Pokey and Gumby are leaving the country…again!

Friday, May 25, 2018

Pokey and Gumby have been sitting on a packed suitcase for about an hour. If they were not made of rubber I’m sure they would be tapping their toes, or in Pokey’s case, hooves.

Pokey and Gumby are ready to go!

They are anxious for days of sun and sea…so we are joining them on a Caribbean cruise!

Our cruise leaves tomorrow from Fort Lauderdale, FL so today we are flying from Denver to Miami. Yes, I know that Miami is not Ft Lauderdale, but there is a plan for our craziness- we can fly to Miami for free with airline points. This cruise is on the “Caribbean Princess” and is a week long; just enough time to relax and unwind.

Jeff puts our one suitcase in the car, we grab our backpacks and are off to the airport. We are pleased with ourselves because even with our snorkelling gear we are sharing just one suitcase for the weeklong trip. This is Friday of Memorial Day weekend and traffic to DIA ( Denver International Airport) is heavy and slow. We have plenty of time because we’ve left home 30 minutes earlier than we normally would. I check my phone to verify that our electronic boarding passes show that we are TSA pre-approved and hmm… oh yikes! “Hey, our flight time is 3:35 not 4:05!” I tell Jeff. “What?? when did that change?” “I don’t know…” He pushes down harder on the gas pedal.

We arrive at the airport without delay and thank goodness we are pre-approved because my “FlyDIA” app shows the normal security lines have wait times of 35-40 minutes. Luckily for us the TSA lines are only 6-8 minutes.

The flight to MIA was a little bumpy and seemed longer than its scheduled 3-1/2 hours. Right after takeoff we gave the flight crew a thank you note and bag of fancy chocolates acknowledging their hard work. Then we spent the rest of the flight fending off their offers of free drinks, though we did accept two free bottles of water. Because we are arriving in Miami very late, and because Frontier Airlines charges for everything (I’m surprised they don’t have pay toilets), I’ve packed two big bowls of teriyaki noodle salad (recipe upon request 😀) and a grocery store container of cut-up melon. Those things along with our apples, carrots, snack bags of mixed nuts and granola bars will tide us over.

Also because we arriving late into Miami, we’ve opted to stay in the airport hotel – a first for us. Because the flight was turbulent the seatbelt sign was on most of way and we are happy to get off the plane. After collecting our suitcase, which seemed to take forever, we walk to the Central concourse to find the hotel. It was well hidden but we got there eventually. We checked in, went to our room and neither of the electronic keys we’d been given worked! Well, crap. I took the elevator back down to the lobby, exchanged the keys, back up to the 6th floor where one of the keys worked and one didn’t.

We stepped into our room. “Holy crow!” I said to Jeff, “We’re in Japan!”

Our tiny hotel room

The room was miniscule! We both, startled by its tiny size, and being quite tired, started laughing. To use the toilet, you had to go all the way into the bathroom and close the door before you could sit down!

You faithful readers of our travel blogs know Jeff and I well enough to know that after sitting all that time that we’ve got to get some exercise. What better place to wrack up some “steps” than in a nearly deserted airport with lots of long concourses? It is the perfect walking arena. We walk until we both have over 10,000 steps (5 miles for us) and go back up to our room where…neither of our new keys work! Seriously?! Back down the elevator, back to the lobby where we get 3(!) new keys, I promise the woman at reception that we won’t leave our room again, back to the 6th floor where the first key we tried worked.

Though it is only 8:30 pm in Colorado we’re exhausted. How can sitting on a plane be so draining? Now that we’ve had our exercise, we’re going to sleep.

Tomorrow we set sail!

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