If it doesn’t sound like a blink-182 song to you, maybe it should? Sometimes when I look back at the past couple weeks, nothing MAJOR has happened; there haven’t been any large events in our family; just a lot of small things.
In no particular order:
Taylor went to BOONE to see her little cousin Kenna graduate from Appalachian State University (our Alma Mater). It would have been hard to take the kiddos up to the college-kid festivities, so for this trip, it made the most since for the kiddos and I to sit this one out.
2. While Taylor was away, the girls and I went STRAWBERRY PICKING at Freedom house. If you don’t know about Freedom house, read about it here. I don’t have the space to go into all of the awesome things God is doing through the ministry, but it is well worth the time to read.
The strawberries were at peak while we were there. It was an awesome experience.
While picking berries, we met with Hadley and John, and they showed Rosie a little bit of farm life. Rosie had a blast.
4. We went to the lake for Margaret’s 50th birthday. Happy Birthday Margaret! She is our awesome neighbor; in the mornings, her husband (Clint) and I meet 1/2 way to school, and alternate walking the kids the remaining part to the school.
The kids had a blast. Mercy did awesome.
A lot of Margaret’s family is from Chicago, and Clint did an awesome job planning this big SURPRISE party for margaret.
The food was amazing all weekend; this one thing stood out. Tell me, would you try this?
A pickle beer? I did, and it was… unique. I would try it again; with a salty pretzel, it was pretty good.
5. Taylor went to San Diego for a work trip. She had to leave the lake early to get there, and we missed her. Here is a pic of her with her co workers at the dinner they had.
It was a long couple days. But we managed OK in her absence:
Mercy being busy
When Taylor got home, the girls couldn’t wait to see her. This is my favorite picture of them. They couldn’t even wait for her to get out of the car. Even Mercy smiled 🙂
6. Taylor and Rosie saw Frozen. The Tanger center is still getting through its first couple seasons here in town, and some awesome shows have been coming through.
Taylor managed to get some free tickets, and they had a blast going with Margaret and Sidney.
7. Sleepover this past weekend. Rosie had her friend/our neighbor over for a sleepover this past weekend for the long Memorial Day Weekend. Instead of the typical trampoline place, or the children’s museum, we opted for something a little different, and took the kids to a do-it-yourself pottery place, and the girls painted their own pottery pieces.
Mercy was able to focus
All these things happened. It isn’t significant, but it is the ebb and flow of our daily lives.
There is so much to be thankful for. Things could change at the drop of a hat, but for now, these days are special.
We spent the first four days in the jungle. The second four days we spent on a beach on the Pacific Side, in a Marriot Hotel called The Mangroove.
I made an error while packing. If you know me, you know over the past few years that wearing tank-tops when it is hot out has kind of become my thing. I don’t do it to show off muscles, because there aren’t any muscles to show. But, in my excitement for the trip, I packed tank tops, but only 2 t-shirts, and only 2 collared shirts. By this time of the trip, those were getting dirty, and I didn’t know what to do.
There were two options:
Buy some new shirts. This would be expensive, as a shirt that I would wear more than once would be $30 or so.
Do the hotel’s laundry service. This would be expensive too, since it was about $8/shirt.
If you prefer to watch the video of it, here you go.
In short, I created a third option. Why not just wash the clothes in the shower, then let them dry in the Costa Rica sun for about an hour? It was almost 100* outside, surely it wouldn’t take too long?
So I did. I washed a good portion of my clothes with the large dispensing bottle of shampoo and body wash. Some of my clothes I washed with a bar of soap instead. Then, I wrung them out, piled them into a backpack, and walked, with a dripping backpack, down the beach to find a suitable tree branch to hang my clothes in the sun.
The obvious question to ask is “What did Taylor do during all this?” That is a great question and I am glad that you asked.
Taylor sat on her butt by the pool like a normal person and said “Don’t associate your redneck ways with me while you do this.”
That is a very admirable position, and we spent the rest of that day by the pool, while I wore a shirt that smelled like a bar of soap.
Surely I am not the only one who would do such a thing, am I?
The beach
Taylor and I have been to beach resorts before. Several years ago, after a really, really hard season in our marriage (I don’t want to post the details here), we did a trip to Cancun. Two years ago, we did another trip to Cancun.
But this hotel was still amazing. Look at this image above: Notice how instead of cutting off a branch, they changed the line of the roof to accomodate the branch. This kind of respect for nature is what we saw all around the country.
The walk from our room to the pool
The hotel was amazing. Just like before, we tried to see what restaurant options were available. There was a really fancy restaurant called Ginger nearby, but by this point, we didnt really want anything fancy.
We took an evening stroll with our favorite koozie to a restaurant. Though the hotel “highly recommended” taking a shuttle, the 0.6 mile walk, across an empty (and completely safe) beach was the obvious right answer.
It took about 3 hours to get to the beach from the jungle. The drive was a fun one. It is always nice to look out the window to see what another country is like.
The drive from mountains to the beach
The hotel did have bikes available to use. Just like always, Taylor and I like to do some sort of physical activity before sitting around and really resting on vacation.
A friend of ours said that this is just the season we are in: with all the business of school aged children at home, our vacations have a lot of time set aside to rest. And we fully intended to take advantage.
Riding bikes on the beach
The beaches were so incredibly clean. It was just over a 2 mile stretch of sand that the hotel sat on, and there were only 2-3 little piles of trash in that distance.
The pools were amazing. In the distance are some boats, and across the water is a peninsula where the Four Seasons, Costa Rica sits. They do not offer day passes for common folk, in case you were wondering.
There were a ton of these little black and white squirrels.
One of these iguanas popped up beside Taylor while she was reading her book. She screamed, and the people in the chairs beside us had a laugh.
The iguanas were a lot different than the ones we saw in Mexico
We spent a lot of time in the pool, just 200 yards from the ocean.
For our final night, we went to a restaurant called Mar Azul, and it was a beach-bar kind of vibe. I felt fancy and got to order the grilled lobster, and managed to get this framer of a picture of Taylor.
Finally, all good things must come to an end. I hate that I am even writing that sentence, but that is the first thing that comes to mind early this morning.
Our final day was about 100* out, so I obviously wore my finest taco-cat palindrome tank top. And when you look like this traveling international, all of the security guards want to talk with you.
What’s next?
Taylor introduced the idea a long time ago, and it is something we try and stick with in our marriage: Always have something to look forward to. It could be our friend Brian Maness who emphasized it. So, we always try and have some trip to look forward to. Our kids are small, so this year we did a trip without kids. Then, if the stars align and the economy doesnt fall out and both of our jobs are still in a solid place:
2024: Disney World (with Kids)
2025: Taylor and I both turn 40, and our 15 year wedding anniversary: Italy (without kids)
2026: Luke’s Goal: Hike across Scotland on the Great Glen Way
What are your plans for travel? How do you decide where to go next? Do you have any fun places you would recommend? Leave them in the comments below.
TLDR: It was amazing, and the kids would love it.We spent 4 days in the jungle, then three days on the coast. These are a few fun stories from the first part of the trip.
Dinner Fail. Or success. Hard to say.
The place we were staying served a great dinner the first night we arrived. Taylor had something great (I forget what), and I had a steak, because we were on vacation.
But on the third night of our trip, we were curious about the “gastromic experience” that the staff kept recommending. The word gastromic makes me thing of something that belongs in an operating room, but I think it is a fairly common translation. It was also on their printed marketing for this meal.
Our “gastromic experience”
There were two options:
A Costa Rican experience. This option featured more local flavors, and came with an adult beverage for each course of the meal.
The other experience. This option was more meat-heavy, and you cook the food yourself at the table.
Guess which option we picked? Thats right, the second. Is it because we are closed minded and didn’t like local flavors? Not at all. We had many, many costa-rican dishes up to that point, and they were all delicious. With something like a Hibachi-style experience on my mind, Taylor and I got excited for our Gastromic Experience.
What a “Gastromic Experience” really was.
Sometimes a picture explains it better, and this is one of those moments:
What are you looking at in the image above?
A pound of sirloin
A pound of chorizo
A pound of ribeye
A pound of an amazing piece of marinated chicken
A pound of a great cut of ribeye.
Zuchini
Onions
To save space: Peppers, Plantains, mushrooms, home made tortillas, rice, beans, and something made out of potatos.
Taylor and I, as long as we have ever been alive, have never, ever eaten that much food in one sitting.
What was that meal like?
They started by bringing in some hot coals, and putting them into the center of the table. Then, the veggies. And, most importantly, they had a special cocktail to go with each part of the meal. I saw that as a man-versus-food kind of challenge, and accepted their “matching cocktails” offer.
One of the special drinks with the meal
Long story short, the meal was amazing. I am starting to be wise in my older years, and stopped eating at a reasonable time, rather than continue and suffer from indigestion after eating a ridiculous amount of food.
We laughed. This might have been the most important part of the trip.We just had a blast, and laughed about how stupid we must have looked, for these locals, in a beautiful restaurant, and an even more beautiful resort, would pay such a ridiculous amount of money to cook their own food. It really took a great-deal of concentration and effort to cook that meal.
The cooking seemed a bit chaotic. The questions going through my head included:
Can I tell if this poultry is cooked well enough in this dimly lit restaurant?
What is e. coli really like, and how do I know if I got it?
is this food making me gassy?
how long does a plantain need to be grilled for?
Can the waitress come and double-check my work to see if I passed?
The best part? About halfway through our meal, a younger, latino-looking couple sat two-tables away and ordered the same meal. I can say with full faith and confidence, the list of questions from above were not going through his head. He maintained his composure, and cooked that meal with ease.
The best ziplining in the in world.
It really was. About 20-30 minutes away from our hotel, right around on the other side of the volcano was “Sky Tours” (or something like that). It seemed like a great operation, and Tay was pumped. They get the harness on you, and then an open-aired gondola takes you to the top of the mountain. The view of the volcano and the lake below was amazing.
ziplining before picture
There are 9 ziplines, and I think they said they were the highest/longest/fastest in the country. If it wasn’t those exact words, it was something else similarly terrifying.
Here is the top of the mountain, and a weird hand statue with absolutely no significance. To me, it said “you are in God’s hand now, HAHAHAHA!”.
And here is a video of someone going down (not Taylor).
Taking the gondola down was not that bad. Taylor had a wonderful time. As that video shows, there was not even a small part of me that wanted to go down that zipline that day.
ziplining after picture
Hanging Bridges.
We used a travel agent, and she was amazing. More on that below. However, as part of our “adventures” for the trip, we went on a tour of the Mistico Hanging Bridges.
The whole trip Taylor and I only had a moderate understanding of what to expect. We could have done more research, sure, but this was part of the fun.
Taylor with our tour guide.
From the ininerary for the trip, it was described as:
Enjoy a journey into the rain forest in a perfect path of trails and hanging bridges, allowing you to see the jungle from different perspectives, through the forest while walking on the trails, and from the canopy of the trees while walking on the suspension bridges. This 3km path provides a nice journey with your guide pointing out the flora and fauna of the area.”
Official Travel Itinierary description.
It sounds pretty vanilla, right?
What was it actually like? Amazing. By far, the highlight of the trip. My expectations of a nature hike were something like a long, cub-scout trek where we may have heard a few stories about how we “just missed” an exciting viewing of an animal. But I loved hiking, so this would be fun, either way.
What did we actually see? See for yourself: (Also, the images are in a circle because the pictures were taken through our guide’s scope)
monkeybatEyelash viper- very poisonous, I almost touched itPoisonous FrogTarantula NextSloth on bamboo shoot
Also, some monkeys were getting in a fight over our heads. The guide later told me, a 5″ log was thrown down and almost hit me.
Spider Monkeys fighting
Volcano Hike
After the nature hike, we did a shorter hike up the accessible side of the volcano (people arent allowed to hike up the volcano).
As close to the volcano as we are legally allowed to be.
Sorry for how bumpy the road is. It is due to the impact craters from the volcano that have hit the road over the years”
-Our Driver, on the way to the Volcano
The nerdy side of me wants to tell all of the many facts about the volcano here, but I will withstain; if you are curious, we can chat more about volcanoes at the pool over the summer 🙂
Solo Hike
Our last day at the resort, we took advantage of the trails connected to the property. There was a “Level 2” hike of a little over a mile. Why was it a “level 2”? Beats me. And what is the scale? Is it a 2 of 5? or 2 of 10?
It was a beautiful hike.
We worked up a sweat, and before I sat down by the pool to be lazy for the rest of the day, I wanted to go check out the other trail connected to the property. Taylor was smarter than I am, and decided to stop at the room instead.
This other trail is supposed to cost $35, and the hotel asks that you book this hike with someone from their staff to guide you. I didn’t want to spend money for that, and I am fit enough to go on most any trail, for at least a little bit, right?
So I chose to try this trail, and here was the sign.
Out of sheer curiousity, would you continue?
Then, I got to the river at the bottom (maybe 1/2 mile?):
Solo Hike near hotel
Then, about 20 yards past the river, saw a little tail that was orange and black and white, wiggling just a few inches from the trail.
Where we stayed
The resort was called “Amor Arenal”, where “Arenal” is the name of the volcano.
The place only had 31 rooms. It opened just a few months before covid, then closed down again, before re-opening. It still felt almost brand-new.
It felt like we were staying at Jurassic part. The service was amazing.
I saw some wild turkeys through the trees near the pool. There was a parrot in the tree right outside of the breakfast place on the first morning.
The door to our room
On the last day, Taylor mentioned how she wished she saw more toucans. And what happened? There were 4 toucans in the tree right over our room that last morning.
Hard to get pictures, but this is the profile of a toucan
Our room was amazing, by far the coolest place I’ve ever stayed.
Part of the hotel
What part of Costa Rica was it?
This was in a place called La Fortuna. We flew into San Jose, and took a 3 hour shuttle (that ended up being about 4 hours after traffic) to our hotel.
La Fortuna
The town, La Fortuna,is fairly small, but maybe the coolest little place I have ever been. Taylor and I caught a ride to town for dinner 2 of our 4 nights there, and the town was amazing.
A great restaurant in La Fortuna
It was safe. There was a church in the center of the town. It was saturday night, (maybe Sunday?), and the small town-square was bursting with people. There were families everywhere, teenagers, little kids, etc. The wild part? Almost no one was on a cell phone. And barely any alcohol, no homeless people, great lighting, no litter. Almost everyone was eating ice cream.
It was such a great little place.
Wait, why Costa Rica?
Originally we had plans to go to Mexico with two other couples that we know and love. However, one of the couples got pregnant, and the other couple bought into a business, so the timing wasn’t right for them to come.
However, Taylor and I were already excited about a trip, and had childcare arranged (thanks Zippy and Poppa and Cici!). So, we called our travel-agent friend that we have worked with in the past, told her what we wanted, told her our budget, and she put together the whole trip. This is great for me, because I tend to over-analyze things, which makes me great at my job as an engineer, but terrible at making decisions and creating a travel itinerary.
So she suggested we do 4 days in the jungle, and 3 days at the beach, because we wanted a few days of adventure, and a few days to relax. Mission accomplished. Thanks Julie!
