Back to the US For A Short Visit

All good things must come to an end - even if its only for a short while. These shots are of the beginning of our journey from Corozal back to the US.

We're calling it a visit to the US, because that's what it is. We're heading back to Olympia to finish packing and to ship everything down to Los Angeles for Roy and Son Shipping to actually get everything from there to Corozal.

First things first, you'll remember earlier photos of the Corozal Airstrip, so I won't repeat myself there. When the plane comes in, it touches down and then pulls up directly in front of the Tropic Air office. We all walked out and got on the plane. Probably because of it being Mother's Day, it was full - 10 seats, 10 passengers.

The photo below shows the pilot and the copilot... Wait a minute, that's not a copilot, that's an additional passenger! Both flights, some lucky person got to sit in the copilot's seat.

With Luck, Passengers Can Sit in the Right Seat!

We always knew the house was close to the airport, so I had planned to snap a photo of it when we took off. Good thing I had the camera ready, cause this was about 10 seconds after we took off.

That's Our Place Down There!

For this one, I cropped the photo so you can see Tony's place. You can even see our Isuzu parked in the driveway.

A Little Tighter Crop on the Place

About thirty seconds later, we're flying over Corozal Town. This shot shows the southern end of downtown with the Texaco gas station (only one in town).

Flying Over Corozal

Then in short order, we're flying over Corozal Bay. If you remember the shots of Bill and Jenny and their resort over near Copper Bank on the Cerros Peninsula, well, here's their place from the air. Bill's dad's house to the left, the Mennonite house in the middle , and the resort buildings to the right.

Bill and Jenni's Ceros Beach Resort

Then, as we fly along out over Chetumal Bay as it becomes, we see on the horizon, the first caye to appear.

Ambergris Caye Ahead

Now we're over Ambergris Caye and beginning our approach to the town of San Pedro and their airstrip.

Descending to San Pedro

On final for San Pedro. A sharp bank, descent, and we're down into a completely different culture and atmosphere.

On Final for the Airstrip

Tons of tourists, loud and noisy! Bustling and rambunctious . What a difference from Corozal to here! I'd like to come over sometime for a weekend visit to see the sights, take in some of the nightlife, and then get the heck back to the peace and quiet of Corozal. There 's a couple of ways in and out of San Pedro. You can drive down to Belize City and take a ferry over, or you can fly, like this time, or you can take the Thunderbolt fast ferry from Corozal.

So, from here on to Olympia, it's flying in the US - boring. I'll pick up the narrative again after we get back to Oly and begin the process of packing, discarding, garage sales, shipping, and leaving for home in Corozal Town.

A brief note - when we landed in Seattle at Seatac International, it was 47 degrees - freezing-ass cold! Our duplex is at 70 degrees and we're freezing! Dianna and I are both wearing socks, shoes, long pants, sweatshirts - more clothes than we've worn in a month! Brrrrrrrr!

I can't wait to leave and get back to a simpler, quieter lifestyle.

Howdy from Corozal Town, Belize

Well, Hi everyone. We made it! And, let me tell you, it wasn't easy. Started off with our trip to Seatac Airport. The airline said we needed to arrive at Seatac three hours prior to our flight since it was an international flight. Which meant that we would have to be there at 3:00 am for our 6:00 am flight.

Aeroporter would have had to pick us up at 1:00 am to get there by 3. That would have cost $115, since it would have been a special run just for us. So, we picked their last regular run of the day before for $45. Much better price.

They picked us up at 9:15 pm Thursday evening. We got to Seatac at 10:00. Checked in with American Airlines and got our boarding passes.

Here's where it begins to get weird.

They couldn't/wouldn't allow us to check our baggage since they closed completely at midnight. And, they opened at 4:00 am, when we could then check in. What happened to three a.m.? Who knows... That's probably a TSA requirement.

So, we got to spend the night, with our baggage, at the airport. The only thing opened outside of the security area was Starbucks. We couldn't cross the security boundary with our baggage, cause of the 3 oz. container rule, etc., etc.

Ok, Then come 4 am, we checked in with American. We were waiting at the counter, and were brusquely told by the counter bitch that she only called if we were behind the line... That was her first words to us.

Well, once we got through that with the female Hitler, we had our baggage checked in, boarding pass in hand, made it through security uneventfully, got to the gate, and waited till 5:30 or so and boarded the plane. All set for a 6 am liftoff, right?

Guess again. 6 am comes and goes, no go. Seems they had to replace the oil filter on one of the engines. Oh, and the O-ring that went with it. Excuse me, but isn't that considered standard preventive maintenance? What happened to the night shift doing that so we could take off on time???
Anyway, that done, we finally were able to get airborne at 7:30. Panic! We're going to miss our flight from Dallas to Belize! That's what we thought almost till we landed in Dallas when we found that flight had been delayed from some other airport and it was now scheduled to leave at 1:00 pm. So, if we figured things right, we had about 10-15 minutes for a mad dash to the flight.

We landed and found in the terminal, that the flight to Belize was delayed again till 1:15.

No, make that 1:30 - another change. No plane yet. Seems it's airborne from somewhere but is late getting to Dallas for some mysterious reason.

Ok, 1:30 comes and goes... Still no airplane. Airport folks were unsure where it was coming from and were being really vague. Maybe a secret CIA/Air America mission or something that we weren't cleared for, who knows?

So, several other delays, 1:45, 2:00, 2:15, and, wait a minute. It shows up, disgorges a bunch of passengers and we get to load - at 2:30.

We finally get off the ground at about 2:45.

(We had called the Copa Banana to let them and the shuttle service (Mendez Transportation Service) know we would be late and to not leave without us).

Ok, uneventful flight into Belize. The only thing was that the closer we got to Belize the rowdier a bunch of divers, who were planning to stay at ambergris Caye (key), started to get louder and more excited, talking loudly about partay, partay when they arrived. I'm glad they were staying there and we were staying in Corozal.

Anyhoo, upshot, we were up almost 40 hours and got checked in fine. Nice quarters. Crash and burn till this morning. We're going to have breakfast now, and will fill in some gaps - like dinner last night (grouper - yummmm). More later.