has built a bunch of cassitas on his property and also has a swimming pool. A swimming pool right next to the ocean. Something tells me this guy likes private parties.

We returned and watched American Hustle for real this time. Then we turned in.

Friday

I woke up, took a tumble on the casita stairs, then limped off to follow them into town for breakfast and more groceries. I took an umbrella this time rather than a hat.

When we got to the beach, the barge was no longer ahead of us. Instead, it was to the south, bobbing very lopsidedly on the waves. It looks scuppered, or like it's hit a reef. Yikes, I hope no one was on that thing when it went adrift.

Behind us on the beach, it looked like another storm was approaching from the same direction, but again it seemed to clear up. At one point during our walk on the beach, we looked around and noticed that walking alongside us were a pair of dogs, labrador mixes named Blondie and Blackie (guess what color each of them was), owned by acquaintances of R&D's who were taking a stroll behind us.

When we got to town, we passed by Pan Pay, a restaurant that Ron and Don recommend we visit at some point. We then went on a little nature hike through a forest trail. Or rather, a long hike. I wondered if we even knew where we were going.

It turned out we were heading towards a French bakery. Yes, of course they have foreign food stands in Costa Rica. On our way there, we passed through a place called Rocking J's, which looks like a cross between a villa and an open-air mall, with mosaic floors and walls. It's got a cafe, a pub, and a couple shops. We walked straight through it and came out the other side, but I want to go back to see more of that place at some point.

We came out on the main road through town. We started walking back the way we came. Um, the route was scenic, but why did we take such a roundabout route with my leg bruising up? Oh well.

We arrived at the French bakery (apparently the place has only been open a week) and I got a chocolate croissant, which I shared with the others in exchange for a few bites of the apple-cinnamon... long roll-thing that mom got, plus a breadstick with high amounts of butter in the dough and coated with a thin layer of cheese. We also got some bottle water to share, and I got a box of orange juice. Also I bought a braid of bread (one line of white bread, the other of wheat) to go, and on the way back we stopped at another bakery (this one more local... and it had a cat, even) and got some truffles.

We then stopped at the same grocery store we went to on Wednesday, and somewhere along the way we picked up a bag of sheets of this incredibly soft, light, fluffy bread. Seriously, it's clearly been baked, but it has the texture of raw dough. I love it.

Despite the stomach cramps from all the sugar prior to that.

We'd left the casa at around 9 or 10, and got back at noon. Our hosts took a nap when we returned, and mom and I sat around on the porch. Then Ron went to Yoga, and Ron and mom went to the little store from Thursday. My leg was still a little sore, so I stayed behind.

We had a dinner of chicken, mashed potatoes, and some tropical fruit, then settled in to watch The Wolf of Wall Street. I thought it was as brilliant as everyone's been saying, but of course that kind of movie isn't for everyone.

After that we turned in. Apparently there's a Farmer's Market in town on Saturdays. I want to see that.

Saturday

I wake up at 9:30 or so (which is incredibly early for me) and find we've missed the Farmer's Market? Apparently they open at 6:00 and start closing down at 9:00. According to them, it's also small enough that it would almost fit on Ron and Don's porch, and while this is enormous for a porch, it's kind of small for a Farmer's Market. I didn't really expect it to be huge, given that it's a small town, but that was a surprise.

Still, I want to see it before we leave. I should probably start getting up earlier toward the end of the trip anyway, since I have to get up in time to leave at 1:00 AM on our trip home anyway. I'll have a decent excuse to get up at 5:00 AM or so on the third-to-last day.

Ron started a laundry. I must remember to start one as well. Mom and Don went to the beach, but were scared away from swimming by the murkiness and choppiness. Apparently the ocean is better in the early mornings as well.

We sat around and watched butterflies, since it's a really good day for them apparently, and mom read us some more from that book about Anne Bonny. Then mom and Don went to the beach to try again.

We were invited over to some neighbors for dinner tonight. Before we went, I strolled out to the edge of the beach and looked for the barge... it seems to have moved closer to the shore. I wonder if it's being towed in very slowly. We ate papaya for a bit too.

So, at 5:30 (or, as Ron and Don call it, "Dark Thirty"), we strolled over a short section of the driveway to Tom and Janna's place.

Getting bored with all the dogs we've encountered on the trip yet? Me neither. This neighbor has three dogs. Large dogs. Some of the biggest dogs I've ever encountered. Two huskies (I honestly thought they were wolves at first), and one... whatever the one called Sofia is (just as big as the huskies, but with a short, mottled brown coat). When we got there, I felt something cold crawling up the back of my legs and found that the dogs were following me and attempting to nose me hello. The neighbors said that if I walked calmly and steadily into the house, the dogs would ignore me... making it sound so easy. When I got indoors and sat down on a couch, Sofia instantly leapt up on a chair beside it, and put her paw on my chest. She just sat there for a moment until the owners chased her off. Even then she spent the rest of the evening hanging around, repeatedly resting her face on my lap and staring up at me with those wet dog eyes, just for attention.

The neighbors' place is laid out a bit similarly to Ron and Don's. They too have a huge patio, this one at ground level with a stone floor and ornate fencing, surrounded on two sides by a balcony with the doors into the house. The patio table is made from a polished cross-section of a massive tree.

Dinner was really good. There was pasta bows in cheese, and some salad with red and green cabbage. For "dessert" they brought out gooseberries, and then these banana-granola-chocolate chip cookies that everyone else loved except me. I did get to drink this passionfruit juice that our hosts for the evening have made, intermittenly scratching Sofia when she shoved her head onto my lap over and over again.

And then the talking continued.

I have never been part of a larger conversation in which I contributed so little. I hadn't brought my laptop because I thought it would be rude, but that just meant I sat there for hours idly watching them talk about people I don't know and events I wasn't there for. I did learn a few things, like some more trivia on the barge situation and history, but for the most part I was lost. I tried to tough it out, to show that I didn't have to have my laptop 24/7, but when Tom and Janna started arguing (all polite, like they were trying to smile for the guests) over an investment issue, I gave up, borrowed the key to the casa and headed back.

I wrote indoors for a while until they got back. At which point I noticed an enormous flying cockroach... seriously, this thing had to be four inches long... flitting around the room. Apparently they get in under the door sometimes, they're not an infestation. Which is especially good, since Ron and Don say that thing wasn't even remotely the biggest one they've seen. Ron says he once encountered a cockroach that was nearly as big as his foot. Am I on Skull Island all of a sudden?

Whatever. We hung around for a while longer... I finally got to try the hammock... and then we went to bed.

Sunday

I wake up uncharacteristically early and head downstairs, for a breakfast of pineapple chunks, milk, and some water. After that, I returned to the hammock.

At one point, a small cluster of birds (called "Tawny-Crested Tanagers" apparently) flew by and through the porch. That was nice. I also couldn't help but notice a considerable swarm of bees flying around the smoke tree, and they seemed to be circling the porch, though none entered it. I wondered if they'd been there all the time and I hadn't noticed, but before I could apply logic to that thought and realize that I most certainly would have noticed before now due to my phobia of them, they did eventually move on to somewhere else.

We discussed the possibility of renting a car for the next few days, since the Sloth Sanctuary, the jaguar rescue place, and the premiere snorkeling place around here are all too far to walk or even bike.

Eventually I had to abandon the hammock just because my back was starting to hurt. I really do need to get in better shape. In the meantime, I went in and lay horizontal on the couch to rest my back.

Mom finally made me show Ron and Don that video project I put together for Phyllis. So I connected to the internet, despite my resolve to not do so for these two weeks. First mom wanted me to show them a couple Zero Punctuation episodes just to "prepare" them for the art style (though I honestly didn't have that in mind when I made the thing, I see in retrospect how it could be considered similar). So I showed them some of the series of CoD reviews Yahtzee's done over the past several years. Then I showed them my video, which they loved.

We went to this sports bar called The Point for dinner. Or we started to, anyway. Our waiter was a space cadet, but he warned us when he took our orders that it would be a while. The Point, incidentally, is a bar with a roof but no walls, so you at least have a nice view of the ocean, while sitting on those horrifically uncomfortable benches that substitute for chairs or seats. That was not what my back needed. But, it was well-made, and there was a cat wandering the floor. So, we waited, we ordered refills of our drinks, but then we noticed that some people who had arrived after us were getting served first. We asked our waiter, who went to the kitchen to check on our progress, and came back to report that our order had been "skipped" and was now moved to the back of the log. We asked if he could mention to the kitchen that they had skipped us and ask to hurry up, but the waiter claimed he had no control over that process.

At least he had the decency to comp our drinks when we stormed out in response.

My back was killing me because of those stupid benches, and I had a headache because of the screens on every surface of that bar blaring the game at us, and the idiots cheering every time whichever team they were rooting for scored a play (worse, they were watching American football), so I was ready to take up Ron and Don on their offer that mom and I would head back to the casa while they went out to get a pizza and bring it back. Mom, however, soldiered on, and I staggered along behind them.

I'm glad I did, though, since after a short walk in the other direction, we arrived at a pizza place called Marco's, which had chairs with actual backs, and, oh yeah, really good food and prompt service. Seriously, that pizza was as good as the one at that place we went to on our vacation out west that one year. It was yet another place with outdoor seating, because when you're in the tropics, that's what you do.

Also, in keeping with the emergent theme of encountering cats in food service places, there were two cats at the pizza place as well. One of them, a young one by the looks of it, ran around chasing lizards across the floor of the outdoor seating area and occasionally going over to someone's table to stare up at them in hopes of table scraps. The other cat, also petit, sat regally on a balcony and watched with casual disdain.

So, we ate pizza, went back to the casa for ice cream, mom read to us some more from that book, and we saw a cat stalking through the yard of the casa! No, it wasn't one of the ones we'd already encountered that evening. It looked fairly well-fed, so it presumably belonged to someone, but it wouldn't respond to calls. No sign of Greedy.

A short visit later and we were all ready to hit the hay. I lay here now, listening to the sound of rain outside the cassita window.

Monday

We're just about at the halfway point of the trip, and oh my goodness did we start this day off with a bang.

[REDACTED]

All this before noon.

We started the afternoon, following a rest, by mom reading us another chapter from that book about Anne Bonny. She's been reading us practically the entire thing.

We talked for a while, but mostly sat around being lazy and shooing away bugs. The bugs are particularly feisty today, I guess because of the rain last night.

Around 5:00, Ron and Don both slapped their heads and remembered that there was this classic music event every Monday from 5:00 to 7:00 in town. We debated about whether to go and catch the latter half of it, but we decided instead that it would be nice to have that be the main activity on our final day here. So we marked it down on our calendar.

Then we filed in to watch a movie. It turns out their HDMI cable doesn't connect to my laptop without a converter, so we couldn't watch Summer Wars. So, I'm going to rip it from the DVD onto a Flash drive tonight.

We watched August Osage County instead. Of course, as soon as we started watching, it started to rain... but tonight, it stopped almost instantly. So we kept watching. Until it started pouring again, so we paused to do the dishes, then started again. The movie is... uh... yikes. It's intense and gritty and dramatic and all, but for all that emotion and drama, it doesn't really seem to go anywhere. Oh well...

After that, yet another chapter of that book (is mom going to finish the whole thing while we're here?), and it was time for bed. Another rainy night.

Tuesday

Are we at the hump day of the trip already? Yikes. It feels like we just got here.

And we're just getting started.

This morning the rental minivan got dropped off for us, and we piled in and headed out for a drive. I must say, while it's convenient to have a car when going to farther-off places... Puerto Viejo is not the best city for driving through. The road is barely wide enough for two cars as it is, and what with all the bicycles (movies don't do nearly enough justice to the number of bicycles on the roads here), it's pretty much an obstacle course. And, as I mentioned before, the other drivers on the road don't seem to have navigational problems, or regard for any speed limits.

I'm almost thankful our trip back to the airport will be from 1:00 to 5:00 AM.

Also, while I assumed it was just Stefan's vehicle that had terrible shock absorbers, the shock absorbers in the rental vehicle weren't all that great. Either that, or the roads are in worse shape than you can tell by walking on them.

Today, on our excursion, we drove through Puerto Viejo and onwards to the lands beyond it (briefly stopping at a place simply called "The Carribean: Chocolate Tasting Place" to snack on some truffles), to scout out the locations of, among other things, the Jaguar Rescue Center (which we will be returning to later this week), and the beach by the reef where snorkeling is best. We took a brief hike along a short beach within sight of the reef area. That beach today seemed marred by bigger waves than usual, which surprised Ron and Don. It looked calmer directly over the reef... where the shallowness calms the waves down more, I guess... but still, they said they'd never seen the water at this beach look so choppy. Oh great.

On our way out there, we'd driven past some people snapping pictures of howler monkeys in the rainforest on the side of the road. On our way back, we decided to pull over, get out, and join the tourists. And there were a lot of opportunities. The trees were thick with them, I noticed at least a dozen, of many ages, and there were probably more. We got more than a few good shots... and then I found out why they were called "howler monkeys."

I'd always thought "howler" meant their voices were high-pitched. Not so, these skinny little chimps sound like large gorillas, getting ready to attack. Like a small army of them, in fact. Also somewhat like a bull. And the brief but near-united call echoed throughout the forest and air at a volume which, even if every single one of them had made it at once, shouldn't have been possible for these things to make.

Wow.

Before too long after that, we left and headed back into town. We stopped back at Rocking J's to get some photos of the place, and a better look at it. Yay.

Unfortunately, then they not only wanted to stop for groceries, but mom wanted some clothes and souvenirs for my cousin. This wouldn't have been too bad, except I mistakenly left my sunhat and sunglasses in the car, and the shopping trip seemed to last forever, so I had to traipse over what seemed like half of Puerto Viejo, getting exhausted and sweaty, and I'd gotten up far too early this morning. Yes, we got some more of that really great bread, but it meant walking all over town, endlessly...

By the time we got back at 4 PM, I didn't feel like going anywhere the rest of the day.

Over dinner, we watched the first episode of Black Sail, that new Starz TV series about pirates, produced by Michael Bay. It's... rather sleazy, but fun enough.

Wednesday

I get the feeling the rest of our trip is going to be a bit more action-packed than the first leg. As it probably should be.

We piled up in the car early on, and went to Chihuita National Park, which is on the other side of the peninsula just north of Playa Negra. There were more howler monkeys up in the trees above the cabana area. Not as many as yesterday, but even one or two of them shouting was disturbingly loud.

We then walked along a long, long (excruciatingly long) forest trail across the park. We came across gigantic anthills, on the side of the trail and at one point right in the middle of the trail. We walked past crab holes, and got some pictures of blue crabs, as well as a small tree snake, and some golden orb spiders. At one point, we crossed a stream that was emptying into the sea, and the water in that stream was a dark maroon color, similar to the "Copper Falls" in the USA, and probably colored by the same principle: Tannen, a dye made by water coming off of tree bark (and also used as a treatment for leather).

We also walked by something... it's hard to describe. It's a square well, filled with a dark and murky water that bubbles up and is warm to the touch. According to the sign, this was once (in the 1910s) an exploratory oil well, but instead of finding oil, they found a hot mineral spring.

One thing we noticed: At one point in the path, someone had drawn numbers in the sand. 890 (or perhaps 068?). We got a picture.

On our way back, we saw some people with their cameras trained on some part of the thick brush. Then, as we watched, it started thrashing, moving, like there was something really big there, about to come barreling out of the plants at us. It did that a couple more times, then was gone. That was scary for a moment.

Back at the cabana area, we headed over to a stream by a marsh because we'd been told that you could spot iguanas in the trees over the marsh. And sure enough, we could. At first we saw two on a branch in the distance, too far away to photograph. But then we saw another one, in the trees far closer to us, and moving. We got a picture of that one, as well as of another in a tree almost right above us. At which point, mom noticed that the battery in her camera is almost gone, and she didn't bring her charger on the trip. I brought my phone and charger, but didn't have them on me at the park. Also, Ron and Don suggested we talk to Tom and Janna, who have all sorts of battery chargers.

On our way back, we stopped at an outdoor buffet restaurant. The other three got rice, beans, carne, various types of salads, &c., I just made do with the rice, some undressed salad and vegetable soup mix, plus an orange fanta. While we were sitting at a table (which was under the roof, but outdoors), some little birds were hopping around, getting pretty darn close to the table. Seriously, I could have reached out and petted these things. Instead, since I was done, I started dropping some leftover rice for them. Then more started gathering around, looking greedy. I was looking for a polite way to get rid of them, and inadvertently stumbled on one. When I dropped them a larger clump of rice rather than individual grains, one bird picked up the clump in its beak and flew away, and a bunch of other birds flew after it, chasing it. Intrigued, I balled together a couple more large clumps and tossed those, and before long the crowd was completely thinned out, all the birds chasing after each other over a few big pieces.

We got back, so I could loaf and mom could swim (note to self, swim more! It's been half the trip and I haven't gone swimming yet!). After which, we walked over to Tom and Janna's. They didn't have a charger that would work for mom's camera, but they did offer to loan her a camera to use her SD card with. That'll be interesting.

After some more sitting around, we took the car into Puerto Viejo for more shopping... both at a pharmacy for antihistamines, and for more souvenirs... I got a wooden puzzle box thing, my first personal souvenir from this trip, and probably my only one, if only because my suitcase was already too full on the way over here. Then it was time for dinner.

Ron and Don have remarked on how amazing it is that this little town, out in the middle of nowhere, has so many great restaurants. After much walking, away from our car, we stopped at an Italian place called Amimato ("On My Way," and yes they have an Italian restaurant in Costa Rica), got an outdoor table from which you'd be able to see the ocean if it had been daylight (and I did manage to get a brief walk along a trail between the restaurant's outdoor area and the water, while waiting for the food to come... interesting how they just trust us like that) for R&D to split a pizza and for me to have spaghetti. Some of the best spaghetti I've ever had, incidentally.

After that, we took a long walk back to where we'd parked, and drove back, to hang around, listen to mom read another chapter of that book, as the rain started to pour down around us. It was really coming down there for a while. Then I turned in.

Thursday

Is it Thursday already? Wow.

I used to really like swimming when I was a little kid, but over the last few years, I've found I haven't enjoyed it as much as I used to. Oh, it's always fun for a while, but then I get seasick, and the sunlight reflecting off the water ripples flashes across my eyes like a strobe light. Maybe I should start swimming regularly, as yet another part of an exercise regimen and/or just to toughen up. Not sure where I'd swim, though, as the lakes in Madison are both frigid (even in summer) and choked with algae (of course, many types of algae are healthy to eat... but who knows what else is in there).

Of course, all my most recent efforts have all been in swimming pools or Puget Sound, not the Caribbean sea. It probably is a shame that I've gone well over the first half of the trip without swimming. And that I've been complaining so much when on hikes (though maybe that's just the symptoms of internet withdrawal finally setting in).

It's not that I haven't been enjoying the scenery; just laying on that porch in the hammock or on the couch has been like paradise all on its own. Looking at and listening to the rainforest surrounding this place, shielded from the sun by the roof and cooled by a breeze? I feel decadent.

Still, I was hoping to swim this morning, but mom came down with "Traveler's Diarrhea" (yes, that's the actual name the doctors gave to the condition) this morning, and until the Ciproflaxin kicks in (which shouldn't be too long), I'm here keeping her company while Ron and Don run some errands.

They went to a pharmacy to pick up some more pills of various different types.

Breakfast was toast and bacon. They said the bacon was different from the bacon I was used to, but I failed to detect a difference.

At 12:30, they floated the idea of heading for the Sloth Sanctuary to catch the last tour at 2:00. Which would mean we'd have to leave in half an hour.

Okay, leaving now.

later...

I read somewhere (correct me if I'm wrong) that there is research that shows mosquitos aren't even necessary to the ecosystem. With most pests, they play a vital role in the big Rube Goldbergian interactions between species, and taking them out would have huge long-term consequences. But not so with mosquitos. The entire biosphere would get along just fine without them.

You know what made me think of this?

TWENTY-SIX FUCKING BITES IN ONE HOUR.

Why did I not put on bug spray before we left? Even if I assumed it would be a walking tour through some built-up courtyard, or even indoors, I still should have sprayed.

And what I didn't predict was that the first leg of the tour would be by boat. It looked like fun at first, all the tour guests piling into a series of canoes and getting paddled up and down what looked like a creek.

Except it's not a creek. It's an elongated pond. A completely stagnant pond, shielded from all wind and weather by the jungle. Seriously, that water does not move, ever, except when the canoe paddles disturb it. Which means two things: One, the pond is so full of algae and muck that it looks like a health food drink that's gone bad. And two, the mosquitos were fucking nightmarish.

Don't get me wrong, the jungle was pretty, and occasionally we saw crab holes on the side and snapped pictures of crabs, we even canoed under a tree with bats hanging in it, and there were some nice lily pads and flowers on the water. And those flowers were perfectly still, since the water is so dense that the ripples from the canoe don't travel as far. Mosquito eggs can sit there for weeks without ever getting moved a centimeter.

Even if I had covered my entire body with a centimeter-thick residue of bug spray, the mosquitos would have been awful. I killed more mosquitos on that boat than I've successfully swatted on the entire rest of this trip put together, and they still kept coming.

And that bog splits off into two branches like a creek, so the "tour" consisted of rowing us to the end of one branch, turning around, and rowing us back, then turning into the other branch, rowing us to the end of that one, and rowing us back. Except I'm not making it sound repetitive enough. It wasn't even a long stretch of pond, I'd be willing to bet the whole round trip totaled less than a mile, but it took a fucking hour because we were moving at a crawl and doubling back. Yes, it was pretty, but even the beauty of the rainforest starts to blend together after a while, particularly when you see all of it twice.

Oh, but I got to see sloths, right? Well, yes. At one point, at the start of the second leg of the journey, we paddled right underneath where a sloth was dangling on a branch hanging low beside this rusting metal footbridge. We stopped, and snapped pictures, and then continued on.

The rest of the sloths we saw were up in trees, either high overhead or some distance away in trees. From time to time we'd stop, and the boat driver would point one out, and everyone would gawk at it and point at it and gush over it. Of course, on that whole boat trip, we only stopped three other times to see four other sloths (five total), but hey, they got to gawk.

And you know how many of those four other sloths I could see?

Zero.

At one point there were two of them overhead. I couldn't see anything because of the sun shining through the leaves, and with my shades on, everything else was too dark for me to tell the sloths apart from the leaves.

Oh, that wasn't the worst part, though. That was when there was a sloth in plain view, in a far-off tree well-lit by the sun, and everyone could see it. I even knew where it was; I could see exactly where everyone else was pointing, and mom was able to perfectly describe what part of the tree it was in, to confirm it, down to the exact dip in the branch. So, I knew the sloth's exact location, I knew exactly where to look and what to look for, and I still couldn't fucking see it. I would get up in court and swear that there was nothing on that fucking branch except leaves... and yet all six people on that boat besides me were able to see a sloth there.

Fuck. That. Boat.

Including the boat driver. Fuck him too. Oh, he was polite, he was nice, he was very generous... in fact, when some of our fellow passengers were gushing over these pretty flowers (these enormous bright red things, some kind of ginger, someone said?), he pulled over to the side of the stream, parked the canoe, and took a machete into the jungle to chop some of those flowers for the passengers. Aww, how sweet of him. Of course, it meant leaving us there sitting like idiots in that canoe in that godawful bog, without even the motion of the boat to make it marginally more difficult for the mosquitos to aim at me. And it took forever, until he finally came back with those stupid flowers and hand them out to everyone else, who all gushed over it and thanked him.

By the end of the ride, I had 26 mosquito bites, I'd seen everything on that pond twice, I'd been sitting still for an hour, and I'd seen ONE sloth.

I was about ready to burn the place down, go to a pharmacy and buy enough hydrocortizone to encase my entire body in an inch-thick layer of it, and spend the rest of this fucking vacation indoors.

Then the second leg of the tour started, and it turned out there was a reason we went there after all.

We got moved indoors to where there were some sloths in little enclosures, like zoo animals. We were introduced to our guide for the second leg of the tour, Jeff, who is the grandson of the sanctuary's owner. Jeff, oddly, has a slight British accent rather than a Spanish one. He introduced us to one of the sloths who he picked up, and she crawled up his torso, hung around his neck and tilted her head backwards to look at us, while he told us a litany of interesting facts about sloths.

One thing I learned was, in the X-Men, they should have called Wolverine "Sloth."

Sloths have a healing factor. Not a mutant insta-heal, but they heal twice as fast as any other mammal, and can regrow impressive portions of damage without leaving major scars. They can fall upwards of sixty feet without breaking any bones. I was almost (almost) surprised to learn that they can't regenerate lost limbs, because the one called Toyota could heal from pretty much anything else. He'd been zapped by a high power line, fallen a major distance, and laid there immobilized for days until he was found and brought to the sanctuary. He only lost one arm, and looked perfectly fine and unblemished otherwise. Apparently, sloths move slow because they put all that energy into healing.

Another thing I learned is that sloths can bite through solid bone (which is, believe it or not, about as hard as concrete). Fortunately they give you warnings, and Jeff reassured us that, if the sloth was getting annoyed, Jeff would know, and tell us to stop.

Oh, did I mention we got to pet them? After Jeff took his passenger back into her enclosure, he unlocked another gate, and we all got to file in one by one and pet the sloth for a few seconds.

They felt interesting. The fur looked silky but was slightly coarse, and the muscles beneath it were rock hard. Sloths aren't as soft and cuddly as they look.

I swear, you could make a video game animal out of these things. Super-strong, heal fast, but slow... all you'd need to do is make them capable of very short bursts of very quick movement. And make them less polite, of course.

Then I learned some things that sounded downright impossible, like urban legends. I swear I'm going to look this up:

When a female sloth goes into heat, she climbs into the middle of a tree and calls out, usually for about ten days straight. Why? Not only does it take a male sloth a while to get there, but he usually won't even answer her calls until the third or fourth day.

The reason for this is that the Harp Eagle, a natural predator of the sloth, will sit in a tree and imitate that call, in hopes of luring male sloths into revealing their locations (the female sloth is safe because she's not at the top of a tree, but rather in the lower branches, harder for an eagle to get to), but the harp eagles get tired long before the second day without answers, and move on.

We then went out to see the baby sloths, and a couple of special-needs ones, in cages outside (we also saw a porcupine and kinkajou). Apparently sloths are also pretty clever, because one was not only able to figure out how to unlock his cage, but when it was made harder, he unhooked the hole for the serving tray at the bottom and squeezed out a three-inch-raised window.

There were a few other awesome anecdotes about sloths and about the sanctuary and its history.

So anyway, by the time we left, I was actually somewhat glad we went. Not that I felt like going outside again the rest of the day.

That evening, I finally got to show them Summer Wars. Well, I showed it to Ron. Don slept through most of the first half and was doing dishes through most of the other half. Ron loved the movie, though.

Friday

So, I resolved to swim today, preferably this morning. Then I wake up and it's too cold to swim. Everyone's wearing long pants, and Don has a sweater on.

This would have surprised me, except I remember our trip to Laguna Beach for Aunt Lee's funeral. It was SoCal in the middle of summer, and it was too cold to walk on the beach without a coat.

I put on long pants, socks and a long-sleeve shirt. I sprayed my arms before I put the shirt on, in case it warmed up and I'd have to take it off.

We went into town, hoping to have breakfast at Pan Pay, but the place was full, so we went to Bread and Chocolate, the place where we've been getting all the truffles, and had an actual breakfast there instead of just stopping in for sweets. I got two giant slices of French Toast (or, as the menu called it, "French Toasties," though that was the only translation error I could find on the English menu), but it doesn't come with syrup here, instead it comes with jam. I've never had French toast with jam, and though it was good, I was full after one piece. We put the rest in a box and took it back.

Incidentally, it turns out this is our last day with that rental car, so I'm curious why we didn't go somewhere that's driving distance away... of course, the only one of those I can think of that we still have left to see is the Jaguar Rescue Center, and Ron and Don say that's actually a bike-able trip. Oh, and also the snorkeling reef, but apparently the water's been too choppy to snorkel every day that we've been here.

So, when we got back, mom headed right back out again with Don to return the car back to the rental place. When she got back, she rested for a while...

...and then, for the first time on this trip, I finally went out to swim in the ocean.

Oh, every time we've walked on the beach, I've walked down beside the sea and let it wash over my feet. But this is the first time I put my swim trunks and new swimshirt on. I may have overdone it on the sunscreen, but oh well. There's plenty of it.

We walked down to the beach. It took me less than a minute for me to get used to the water's temperature. The Carribean is warm even in winter. I waded out to the second highlands off the cost, and had fun braving the waves, seeing how hard the waves could bombard me without bowling me over. As it turned out, pretty darn hard. Though at one point my shins were blindsided by something hard, made of wood. I grabbed it and managed to hold it up (I got swamped on the next wave due to being distracted, but I still managed to hold onto it... which wasn't all that hard, since the thing was enormous), and it was a wooden plank. Not a log, a narrow plank of dark wood, a few inches wide and several feet long. I hauled it to shore, once I figured out how.

Maybe it's a piece of the barge? Bits of that thing might still be washing ashore? I don't know.

After that, I braved the waves for a while, and swam a few. But to my surprise, I found myself done before too long. It was a nice getting-reacquainted swim, but there's only so much you can do with waves, you know? I'll probably go for longer tomorrow.

I returned, showered, and relaxed. Later on, we watched Inside Llewyn Davis. Is it just me, or does that movie have no arcs, either of character or of story?

I turned in early. The farmer's market is tomorrow. I'll try to keep my expectations low, but I'm mainly just going for pictures.

Saturday

Up before 7:30, and it still took us till 8:30 to leave for the farmer's market.

As we walked down to the beach, though, we got distracted. Because, down by the water, almost right beside our stretch of beach, they've dragged the wrecked barge ashore. We went down and got some pictures of that thing close up. It's smaller than it looked out there... and the damage was impressive. I'd noticed it looked lopsided ever since the storm, but I just assumed one of the pontoons was riding lower. Instead, it turns out the tower itself above the thing had caved in and collapsed. It did seem to be made of rather flimsy wood.

Ron and Don said the farmer's market was small, and unimpressive. That was incorrect. It wasn't as gigantic as some I've seen, but it filled a covered market the size of a small fairground tent. It's also a flea market as well as a farmer's market, and we bought a couple trinkets.

After that, we walked along the edge of the shore looking for some more stuff to bring back for the folks at home. We stumbled upon a booth selling swatches of ornate fabric, in elegant designs laced with Mayan, Aztec and Mexican mythologies. Apparently they're genuinely stitched out of cloth worn by South American tribes or something, according to the somewhat shady guy running the place. We were all set to buy one, until we noticed that the lowest priced thing there was $80 US, and also that the guy running the place was disquietingly racist towards the people who make these things.

We headed back to the casa.

Apparently, the Jaguar Rescue Center is closed Sundays, but open Mondays. So, we're going to take tomorrow to swim, and add visiting the Jaguar place to our agenda for Monday. It's fitting that our last day here will be so full.

Tonight, we were about to sit down for more tacos, when Carlos, from the car rental place, dropped by with his girlfriend. Apparently Ron and Don weren't sure when he'd be dropping by, and it was an accident that he dropped by just before dinner. We yakked for a while and got some nice pictures.

Then we finally got to have those tacos. I got salad, cheese and some refried beans... no rice, though, which is a shame. I must remember to have some rice when we get back.

While eating, we watched Captain Philips. It's a pretty good movie, though of course, given the subject matter and the fact that it's a true story, I might be a little biased.

After that, we heard some things that sounded like fireworks in the distance. I was sitting on the couch in the TV room writing, when who should I notice in the coner of my eyes but Greedy, standing by the sofa.

Given that Greedy isn't even allowed on the porch, much less in the house, I was surprised. Ron and Don explained that it was the fireworks that frightened her, and she barged into the house to hide behind furniture whenever they were on. She curled up on the floor beside the washing machine, and I comforted her for a while.

With any luck, mom will have finished reading us "Mistress of the Seas" before we leave.

Sunday

Our second-to-last full day here. Where did the time go?

This morning, we hiked down to the edge of that forest trail (the one we took on our trip to the French Bakery, only this time we went all the way to the end of the trail) to the beach there, to watch the surfers for a while. On another beach we passed on the way, we encountered this adorable little chihuahua puppy... seriously, that dog was smaller than my hand. It was on a leash held by these two surfer-looking dudes on a towel... presumably as bait for girls. It wasn't there when we walked back.

The beach at the end of the trail was fun, it was pretty, there was this one surfer in particular who was incredibly talented. We got some great pictures of the place, even though we spent most of our time there in the shade. There's this one little rocky island just offshore that is so postcard-perfect we had to get it from multiple angles.

Then we headed straight away from the shore through a short stretch of trees to reach the main road, where we stopped at a roadside cafe for some bottled water. Then we walked back. Which was hard. We were already tired by the time we started back, and by the time we got arrived, I had a killer headache. I think I nearly went into heatstroke.

We decided to wait til tomorrow for swimming. To add it to the fun activities for our last day.

In the meantime, I took a cool shower and drank a whole mess of water.

Tom and Janna came over for a dinner of chicken wings and rice (rice, yay!). They talked and talked (once again sharing juicy gossip over the saga of the barge, including some environmental protests), but at least this time I had my laptop.

Monday

It turns out that the place is called the Jaguar Rescue Center not because it rescues jaguars, but rather it is named in memory of the first animal that ever died at the center... back before it was a rescue center, and was still a house. Apparently two biologists were living in a house at where the center is now, and they got so many critters, either deliberately or by infestation, they decided to start an animal sanctuary. In fact, there is not currently a single jaguar at the center, but there's a whole ton of other stuff.

I'd already sweated off the bug spray by the time we got there. I thought that was disastrous, and spent the first leg of the trip standing as close as possible to the center of the tour, using the people around me as decoy targets for the mosquitos.

I'm getting ahead of myself. There was one thing that happened before the tour even started. As we were milling about the semi-open-air lobby waiting to be grouped up for the tours, a large toucan, of some odd breed, flew into the lobby and started hopping around the floor right in front of us, coming right up to our feet. I wondered if it was expecting crumbs. Incidentally, even though they have two legs, toucans (among other birds) don't walk, they hop everywhere.

We learned from our tour guide that this particular toucan is fond of harassing one of the other tour guides, so much so that the lady carries a bug-catching net (we briefly saw her leading the other tour, carrying a bug net) because the sight of that thing is the only thing that deters it.

There was a surprising number of fauna loose in the sanctuary garden, outside of cages. A number of deer, monkeys and sloths.

Our tour guide was wonderful. She introduced herself and apologized in advance for her lack of expertise with the English language, even though she speaks it better than some native speakers I can think of. She clearly loves animals, and when we got to the spider and snake cages, she made sure to educate us on how most spiders and snakes are completely harmless, and even the venomous ones usually won't attack unless you bother them. She took a rhino beetle out of its enclosure (gently holdings its wing sheaths closed so it wouldn't fly away) and invited us to feel the hard shell. She gave detailed histories of all the animals, such as an owl that lost one eye after being hit by a car, a falcon of some kind with part of one wing missing, a number of other animals. She also profiled what is known as a "sandbox tree," the kind with sharp spines on the trunk and branches. Apparently it's a tree that is very helpful to the endangered green iguana, which is the only animal with dense enough skin to sit up there, thus offering it protection.

Somewhere along the way, we stopped in front of one of the cages. We were standing there, listening to her talk, when I felt a wet scraping sensation on my hand, and noticed some people starting to point cameras in the direction of said hand. I looked down, and saw that a deer (a full-grown doe) had smelled the sweat (and lack of bug spray or other chemical products) on me, walked up and started licking the salt off my hand. She kept this up for a good long while, too, nibbling on my fingers and then working her way up and around my arm to the elbow, giving everyone plenty of time for photo ops.

And mom's camera picked then, that exact moment, to run out of batteries. Why did I not bring my phone? It can take videos as well as pictures. I could have taped this.

Oh well. So many people were taking photos and videos that I'll probably be able to find some online anyway.

Later on we went into the monkey enclosure. There are young howler monkeys in there, as well as white-faced... something that starts with C. My memory is godawful. Sheesh. Anyway, they warned us to empty our pockets and not wear sunglasses in there, because anything we brought in besides clothes would get stolen and/or broken. Because yes, it's an enclosure where you can walk in and have adorable baby monkeys crawl all over you. One of them, she mentioned, has figured out how to open every door in the building.

Mom was feeling tired, so she sat down in one of the two plastic armchairs in a corner of the enclosure. Immediately, a couple of monkeys walked up and started climbing, to her surprise and amusement. The baby howler monkey, the sweetest thing, climbed all of us.

Then we met Julia, the little white-faced monkey.

Julia reminds me of my cat Tobigera.

Julia is completely insane and hyperactive, and she loves picking fights with other monkeys. The tour guide mentioned that if Julia started climbing us, it was best to imitate a tree, staying stock still and not trying to hold her or pet her, because she was incredibly friendly, and yet incredibly eager to bite as well. As we watched, she kept walking up to other monkeys and trying to beat them up and bite them, even ones far bigger than her. And at one point, she leapt from a rather high perch right down onto the head of a little girl who was on the tour, and instantly leapt up from her head onto another fairly high structure. That would have unnerved me, but the little girl was laughing.

I didn't catch the names of the other monkeys.

After we left, we were asked to put disinfectant on our hands (again) before moving on. We then saw an enclosure with parrots, of the same species featured in "Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill," including one blue-crown like Connor.

There was a ton of other stuff too, most of which is right on the tip of my tongue and I'm already forgetting it.

After we biked back, I had to rest my legs for a moment, before we went swimming. Also, my arms were getting the slightest tinge of red, so I slathered up with excessive amounts of sunscreen as well. I felt content out there in the waves, though I lost track of time a little. We'd gotten back from the animal rescue center at 12:30, and by the time we got back from swimming, it was almost 3:30 (I think). We had about an hour before we had to leave to get to that concert thing at the outdoor restaurant.

We got at the restaurant at 5:00. What we didn't expect was that the place would be so full we couldn't even get a table. Still, we hung around long enough to hear the first few songs (my legs were still a little sore, but like I said, I'll be doing plenty of sitting tomorrow). The music was really good, this old-timey harmony mix, with just a trace of jazz. However, after the first few songs, it started to sound a little repetitive. Fortunately, by then, the others were getting tired of waiting, so we moved on. We went to the italian place again, and I once more had that amazing spaghetti. I wonder what their secret is. Perhaps the parmesan cheese? They didn't use too much of it, but I haven't had parmesan in a while. Or maybe I like basil more than I thought I did. Not sure.

After that, we walked to the grocery store, this time for some clothesline. I would have been fine walking back, but no, they wanted to take a taxi. Oh well.

When we got back, I cleaned the cassita (I suck at cleaning, but fortunately there wasn't much there that I'd wrecked in two weeks), packed, took my meds, and then mom finished reading us that book. Did you know Anne Bonny retired from piracy at age 20? After a pirating career prestigious enough to make her worthy of having multiple books written about her? Wow.

Then I turned in, in hopes of getting a little sleep before Jose arrives at 1 AM to pick us up.

Tuesday

Okay, here we are, the last gauntlet.

I didn't have quite as hard a time dragging myself out of bed at 12:45 AM as I'd feared. Last-minute packing was quick, which was good, since Jose arrived early. And we were off.

Jose drives about as fast as the other guy (whose name is Estefan, not Stefan, sorry). Fortunately, there isn't a whole lot of traffic in the middle of the night to slalom around, so the ride was something approaching smooth, allowing me to catch some more fleeting hours of sleep while mom yakked with Jose, partly out of friendliness but I suspect also partly to keep Jose awake (Jose himself had only gotten 4 hours of sleep that night, before driving all the way out from San Jose to Puerto Viejo to pick us up. Apparently, after dropping us off, he has to pick up some golfers and drive them from San Jose to the Pacific coast, wait around for a while, then drive them back, getting off work at about 7 or 8 PM. I certainly hope he gets paid well for this).

Security and check-in was a... reasonable process. Only a few blips: One, mom tried to carry out some of that black sand from Playa Negra, but they took it out of her suitcase because it was a "natural resource." Second... huh, I guess that was the only real issue, apart from having to have our bags inspected a second time at the gate, for no discernible reason.

At least we weren't in the very last row this time, so we got to actually lean the seats back the two or three inches they allow you too. Didn't help much in the legroom department, but hey, we got to get up and stretch a couple times.

The layover was peaceful, once we got through the hassle of re-checking in, and security. We got to sit in this balcony cafe above the terminal for a while, before moving on to the gate, which was such an enormous walking distance that I no longer had quite so much excess energy built up in my legs afterwards.

And then the universe got in one last gag at our expense. The plane was delayed a half-hour in departure (and seemed fairly rickety)... and when we arrived in Madison, the next flight at the gate we were supposed to be arrivin at had already arrived, and they had to wait for a gate to open up. They had us out there for another TWENTY MINUTES before finally getting to a gate and getting us off that plane.

What an ending to a travel day. I'll probably go back and edit this for typos later. Right now I'm crashing. Good night.