Travel of 2022

It was a crazy year of travel for us. I went to Utah/Idaho no less than four times! For my mom's play, for Storymakers, for a family visit, and for my niece's wedding. Whew! And then we took our family trip to southern Utah. That means I went to Utah five times! I forgot to count the last time because I wasn't going to the part of Utah I usually go to. My goodness! 

Then Aaron and I also went to Costa Rica with the Brimleys. It was really fun. The weather was not as rainy as I thought it would be. We had good weather on most mornings, and then it would rain in the afternoon. But the host at one hotel told us that it had been raining non-stop. So I guess we went at the perfect time! It was lush and beautiful. I thought I would be prepared for the humidity because Texas is pretty darn humid. But Costa Rica took humidity to a whole new level. Nothing dried ever. Wet footprints from getting out of the shower at 8 am were still there on the tile floor at 8 pm. We had to bring home a bag of stinky things that had gotten and stayed wet.

We arrived in Costa Rica on a Monday. It's only a three hour flight from Houston. The customs line was forever long. The first place we stayed was Tamarindo. And we stayed right on the beach at a mom and pop kind of place. On Tuesday we did everything beach related which ended up being perfect because it was the sunniest day we had while we were there. The boogie boarding was awesome! The Costa Rica waves were definitely better than the Gulf of Mexico waves. Brad and Amanda were even able to get up on a surfboard. 

On Tuesday night we went to on a turtle tour with Eymhus (pronounced like Amos). He was awesome. He advised Brad earlier in the day to put on a swim shirt because otherwise, "Your nipples will burn." Only he said nipples neeples. It was good advice! He drove in our car with us to the turtle tour, and he answered our question about why there were so many barber shops in Costa Rica. They sell drugs there, apparently. When the roads to the turtle beach got ridiculously bumpy, he said, "Welcome to Costa Rica!" in time with the bumping. Seriously, the roads were so bad! That's why, as Amanda pointed out, the sedan rental cars were $1 per day. You can't drive a Toyota Corolla around Costa Rica.  

Eymhus told us he lived in New Jersey for a while, but it was too cold. He said all he did there was smoke pot and surf. On our turtle trip, he had a joint behind (or in??) his ear. At one point he couldn't hear what someone was saying because of the joint in his ear. Then at the beach while we were waiting for the mama turtle to do her thing, he smoked the joint. And he was basically a turtle midwife. He was helping her dig out the hole for her eggs! Isn't that illegal or something? Yeah, we saw a mother turtle lay her eggs! She dug two holes and abandoned them. All of the other tourist groups went home, but we stayed with Eymhus for that lucky third hole and saw the magic happen. 

The next day he also took us on a boat tour. It was raining a lot, but he trudged through the rain forest in his flip flops trying to help us see some monkeys. He had a machete and hacked away some branches right by Aaron's head, too. Very exciting! Oh yeah, and when we were collecting a few spiral-y looking seashells for our kids, he told us that he and his fellow boat drivers break off the ends of those shells and use them as pipes. He was an excellent tour guide. It was so interesting and fun to hear the perspective of a local. 

On Wednesday afternoon we drove inland to more of a resort-type place near a volcano. Almost everywhere we went we were driving on a one lane, two-way highway. And sometimes traffic was really congested. This road was paved, but if you went off the main road, you had a dirt road with an endless number of bumps and ridges and potholes. 

Anyway, the resort place was nice. A very different experience from the mom and pop hotel. I'm glad we could experience both. We ate at some nice restaurants there on the resort property. And we went to a hot springs and hiked near a volcano. We also did a zipline. They had creepy, giant, humanoid figures all over the place at the resort. On our last day we asked what they were for. Apparently people put them on for holidays/parades and walk around with them over their head. I'm not sure I got the whole story. We also saw a manta ray! In the wild, in the water right next to where we were standing on the beach. It was so cool! I didn't get a picture or a video. It just happened too fast. It was almost more magical for the fact that I just have to remember it in my mind. Oh, and we finally saw monkeys at the hot springs. And there were so many cool trees!

There was a sad thing which was that Aaron was sick the last couple of days. He had a fever. It was probably covid or something. I don't know. But he carried on. It as a fun trip in spite of that difficulty. 

A week after we came home, I went to my niece's wedding. I'm glad I went. It was nice to be there and to chat with my sisters and parents and cousins and aunts and uncles. But it was a lot of gadding about. It was a lovely wedding. My favorite was the cardboard cutout of Jamie who's on a mission.