If It's Tuesday, It Must Be...

Today's title refers to an old movie entitled "If It's Tuesday, It Must Be Belgium", about some travelers on a 2-week tour of Europe. They could only keep track of what city they were in by looking at the date. I saw it 20... er, maybe 30 years ago, and I think of it nearly every time we travel. That's certainly the way we feel by now...

We have been gone for only 2 weeks. In 14 days we have driven over 2,000 miles, driven through 4 states, and stayed in 8 different places. (Many thanks to the friends and family we stayed with).

We made phone calls to another 50-odd friends, just to chat a little and say hi (if we didn't call you, so sorry... You can still get us on Skype (soggypaws) or on our Cartagena cell phone 011-315-367-0134).

We also went to a Melboure Yacht Club TGIF, went to a funeral, bought some land, went white water rafting, went hiking and fishing, played golf, visited the Florida State Museum, and visited Walmart (3 times!), Kmart, Target, Staples, PAFB Exchange, Office Depot, Home Depot, Circuit City, Publix, Bealls, West Marine, and 3 boat-related places in Ft. Lauderdale just yesterday.

Plus we made purchases from about 5 different online stores. We sent 3 different pieces of electronics off to be repaired.

We are doing our part for the economy! We bought a total of about 125 lbs of 'stuff'... everything from a 20-lb watermaker pump to 'extra dark chocolate' and underwear. We are also carrying back a bit of 'stuff' for the friends watching our boat (10 lbs worth of engine mounts).

We were again sitting in the hotel last night stressing over getting all the 'stuff' in our 2 big suitcases we bought at Goodwill, plus the 2 smaller ones we brought with us, without going over the 50lb per bag weight limit. Dave packed and re-packed the bags about 4 times. We finally got it all in... hopefully it will all ARRIVE with us. Three of the bags weighed exactly 50 lbs.

We had a crisis moment when I was checking Spirit Airlines regulations online and saw a restriction limiting passengers to 1 checked bag per person on the Cartagena route. We had already pre-paid for 4 bags on the return trip, and so decided not to worry about it. It turned out to be a non-event at the airport (it may be mainly aimed at passengers FROM Cartagena, due to the increased drug smuggling concerns and extra security there).

Anyway, we are really glad to be heading back 'home' (to the boat) and a slower pace of life. We plan to hang out in Colombia for another 3 weeks or so, and then head back to Panama.