We have returned from our Thanksgiving Tour 2020! It was a bit like being on the Amazing Race because we covered two countries, five states and ten cities over a two week period. We were quite busy but we got to visit with just about all of the family which was the goal of the trip. Traveling back to the States from the DR went more smoothly than we thought it would. This trip was our first venture back to the States since leaving and given the added fun of “the Stupid” (as we have lovingly name Covid), we expected the worst. We have been in taxis, buses, planes, trains, trucks and cars but we made it! Our biggest unknowns were the bus ride to Santo Domingo and immigration both leaving and arriving back to the DR. The bus ride from Puerto Plata to Santo Domingo was unknown number one. For the whopping cost of $8.00 a ticket for a 4 to 5 hour trip, I expected a run down school bus that we would need to push most of the way to Santo Domingo. Au Contraire! The bus was a top of the line tour bus complete with movies, air conditioning, wifi and cell phone chargers! I would go so far as to say that our Caribe Tour bus was better than our airline! From the bus station, we took a taxi to our Airbnb and then headed out the next morning to the Santo Domingo Airport. Everything went smoothly until we reached immigration. At that point, the negotiations began! The immigration agent would say that we owed a fee. I would pull out a receipt to show that the fee had been paid. Then, she would find another fee. Pull out receipt. Then, she walked us over to another guy who said that we should not have paid our fee at the marina but it needed to be paid at the airport. Receipt and smile and comment of “well, we did pay it at the marina so….”. Stare the man down. Smile again. He finally shrugged, grumbled something about someone at the marina losing their job and stamped the passports for us to board the flight.
Once we landed in Fort Lauderdale, we began what came to be known as Food Tour 2020. I had forgotten how many billboards there are in the States and each one we passed, I would point and say, “Oh! Oh!” leading Bill to make a list of my must eat restaurant chains including Outback, Dairy Queen and Waffle House. We ate breakfasts, brunches, lunches, dinners and snacks. I could not believe that I had forgotten how amazing a DQ Blizzard could be! We also had a bit of sticker shock with the current food prices in the States especially after the low cost of living in the DR. I am not sure when a Blizzard and an order of cheese curds went to a little over $8.00 but that needs to stop! All in all, we enjoyed our food tour but I think it best that we did not stay a month or I would have put on an easy 10 pounds! Seeing both sides of the family was fun and this year, we had the added pleasure of meeting Bill’s newest grandson. He was a very happy little guy and his two newest words were “cheers” and “shit” much to his mother’s dismay and his grandfather’s delight. We also enjoyed seeing Bill’s other grandson and daughter as well as the sons-in-law before leaving to visit Bill’s mom. I love going to Bill’s mother’s house. It is on beautiful Amelia Island and his mom loves to read so I always get a list of updated must reads. I also get Frosted Flakes! Who doesn’t love a house on an island with Frosted Flakes? We were glad to find his mother in excellent health and back to her weekly book clubs and bridge playing. It was nice to see her and her friends getting back to some normal activity at last. We left Florida to venture to Georgia where we had dinner with Bill’s sister and her family prior to heading to my family. Thanksgiving is my family’s biggest holiday each year and we all look forward to Mom’s cooking and a day full of games. Well, this year, my mother decided that the Saturday before Thanksgiving would be a swell time to have emergency gallbladder surgery. Bill was grateful for her timing because otherwise, he would have been scrambling to figure out a way to get me off of the boat and on a plane back home. So, needless to say, that unexpected event started the week off with a bang. When mom was discharged from the hospital, she was instructed to “take it easy” (not easy for my mother) and “just go home and boss everyone around” (very easy for my mother). For those of you who know me well, you are probably beginning to glean what my next few days looked like and the horror of it all….for all parties concerned! Mom sitting in a chair in the kitchen attempting to give me directions on how to cook Thanksgiving side dishes. Thank goodness my sisters and brothers-in-law were in charge of the main courses which only left me with macaroni and cheese (not out of a box….) and a dessert/salad recipe that my mom found on the internet. My son, Everett, had arrived by this time and his hospitality degree had thankfully included a cooking class so he was able to jump in and save me from my mother’s eye rolls several times! All in all, we sisters were quite proud of pulling off Thanksgiving and mom did a stellar job playing the big boss….as my younger sister stated, “Nothing new about that!” The next few days, Bill headed to Biloxi with his friend for a casino “fix” and I headed to Charleston to see Kaarin. She could not come to Thanksgiving because her neighbor had been diagnosed with The Stupid. Kaarin wasn’t sure if her friend that she had visited had been exposed or not, so with my mother being fresh out of the hospital, we decided it best that Kaarin not come to Atlanta (turns out her friend tested negative for The Stupid but results were too late for Kaarin to drive to Atlanta). Kaarin had to work all weekend so I hung out at the restaurant and watched her work like a dog….not bad for a girl who never cleaned her room! When Bill and I returned to Atlanta, the weather had decided to get bitterly cold which meant our departure could not come soon enough! We stayed in a hotel near the Atlanta airport since our flight left first thing in the morning. Our entertainment at the hotel was when Bill opened the ice bucket and found several boxes of condoms hiding…..we figured the guy’s wife must have knocked on the door which warranted the secret stashing! The flights back to the DR went smoothly and we had no problems with immigration at all so Unknown Number 3 passed without issue. When we arrived in customs, we had a box filled with necessities from the States (ie white duct tape, Velcro, coloring books and crayons for the local children, etc). The customs agent asked what was in the box and then indicated that we needed to place the box on the conveyor belt to be scanned. As Bill placed the box onto the belt, we noticed that the scanner girl was turned around backwards in her seat talking to a colleague. We watched as our box made its way up the conveyor belt, through the scanner and out the other side. Bill picked up the box and we walked away…..not once had the scanner girl turned around and noticed that we, or our box, were there…..amazing how getting into the DR was much easier than getting out! So, we are back on Galt and were welcomed by Ocean World’s ‘Who let the dogs out’ sea lion show as if we had never left. Now we wait for our next weather window to head around the island to Samana where we hope to play tourists once again! Have a wonderful week, keep your gallbladders in place and whatever you do….do NOT look in the ice bucket at your hotel!
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AuthorSally Miller Archives
May 2024
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